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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Size Doesn’t Matter
Critics may roll their eyes at Fox television’s upcoming dwarf-dating contest "The Littlest Groom," but the head of the advocacy group Little People of America says the show could end up giving his members a boost.
So to speak, anyway...
While some audiences may snicker at the spectacle of a dozen dwarf women competing with average-sized females for the affections of a 4-foot-5-inch bachelor, LPA president Matt Roloff said the Fox show may benefit people of short stature by depicting them as regular folks "just being themselves." In other words, a person’s size doesn’t matter.
I think side shows were actually more honest than this...
"Yes, the radio jocks will have a field day," Roloff told Reuters in a telephone interview. "(But) hiding us behind closed doors or in funny costumes will never give us the exposure needed to desensitize society to us."
"Only putting us on national terriblevision, to strut our stuff with both miniature and full-size Paris Hilton clones will advance our cause!"
Fox said this week that it would air the show, essentially a dwarf version of ABC’s "The Bachelor," as a two-part special next month on Feb. 16 and Feb. 23. The announcement sparked a flurry of angry letters to the LPA from little people and their parents and a debate within the Portland, Oregon-based organization over its response to the show, Roloff said. "The fact that Fox is doing this reality show is outrageous," Roloff quoted one e-mail he received from the parent of a dwarf child. "It is one more avenue to make fun of their stature."
Yeah, yeah. It's rekindling the national speculation on whether midgets have dinky winkies or if they're full of surprises for the ladies...
Roloff credited the producers of the show for consulting with his group in an apparent effort to develop and promote the show in a sensitive manner.
"Step right up, ladies and gents! The most sensitive sideshow on four continents! Only a dollah!"
While the LPA neither supports nor endorses the program, Roloff said he would withhold judgment until he sees it. "My sense is that they probably didn’t do anything too derogatory."
My sense is that just doing it's derogatory, but then I'm probably taller than he is...
But the retired software design and sales executive said he remains troubled about the idea of throwing averaged-sized women into the mix, an element of the show he called "ill-advised" and potentially hurtful to his members. "Personally, I think that the (bachelor) guy might have the same tastes I have and prefer a little woman and reject the average-sized women," he said. "But at the same time, if it did go the other way around, it might be problematic, and make America think there’s something wrong with little people."
"The bigger the babe, the bigger the honkers, I always say!"
He said there are roughly 100,000 people in the United States who have been born with dwarfism, a genetic condition that usually results in an adult height of 4-foot-10 or less and disproportionately short arms and legs. "Littlest Groom" Executive Producer Bill Paolantonio defended the program as a "celebration of diversity."
May I have that bucket over there? And quickly!
"We have gone to great lengths to make sure everybody on this program is treated with dignity and respect," he said. "Human emotion is human emotion, no matter what the package is, and this program ultimately is about that" He said all the dwarf contestants on the program had dated a mix of little and average-sized people, and that one little woman on the show had never dated a little person.
She's like, into... ahhh... big packages.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 01/30/2004 4:26:05 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Faisal?
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 17:04 Comments || Top||

#2  Two words: Average Joe

(At last check, FOX was outrageous, but only NBC was that mean ...)
Posted by: Lu Baihu || 01/30/2004 17:14 Comments || Top||

#3  #1. Lol. Shipman, it's been a long time since you did your last midget adult movie. Guess it's good time for you to make money. Throw in Jon She(e)p and we've got a winner
Posted by: Faisal || 01/30/2004 17:53 Comments || Top||

#4  LOL. Starting to lose that Ahab the Arab accent, the first step to non-trOoldom.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 19:00 Comments || Top||

#5  I make it a practice to avoid anything that is considered a "celebration of diversity."
Posted by: Anonymous || 01/30/2004 20:11 Comments || Top||


Wing Bowl Crowns New Champion
The 12th annual Wing Bowl was a nail-biter at the Wachovia Center where thousands witnessed the stomach-churning spectacle. The new champion in 99-pound 36-year-old Sonya Thomas a.k.a. "The Black Widow".
... also a.k.a. "Windy Sal," "Sonya Burps," and "Barfa the Wonder Babe."
She’s from Alexandria, Virginia. An estimated 20,000 fans poured into the Wachovia center at 5:30 AM Friday. Twenty-three men (some quite large) and one very small woman competed to see who could eat the most wings. Sonya gobbled down 167 chicken wings. Defending champion El Wingador (Bill Simmons) was going wing -to- wing with the young Thomas, but lost eventually finishing 3rd. Thomas actually tied "Young Cookie" Jarvis of New York, but won after the "eat-off" tie -breaker.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 01/30/2004 4:06:53 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'd like to see these clowns eat some of my wings:

1 1/2 cups of Frank's hot sauce, 4 jalapenos, 5 cayennes and 2 to 4 habaneros; remove most seeds. Throw all of the above into blender w/ 2 teaspoons of flour or corn starch (thickening agent). Melt 3-4 tablespoons of butter in a pan (1 1/2 qt. sauce pan) and add 1/2 squeezed lemon. Add white and / or black pepper to taste. Place blender contents into sauce pan and bring sauce to boil; shut it down and reheat or let it simmer.

Wings - place 25-30 wings on the grill at 300 to 350 degrees F for 20 minutes (5 min each side / 3 flips and pull). Coating said wings with a mix of flour and chili powder is optional. Throw in blue cheese dressing (grate a block of Danish blue cheese and add to a jar of Marie's) and celery sticks, and VOILA! Super Bowl wings!
Posted by: Raj || 01/30/2004 16:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Place blender contents into sauce pan and bring sauce to boil; shut it down and reheat or let it simmer.

Empty... eat saucepan.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 19:02 Comments || Top||

#3  Empty... before it eats the saucepan.
Posted by: Tom || 01/30/2004 19:50 Comments || Top||


14-year-old captures escapee at sword-point
Hat tip: Drudge
Joshua Cary heard a noise in the basement, grabbed a sword from his big brother’s collection and went downstairs to investigate. The 14-year-old didn’t mince words. "I’m going to give you until the count of three to come out, or I’m going to stab you," he yelled Thursday, according to his mother, Rebecca Cary. Soon, a handcuffed man emerged, saying, "I didn’t do it." Joshua led the man upstairs at sword-point. His mother ran outside and found police searching for an escaped prisoner. The man, Mark A. Brown, who had broken free after he was picked up on a parole violation, was taken back into custody. Joshua’s brother is a soldier stationed at Fort Riley, Kan., awaiting deployment to Iraq. Rebecca Cary said the swords are for decoration, but noted that her older son had told Joshua he "needed to take care of his mom and sister. And he did." Cary said she was proud of her son, who went out afterward for a celebratory night of bowling in this east-central Missouri town. "He’s always been fearless," Cary said. "I hope he grows out of that soon."
Posted by: Dar || 01/30/2004 3:36:30 PM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Cool. I have a Japaneese NCO's sword that my dad found in the sand at Roi-Namur. And yes... having it around makes for excellent safe house Karma.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 16:31 Comments || Top||

#2  I hope the hell he doesn't grow out of that. The Republic will always need a few good fearless men like Joshua...
Posted by: Ptah || 01/30/2004 22:06 Comments || Top||

#3  When swords are outlawed, only outlaws (and pirates) will have swords!

Arrgh, avast ye scurvy dawgs!
Posted by: JDB || 01/30/2004 22:33 Comments || Top||


The Apache video revisited
Murdoc Online has a link to the full 3 1/2 minute video (8.5MB AVI file) that was circulating a couple weeks ago. You can catch more of the story instead of the just the "highlights". MO also has a link to the codecs you may need to view it in WMP.
Posted by: Dar || 01/30/2004 1:26:25 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  My inadequate description doesn't clearly state that this is a longer clip of the Apache 30mm chaingun vs. soft, fleshy jihadis video that was posted a few weeks ago. This longer clip shows more of the surveillance and assessment the crew and their command were exercising before finally acting (kind of like that AC-130 video--"Don't touch the mosque!"). This clip has more testimony to the professionalism of our military than being just a snuff flick like the shorter one.
Posted by: Dar || 01/30/2004 14:00 Comments || Top||

#2  No complaints here. I liked it two weeks ago Its one of the few times I get to see my tax dollars in action. :)
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 01/30/2004 14:46 Comments || Top||

#3  Thanks for the link! This is a pretty great site you've got going here. I'll be back.
Posted by: murdoc || 01/30/2004 16:10 Comments || Top||

#4  love that video,its even better then the gunship over afgan or the fastest man in serbia.I only wish you could buy whole video's or dvds of this sort of footage. Murdocs sites excellent too.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 01/30/2004 16:49 Comments || Top||

#5  I am impressed with the verification our forces mad before engaging the enemy and with the fire discipline shown in this action against these terrorists. It would be good to see this circulated around just to show what happens to people that try to attack us. Thanks for the very good and relavant link!
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/30/2004 17:47 Comments || Top||


THE WAY THINGS REALLY WORK: Pink Fighter-Bombers
Couldn’t pass this one up .... [grin]
During the Iraq war, army and marine helicopters were all over the place, and troops had plenty of opportunity to see both types. You could easily tell them apart. The army choppers are painted dark green while the marine helicopters are painted "Haze Gray" One thing everyone noted was that the marine helicopters were always harder to see. If a marine and army helicopter were flying close together and approached you from a distance, you would always be able to pick out the army chopper first. The marines changed the color of their helicopters after the Cold War ended, when they realized that their most likely opponents would be looking up at them, not down from the sky. For protection from enemy aircraft above, a green paint job gives you more protection. But from below, a gray paint scheme works better to hide you.

Deciding what color to paint aircraft has always been a contentious issue. Many different color schemes have been tried over the years. At one point, the U.S. Air Force ran some extensive tests and concluded the color that best hid an aircraft in flight was a shade of pink. The results of this effort were never implemented.
for some unfathomable reason .... ROTFLO
Posted by: rkb || 01/30/2004 12:16:34 PM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wonder if it's that same shade of pink that supposedly calms down prisoners.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/30/2004 12:26 Comments || Top||

#2  One of my few talents is that of a fine artist (in my mind anyhow) I've painted many Civil War scenes and let me tell you, getting the gray to pop is tough. You have to mix in warm color and deep contrasts. Light dull shade with no color works well in most instances. Adjust color then to fit the actual invironment. The pink has me scratching my head.
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 12:46 Comments || Top||

#3  Operation Petticoat.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 12:47 Comments || Top||

#4  I've always enjoyed this pic of a Me-109 over the desert. As long as you're flying over rocks and sand, it probably worked pretty well!
Posted by: Dar || 01/30/2004 12:52 Comments || Top||

#5  Good looking airplane. But with that contrast it will stand out as it moves.
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 13:00 Comments || Top||

#6  Riptide!
Posted by: Unmutual || 01/30/2004 13:01 Comments || Top||

#7  When I were a wee girlie I put together some model airplanes, including an F-15 that was molded of sky-blue plastic. You were supposed to paint white clouds on it. I always wondered why this paint scheme wasn't implemented in reality. Or even better, a blue-bottomed, green-topped paint job (similar to fish camouflage).

The pink paint probably forms an SEP (Somebody Else's Problem) field. "This cannot possibly be a pink B-52. I am hallucinating. I believe I will leave this to someone else to deal with." First identified by Douglas Adams.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 01/30/2004 13:17 Comments || Top||

#8  I KNEW someone would remember Riptide and the Screaming Mimi.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 13:17 Comments || Top||

#9  Angie, the Air Force had a green, brown, black and gray on top and sides. With a white belly(Speckled Trout'or 'NATO')camoflage paint scheme on their aircraft through the 1970s and into the 1980's. It's recently been changed to a solid matte gray. Somewhat similar to the Navy's 'Haze Gray', which works very well above an overcast sea!
Posted by: Jack Deth || 01/30/2004 13:41 Comments || Top||

#10  Lucky... consider how similar gray and pink are..... a 10 percent magenta 10 percent black CMYK mix.... looks gray, dial in a little more magenta and you get a morning skyline, throw in angle of lighting and it even more confusing.

BTW I had you pegged for an artist.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 13:48 Comments || Top||

#11  Visit Kalamazoo, Michigan's Air Zoo. There is a Pink P-40 Warhawk that is really cool.
Posted by: Jim K || 01/30/2004 14:03 Comments || Top||

#12  Thanks Shipman, I also find blue will help gray stand out.

Just finnishing up a small painting of the great Belgium cyclist Eddie Merkx. Man, getting a face to look like a face takes some eyesight away.
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 14:39 Comments || Top||

#13  Lucky - I'd appreciate a pic. of that if it's possible.

The Cannibal Lives!
Posted by: Raj || 01/30/2004 14:58 Comments || Top||

#14  Just finnishing up a small painting of the great Belgium cyclist Eddie Merkx. Man,

Now that does surprise me! Jeez... we have to keep France viable for the Tour. The cannibal, Yes!
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 15:34 Comments || Top||

#15  During WWII the desert tan paint appiled to USAAF aircraft in North Afica would often fade out to a light shade that is almost pink. I think thats where the pink P40 comes from. perhaps the weirdest sounding idea is to visibly camoflage aircraft from the ground you put lights on them. The idea is to even out the difference in the light of the sky above the plane and its shaded darker underside.
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 01/30/2004 17:42 Comments || Top||

#16  I have a better idea: make aircraft and helos in the sahep of elephants and then paint them pink.
Posted by: JFM || 01/30/2004 17:46 Comments || Top||

#17  I'd never be able to shoot 'em down JFM... altho the Mick... said when drunk... swing at the one in the middle.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 19:05 Comments || Top||

#18  Raj. I thought that someone would want to see it. It's days away. Merkx had a very set jaw and his facial image is as distinct as a 57 chevy, very challenging. If I can get a decent digital of it I will post it. But I'm not much of a photographer when it comes to good lighting. BTW I do pop into your site every now and then.

I've met Eddie a few times (twice) and he's a really good guy. Very approachable.
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 23:08 Comments || Top||


Man caught with 450 frogs in suitcase
Yes, he was German, but, no, it doesn’t involve humans.
A man arrested in Peru with 450 tropical frogs and a selection of unusual beetles in his luggage claimed he wanted to start a zoo. The German man was caught by customs officers during a routine check at Lima airport, which found the tiny three centimetre frogs packed together in metal cans. Local newspaper El Comercio said the man had denied planning to sell the creatures and claimed he wanted to open a zoo at his home in Frankfurt. He said he had bought the frogs and beetles from a shop in Lima in order to make a start on his plans.
I like that phrase "a selection of unusual beetles".
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 01/30/2004 8:31:35 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  All that way for frogs, huh? Probably could've taken the TGV...say, West, and found ample small slimey frogs, no?
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 01/30/2004 8:42 Comments || Top||

#2  I got 450 frogs that say this planes going to Cuba!
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 8:51 Comments || Top||

#3  Most likely he planned on selling them on the black market pet circuit. However, anyone think to check and see if they were all of the poison arrow frog species? They have one of the most deadly poisons in the world.
This has been your Friday morning paranoia update.
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 9:06 Comments || Top||

#4  We have the Colorado river frog here in Az.it's deadly enough to kill your dog.
Posted by: Raptor || 01/30/2004 9:18 Comments || Top||

#5  Opening soon in Frankfurt: Cafe de Frog - Fine French Cuisine. Surrender to deliciousness!
Posted by: Unmutual || 01/30/2004 10:05 Comments || Top||

#6  We have the Colorado river frog here in Az.it's deadly enough to kill your dog.


Man to Inspector Clouseau: "But monsieur, that is not my dog!"
Posted by: Steve White || 01/30/2004 10:45 Comments || Top||

#7  The guy must have been working on the new value meal offering for McDonalds. Now the word is out and Burger King my beat them in providing a special product for St. Patty's Day - the green McNugget.
Posted by: Super Hose || 01/30/2004 11:36 Comments || Top||

#8  If McDonald's needs a receipe, I'm sure this out of work Sweedish chef will sell them one.
Posted by: Super Hose || 01/30/2004 11:42 Comments || Top||

#9  I meant Swedish. Guess when it comes to spelling, I'm a first class meatball. To quote a prominent Rantburger, "I'm here all week."
Posted by: Super Hose || 01/30/2004 11:47 Comments || Top||

#10  We got some chowhalls that guy can come to SH.
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 12:11 Comments || Top||

#11  I know him! He was a buyer for the dormitory cafeteria service when I was in college!!
Posted by: Mike || 01/30/2004 13:07 Comments || Top||


Jihadi This!
Marat Safin blew a two-set lead, then broke Andre Agassi in the fifth set en route to a 7-6 (6), 7-6 (6), 5-7, 1-6, 6-3 victory in the semifinals of the Australian Open on Thursday night.
Andre is a top gun. Way to take it to the limit bro.
Agassi, the defending champion, had his 26-match winning streak at Melbourne Park snapped. He seemed to be in control after the fourth set, but faltered in the fifth. It was a tough loss for Agassi, who called it ``the toughest day I’ve had. Marat played at an incredibly high level. I forced him to play at that level the whole time. Sometimes you just need a little luck at the right time. I had chances that went away."
"a little luck at the right time." Andre, it’s lots of Luck we want, lots of Luck! I know we kick Murat around alot here at the U but he is an extremely gifted racquetier. And BTW you wont have Sampras to kick around anymore either.
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 12:43:17 AM || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Lame joke. Tennis has no place on Rantburg, unless Serena Williams decides to insult the French again. Besides, Federer is going to win the Aussie this year. Neither Safin nor Hewitt can beat him when he's in form.
Posted by: Tokyo Taro || 01/30/2004 1:18 Comments || Top||

#2  TT, this isn't about tinnis, but on a much higher plane, Federer is a bigfooted plodding knome.
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 1:22 Comments || Top||

#3  I'm fully backing Tokyo Taro.

When I was young I used to hate John McEnroe for how he used to carry on and swear....
Later on I matured and I realised he was, and probably will forever be, the only remotely interesting person even loosely associated with tennis.

Layton Hewwit's dummy spits are pissweak and not worth the steam off one of McEnroe's turds.

I concurr on the French however.
Posted by: Dave || 01/30/2004 6:05 Comments || Top||

#4  Tannis anyone?
Posted by: Rosemias Boo Boo || 01/30/2004 8:05 Comments || Top||

#5  Tennis. Blah. Now hockey... that's a different story.
Posted by: Unmutual || 01/30/2004 10:20 Comments || Top||

#6  Is this guy an Iraqi? If he is, we know he was playing for himself for once, instead of being the surrogate for Uday. Either way, I'm surprised the turbantops "allow" tennis, since it's not specifically mentioned in the Quran. He must be a sufi - certainly not a Wahabbi, who never think of anything but the Quran and blowing people up.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 01/30/2004 11:28 Comments || Top||

#7  Actually I beleive that Agassi is of Persian Iranian descent. I don't beleive he is in need to a turban to cover his hair, though. No need for the French to ban him from a Grand Slam match.
Posted by: Super Hose || 01/30/2004 11:45 Comments || Top||

#8  I hate it when no one notices me. RoseMia's Boo Boo was my best role.
Posted by: Mia who is down with herself || 01/30/2004 17:08 Comments || Top||

#9  Faisal would you please explain 4 to the audience... sheesh.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 19:06 Comments || Top||


Arabia
al-Qaida vows to continue fight against officials
Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network said Friday it will continue fighting Saudi authorities, a day after five security force personnel were killed in a raid in the Saudi capital Riyadh. In a statement, al-Qaida said "the mujahedeen will continue on the path and force the infidels out of the Arabian peninsula ... and promise to take revenge on anyone who fights the faith and its people, or stands as a line of defense for the crusader forces." On Thursday, Saudi security forces raided a house in eastern Riyadh after receiving a tip. In addition to the five security members killed, a civilian was slain and two other security personnel were wounded in the shootout. The statement said a number of suspects were arrested, without providing details.
That'd be the neighbors...
The slain civilian was the father of a suspected terrorist, it said. Al-Qaida’s account of the raid said six security personnel were killed, and two of its members were slightly wounded. It said one of its members, Khaled al-Juwaiser al-Faraaj, was detained with his wife and son. Al-Faraaj’s father was critically wounded in the shootout. Other al-Qaida’s members escaped, the statement said.
So Khaled was the al-Qaida thug who lost his dad. I’m sure he’s all broken up over it.
According to the Interior Ministry, police found two grenades, two automatic rifles and five pistols in the house.
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 1:52:04 PM || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  police found two grenades, two automatic rifles and five pistols in the house.

That is not enough firepower for a decent elk hunt.
Posted by: john || 01/30/2004 14:59 Comments || Top||

#2  What if the elk had 'em?
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 15:42 Comments || Top||

#3  Saudi will not make a dent in getting rid of their terrorists until the Interior Minister is gone. He is a big part of the problem.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/30/2004 18:37 Comments || Top||


Confirmed: Yemen holds Jaber al-Baneh
SANAA - Jaber al-Baneh, a Yemeni-born American terror suspect with a five-million-dollar US bounty on his head, is in custody in Yemen, the ruling General People’s Congress (GPC) said Thursday. "Al-Baneh, who is accused by the United States of heading the ’Lackawanna six’ cell and has a five-million-dollar prize on his head, has been under interrogation in a Yemeni prison for several weeks," a security source was quoted as saying on the website of President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s party.
Wonder if they were doing the "interrogation" for us?
The unnamed source did not say when or where the terror suspect was detained. Al-Baneh, born 39 years ago in the Yemeni province of Daleh, never returned to the United States from Afghanistan and was the only member of the cell still at large. US authorities offered a five-million-dollar reward for information leading to his capture. The GPC’s website did not say if negotiations were under way with the United States for his extradition.
"Cash, check, or put it on your account?"
But Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Kurbi is due in Washington on February 3 for talks with US officials expected to cover cooperation in fighting terrorism, according to a report Thursday in the official weekly September 26.
Bringing him along as a gift?
Kurbi will hold talks with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and FBI director Robert Mueller, said September 26, mouthpiece of the Yemeni defense ministry.
Yes, the story said "mouthpiece".
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 9:20:27 AM || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How do you say "whatcha gonna do when they come for you" in Yemen-ese?
Posted by: Unmutual || 01/30/2004 10:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Is this going to be the new US Foreign Aid program? "We'll pay you $$$ for so-and-so, who we suspect of terrorism". I can see this creating a massive influx of "foreign terrorists" "wanted" by the United States, if we're not careful. Just round up a dozen or so street criminals, announce they are members of Al-Qaeda, and ask Uncle Sugar for a $million apiece for them.

I have a better approach: "Turn over all your jihadi monkeyboys to us today, and we won't bomb your capital into stone-age rubble".
Posted by: Old Patriot || 01/30/2004 11:41 Comments || Top||

#3  It's that ol' theory X vs theory Y thing OP.
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 12:23 Comments || Top||

#4  Well I agree with one thing which the article seems to imply, and that is that Democracy is BUNK! Of course it is much better than what currently passes for government in the Muslim world, but that is not saying very much.

One man (or woman), one vote? Yeah right. That is just the right prescription for the bolsheviks to gain the upper hand, which they have in most democratic countries (the jury is still out on the US). Once the bolsheviks grab the reigns of power throught the various institutions of democratic nations, then they inevitably impose socialism on the rest.
Why should the weak and feeble-minded be allowed to impose confiscatory legislation on the strong and enterprising just because they outnumber them? Do the mice on the Serengetti plains of Africa impose their will on the lions?
Posted by: jlc || 01/30/2004 15:13 Comments || Top||

#5  Damn! Did the KucinchBuchannan website finally explode?
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 17:12 Comments || Top||


Hands off the Muslim hemisphere
EFL
In November 2003, US President George W. Bush described what he termed the third pillar of America’s security: “global democratic revolution.” If Iraq and Afghanistan were the first “beneficiaries” of this revolution, then it seems almost certain that Saudi Arabia will feature somewhere in Bush’s revolutionary plans.
[we hope you fear] ...
Saudi Arabia is not America. It was founded on the basis of Islam, and Islam has provided the nation with its guiding principles. The idea that religion should be separated from the affairs of state is viewed as heresy. Under Islam, secularism equates with apostasy ­ a fact that clearly shows the fallacy and danger of Bush’s messianic vision to democratize the Middle East....
democracy = apostasy = death; how convenient
For the visitor to Riyadh, US security doesn’t lie in proving that Osama bin Laden’s claims of a war against Islam are true; America’s security lies in proving bin Laden wrong by leaving the Muslim world to choose its own destiny,
[tyranny]
in its own time
[tyranny forever]
and in its own way
[terror financing, intolerance, intimidation].
Amir Butler is executive director of the Australian Muslim Public Affairs Committee (AMPAC)
[no doubt a tax deductible organization].
Posted by: mhw || 01/30/2004 8:43:49 AM || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
Islam = Saudi royal family = wealth and power for being born into the Saudi royal family = opposition to democracy = opposition to liberty = suppression of all criticim of Islam = Islam
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 01/30/2004 9:12 Comments || Top||

#2  All dictatorships in the world are in-place because of the yankee connivance. Take a look at the Middle east. If there were true democracies in place, uncle sam's interests would be hurt. So, support the dictators. screw the people of those countries. and when something like 9/11 happens.... what has uncle sam gotta say?. Hey don't blame US for all YOUR problems. US State Department. Hypocrisy par excellence. Coming to a country near you.
Posted by: Faisal || 01/30/2004 10:20 Comments || Top||

#3  gotta love Faisel

all dictatorships are US's fault

probably we could add

all environmental problems in all countries are US's fault
all economic problems in all countries are US's fault
all terrorism acts in all countries are US's fault

the problem here is it crowds out room for blaming Israel (Faisel's rant yesterday)for Hamas, Al Aq and Islamic Jihad terrorism.
Posted by: mhw || 01/30/2004 10:25 Comments || Top||

#4  America’s security lies in proving bin Laden wrong by leaving the Muslim world to choose its own destiny,in its own time,and in its own way.
Unfortunately, OBL and his 19 Muslim minons including 15 Saudis, attacked US cities and citizens. It was OBL's attempt to provoke a war between the US and all the 1 billion Muslims. After the attack happened we soon realized that Saudi Arabia and their state sponsored Wahhabism had already chosen their destiny, the time, and the way. They are just trying to convince us otherwise. 'Convert or die', the main tenet of Wahhabism, was a motto for the 7th century not the 21st.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 01/30/2004 10:28 Comments || Top||

#5  Faisal, don't get too used to any of these regimes. Or societies, for that matter. As you know, since they cannot adapt to this millenium, or even the last one, they will all eventually have to be destroyed. Deep down, you KNOW they will, but because you don't admit it (paralleling the sexual confusion you regularly evince) it's our job to remind you--which we will again and again.
Posted by: Anonymous || 01/30/2004 11:41 Comments || Top||

#6  Yeah Faisel, I saw the same movie you and your roomates saw.

BTW I asked you about where you thought the WMD are. Your answer was moronic. But the question remains and is an important question. Try hard, think about it and maybe you'll understand.
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 11:58 Comments || Top||

#7  All dictatorships in the world are in-place because of the yankee connivance.

Haaahahahahahaha, now we know "why they hate us". It's their overactive imaginations. hahahaha
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/30/2004 12:14 Comments || Top||

#8  woo hoo!!! Faisal! you never cease to amaze!

so once again, the arab world has the US to blame. geez.... what frikkin' VICTIMS they are! can't they EVER do a bit of personal reflection and find that the fault lies not with the stars (or the US) but in their selves?

man oh man, they blame, blame, blame. Well, as long as it's the US or Israel. How come they never blamed Saddam, the worse murderer of muslims in recent history, for ANYTHING?!?

What a world of intellectual, cultural and social bankruptcy. sheesh!
Posted by: PlanetDan || 01/30/2004 12:29 Comments || Top||

#9  bomb-a-rama

I partially agree.

the arab "Total Blame Others Management (TBOM)" worldview is, in part, created due to overactive imagination but in part it is created due to the culture of shame and taught - in schools, at home, in mosques, at the office
Posted by: mhw || 01/30/2004 12:48 Comments || Top||

#10  bomb-a-rama

I partially agree.

the arab "Total Blame Others Management (TBOM)" worldview is, in part, created due to overactive imagination but in part it is created due to the culture of shame and taught - in schools, at home, in mosques, at the office
Posted by: mhw || 01/30/2004 12:51 Comments || Top||

#11  Now, now Faisal, the people you care about have been screwed millenia, so what's the beef?

ALL the dictators of the world? Jdam if you do, Jdam if you don't.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 12:57 Comments || Top||

#12  Does anyone else find it a little hypocritical this is coming from an AUSTRALIAN head?
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 12:59 Comments || Top||

#13  On behalf of Americans everywhere, I hereby affirm that the reason Faisal lives on a couch in his daddy's basement and has never kissed a girl is because of my evil government, specifically the Bush family and Halliburton. The reason that the Muslim world has been in decline since about the 13th century is a joint American-Zionist conspiracy so bloody powerful that it could humiliate the Arabs decades before Columbus even came over in 1492.
Happy now, Faisal? Now go plump up those sofa cushions and get another Meister Brau.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/30/2004 13:03 Comments || Top||

#14  Blondie, don't encourage underage drinking. You know Faisal's not reached puberty yet.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 13:28 Comments || Top||

#15  Faisal:the reason there's no democracy in the Arab world is because the people there,Iraq perhaps excepting,don't want democracy.If they did,there would be demonstrations.Not perhaps in Cairo,but in free London and Paris,at least.Alas,even poor Salman Rushdie got bigger rallies.
Posted by: El Id || 01/30/2004 14:10 Comments || Top||

#16  On one hand all of the dictatorships are America's fault, and then on the other Muslims love dictatorship. If that is true Muslim's should love the US. Something isn't right in that reasoning. Faisel, please explain.

Syria = ex-French colony, now dictatorship
Iraq = Ex-British colony, now dictatorship
Jordan = Ex-British colony, now dictatorship
Kuwait = Ex-British colony, now dictatorship
Oman = Ex-British colony, now dictatorship
South Yemen = Ex-British colony, now dictatorship
North Yemen = Ex-Soviet colony, now part of Yemen and still a dictatorship
Egypt = Ex-British colony, now dictatorship
Libya = Ex-French colony, now dictatorship
Algeria = Ex-French colony, dictatorship
Sudan = Ex-British colony, now dictatorship
Somalia = Ex-Italian & ex-Soviet colony, now dictatorship.

The US hardly created all dictatorships. To say so is to shout out your ignorance of history. The US does have the following marks however, and for fairness I will list them. Note these were never colonies so US influence was far less:

Iran = Ex-US client, now theocracy pretending to be Democracy
Saudi Arabia = current US client, dictatorship
Israel = current US client, DEMOCRACY
Posted by: ruprecht || 01/30/2004 17:02 Comments || Top||

#17 
All dictatorships in the world are in-place because of the yankee connivance.
No, Faisal, at least in the Middle East they're in place because Allah wants them to be. Arabs live useless, shitty, repressed lives because Allah wants them to. The Arabs that pass themselves off as "Palestinians" live worthless, useless, repressed, shitty, murderous, hopeless lives because Allah wants them to.

The Western world (that would be Christians and Jews and Atheists and Agnostics and Wiccans, et al.) invent things and have open, flourishing, vibrant societies because Allah wants them to. If Allah wanted you to be as free and inventive and SUCCESSFUL as we are, you would be.

Because, after all, everything is Allah's will, right? So quit your whining; your life sucks because Allah wants it to.

No need to thank me; glad to help out.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 01/30/2004 22:38 Comments || Top||


Britain
Taking Means-Testing to the next level
<SMALL>I think Denmark does this for speeding. I was going to EFL, but I just could not believe what I was reading.
Can police check your tax return? How do they know how wealthy one is to apply the fine?????

Higher fines proposed for wealthy
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
(Filed: 31/01/2004)


People who are better off will have to pay higher fines than those on a lower income for the same offences under plans being considered by ministers.

Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, has proposed linking a wider range of financial penalties handed down by the courts to income.

Magistrates already have the discretion to link fines to ability to pay for a limited range of offences, such as speeding and anti-social behaviour. Since 2000, high earners have paid a bigger fine than someone on benefits.

But Lord Falconer, during a speech in Birmingham, suggested that the means-testing should be extended. "We need to keep improving our enforcement of penalties and especially fines and indeed to ask whether fines should be linked more closely to income so that those who can pay more do pay more," he said.

Effectively, the middle classes will be invited to fill the financial void caused by the failure of thousands of offenders to pay fines imposed by the courts.

A National Audit Office report last year showed that in England and Wales penalties totalling £385 million were imposed but less than two thirds of this was collected.

More than £70 million was written off as unenforceable and £77 million was cancelled, sometimes because of appeals but also because offenders’ circumstances changed so much that they could not pay.

The latest proposal follows indications from the Government last week that criminal legal aid in motoring cases is to be withdrawn from the middle classes.

Ministers want to bring back a means test for defendants in magistrates courts so that better-off people have to pay for their own defence.

The proposal to extend means-testing was condemned as "unfair" last night by Alan Duncan, the Conservative spokesman on constitutional affairs.

He said: "Surely the punishment should fit the crime, not somebody’s bank balance? It is right to use discretion when people can’t pay fines; but it is wrong to inflate fines simply because someone is wealthy."

Lord Falconer’s latest proposal has echoes of the unit fine system introduced in the late 1980s, then abandoned amid protests at the anomalies it produced. An offender’s income was broken into units and then multiplied to establish the level of fine, which could reach spectacular levels. One man was fined £1,200 for dropping a crisp packet and two neighbours were fined £75 and £1,500 for driving without insurance.

Magistrates already consult charts against which the penalty for a particular offence can be measured alongside the income of the offender. Their guidelines have three bands to represent the gravity of the offence and different fines for levels of income.

However, they also emphasise that every offender’s means must be considered. "The fine should be a hardship, depriving the offender of the capacity to spend money on ’luxuries’, but care should be taken not to force him or her below a reasonable subsistence level."

There are also discounts for an early guilty plea that saves the court time and money and higher penalties if the offence is racially aggravated. But Lord Falconer appeared to be suggesting a higher tariff for the wealthy than currently applies.

A similar proposal was put last year by Rod Morgan, the chief inspector of probation and the recently appointed head of the Youth Justice Board. He told the Commons home affairs committee that the concept of relating fines to the ability to pay was right and should be restored to help cut the large number of defaulters, especially among the poor.

Earlier this month, David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, said he wanted to see fines take the place of prison sentences for less serious crimes.

Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 11:33:28 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


So Long, Little Buddy!
EFL. WARNING! BBC article, beware of spinning parts.
BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan has resigned in the wake of the criticism directed at him in the Hutton report. Mr Gilligan conceded some of his story was wrong, and apologised for it. He said his departure was at his own initiative, but described the BBC collectively as the victim of a "grave injustice".
Tap tap. Huh. Sympathy meter's reading zero.
Downing Street said it had "nothing to say" on Mr Gilligan's departure.
But before the phone hit the cradle, a "MUAHAHAHAHAHA!" was heard in the background. There's much more about the whole megilla at the link.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 01/30/2004 3:53:54 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Will his next gig involve a remix of Color Me Badd's I'm Gonna Sex You Up?
Posted by: Raj || 01/30/2004 15:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Angie, that title needed a beverage warning. This is a new laptop I'm using.
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 01/30/2004 16:19 Comments || Top||

#3  Ditto to Raj. LOL
Posted by: Rafael || 01/30/2004 16:34 Comments || Top||

#4  From the article:

Mr Dyke suggested the implications for journalism coming from the report were a matter of grave concern for the media. "Lord Hutton does seem to suggest that it is not enough for a broadcaster or a newspaper... to simply report what a whistleblower says because they are an authoritative source. You have to demonstrate that it is true. (...)"

Does this mean I could call myself an authoritative source and get the BBC to repeat whatever I say??? Can we expect some truth in reporting from now on? And are reporters actually going to have to work harder now?? He's right though, this will be of great concern to the media.
Posted by: Rafael || 01/30/2004 16:46 Comments || Top||

#5  In a matter of days,he'll be writing for the Guardian.Or Independent.
Posted by: El Id || 01/30/2004 16:49 Comments || Top||

#6  Hell, just yesterday he was angling to keep his job and go back to work for the BBC. That's how clueless the man is.
Posted by: mojo || 01/30/2004 17:05 Comments || Top||

#7  WAAAAAAHHHHH! He could walk into a Job at the NY or LA Times. He already knows how to write lies, there is no other qualification.

Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 01/30/2004 17:16 Comments || Top||

#8  Why do I fear that the loss of tax money is behind this? Nothing greedier than a nonprofit government organization.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 17:17 Comments || Top||

#9  I noticed that too, Rafael. Thing is, what the BBC considers an "authoritative source" is rather fluid. Baghdad Bob's words were accepted without question, while various American CENTCOM briefers were treated with suspicion.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 01/30/2004 17:18 Comments || Top||

#10  Good riddance to bad rubbish! He'll probably sign on with Al-Jizz - he'd fit right in.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 01/30/2004 17:52 Comments || Top||

#11  BTW, has anyone checked the list of bribes oil vouchers for names of BBC or Al Jazzira reporters or managers? CNN?
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 01/30/2004 18:30 Comments || Top||

#12  The question is are these guys charlatans or do they really believe their own sh-t?
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/30/2004 18:56 Comments || Top||


Dyke whining warning over Hutton report
EFL of a BBC article on an issue near and dear to its heart. Rest assured they have an exclusive on this one. - Another unhappy person who has been made into roadkill by the voice of the customer announces, "beware the chilly wind that is a blowing"
The departing BBC director general said the report into the death of Dr David Kelly had been read with "disbelief". Mr Dyke made it clear he did not accept all the report’s findings, and attacked Alastair Campbell as "ungracious". He admitted making mistakes in the way he responded to the government’s original complaints. But he said the concerns of whistleblowers in government and elsewhere had to be reported by the media.
Whistleblowers are now on notice to beware of fabricating and dissembling.
Mr Dyke told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: "It is perfectly fair for you to draw the conclusion that I don’t accept all of the report. Our legal team were all very surprised by the nature of the report. I think it was Stewart Purvis, the former chief executive of ITN, who said... it is remarkable how he has given the benefit of judgement to virtually everyone in the government and no-one in the BBC." Mr Dyke suggested the implications for journalism coming from the report were a matter of grave concern for the media. "Lord Hutton does seem to suggest that it is not enough for a broadcaster or a newspaper... to simply report what a whistleblower says because they are an authoritative source. You have to demonstrate that it is true. That would change the law in this country."
-Snip- you get the jist of his predictable response to criticism.
Meanwhile ministers have stressed the importance of a BBC independent of government influence in the wake of Lord Hutton’s criticisms of the corporation.
Why? The government pays for it, or rather the citizens do. Seems they should have some say in what it does. I have the same problem with NPR. Why should I pay to give somebody who doesn't like me a propaganda outlet?
Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said: "A BBC that is nobody’s lapdog, that challenges government and raises debate - that is in all our interests."
As long as they don’t mischarecterize and fabricate that would be fine.
See, I disagree with that. A free and independent BBC financed by other than the taxpayers, be it advertising, corporate grants, philanthropists, or holding up liquor stores, should be perfectly free to challenge the gummint and raise debate. Take my money to do it, and I'll expect stodgy just-the-facts,-ma'am reporting, like Beebs is reputed to have once done better than anyone else. Having a government-funded resource that's anti-government doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me.
Posted by: Super Hose || 01/30/2004 2:07:14 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said: "A BBC that is nobody’s lapdog, that challenges government and raises debate - that is in all our interests."

Two questions:

1. If the BBC is going to "challenge government", how would it end up being nobody's lapdog if the government turns out to be correct? Seems to me that the best course of action is to make determinations based on facts, instead of assuming, as it sounds above, that the government needs to be challenged constantly because it's always wrong. That puts the BBC squarely in the anti-government camp.

2. Of what value is a "Culture Secretary"???
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/30/2004 14:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Of what value is a "Culture Secretary"???

Why a culture secretary who looks forward to a cushy patronage BBC director position in her post political future, of course.
Posted by: john || 01/30/2004 14:56 Comments || Top||

#3  "YOU HAVE TO DEMONSTRATE THAT IT IS TRUE"

That would seem to be a good motto for a news organization.Mr.Dyke appears to believe that truth and accurracy are not relevant,that the BBC is entitled to air anything it chooses,and that if it broadcasts misinformation,rumor,or outright lies,the BBC never has to correct itself.
What has been fascinating to me has been how little coverage the BBC affair has received in mainstream US media and how much it has received in the blogosphere.The mainstream media reminds me of the US auto industry of late 70's-convinced it knew what its customers needed,derisive of any competition,ignoring quality concerns.
Posted by: Stephen || 01/30/2004 16:57 Comments || Top||

#4  With that headline, I thought this post was about a lesbian tryst between Ellen DeGeneres and Lauren Hutton.
Posted by: Tibor || 01/30/2004 17:28 Comments || Top||

#5  I thought that the headline was a warning to the BBC clowns that the dyke surrounding the their fantasyland was about to burst.
Posted by: B || 01/30/2004 17:37 Comments || Top||


Down Under
AMERICANS STUPID?
From an Australian Blogger, who is the scourge of the left.
Although I am an Australian, one thing that really annoys me is the constant refrain among non-Americans to the effect that Americans are stupid. How did a stupid people get to be one of the most prosperous on earth? How did a stupid people get to be the world’s only superpower? How did a stupid people avoid ever having their cities bombed flat? How did a stupid people produce military equipment so advanced that no-one else can hope to match it? The Iraqi army put up a tenacious fight against the Iranian army but it just went home when a much smaller American military force arrived. How did a stupid people come to dominate the world with its cultural products? Ever heard of Hollywood or American popular music? And even Italians now make "Western" movies. How did a stupid people get to dominate the world with its products and business systems? Ever heard of Coca Cola, McDonald’s or KFC? How did America get to dominate the world with its intellectual products? Ever heard of Microsoft or IBM or Intel or all the American Nobel prize-winners? How did a stupid people get to integrate successfully within their ranks large numbers of people from every country in Europe? South America and North America are both large continents well-endowed with natural resouces so how come there is no South American equivalent of the USA? How come prosperity stops at the U.S.-Mexico border? And how come it is Europe that invented both Communism and Fascism and that it was America that had to rescue them from both?

The truth is that Americans are a very wise and sophisticated people who very often affect a folksy style -- such as the style we see the high-achieving President George W. Bush or in the incredibly high-achieving investor Warren Buffett. But the REALLY stupid people are those who cannot see past the folksy style to the hard-working, dedicated, careful-thinking people beneath it. Only people as stupid as most Europeans could mistake style for substance. Really smart people would try to understand Americans rather than condemn them for having their own ways. They would see the folksiness as a sign of a less elitist and more democratic society rather than as a sign of stupidity.

And it is not only Americans who affect folksiness. Australia’s most popular Prime Minister in the last 50 years was "Bob" Hawke -- a conservative in most ways but the leader of Australia’s major party of the Left. Although he was so thoroughly bourgeois as to be the son of a Protestant clergyman and brilliant enough win a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford university, he normally spoke during his political career with a broad working-class accent. He certainly wasn’t stupid but Australia too is a very egalitarian country where people of all classes are treated with respect.
"Muggsy! I t'ink dis guy, he's on to us!"
"You're quite correct. I and my minions will speedily dispatch him!"
"Muggsy! Watch yer mout'!"
"Duh! Sorry, Boss! Me'n da boyz'll knock 'im off!"
"'At's better, Muggsy!"
"Nyah!"
Posted by: tipper || 01/30/2004 8:59:43 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The truth is that Americans are a very wise and sophisticated people who very often affect a folksy style

"Dang, Beauregard- we bin found out. Did yew leave yer biotechnology books on the cee-ment porch agin?"
Posted by: Pappy || 01/30/2004 21:37 Comments || Top||

#2  A nation founded by convicts and a nation founded by rebels are in the eyes of the EUnuchs the same thing. You are well respected and in good company Oz.
Posted by: Anonymous || 01/30/2004 21:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Sometimes I feel like the whole World is against us, and then I read something like this. At least we know who our real friends are... God Bless you Australia.
Posted by: Stupid American || 01/30/2004 21:52 Comments || Top||

#4  Posted my opinion at my website seconds before coming here, although I don't think we "affect" folksiness: The folksy people I admire are authentic. What you see is what you get.
Posted by: Ptah || 01/30/2004 22:04 Comments || Top||

#5  SHHHHhhh, John Ray, don tel 'em SMART u-rope-peens 'at we ain't as dumb as we look. It's sometimes an advantage to be under estimated by your adversaries. And unfortunately, the European elitists have taken an adversarial position.Thanks again John for your post.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 01/30/2004 22:11 Comments || Top||

#6  folksy is good way of describing one of the reasons I liked bush.

give me bush (in my politics and bed) or give me death!
Posted by: Anonymous || 01/30/2004 22:16 Comments || Top||

#7  Gee, d'ya think maybe the European (and other) elitists misunderestimate Americans?

Thank you, John Ray. Bless you, Australia.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 01/30/2004 22:18 Comments || Top||

#8  For that bit of praise I'd be tempted to offer the Aussie's statehood. But that would be insulting. We may have our disagreements with Oz and they with us but in my opinion they are the only true friend we have in the Pacific. The NZs are to self absorbed in their own New Age Bull Shit to see the way the world is going(they are todays isolationists)Japan will look out for Japan(that's fine, its what nation states do)China still sees themselves as the Middle Kingdom, Heaven n one side the Barbarians on the other. And speaking of Barbarians Indonesia will in my opinion be the big problem in the next 20 years
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 01/30/2004 22:54 Comments || Top||

#9  For that bit of praise I'd be tempted to offer the Aussie's statehood. But that would be insulting. We may have our disagreements with Oz and they with us but in my opinion they are the only true friend we have in the Pacific. The NZs are to self absorbed in their own New Age Bull Shit to see the way the world is going(they are todays isolationists)Japan will look out for Japan(that's fine, its what nation states do)China still sees themselves as the Middle Kingdom, Heaven n one side the Barbarians on the other. And speaking of Barbarians Indonesia will in my opinion be the big problem in the next 20 years
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 01/30/2004 22:55 Comments || Top||

#10  Sorry about the double post.I hit the back button to many times
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 01/30/2004 22:56 Comments || Top||

#11  Excellent rant! Although I don't agree with his conclusions. The problem is in eye of the beholder. If you want to know the real reason that large numbers of supposedly intelligent people particularly in Europe, although Australia has a goodly number, think Bush+Americans are stupid, then the answer lies in what psychologists call cognitive dissonance.

If you and almost everyone you know thinks one way, but others think differently, then especially if those others appear to be richer, smarter and more succesful than you, then you unconciously rationalize it away by concluding they must be evil and stupid.
Posted by: phil_b || 01/30/2004 23:10 Comments || Top||

#12  The crowning irony is that even the Hate America Cult and the pop-culture left are largely American inventions. Howard Zinn? Noam Chomsky? Michael Moore? In fact, a young (32 iirc)genius named Thomas Frank has documented the advertising industry's creation of the modern Left in a remarkable book called The Conquest of Cool.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 01/31/2004 0:32 Comments || Top||


Europe
Key suspect in Istanbul suicide bombings arrested
Turkish police have detained a suspected top leader of a Turkish al-Qaida-linked cell believed to have carried out the November suicide bombings in Istanbul that killed 62 people, an official said Friday. Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler said police were questioning the suspect, who was detained Thursday in Istanbul.
Say hello to Mr. Truncheon
Guler said the man, who was not identified, was "an important name among the planners of the Istanbul attacks" and a leader in a Turkish group that authorities have linked to al-Qaida.
Excellent. Murat, if you’re out there, how does this investigation look from your end?
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 2:03:30 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Murat no doubt thinks it's all wrong, because they haven't applied the Truncheons of Doom to any Kurds.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 14:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Damn, got caught shorting the moustache wax futures.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 15:45 Comments || Top||


If he’s talking he’s lying. If he’s moving he’s stealing.
This all happened while Juppe was playing Robin to Chirac’s Batman -- Chirac was Paris Mayor and Juppe was Vice-Mayor. Batman always knows what Robin’s up to.
A court has found former French Prime Minister Alain Juppe guilty of involvement in a party funding scam in Paris in the 1980s and early 1990s. Juppe, one of President Jacques Chirac’s closest allies, immediately appealed against the conviction. The court gave him an 18-month suspended sentence and barred him from political office for up to 10 years. However, he will be able to continue as mayor of Bordeaux, and as head of the governing UMP party during the appeal. ‘It’s a hammer blow for Jacques Chirac, who thus loses his closest adviser and his designated successor, for whom he had real affection Anita Hauser, political commentator’

The prosecution argued that Juppe allowed party employees to be put on the city payroll and to be paid for by private companies when he was deputy mayor of Paris. Mr Chirac was then the city’s mayor. Juppe denied the charges, saying that he put an end to all irregularities as soon as he found out about them. He said this month he would quit politics if found guilty.
It all depends on what the meaning of "guilty" is.
Posted by: 11A5S || 01/30/2004 1:03:34 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


New Diplomatic Incident Between Belgium and U.S.
Tip o’ the hat to BrusselsBlog, who also provides the translation of the original source.
BRUSSELS -- Colin Powell, on the request of the white house, has called his Belgian colleague Louis Michel to express new American dissatisfaction. Everything revolves around an interview with the Minister of Defense, André Flahaut, in Humo (ed. a magazine). The pronouncement: "If I were an American, I would vote for a democrat’’ is considered by Washington to be unacceptable interference. Also some opinions on the American army have been taken very seriously.
Yep, that’s serious.
Prime Ministere Guy Verhofstadt was already informed last Friday by the American embassy in Brussels that there was a new row coming with Washington. Everything revolves around an interview in the magazine Humo of last week, with minister André Flahaut (PS). Which was quickly translated at the embassy of the United States in Brussels, as is usual nowadays, and sent to Washington. At the Pentagon, the State department and even the White House responses were furious. Especially the passage concerning his preference for a Democrat in the White House was not taken well. But also Flahauts considerations concerning "the inefficient American army", the genocide law and the actions of the US in Iraq and Iran have caused large rancour.
As opposed to the mighty Belgian Army of hairdressers.
According to Flahaut: "The Americans throw so much money at their army that it simply can no longer act efficiently. If they have to get fifteen men from point A to point B, they will use three planes to be certain that it succeeds. We would send one plane, or even better: first examine if we cannot get someone else to do the heavy lifting fly along with an ally’’, says the minister.
I think I see why we call them weasels.
American circles confirmed yesterday that Flahaut, now more than ever, has been declared persona non grata in Washington.
Let’s make that official, be nice to watch the reaction.
After lecture of the interview also premier Verhofstadt, who wants to avoid a new row at any cost with the US, Friday immediately has written a letter to his Minister of Defense. In this he calls Flahauts judgements "inappropriate with regards to an ally ’’. In the highest government circles it is not ruled out that it will stay at that.
If he’s serious he’ll bounce this guy. If he doesn’t, we’ll know he isn’t serious.
Also Minister for Foreign Affairs Louis Michel (MR), who had just started a charm offensive directed at the US, could not appreciate Flahauts demarche. He refused all comment yesterday however.
"Get that camera outta here!"
Posted by: Steve White || 01/30/2004 10:31:53 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We would send one plane, or even better: first examine if we cannot fly along with an ally’’

Does belgium even HAVE a heavy lift cargo plane? By that I mean one that WE DIDN'T PAY FOR. I guess since their 'army' is a platoon of mimes, they can go commercial.

Hell with that, load up NATO and get them out of there (at least our part, which is 99% of it).
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 01/30/2004 10:43 Comments || Top||

#2  That there is a Belgium is a freak of nature. The only thing they would ever send is a letter.
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 11:39 Comments || Top||

#3  "the inefficient American army", what is this bizarro world (superman comic reference) ;) What part of the fact that the US has the most efficient, dominating military relative to it's peers that has ever existed is he confused about? What a dope. It's even better that he's from BELGIUM! Do they even have a military?
Posted by: Damn_Proud_American || 01/30/2004 11:48 Comments || Top||

#4  typical sour grapes - I dont have any money, so I piss on those who do. That ally he would catch a ride with is likely to be a us plane.
Posted by: flash91 || 01/30/2004 12:05 Comments || Top||

#5  The statue most iconic of the US: Statue of Liberty.

The statue most iconic of Belgium: Mannequin Piss.

'Nuf said.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 12:12 Comments || Top||

#6  "the inefficient American army"

Well, we did take longer to kick the Germans out than it took for the Germans to overrun the country. OTOH, any country made up of Phlegms and Loons...
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 01/30/2004 12:39 Comments || Top||

#7  actions of the US in Iraq and Iran

The US invaded Iran??? Why do I always hear things after the fact damnit...
Posted by: Rafael || 01/30/2004 13:08 Comments || Top||

#8  go back to making waffles sweet heart....let the real warriors handle the wars. My high school football team could probably take Belgium.
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 13:16 Comments || Top||

#9  I guess My response is: So? I really don't care what third-world countries (Ghana, Cuba, Belgium) think or say, if they can't do anything about it.

Who won the award for the most gratuitous use of the word "Belgium" in a screenplay?
Posted by: Jackal || 01/30/2004 14:00 Comments || Top||

#10  Whoever wrote the screenplay for "If This Is Tuesday, Than This Must Be Belgium"???
Posted by: Sgt. Mom || 01/30/2004 14:09 Comments || Top||

#11  Too many moronic Europeans have formed their vision of the US Army from one too many viewings of Platoon or Apocalypse Now.
Posted by: Hiryu || 01/30/2004 14:11 Comments || Top||

#12  Hell, I wish you were right Hiryu, but I expect it was too much MASH and Sgt. Bilko... F-Troop, The Wackiest Ship in the Army, Gomer Pyle USMC..... hey wait a minute! I see a pattern here.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 17:24 Comments || Top||

#13  guess the interview 'hit' Mr powerll in the right place. Interference? what interference?. Yankees..open yr eyes and move out and see how you are treated by the nations around the world. No respect.
Posted by: Faisal || 01/30/2004 17:57 Comments || Top||

#14  Yo Faisal: *yaaawn*
Posted by: Rafael || 01/30/2004 18:13 Comments || Top||

#15  No respect

You mean like respect Hamas has for human life, or the respect that Muslims have for women?
Posted by: Charles || 01/30/2004 19:17 Comments || Top||

#16  Belgium has a Minister of Defense? Why?
Talk about your ultimate hack job...
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/30/2004 20:19 Comments || Top||

#17  Ooooh, the Belgians are so CUTE when they pretend to know about military things!!
Posted by: anon || 01/30/2004 20:37 Comments || Top||

#18  They do make some mean looking guns though.
Posted by: Rafael || 01/30/2004 20:49 Comments || Top||

#19  Remind me again why NATO headquarters isn't in Warsaw?
Posted by: Pappy || 01/30/2004 22:03 Comments || Top||

#20  They don't respect us, but they sure do love our money.

Does that make the world a whore?

We've moved on from respect, Faisal, that's why all the yammering.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 22:54 Comments || Top||

#21  I should have said, does that make the world a whore or a golddigger?
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 22:55 Comments || Top||


Russia to construct its own global navigation system
After completing its own global navigation system, Russia will join the USA in being the only country in the world having its own satellite navigation system. According to the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, this year Russia is going to launch three satellites of Uragan (Hurricane) class and to finish developing its own Glonass global navigation system. Successful launching the satellites scheduled for the end of the year will allow Russia to have the group of 16-18 satellites onto the orbit by the end of 2005.
Twenty years late, but interesting -- do the Russers need this sort of precision in Chechyna?
Glonass system is designated for continuous transmitting the coordinates of objects located in air, at sea, on the ground or in space to within one meter. According to experts, launching the global navigation system is a critical component for effective military defense for Russia and protecting its national interests. Two Uragan satellites and one Uragan-M new generation device designed for 7 years of use will be transported to the geo-stationary orbit by Proton carrier rocket. Meanwhile, the Russian Space Agency informed that this year testing will be conducted for the successor of Uragan-M - perspective compact Uragan-K satellite capable to operate in space for over 10 years. After completing the formation of orbital Glonass group, Russia and the USA will be the only countries having their own navigation satellite systems. US Navstar - GPS navigation system has military and commercial subsystems and includes 24 satellites capable of determining the object coordinates to within 10 meters.
I think the commercial end of the US system is better than that, and the military end -- heh heh.
Last year European Space Agency started developing its own similar Galileo system. In January 2003 the directors of European and Russian Space Agencies agreed to use Russian Glonass-M satellite for testing the future European system. According to experts, in future "the option of uniting the capacities of Glonass and Galileo and forming the unified global system can be applied". This system will be controlled by Russia and the European Union, ITAR-TASS information agency reports.
Tangible evidence of the Franco-Russian alliance?
Posted by: Steve White || 01/30/2004 1:43:50 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  capable of determining the object coordinates to within 10 meters.

I thought it was 2 meters. And I thought the only difference between the mil version is the rate at which the updates come in from the sat.
Posted by: Rafael || 01/30/2004 2:27 Comments || Top||

#2  22 meters for the higher accuracy version, I believe. 10 meters is what European system is aiming for. Interesting info in this pdf brochure. Accuracy degradation was apperently deactivated for mass-market users in 2000, and the Europeans are worried about the economic consequences should the US government decide to switch-on accuracy degradation again.
Posted by: Rafael || 01/30/2004 2:49 Comments || Top||

#3  Sorry for the triple posts. But I especially liked this quote from that pdf file:

As our economic dependence on GPS grows, Europe can be held to ransom on all issues related to its use of the GPS and might be obliged to pay governmental levies to the US in the future. Europe cannot accept this.

Got'em by the balls, heh heh. Why wasn't this brought up at the UNSC earlier?
Posted by: Rafael || 01/30/2004 3:00 Comments || Top||

#4  I thought Glonass had already been in existence for a decade or more?
Posted by: gromky || 01/30/2004 3:38 Comments || Top||

#5  LOL Gromky.... actually they do have a satnav system but I think it has a limited horizon.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 8:09 Comments || Top||

#6  A couple of clarifications:

1) The GPS system has two subsystems. The civilian-use system has a non-degraded accuracy of 10-15 meters, depending on your location (i.e. 'urban canyons' with high buildings can result in less accuracy). The military can turn on "selective degradation" which unpredictably degrades the accuracy to as much as 30-40 meters. It is this which has been turned off for some time now, as civilian use of GPS exploded.

2) The military has a separate subsystem that broadcasts over different frequencies. Suffice it to say that it is more accurate than the non-degraded civilian band.

3) Either band's accuracy can be improved greatly using "differential GPS". This means planting a radio source that sounds like a GPS satellite at a fixed and precisely known location on land (or theoretically, at sea). By factoring in the differential beacon's info, it's possible to filter out the degradation and much of the inaccuracies of the civilian band. Such beacons might reasonably be taken off line (forceably if necessary) to prevent their use by attackers.

4)Surveyors use a totally different approach to get centimeter accuracy. They ignore the content of the satellite measages and measure doppler effects on the signals as signals. This requires being stationary for a minute or more and is usually enhanced with a differential beacon of some kind.

5) GLONASS was indeed started, the constellation of satellites was not completed and it functions in a somewhat different way than GPS. I forget the technical approach the Soviets used in GLONASS. In GPS, the satellites send messages that are time-stamped to atomic clock accuracy. The GPS receiver notes the actual time the message was received and, based on the difference, infers the distance to that satellite. When 3 or more satellites are used this way, it is possible to estimate location by reference to an 'ephemeris table' that specifies where exactly the satellites are overhead at any time.

These estimates are made and refined continually. Apart from selective degradation, inaccuracies can occur for several reasons. First, the little computer inside the receiver, and its computing algorithms, can be underpowered or imprecise. Obviously, there is a cost/benefit tradeoff when designing receivers for various purposes. Second, location is inferred from distances and distances are inferred from timestamps. If, for instance, that message's radio signal bounced off of a building or two before reaching your receiver, the inferred distance will be incorrect - this is the 'urban canyon' problem in places like Manhattan.
Posted by: rkb || 01/30/2004 9:38 Comments || Top||

#7  Damn, RKB. Thanks for the lesson. Yet another reason I love Rantburg.
Posted by: mjh || 01/30/2004 10:18 Comments || Top||

#8  Why not just buy a Caddy with the Onstar system? If they lock their bottle of vodka in the car, Onsta can remotely open their doors.
Posted by: Unmutual || 01/30/2004 11:01 Comments || Top||

#9  For the techies, here is an online table comparing the data available from GLONASS & GPS.

Also for techies, the software in GPS receivers usually includes an adaptive Kalman filter to smooth and improve location estimates over time. A glance at the GPS data shows that it offers a lot more parameters than the GLONASS system, thereby giving receiver designers more to work with. Not all receivers use all of these parameters, however ... that old cost/benefit thing comes into play.
Posted by: rkb || 01/30/2004 11:37 Comments || Top||

#10  Study this carefully. It will all be on the Midterm...
Posted by: PBMcL || 01/30/2004 12:05 Comments || Top||

#11  Also, RKB, newer civilian GPS receivers can receive the new Wide Area Augmentation Service (WAAS) signals. With WAAS, the receiver can get 3 meter accuracy.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 12:20 Comments || Top||

#12  Yes. WAAS is a form of differential GPS. Receivers generally are built specially for this (at least, with special software) in order to ensure that they give the info from the differential beacon more credibility than the info from the satellite constellation.

When I was working with this stuff in the early / mid 90s, there were huge battles over civilian & commercial aircraft using GPS. Stanford did research into putting very accurate differentially-enhanced receivers on aircraft wingtips and using them to do full landings under computer control - managing pitch and yaw off of the difference between the two receivers' readings.

DOD wanted a new system of their own if the FAA and others were going to be allowed to turn off selective availability forever ... I haven't kept up with the battles over that but don't think much has advanced since then. Given our heavy use of military GPS in things like JDAMs, it will be a complex migration if it ever happens.

Back in the early 90s, all I was doing was accurately locating mass transit vehicles in order to initiate things like stop announcements, engine diagnostics etc. But even that modest goal required much better than 40 foot accuracy so some transit agencies backed the FAA's push for WAAS would blanket the country so they could use the beacons for free, too.

Gawd, it's been a while since I've even thought about those projects!
Posted by: rkb || 01/30/2004 12:47 Comments || Top||

#13  And I still can't get a decent picture on my rabbit-ear TV.
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 12:57 Comments || Top||

#14  I hope the Russian GPS-clone is more accurate than their maps. The Soviet Union deliberately built in errors into their maps, in case they were ever stolen or captured by the enemy. If you weren't taught how to use the maps with a correction factor, you'd be off by up to several thousand meters.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 01/30/2004 13:31 Comments || Top||

#15  I've heard the same thing OP... But they do make 'em pretty.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 14:00 Comments || Top||

#16  4)Surveyors use a totally different approach to get centimeter accuracy. They ignore the content of the satellite measages and measure doppler effects on the signals as signals. This requires being stationary for a minute or more and is usually enhanced with a differential beacon of some kind.

and

the software in GPS receivers usually includes an adaptive Kalman filter to smooth and improve location estimates over time.

These have been combined in a recent civilian model. It has an option for locating itself at startup to high accuracy. You set this option, then put it down and leave it there for several minutes. It'll beep when it's located itself to an accuracy less than 10 centimeters. This gives you a high quality starting point.

The process can be repeated to help reset the receiver any time you like, thereby improving accuracy to an amazing degree.

Ed.
Posted by: Ed Becerra || 01/30/2004 14:54 Comments || Top||

#17  Does this mean I can expand my BenchMark collection? I'm in the market for a 432 footer.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 15:48 Comments || Top||

#18  Nobody will buy Russian made GPS guided munitions right now because the US could simply turn off the GPS system and render the munitions useless. So naturally both Europe and Russia have decided to create their own GPS so that the flow of arms to questionable folks can continue.
Posted by: ruprecht || 01/30/2004 16:42 Comments || Top||

#19  Ruprecht, now there's an angle I didn't think about, lol!
Posted by: Rafael || 01/30/2004 16:50 Comments || Top||

#20  The problem with this is that the only one's that would be able to fix the Russians/EU's GPS after it's damaged is us. It's not exactly like they have shuttles. So we can go up and hijack they're GPS.

It's not like the Russians put locks on their satellites.
Posted by: Charles || 01/30/2004 19:21 Comments || Top||


Peace Ceremony to Cap D-Day Events
The 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion to liberate France from Nazi troops will close with a French-German peace ceremony, officials announced Thursday. It will be the first time that a German leader has participated in the observance for D-Day, the start of Europe’s liberation. Ten years ago, Chancellor Helmut Kohl was not invited to the 50th anniversary ceremony - a decision that caused sore feelings in Germany. For the 60th anniversary, France has invited leaders of World War II’s Allied nations, including President Bush. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was also invited. Ceremonies from June 5-7 will offer countries a chance to mark their historic ties following a year when the war in Iraq badly strained relations, especially between France and the United States.
Regardless of the politics involved, here’s to all the Private Ryans who landed in Normandy.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/30/2004 1:37:52 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And the Private Bannocks, and Private Sherbrookes.
Posted by: gromky || 01/30/2004 3:49 Comments || Top||

#2  That would be my Dad, among others--thanks.
I am so upset about the Germans being invited to this by their gay lover the French that I could scream!
How is President Bush going to be able to attend this on behalf of the United States without getting very sick like his dad did in Japan?
BUSH-A-WA!
Seriously, the Germans need to be disinvited.
That is NOT right.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 01/30/2004 8:32 Comments || Top||

#3  My Grandfather walked accross Utah Beach. (he passed on in 2000). Not sure if he'd care about the German political situation either way. He once said he had more respect for the German Soldiers then he ever did for the Parisians. When the war was over and he spent some occupation time in Germany, he said the Germans we're the best group of people he'd met over there (He was also in Belgium, Luxembourg, England, and obviously France.) Interesting view in light of today's situation I think.
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 9:35 Comments || Top||

#4  For the 60th anniversary, France has invited leaders of World War II’s Allied nations, including President Bush.

If I were GWB, I wouldn't bother going.

"No thanks, Jacques, but I have other more pressing matters...."
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/30/2004 12:24 Comments || Top||

#5  --D-Day, the start of Europe’s liberation.--

And 60 years later, we're still at it.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 13:05 Comments || Top||

#6  If I were GWB, I wouldn't bother going

Hell he needs to go! And carry a snarling German Shepherd on a short-leash and demand that everybody either get to work or get to hell off his beach.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 14:04 Comments || Top||

#7  Chiraq wants to use these commemorations as a propaganda card for showing that we are all friends again. I hate that duplicity. It sickens me. I think, though, that GW should go, and while there, take the high ground, emphasizing the lengths that we went and will go to defend our and other's way of life. Maybe Chiraq needs a roadmap from us how to get out of the gutter, if he ever gets motivated. French perfidy is like getting gasoline in your mouth. The bad taste just does not go away for a long time.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/30/2004 19:14 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
The Fat Lady Sings.
TWO peace activists who painted No War on the Sydney Opera House were today sentenced to nine months periodic detention.
Yay!
David Burgess, 33, and Will Saunders, 42, were convicted late last year of malicious damage after painting No War on the tallest sail of the Opera House on March 18, 2003. NSW District Court Judge Anthony Blackmore today sentenced the pair to nine months weekend jail and ordered they jointly pay $111,000 compensation to the Sydney Opera House Trust.
Weekend jail? Is that nine months of weekends, or weekends for only nine months?
Earlier in today’s proceedings the pair handed over a cheque for $40,000 to the trust.
I smell a new fund-raising idea. Fonely we could get someone to paint the Met...
Posted by: growler || 01/30/2004 3:05:26 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Rats! I see the title, think Binny's been arrested, and get set to ululate.
Posted by: Korora || 01/30/2004 15:08 Comments || Top||

#2  It's not Bin... but this has a quality all it's own. Yes indeedy do.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 15:50 Comments || Top||

#3  I would have made these guys clean up all the graffiti in Redfern.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/30/2004 16:28 Comments || Top||

#4  During the week they make money to pay for the damage, during the weekend they rest from their labours with 3 hots and a cot (at state expense). I wonder if the govt charges room and board, or do these guys get perdiem. Just wondering....
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/30/2004 19:22 Comments || Top||


Sbaihat: Sharon desires attacks
Snipped for spittle.
After a ’relatively’ long period of ’relative’ calm, the cycle of violence between Palestinians and Israelis erupted again. Contrary to the way it is portrayed in the media, the hostility did not start with Thursday’s bus bombing in west Jerusalem, but with Wednesday’s incursion by the Israeli army into Gaza city, that left 13 Palestinians dead. Hence, the Jerusalem bombing came as a surprise to no one; even casual observers could have anticipated it.
snip
A situation would further uncover Sharon’s failure to maintain ’security’ with his hard-line war policies. Such mediations have been successful in securing two Hudnas last year that lasted for 56 and 26 days, until each came to an abrupt end after an Israeli army’s incursion into some Palestinian town, leaving scores dead, and many destroyed houses. Killing Palestinians in the street is guaranteed to make militant groups reject the idea of a cease fire, at least temporarily.

The first stage of a prisoner swap was completed yesterday between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah under a German mediation that lasted three years. This swap is largely viewed in the media, the Israeli in particular, as a defeat to Sharon’s government, as it finally acknowledged the weight the group has in the region’s military balance after decades of refusing to negotiate with it and regarding it as an outlaw "terrorist organization."

With news of the swap dominating many of the media outlets, the Israeli government needed a more dramatic story to cover it; that being the death of Israelis, which is proven to be an outcome of the killing of Palestinians.

Timing, in a sense, played into the hands of Ariel Sharon. Since the Middle East conflict and its successive ’peace processes’ were entirely left out of the president’s State of the Union address, Sharon got the hint: "Bush is more concerned with remaining in office after November than he is with Palestinian and Israeli blood being exhausted," said Palestinian MP Abbas Zaki.

The Bush administration’s focus on the election campaign puts it in no position to attend to the Middle East, let alone the miserable failure of Bush’s "Roadmap" over the past several months. Sharon understood that with the US administration and media consumed with the election and campaigning talk, he is operating in the dark, his ideal environment.

After the Israeli attack on Gaza Wednesday, a Palestinian militant said he would "hit inside Israel, until the Israelis make Sharon regret this incursion." A response came, whether it was the full or a partial response is to be seen over the next few days. The bombing in Jerusalem was an expected and desired (by Sharon) outcome of the Gaza incursion, and the emerging fact is Sharon will soon have as much Israeli blood on his hands as he does Palestinian.
What a spray of hoopoe droppings.
Posted by: Korora || 01/30/2004 2:52:34 PM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So basically what they are saying is that Sharon needed a dramatic story to cover up the prisoner swap - so the Palestinians, not being real bright, were glad to oblige him.

And I love the last line where they blame Sharon for the killings by Palestinians. Ah, evil Sharon, pulling all the strings on the helpless Palestinian puppets. Apparently he gets the Palestinians to kill Isralies as he expects and desires in order to hide his failure to maintain ’security’ with his hard-line war policies.

Logic only Palestinians, schooled in Madrassas and bestowed advanced degrees in Hate, can comprehend.
Posted by: B || 01/30/2004 15:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Bombing in Jerusalem surprises no one

Contrary to the way it is portrayed in the media, the hostility did not start with Thursday’s bus bombing in west Jerusalem, but with Wednesday’s incursion by the Israeli army into Gaza city, that left 13 Palestinians dead. Hence, the Jerusalem bombing came as a surprise to no one; even casual observers could have anticipated it.

And this load of tripe dispensed by the likes of Fayyad Sbaihat doesn't come as much of a surprise either.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/30/2004 16:23 Comments || Top||

#3  Contrary to the way it is portrayed in the media, the hostility did not start with Thursday’s bus bombing in west Jerusalem, but with Wednesday’s incursion by the Israeli army into Gaza city,

Dang! Actually that was just an opening to see what yawl are getting ole Ship for Nakba Day. I've promised Faisel a picnic if the weather is clear and he is home from the Quiet Place. I worry that his folks don't see him much, but I guess it's understandable.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 17:31 Comments || Top||

#4  Guess what Mr. Sbaihat is studying at the Univ. of Wisconsin?

Chemical Engineering.

Tap. Tap. Well what do you know. My surprise-meter is broken.
Posted by: Daniel King || 01/30/2004 18:23 Comments || Top||

#5  Badgers???
Weeeeeeee doan need no steeken badgers!!!
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/30/2004 21:18 Comments || Top||


Madhu Kishwar perfroms a flying kick NGO’s (from the top turnbuckle)
EFL from TCS
Part I of two parts. No to trade, yes to aid

-Snip-
The author is a senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. She is also founding editor of Manushi, a bimonthly journal of development and gender

-snip-

There is something similarly comic about the AGBs warning us about the evils of globalization despite their own politics being altogether dependent on international aid money. Most of the NGOs who have organized events at the World Social Forum could as well advertise their NGOs as being "run with 100 percent imported money." The AGBs believe that the government should prevent the entry of foreign capital in India. Here, an ethical issue is involved. If they think bringing in western money and intellectual know-how is so harmful, they ought to start their campaign by refusing to accept grants for their political work from donor agencies of various "imperialist" countries. Or do they believe that the foreign donations that come to them are holy but money that comes in as investment is evil? Is it because a good part of foreign aid money gets routed through them whereas the money that would enter our country as business investment would bypass the NGOs altogether, that they prefer foreign aid to foreign trade?

How can we allow our economy to be run by the dictates of those whose own small organizations are not economically independent, whose livelihood comes from cashing-in on India’s poverty abroad, peddling the misery of the Indian people? Any self-respecting Indian would prefer we do business with foreigners as equal partners than appear before them as groveling supplicants as do many of our NGOs. Those who seriously oppose the inflow of foreign investments in India ought to set an example by resolving in Mumbai that: a) They will not take consultancies with foreign aid organizations; b) They will not write books for foreign publishers; c) They will write textbooks only for Indian readers and publish only with desi publishers rather than for "imperialist" West’s intellectual markets; d) They will run their NGOs only with local resources; e) They will not take teaching or research assignments in foreign universities; f) They will not participate in global networks financed by international donor agencies of "imperialist" countries to fight local causes; g) They will not issue press releases to international news channels about local issues and struggles in India.

If the government were to impose similar restrictions on its receiving foreign money as it would like to impose on lesser mortals in the industrial sector and the farm sector, our NGOs would go screaming all over the world that their democratic rights and civil liberties were being violated. They want a jet-setting globalized politics for themselves but a closed-door economy for Indian farmers and industry.

-Snip -

Clearly, there are many in the NGO sector who want us to continue presenting ourselves before the world as beggars requiring endless doses of foreign aid rather than aspire to become active participants in the world economy. They have no problem in being tied to the apron strings of international donor agencies, but do not trust Indians to benefit from partnership in world trade. Their policy of "No to trade, Yes to aid" explains the real worth of their politics.

Posted by: Super Hose || 01/30/2004 2:19:12 PM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Kind of like 'Welfare' on a global scale. The NGO's want to keep hold of the purse strings so they can maintain influence.

Exactly like the Democrats wanting people to remain on welfare or government-controlled medicare/social-security so they (democrats) can control their votes by saying things like 'Bush is going to slash { Medicare | Social Security | Welfare | etc...}!!! Vote Democratic!' in order to terrorize Seniors or people on entitlement programs.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/30/2004 14:46 Comments || Top||

#2  If they think bringing in western money and intellectual know-how is so harmful, they ought to start their campaign by refusing to accept grants for their political work from donor agencies of various "imperialist" countries.

What a great line! I'm going to find ways to use that line when I argue with my left-liberal friends.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/30/2004 17:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Gee, the NGOs haven't had a good week, PR-wise.
Posted by: Pappy || 01/30/2004 22:09 Comments || Top||


UN makes a subtle spelling error in Translation of Steve Forbes’ Tax Plan
EFL - Snarky Opinion Piece that contains ideas that border on freedom. Trolls with blood-pressure problems should beware. Fred remove if you desire as article is not strictly WOT. More of a WOK War on Fleptocracy piece.

Every day on Planet Earth, 25,000 people die of starvation. Given this startling reality, one might be forgiven for wondering why the most controversial issue on the agenda of last week’s World Health Organization meeting was the size of our love handles. Yet the venerable global health body practically begged for this fight. WHO’s anti-obesity strategy includes a call for "fat taxes" on hot dogs, candy, and the like. The Bush Administration won the right to amend WHO’s plan after charging that it neglects "the notion of personal responsibility." Predictably, defenders of the fat tax cried foul.

Most notably, the self-described "food police" at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) accused the Administration of "sabotage." They consulted on WHO’s plan, and the fat tax is the crown jewel of their anti-obesity policy. "We could envision taxes on butter, potato chips, whole milk, cheeses, [and] meat," says CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson.

CSPI’s food scolds didn’t respond to the Administration’s "personal responsibility" charge -- and for good reason. They genuinely don’t believe average people are capable of making their own food decisions. CSPI’s Margo Wootan recently declared: "We have got to move beyond personal responsibility." Twinkie-tax inventor (and CSPI scientific advisory board member) Kelly "Big Brother" Brownell also wants to "get away from these arguments about personal responsibility."

One recent poll gave it an eight percent approval rating, which puts its popularity somewhere between a root canal and Dennis Kucinich.

-snip-

Translation - WHO and UN are shaking down us fat guys at the expense of poor Cuba sugar farmers. Pass me a salad.
Posted by: Super Hose || 01/30/2004 1:34:16 PM || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Tax on cheeses? Do they really think phrawnce would tolerate that?
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 13:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Fat has it's place. On a short visit to the Soviet Union in the middle of February I was offered Russian bread and a white spread. Discovered the white spread was lard... I also discovered I had suddenly developed a taste for it. Weather does strange things.....
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 14:17 Comments || Top||

#3  From what I remember, CSPI pretty much consists of that Jacobson fellow and a fax machine. The press gives them coverage because the press would rather reprint press releases and leave early than work a little to write a real story.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 14:20 Comments || Top||

#4  This is as irrational as the famous Twinkie Defense. That was also used to abdicate personal responsibility, if I remember correctly.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 01/30/2004 14:47 Comments || Top||

#5  I got yer "fat tax" right here, bub. All you gotta do is COME AND GET IT!
Posted by: mojo || 01/30/2004 15:11 Comments || Top||

#6  I second that. Come yank on my hot dog and you'll have my tax payment in no time.
Posted by: Anonymous || 01/30/2004 15:16 Comments || Top||

#7  Apparently they haven't heard of the Atkins diet - I can eat as much fat as I want and I'm still losing weight - really! These guys need to get with the program, a high carb tax is more like it.
Posted by: B || 01/30/2004 15:52 Comments || Top||

#8  Actually the sad thing about this is how obvious that none of these people have a clue how the human body works. It is also obvious that they love to treat obesity like a religion: complete with original sin (eating that first "bad" food), sins, salavation (lots of exercise and only "good" food) and heaven (that perfect body).
Posted by: Chemist || 01/30/2004 15:57 Comments || Top||

#9  Mr. Chemist.... I've shamelessly copied your whole post.... I'll try to give you credit when I can...
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 17:33 Comments || Top||

#10  Oh No! My wife is in Atkins Purgatory.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 17:35 Comments || Top||

#11  Assume for a moment that the UN nannies are successful in their quest for the "Fat Tax", do they get to skim off of this fund at the same rate as they did on "Oil for Food" program? Just another trough to dip from and people will still be starving at the same rate.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 01/30/2004 18:41 Comments || Top||

#12  Personally I wouldn't mind a $.05 sin tax on every candy bar, bag of chips/doritos/pretzels, and other junk food if the money could all be gaurnteed(sp) to go to some really worthy purpose. But with the UN involved it would most likey go to French restraunts in NY
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 01/30/2004 23:04 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Attack on Musharraf: Tribal Malik held
A tribal Malik, Khan Muhammad Deen, was taken into custody by an intelligence agency in connection with last month’s suicide attack on President Pervez Musharraf, his family claimed. Some relatives of the malik, belonging to Akhurwal tribe, said that on Tuesday he had disappeared in a mysterious manner on Tuesday.
"One minute he was standing there, and the next, "poof", he was gone!"
They said he had gone to attend the annual function of distribution of allowances among the maliks at the district council hall, Kohat.
Went to pick up his check.
They said they believed that the malik was whisked away by officials of an intelligence agency after the ceremony. The relatives said that when he did not return home they contacted the tribal administration of Kohat Frontier Region. They were informed that he would be interrogated in connection with the recovery of a huge quantity of arms and ammunition from Rawalpindi and the suicide attack on the president. The family members have not been informed of the Malik’s whereabouts. A few years ago, during an operation some hand-grenades were recovered from his residence and he was linked with the Kashmiri fighters. However, after remaining in custody for a few months he was set free.
Typical Pak catch-and-release program. However, going after Musharraf is a whole nuther matter.
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 10:24:39 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How many brothers does Howard Dean have? Frankly, I thought Dean was a rather WASPish name.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 01/30/2004 14:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Well he's rather a Waspish fellow. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 15:57 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Iraq Beginning to Become a Normal Society
Amir Taheri
At a radio phone-in program the other day I was taken to task by some listeners for what they believed is Iraq’s “slide into chaos.” “You campaigned for the liberation of Iraq and now look what has happened!” This was followed by a “what has happened” list of events that included Shiites demonstrating, Kurds asking for autonomy, Sunnis sulking, and various political parties and groups tearing each other apart in the Iraqi media over the shape of the future constitution. The truth, however, is that, far from sliding into chaos or heading toward civil war, Iraq is beginning to become a normal society. And all normal societies face uncertainties just as do all normal human beings.
Just look at the Democratic primaries!
One should welcome the gradual emergence of a normal political life in Iraq after nearly half a century of brutal despotism, including 35 years of exceptionally murderous Baathist rule. The central aim of the war in Iraq, at least as far as I am concerned, was to create conditions in which Shiites can demonstrate without being machine-gunned in the streets of Baghdad and Basra, while the Kurds are able to call for autonomy without being gassed by the thousands as they were in Halabja under Saddam.
Somehow Michael Moore and Polly Toynbee both miseed that.
It is good that Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Sistani can issue fatwas, something he could not have done under Saddam Hussein. It is even better that those who disagree with the grand ayatollah could say so without being murdered by zealots.
Why it’s almost ... western!
And why shouldn’t the Sunnis sulk if they feel that they may not get a fair deal in the new Iraq? And what is wrong with Kurds telling the world that they are a distinct people with their own languages, culture and even religious faiths, and must, therefore, be allowed to develop within the parameters of their identity? If anything, the Iraqi political fight is taking place with an unusual degree of courtesy in which the Marques of Queensbury’ rule applies, which is not the case even in some mature democracies. The new Iraq, as it is emerging, will be full of uncertainties. But that is precisely why the liberation war was justified. Under Saddam the Iraqis faced only the certainty of concentration camps and mass graves.
And shredding machines.
The Iraqis are now free to debate all aspects of their individual and national life. The fact that different, often conflicting views are now expressed without fear should be seen as a positive achievement of the liberation. Democracy includes the freedom to demonstrate, especially against those in charge, and to “tear each other apart” in the media and town-hall political debates. It also includes the difficulty of reaching a consensus on major issues. Those who follow Iraqi politics would know that Iraq today is the only Arab country where all shades of opinion are now free to express themselves and to compete for influence and power in a free market of ideas.
That’s the neo-con argument in a nutshell.
Even the Baathists, whose party was formally banned after the liberation, are beginning to group in a number of local clubs.

What are the key issues of political debate in Iraq today? Here are some:
• The Arab Sunnis want Iraq described as “part of the Arab nation.” This is opposed by the Kurds who say the constitution must describe Iraq as a “binational: Arab and Kurdish” state. The Shiites, some 60 percent of the population, reject both the Arab and the “binational” formulae. Instead, they wish to emphasize the concept of Iraqitude (Uruka).

• The Kurds want Iraq to become a federal state so that they can enjoy autonomy in their provinces. This is opposed by Arab Sunnis and Shiites.

• Some parties, both Sunni and Shiite, want Islam to be acknowledged as the religion of the state in the new constitution.

• Some parties want Iraq to withdraw from OPEC, the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and, instead, seek some form of association with the European Union.
Think about this guys, don’t replace one failed system with another.
• Several parties and personalities want a clause for peace and cooperation with all nations to be included in the constitution. They see this as a step toward an eventual recognition of Israel.

• There are deep divisions on economic philosophy.

• There are divisions on the electoral system. The Kurds and Sunni Arabs want proportional representations with measures that could prevent Shiites from using simple majority rules to impose their will. The Shiites want a first past-the-post system that could give them up to 70 percent of the seats in any future Parliament.
Most of these issues have haunted Iraq since it was carved out of the Ottoman Empire and formed into a nation-state some seven decades ago. Successive Iraqi despots tried to keep a lid on these issues either by denying their existence or by stifling debate. This is what most Arab regimes, which share many of Iraq’s problems, have done for decades and continue to do today. If Iraq is to be transformed into a model for all Arabs it should take a different path right from the start.

The US-led coalition that now controls Iraq could well revert to that despotic tradition by imposing an artificial consensus. The fact that the coalition has chosen not to do is to its credit. Real consensus is bound to be harder to achieve and Iraq is certain to experience a lively political debate, including mass demonstrations and a war of leaflets, until a compromise is reached on how to form a provisional government and how to handle the task of writing a new constitution. Most Iraqi political figures, acting out of habit, constantly turn to the coalition authorities with the demand that their own view be adopted and imposed by fiat. The coalition should resist the temptation to dictate terms. It should also refrain from making any partial alliances. Today, the entire Iraqi nation, in all its many different components, could be regarded, at least potentially, as a friend of the US and its allies. The US-led coalition should accept that the road ahead will be bumpy. But that is not necessarily bad news. For democracy is nothing but a journey on constantly bumpy roads.
This ought to be printed/broadcast over the Voice of America to the entire Arab region.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/30/2004 10:41:39 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Iraqi sovereignty belongs to Iraqis. They need to write their own constitution, elect their own leaders and make their own mistakes.

They could not possibly do any worse than their occupiers, who have been lurching from crisis to crisis for the last eight months in a haze of incompetence and ignorance.
Posted by: Tao Gold || 01/30/2004 11:03 Comments || Top||

#2  could not possibly do any worse than their occupiers

Judging from past history I bet they're perfectly capable of doing worse, much worse.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 11:13 Comments || Top||

#3  They could not possibly do any worse than their occupiers, who have been lurching from crisis to crisis for the last eight months in a haze of incompetence and ignorance.

Actually, they could end up with another ruler like Saddam and hundreds of thousands of freshly-created mass graves. The incompetence and ignorance rests on the side of the anti-American crowd, which compounds its malice by lying about American intentions in Iraq and brushing aside the scale of Saddam's evil.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 01/30/2004 11:26 Comments || Top||

#4  Tao Gold... wow that was an incredibly stupid statement. Is there an award for that kinda stupidity? Because you went all out and I'd vote for ya.
Posted by: Damn_Proud_American || 01/30/2004 11:42 Comments || Top||

#5  Zhang, are you forgetting Saddam is the creation of America. Who armed him, who looked away as he was commiting atrocities against the Shiites.
Posted by: Tao Gold || 01/30/2004 12:38 Comments || Top||

#6  Tao Gold-- If the US armed him, why did he have so damn many Russian tanks? And if you want to know who looked away while he was killing his own people, look no further than the UN.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/30/2004 12:45 Comments || Top||

#7  Damn Proud American....let's start up an award in honor of Faisal and his couch surfing, rent avoiding buddy TG. Fellow Rantburgers, how about the "BBC Award" for continued spouting off of tired old BS in defiance of the facts, especially if it is anti-American or anti-Israel?
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/30/2004 12:48 Comments || Top||

#8  "Tao Gold" -- check the facts, and you'll see that the primary weapons suppliers to Iraq were Russia (thus the AKs and T-series tanks), France (Mirages) and China. The US sold them a couple of transport helicopters during the Iran-Iraq War, when we were hoping Iraq would soak up Iran's jihadi supply.

Do people like Tao Gold work hard to maintain their ignorance, or does it come naturally?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 13:22 Comments || Top||

#9  Ok, who's got the link to that Swedish/Swiss group that shows Russia at 57% thru 1990 and the US at 1%(?)

The truth is out there, Tao. And you don't have it.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 13:25 Comments || Top||

#10  Tao, fill us in on the "Us armed saddam" thing. It would make a great thread. Start at the beginning and lay it out.

You do have some facts right?
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 13:38 Comments || Top||

#11  Zhang, are you forgetting Saddam is the creation of America. Who armed him, who looked away as he was commiting atrocities against the Shiites.

Tao Gold, are you forgetting that the US had no diplomatic relations with Iraq until the early 1980's, and that Saddam's armory was composed mainly of Russian, Chinese and French equipment? Even if Saddam was a CIA agent (for intelligence on Iraqi politics), as some allege, that's quite different from saying that he carried out his invasions and massacres on the CIA's orders.* Sammy the Bull Gravano (the mob consigliere) murdered people and trafficked in drugs after he became an FBI agent, but it's hard to argue that the FBI was involved. If the FBI was unable to control Gravano, and Gravano was in the US, it's hard to see how the CIA might have controlled Saddam, given that Saddam had the resources of an entire oil-rich country protecting him.

* Even if we accept the anti-American argument that Saddam was an American operative gone rogue, wouldn't it be America's reponsibility to shoot him down, just as it is the responsibility of a dog's owner to put down his rabid dog?
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 01/30/2004 13:53 Comments || Top||

#12  ..are you forgetting Saddam is the creation of America. Who armed him,..

Certainly not the U.S., unless you believe that civilian use helicopters converted for military use by the Iraqis constitutes "arms".
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/30/2004 14:41 Comments || Top||

#13  Tao Gold, where'd you go? It must have hurt getting smacked upside your hollow skill with actually FACTS! LOL! Fear the Clue-Bat! People, and I use that term loosely, like you make me laugh! Thanks!

But as funny (funny stupid, not funny haha) as you are, please don't come back to this battle of wits unless you arm yourself first.

TaTa!
Posted by: Swiggles || 01/30/2004 15:05 Comments || Top||


Iraqi police kill gunman as car bomb defused near Kirkuk
Late Thursday, U.S. soldiers defused a car bomb on the al-Hawija bridge on a highway used by occupation forces and oil tankers transporting crude from the northern oilfields in Kirkuk to Iraq’s biggest refinery in Beiji, said Kirkuk police chief Gen. Turhan Youssef, according to the AP. Youssef said Iraqi police found the car and informed occupation forces. Later, police arrested four people for suspected involvement.

Early on Friday, Iraqi police manning a checkpoint in northern Iraq shot dead one of the six attackers who opened fire at them, police said. According to them, a checkpoint of Iraqi Civil Defence Forces was attacked by six gunmen in Salman Beg, 90 kilometres south of Kirkuk. One attacker was killed and another injured in retaliatory fire, said Gen. Anwar Amin, chief of ICDC in Kirkuk.
Excellent!
Elsewhere, many shopkeepers in Ramadi, a pro-Saddam city west of Baghdad, reported receiving leaflets warning Iraqis to stop working for or with Americans within 10 days or face death. The undated statement was signed by a previously unknown group, "Anbar Mujahedeen Brigade, the Military Unit." Anbar is the province that includes Ramadi.
Another member of the "Group of the Month Club".
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 10:36:17 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


No Evidence That Terrorist Ekinci Died In Suicide Attack In Iraq
Istanbul Police Chief Celalettin Cerrah said on Thursday that there was no concrete evidence that Azad Ekinci, head of the formation of terrorist organization Al Qaida in Turkey who plotted four bomb attacks in Istanbul in November 2003, died in the suicide attack in Iraq. Cerrah told reporters that news that Ekinci staged the suicide attack on a police station in the west of Iraq on December 14, 2003 in which 18 people, including 16 policemen lost their lives, and died in that attack did not reflect the facts. ’’There is no concrete evidence that Ekinci died in this attack,’’ Cerrah said.
It was a little too handy.
The head cheeses are always too important to the movement to actually blow themselves up...
Meanwhile, a high-level official in Istanbul Police Department said that Syrian intelligence unit informed Turkey that Ekinci was with a group which crossed from Syria to Iraq 15 days ago.
Which is 32 days after he was supposed to have "died".
The same official stated that news that Ekinci died in the suicide attack in Iraq was published in two newspapers in Iraq. The news could be spread on purpose by the terrorist organization to enable Ekinci and other top members of the organization to move easily, the official noted.
Which is why we shouldn’t believe any death reports without burying the body ourselves. Even then, sometimes you need to dig them up to make sure they are still there.
The official said that Turkey was in contact with international intelligence units related with the suicide attack in Iraq.
Related in which way?
As a result of those contacts, Turkey learned that person who staged the mentioned suicide attack could not be identified, the official stated.
"We have no idea whose nose that is."
The official said that Turkey would definitely have information if Azad Ekinci staged that attack. Noting that Ekinci had not spoken to his family by phone for a long time, the same official said that it could be possible to learn Ekinci’s place in case he had called his family.
Well, there goes that chance. Of course, sometimes these guys are that stupid so it doesn’t hurt to keep listening.
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 10:09:03 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Calling Iraq’s Bluff
By Charles Krauthammer EFL
Before the great hunt for scapegoats begins, let’s look at what David Kay has actually said about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. First, and most trumpeted, he did not find "large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction." He did find, as he reported last October, WMD-related activities, from a very active illegal missile program to research and development ("right up until the end") on weaponizing the deadly poison ricin (the stuff London police found on terrorists last year). He discovered "hundreds of cases" of U.N.-prohibited and illegally concealed activities.

Significant findings, but still a far cry from what the administration had claimed last March. Kay has now offered the most novel and convincing explanation for why U.S. intelligence — and, for that matter, U.N. inspectors and the intelligence agencies of every country that mattered — misjudged what Iraq possessed. It was a combination of Iraqi bluff, deceit and corruption far more bizarre than heretofore suspected. Kay discovered that an increasingly erratic Saddam Hussein had taken over personal direction of WMD programs. But because there was no real oversight, the scientists would go to Hussein, exaggerate or invent their activities, then pocket the funds. Scientists were bluffing Hussein. Hussein was bluffing the world. The Iraqis were all bluffing each other. Special Republican Guard commanders had no WMDs, but they told investigators that they were sure other guard units did. It was this internal disinformation that the whole outside world missed.

Congress needs to find out why, with all our resources, we had not a clue that this was going on. But Kay makes clear that President Bush was relying on what the intelligence agencies were telling him. Kay contradicts the reckless Democratic charges that Bush cooked the books. "All the analysts I have talked to said they never felt pressured on WMD," says Kay. "Everyone believed that [Iraq] had WMD." That includes the Clinton administration.
There’s more at the link.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 01/30/2004 5:53:39 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And maybe that's why Bill has never said anything publicly about "Bush cooking the Books". Of course the Dems always want to gut the intel agencies. As you sow, so shall you reap
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 01/30/2004 6:01 Comments || Top||

#2  If title link does not work, try this or this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61949-2004Jan29.html
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 01/30/2004 6:02 Comments || Top||

#3  I pondered this possibility a while back. I wasn't sure that Hussein was being hood-winked by his own folks, but I was sure he was talking a bigger game then he had. He simply wanted to maintain the image of the big dog on the block w/the wmd boasts. Unfortunately for him, & after 9/11 we took it serious. The WMD angle was never a big player w/me. I thought that after he violated 17 resolutions in 12 years why the hell was he still in power. He should've been handled 5 years ago. Imagine the Japanese or Germans trying to start up some nonsense in 1947, pretty sure they would've got a third bomb from ole Harry.
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 7:18 Comments || Top||

#4  I still think we will find WMD's. It seems almost incomprehensible to me that we will not. There were too many GI's at the beginning of the war that said they found what appeared to be the goods, but then we were quickly told..don't get excited, wait and see. All of the information about labs and contaminated sites quickly seemed to go into a black hole of silence with lame excuses about ...well..it wasn't much really...go away and we'll let you know.

While I don't doubt that there is truth to the fact that perhaps Sadaam was bragging to look bigger in his britches..I think that if you step back and ignore all of the hype, it's clear Sadaam had to goods.
Posted by: B || 01/30/2004 9:30 Comments || Top||

#5  Its fairly simple: the CIA decided to err on the side of caution. Its risk management at its finest, and they backed themselves into a corner.

Below is a my bet on how some of the decision-making was done, based on my experience. Of course, they would have better evidence from which to develop the scenarios and probabilities.

Scenarios were probably laid out along these lines: (in no particular order - you will have to rank them yourself later)

a) Low WMD capability. And they are all lying about them.

b) They have robust WMD capability. And are covering them up.

c) They had WMD capability but destroyed them, and are trying to regain that capability.

d) They had no WMD and are bluffing us and themselves.

Cross that with consequences:

1) They use the WMD regionally.

2) They use the WMD world wide.

3) They do no use the WMD (Possibly due to fearing the consequences or lacking the weapons).

4) They distribute the WMD but do not direct their use (i.e. they have WMD and it gets away from them).

Simple 4x4 matrix. Apply a "severity" based on the impact of each of the numbered items. Apply probability to each of the lettered items.

Rank the "lettered" cases from lowest probability on the left column to highest probability on the right column, and rank the "numbered" outcomes from highest impact on the top row to lowest impact on the bottom row (4 rows of impact, 4 columns of probability).

For now, use Extreme, Hi, Med, Low for probability and severity ratings, assign a value of 10 for extreme, 7 for hi, 4 for Med and 1 for low.

Whichever cells in the matrix come out with the 3-4 highest scores (the ones in the upper right corner of the matrix) are the cases you concern your self with, and are the ones you concentrate your main efforts at mitigation. Since you have limited resources (eventually you run out of budget, agents and analysts, especially ones that are specialists in that region), you spread them very thinly on low scoring cells (lower-left fo the matrix), and give most of your resources to the upper-right, high-score cases.

The high score cases are actively worked, getting money, people, time and internal attention (i.e. they are the ones the President hears about the most).

The medium-score cases you keep an eye on by periodically reviewing the evidence to see if the probabilities have changed, or the impact has changed - but use hard facts only to decrease impact or probability.

The low-score cases get reviewed less often, and by less people, and the less competent people.

So, based on history and precedent (Saddam's prior use of gas on the Kurds and Iranians, nearly a decade of UN and US inspector's evidence of the hiding of programs for WMD), its no wonder they got the probabilities wrong.

Cell b-2 was probably rated a 10x10=100 case (The highest score possible), and thus required urgent and drastic action in light of 9/11. Cells a-3 and d-3 were probably at the lower-left in terms of score, with d-3 (what we are seeing now) likely being a 1x1 = 1 score (ceratinly a score less than 20). This means it didnt draw much attention nor was given many resources for investigating and proving the case, nor was it briefed often or reviewed often.

This analyst outcome is natural, and a result of the mindset we have had since 9/11 and the previous Gulf war:

Would you want to be the analyst who marked a low probability to Saddam invading Kuwait (and live with the consequences of that)?

Would you want to be the analyst who decided that terrorists flying hijacked planes into multiple targets at the same time was "low" probability (and live with the consequences of that)?

Or, in this case, be the analyst who failed to elevate an "extreme" impact item to a higher probability based on (at the time) "sketchy" evidence?

Bottom-line is that they didn't have much in the way of "hard evidence" to reduce probability of the given scenarios. And a lot of incentive to go with the more dire scenarios that would require the President to act.

Do the math for yourself with a post-9/11 mindset. And see why President Bush was given the advice he got from the Intel community and CIA. Advice from "experts" whom he had to trust implicitly.

That the actions also had potential long-term desirable geopolitical consequences (democracy in the region, at eye opener for Khadaffi and Kim and other despots) is just icing on the cake.

So now you know why any honest person, in his position (sworn to defend this nation and its people), would feel compelled to take the actions that the President did, in the face of that threat matrix.
Posted by: OldSpook || 01/30/2004 9:37 Comments || Top||

#6  He definitely had ricin, which is no play toy. I can't rule out the possibility of stuff finding its way to Syria, etc. One truck load of Sarin could put the hurting on that whole area and wouldn't of been hard to bury or hide it over the border.
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 9:38 Comments || Top||

#7  OS, good class on systemic intel analysis. Thanks. I'm going to cut & paste that for future on a word doc. Good explanation for the reality behind the hoopla.
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 10:03 Comments || Top||

#8  OS, thanks for that. Just the kind of analysis we needed more of before the war.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/30/2004 10:23 Comments || Top||

#9  Rantburg U at it's finest. I am reminded of Hitler in closing days of WWII, ordering about fictitious armies. Noone dared inform him of the truth.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 01/30/2004 11:28 Comments || Top||

#10  What amounts of WMD would satisfy the critics? As I read the reports, about 3,000 liters of anthrax are unaccounted for. That works out to 937.5 gallons, or 17 55 gallon drums. I would hardly define this as a "vast" quantity, which is the term the lefty loons are using, yet it is sufficient ot kill a whole lot of folks. And I can hide 17 drums really well in a country the size of California.

As I said on my blog "The lack of WMD findings to date do not prove that there were no WMD's. Stay the course. Patience." I cite the Blix report to the UN of January 2003 and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report from August 2002. I have also repeatedly cited the Kay report in defense of this issue. Kay contradicts himself repeatedly in the last two weeks, and I view him as no more reliable at this point than Scott "She Swore She Was Fourteen" Ritter.

The simple answer is that Saddam repeatedly violated the ceasefire. Under the laws of war we are entitled to resume hostilities.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 01/30/2004 11:56 Comments || Top||

#11  Chuck, your last statement is what it all boiled down to for me. Ceasefire violations; concrete reason to resume hostilities. Enough said.
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 13:57 Comments || Top||

#12  Sammy had all the time in the world to hide or destroy the evidence of his WMD programs. Even immediately after the Talibanies in Afghanistan were routed, he must have known that he would be next. Nonetheless, that the White House didn't prepare for the eventuality that the WMD wouldn't be found seems astounding to me. At the very least it gives fuel for all the America bashers and loons out there.
Posted by: Rafael || 01/30/2004 14:12 Comments || Top||

#13  FWIW, last night I wrote the following: http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com/nfff/2004/02/yet_more_iraq_w.html. Other than that, I'm still mulling things over.
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 02/03/2004 10:02 Comments || Top||


Whats all the this Hubub-Bub?
Saddam’s Exploitation of U.N. Sanctions
"Since the deposed regime endorsed the ’Memorandum of Understanding,’ also known as ’oil for food [program],’ it turned it into a despicable political and commercial game, and used it to finance its clandestine acquisitions of arms, expensive construction materials for the presidential palaces and mosques, and frivolous luxury items. It turned the oil sales agreements into the greatest bribery operation in history, buying souls and pens, and squandering the nation’s resources. Since then, rumors were abound about vouchers that Saddam gave to certain Arab and foreign dignitaries, providing them with crude oil in exchange for their support to the regime in a period of international isolation, and as a way to finance the campaign to lift the economic sanctions against it and to whitewash its image."
whitewash what?
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 1:18:38 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ..No, it's 'What's all this brou-ha-ha?"
Nick Danger lives.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 01/30/2004 9:29 Comments || Top||

#2  Since we here in the US are the greediest and most-oil hungry people to exist throughout history, why is it that WE DIDN'T get in on the conucopia of oil wealth being offered by Saddam?

Could it be that we are NOT the "greediest", most "materialistic" nation on Earth?

Is it possible that those nations opposing our removal of Saddam's regime are the same nations that were involved in taking documented oil bribes?

Where are all the LLLs when nations OTHER than the US act like "greedy, selfish, oil-hungry, corporate-controlled puppet regimes"? Why do they get a free ticket in the LLL world?

Answer: the LLLs have no ideology. No matter WHAT reasons they give for their actions, the bottom line is that they simply hate the United States and George W. Bush.
Posted by: Unmutual || 01/30/2004 10:18 Comments || Top||

#3  Another minister has issued a denial. A former French Minister of the Interior. I don't understand why Sadaam would need to bribe a Minister of the Interior of another country. Maybe it was about the oooooiiiilllll.
Posted by: Super Hose || 01/30/2004 11:40 Comments || Top||

#4  Peshawar...
Regnad Kcin does, indeed, live! Hmmm. I wonder if Saddam had to split his key to the vault with the sound effects man Kofi...
/Peshawar

Oil for Food
Only a confirmed moron could possibly deny this was one of the most costly and corrupt jokes ever perpetrated. I loved yesterday's (?) article about it where a UN Spokesphool, speaking in the present - not some old pre-war blather, said it had been "audited" multiple times and claims of abuse were disproven. A classic case of blindered twits who believe the bogus paperwork when the truth is right in front of them - or on the docks. Note that for the UN / multilateralist crowd such obvious discrepancies don't interrupt their sleep. Long ago they abandoned reality, which didn't suit them well at all, for phantasy.

Nothing will ever come of exposing this sham - or the huge number of whores (the bad kind) who participated - since they are the UN functionaries who will decide what will be done about it.

Yet another reason the UN is DEAD. When will we stop throwing money at a bad hand and fold up this joke? We've certainly learned a lot from the failures of the League of Nations and the UN, so why don't we begin formulating an entity that will work? One with proven checks and balances which we can get behind and know that it isn't a sham?

Some (many?) people are so unsure of their own values and ethics that they want (need?) this (currently) bogus imprimatur of respectability, legitimacy, and morality. So why not design an entity that actually delivers these things - constituted of member states that follow some well-chosen principles? I would certainly like for the US to jettison those who play the accommodation / appeasement games (can you say State Dept and other constituent bureaucracies?) so we could sign up and make good on our pledge. At the moment, I believe that no nation is worthy or capable of guaranteeing anything approaching 100% integrity - and that's both a shame and an embarrassment to me. A government with depts and agencies vying against each other and making policy (instead of executing it... e.g. CIA using asshat Joe Wilson & the follow-on Plame Affair) is just simply stupid, not to mention ineffective, distracting, and self-defeating.

Perhaps Dubya will make a sorely-needed stand on this issue (the UN and follow-on) in a second term. He's certainly the only man on the US horizon who might... so we should do everything in our power to make sure he gets it - else everything in the last 2+ yrs is for naught, since all of the opposition candidates wish to undo it all - except for Lieberman, and he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning their nomination.

The UN truly is a dead rat on America's kitchen floor. Time to clean it up - and our act, too. It's sure as hell no one else is going to do it. Taking on such an effort is the American way, not to mention a demonstration of true leadership.
Posted by: .com || 01/30/2004 12:55 Comments || Top||

#5  The UN will die a slow death, unfortunately, mainly because it employs a lot of European diplomats. It will become more of a joke however. And hopefully, one day, it will become too ridiculous to even pretend it has any moral rectitude.
Posted by: Rafael || 01/30/2004 16:16 Comments || Top||

#6  2010, UN head-Qtrs, Bagdad!
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 23:20 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Official: al-Qaida Linked to Indonesians
Four students in custody in Indonesia were recruited by a key terrorism suspect to become future leaders of a Southeast Asian terror group that is linked to al-Qaida and blamed for a series of deadly attacks in the region, a government official said. The students traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan for training and served as liaisons between al-Qaida and Southeast Asia’s Jemaah Islamiyah militant group, said Ansyaad Mbai, who heads the counterterrorism desk at the Ministry for Political and Security Affairs.
They’ve been paying attention.
Hambali - the alleged Jemaah Islamiyah leader who is now in U.S. custody - financed their trip from Indonesia to Pakistan, Mbai told The Associated Press on Thursday. "Interviews with Malaysian and Thai authorities as well as other Islamic students in custody in Malaysia revealed that they were being trained to become leaders," he said.
JI: The Next Generation
The four students were among 19 foreign students arrested by Pakistani security officials during raids on Islamic schools in Karachi in September. Pakistan deported the men and they were arrested upon arrival in Jakarta. Indonesian authorities have charged them with having "links to terrorist acts." Their attorney denies the men have any involvement with terrorism, though he said that two of them admitted helping Hambali raise money for Muslim militants fighting Christians in the Maluku islands in 2001.
"That’s not terrorism, it’s just a cultural thing"
The other two admitted forging documents.
Doesn’t everyone in a Pak Islamic school?
"These four are innocent of terrorism," their attorney, Mahendradatta, said Thursday. "The government should release them."
How about no?
Mbai said Indonesian authorities will need access to Hambali to make a case against the men. "Their link is with Hambali," Mbai said. "But until now, we’ve got no access to Hambali. Without access, it will be impossible to link these cases." The United States government is said to be considering an Indonesian request to question Hambali.
Just hold them, we’ll get back to you on that.
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 9:41:13 AM || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Al-Qaeda might be a reality alright but it has, at times, been used as a scapegoat by the great american (Moral) leader GWB and his fundamentalists.
I think we now need a report in which the Al-Qaeda gene needs to be traced down the DNA. suckers.
Posted by: Faisal || 01/30/2004 9:53 Comments || Top||

#2  You really are an ad hominem-throwing asshat, Faisal.
Clearly, being in Al Queda is linked to Down's Syndrome, but we're not concerned with breeding it out just yet, just killing them as murdering adults.
Oh, and so it's a given for jihadi Islamists to be fundamentalists, but not OK President Bush and his supporters to be Bible-believing Christian or Jew "fundamentalists?"
Hope you'll disappear back into the ether soon.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 01/30/2004 10:07 Comments || Top||

#3  Jennie, just remember that "Faisal" is the pen-name of a twelve-year-old kid who will be a virgin until he finally leaves his parents' house at age 47.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 10:31 Comments || Top||

#4  I believe Faisal has already mentioned he lives at his dad's place and saves rent money..... ever work in a call center Faisal?
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 11:19 Comments || Top||

#5  Yo Faisal

"I think we now need a report in which the Al-Qaeda gene needs to be traced down the DNA."

We are coming to take a bloodsample shortly, you are advised ( remember it is only advice, not cooperating would be way more fun for our operatives )to cooperate.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 01/30/2004 11:49 Comments || Top||

#6  #2: christianity and jewism are miles apart honey. see my other posting on what the pedophile manual talmud has to say about Jesus.
#3: It's a big mansion Robert. And he'll be buying my house too. I don't have to wait till 47 to get a house lol.
#4: i have nothing to do with call centers moron.
#5: Oooo Evert. i'm waiting. you know how much i love pussies :-)
Posted by: Faisal || 01/30/2004 12:33 Comments || Top||

#7  Faisal--what, you can't buy a house on your own? Some real man you are.
I'm sure you live in a HUGE mansion. Oh yeah. Bet there's five swimming pools, lots of supermodels hanging out sunning themselves and an open bar. And they all want you desperately, yet you choose to enlighten us all with your pearls of wisdom.
Aren't we lucky here at Rantburg....
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/30/2004 13:10 Comments || Top||

#8  C'mon, Faisal, why don't you let us know who you really are? Why do you always get defensive when I point out you're nothing but a coward, hiding behind fake names and anonymity? Are my guesses hitting a little too close to home?

I gotta love the bit about your dad buying you a home. Are you too stupid or too lazy to earn enough to buy one on your own?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 13:26 Comments || Top||

#9  RC, he's probably some kid from Dearborn, Michigan going to Henry Ford Community College by day & working at dad's party store at night. Maybe Old Spook & Old Patriot can put a better bio sketch together w/their collective intel backgrounds. Either way, he's kept me mildly amused the past couple days.
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 14:02 Comments || Top||

#10  He called me Moron! I'm weeping out of one eye. I'm calling Nuss Ratchet on you Stevey.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 14:36 Comments || Top||

#11  mildly amused the past couple days.

Come on Jarhead give credit where it's due.. Faisal been an absolute scream. He's starting to repeat himself a little tho... a bad sign, indicative of a slow troll.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 14:38 Comments || Top||

#12  Just cuz you had to pay for your house doesn't mean everyone should do it Robert. See if my dad worked hard and has too many $$$ what's bad about him buying me a house eh? :-).
Shipman, as i told you since like all of you i don't get paid and i have more important issues on my mind than paleos and jews (let them kill each other till they both perish).
Posted by: Faisal || 01/30/2004 15:56 Comments || Top||

#13  Shipman, as i told you since like all of you i don't get paid and i have more important issues on my mind than paleos and jews

Cool! I'm going after a covey in the a.m. You gotta come by and pick up the cab anyway... Hatfield already knows ya... let's try again... but don't wear sandals this time.
Get here early... dawn is at 7:28 eastern.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 16:10 Comments || Top||


Thais stop topless drug smuggler
A British man who smuggled more than 9,000 ecstasy tablets past Bangkok Customs says he was later arrested - for not wearing a shirt. Alan John Kiernan was found by police who stopped him to be carrying packs of ecstasy pills in his trousers. "Shit happens," said Mr Kiernan, who could face the death penalty.
Yup, and you’re in it up to your eyebrows.
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 9:25:00 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  uh oh. I thought it was a LADY smuggler :(. Nothing beats a pair of jugs :-)
Posted by: Faisal || 01/30/2004 10:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Pretty Good Bourka Boy!
Posted by: Baby Assad || 01/30/2004 19:30 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
Italian Il Giornale: Al Qaeda Threatens to Nuke New York on February 2
I posted this before - got it off DEBKA

Special Report
December 31, 2003, 12:03 AM (GMT+02:00)
The banner headline spread across the front page of Il Giornale, the respected Milan daily reads:

“Al Qaeda: We will destroy New York within 35 days. Threat on the Internet. Countdown begins.”

The threat was contained in a video clip featured on a web site associated with the fundamentalist terror group. It announced al Qaeda plans to destroy New York in a nuclear blast on February 2. Il Giornale claims the FBI blocked and removed the web site.

The video clip showed three possible scenarios: 1. A bomb or giant fireball from the skies that will cover the metropolis with a radioactive cloud. 2. A storm of radioactive clouds that will topple skyscrapers one by one, along with the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge. 3. An explosion on board a charter aircraft that will cause a radioactive cloud to spread over the city.

The video clip was accompanied by large, red-lettered Arabic captions saying: “If God wills it, the end of America is near.”

DEBKAfile’s counter-terrorism sources say they cannot verify the authorship or gauge the seriousness of the threat because the Internet site is no longer accessible. But the report appeared in a newspaper widely viewed as the flagship of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Such reports - even if not authenticated - tend to contribute to the mounting sense of alarm generated by “Orange Alert” in America and other Western countries. It comes against the backdrop of appeals to New Year revelers to stay away from the traditional New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square, Rome’s St. Peter’s Square, Moscow’s Red Square and London’s Trafalgar Square – or even Disney World and the Las Vegas Strip. All these sites are surrounded by heavy security.

Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 01/30/2004 12:52:29 PM || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  While doubtful they could pull this off, I am curious what Rantburgers think we would do in retaliation if Al-Q did succeed in attacking a major US city with WMDs. What more could we do to destroy Al-Q that we're not doing already? Would there be an appropriate target for us to respond in kind with WMDs?
Posted by: Dar || 01/30/2004 13:02 Comments || Top||

#2  Riyadh, for starts.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 13:16 Comments || Top||

#3  I've always thought holding the destruction of the black stone in Mecca would have some pull
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 01/30/2004 13:20 Comments || Top||

#4  Yosemite: yep....Mecca: the worlds largest glass top parking lot. The gloves would be off for sure, but it would mostly be under the table. We wouldn't want to give the appearence of going indiscriminantly wild.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 01/30/2004 13:27 Comments || Top||

#5  And if we aren't destroyed, what's Allah saying? Somehow I don't think they'd listen.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 13:36 Comments || Top||

#6  Dar - there's this stolen 40km wide strip along the Eastern coast of Saudi Arabia that provides the funding for the vast majority of the terror in the world and removing it from the hands of turbans of any stripe would stop the insanity dead in its tracks in 90 days...

Cuz then they'd only have drug-smuggling to support the Religion of Peace™.
Posted by: .com || 01/30/2004 13:43 Comments || Top||

#7  Pakistan goes away. End of story.
Posted by: Hiryu || 01/30/2004 14:07 Comments || Top||

#8  Another hit and we would go medieval. Although with 21st century technology. People forget what we are capable of if we get really pissed off. Fortunately for them, we're not really pissed off ... yet.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 01/30/2004 14:17 Comments || Top||

#9  Redneck, I'd rather see us go Roman on them than go Medieval. The Romans invented the word "decimation" for a reason, after all.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 14:22 Comments || Top||

#10  I guess arresting the perpetrators and bringing the full extent of the law down on their heads would be out.

Not to be a nit picker RC, but that decimate thing was a form of dicipline for cowardice in battle. Every 10th man was sent to the Ellysian(?) fields. Saw it on the History channel while faisel was watching the Spice channel.
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 14:32 Comments || Top||

#11  I reckon Carthage would be a better example. Right now the way I feel the Romans seem overly compassionate to me.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 01/30/2004 14:37 Comments || Top||

#12  I'm not sure what would happen, but it would be advisable not to give any speeches about how Islam is a religion of peace.
(unless you feel like being attacked by an angry mob)
Posted by: TS || 01/30/2004 14:39 Comments || Top||

#13  RC going Roman may give you a short term pleasure but that's a lot of salt... consider the long term effect on the aquifer. I say we sic the Jehovah's Witness's on them on down to the 12th generation.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 14:42 Comments || Top||

#14  Nice how these dumbasses say that they're going to "destroy" New York in thirty five days, yet cover their collective asses by saying "if God wills it".

You guys gonna deliver or not?
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/30/2004 14:56 Comments || Top||

#15  Correct. Decimate means to lose one out of ten - hence the 'deci'. I reckon teach done learned us up real good like.
Posted by: Anonymous || 01/30/2004 15:24 Comments || Top||

#16  I doubt this is anything but talk, which is cheap.

But if they DO nuke NY, the glove would definitely come off of the steel fist - we probably wouldn't actually nuke Riyadh or Mecca/Medina, although Salafist/Wahhabist clerics would probably become an endangered species in short order. The Saudi royal family would be out on their collective ear, and the Iranian Ayatollahs would get the "more in sorrow than in anger" speech while we violently dismantle their sick government. Pakistan would deliver every warhead, nuke scientist and design team they have or face the consequences.
Posted by: mojo || 01/30/2004 15:29 Comments || Top||

#17  "If God wills it is end of America"

If nothing happens I wonder if they will infer that God is on America's side and that dead Jihadis will not get 72 virgins, instead they will be one of the 72 virgins awarded to dead American soldiers and Marines.
Posted by: JFM || 01/30/2004 15:53 Comments || Top||

#18  Maybe I should show this to my wife so she can convince me to take Monday off.
Posted by: Tibor || 01/30/2004 17:31 Comments || Top||

#19  .com, Iran's oil fields are also conveniently located in one small area adjacent to Iraq and also with a Shia arab majority.

You are an armoured division in Southern Iraq. Do you turn right, or do you turn left? Tough choice!
Posted by: phil_b || 01/30/2004 17:40 Comments || Top||

#20  Nothing's 100% certain, of course - particularly not when you're dealing with wingnuts - but when during the Baader-Meinhof gang terrorist bombings in Germany in the early 1970's, I noticed that they didn't warn anyone - they just bombed. Same with some other major bombings. (Variation: call in a warning, but just a minute or so before the bomb goes off so the people in the building will be terrorized before they die.)

Generally speaking, if you send a warning it's either a prank and there's no bomb or there is a bomb, but you don't want to kill people - yet. We're long past that with these clowns.

As I said, nothing's 100% certain, but I'd be surprised if these clowns even tried to deliver.

And Allah help them and their ilk if they do - because no one else will.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 01/30/2004 18:05 Comments || Top||

#21  phil_b - LOL! You're right -- it's all so convenient... as if, uh, as if Allah hisownself wuz setting them up, heh.

Perhaps we do what Nathan Bedford Forrest did at Bryce's Crossroads - split in half and attack in both directions! I'd say we could take, and hold, the Saudi bit with the Mississippi Nat'l Guard. D'ya think it might take the 'Bama Boyz to take the Mad Mullah's toys away from them? Just think of it as facing a buncha Faisals. All talk and all wrong. LOL!
Posted by: .com || 01/30/2004 19:15 Comments || Top||

#22  Hate to be picky .com but Nathan Bedford Forrest is always all caps or ital. PBUH.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 19:33 Comments || Top||

#23  Daddy alwuz said NBF could beat Sheridan to death with JEBs banjo.
Posted by: Fitzhugh Lee || 01/30/2004 19:36 Comments || Top||

#24  FL - You're dead-right, bubba. Except for his pre-war politics, NBF kicked ass every time he engaged. Sheridan was very smart to stay north and steer clear, heh.

Ship - Huh? I'm sort of the ultimate Forrest-as-warrior fan, but I don't get it, bro... although I like the PBUH sentiment! LOL!

Methinks NBF's best quote (to his cheesedick commanding General, but I can't recall the worm's name right this minute) is always worthy of repeating,

"If you were any part of a man I'd box your jaws and force you to resent it..."

Now THAT deserves Italics AND Caps! Most direct testosterone-laden ain't no two ways about it eyeball-to-eyeball statement ever made, IMHO, heh. NBF just rocked.
Posted by: .com || 01/30/2004 20:16 Comments || Top||

#25  al-Qaeda didn't so signal 9/11. Why would they signal any punch?
Posted by: Korora || 01/30/2004 20:46 Comments || Top||

#26  FWIIW my guess is they will hijack multiple oil tankers (fairly easy to do. Tankers get hijacked on a regular basis in south and SE Asia) then target them at docked US ships or where they have limited manouvere room.
Posted by: phil_b || 01/30/2004 20:56 Comments || Top||

#27  Such an attack would result in a WWII-style mobilization of human and material resources for war. Over forty days and forty nights, Pakistan's nukes and capacity to deploy nukes will be neutralized first; every Islamic fascist regime, one-person and one-party Islamic dictatorship and Islamic monarchy will be toppled; every radical Islamist madrassah and mosque will be razed; and, as A. Coulter suggested, Muslims everywhere will be introduced to Christianity.
Posted by: Garrison || 01/30/2004 21:38 Comments || Top||

#28  "If God wills it is end of America"

This threat has been out there for a while now.

If these bastards do destroy america every country in the middle east is gone by our subs. Now this is a drastic interpertation - America is gone, a smoldering heap. But most doubtful, if they do get lucky and destroy an american city , or a large portion the gloves would def me off. At a minimum tehran, damascus and the north west frontier of pakland would be gone. At the worst all of the above plus the sods and a more through destruction of iran and pakland.
How could we not take at least limited nuclear warfare on known enemies?
The bastards support the terrorist and one or way or another we are going to reckon with this.
Posted by: Dan || 01/30/2004 22:32 Comments || Top||

#29  Yawn, the department of empty threats strikes again.
But if they where to pull something like this off then within a month the Saudi-oilfields would have an 101 Airborn flag flying over them, we would suddenly find very increased cooperation from both the mullahs and musharef, Assad would come face to face with some pissed of Israeli commandos and various other military units and the 4th ID would be patroling the streets of Mecca. And there aint a godd*mn thing Bin Hiding and his merry band of Jihadis could do about it.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 01/31/2004 5:32 Comments || Top||


Africa: West
Congo claim jumpers ushered out of Angola
EFL - An article that male Rantburgers can present to their wives as a reason for going for the bouquet of roses Valentine’s Day option for the ninth year in a row.
Angolan troops and police have driven at least 10,000 Congolese from northern Angola’s diamond zones in a bloody month-old campaign, Congolese officials and witnesses said Thursday. The alleged crackdown comes amid growing complaints from Angola that Congolese and other foreigners are plundering its diamond fields -- one of the world’s largest sources of diamonds. Angolan authorities refused comment Thursday on the alleged forced expulsions. At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Luanda, the Angola capital, spokesman Joao Pedro said he was "unable to confirm or deny these allegations."
He must not be the "Information Minister."
Alleged survivors reaching safety near Congo’s border told The Associated Press attacks by Angolan security forces started at the end of December.
"Yeah. I'm a survivor, by Gawd!"
"Well, you allege you are. Got any proof?"
"I'm breathin'!"
"The Angolan army and police started firing at us and burning our huts," said Congolese Puis Kabanga, reached by telephone in southern Congo, where he and other refugees from Angola had taken shelter with local clerics. Kabanga said he and other Congolese were attacked in the Angola city of Kambani. They fled, walking 11 days to the Congo border, he said. Angolan civilians armed with machetes attacked and robbed the fleeing Congolese, Kabanga said. At the border, Angola’s army and police confiscated the refugees’ remaining belongings, he said.
This is worse than the treatment that I get from the IRS.
News of the scale of the alleged expulsion drive became public Thursday with a report by Congolese rights group Voice of the Voiceless.
That's a fine name. Very poetic and a contradiction in terms to boot...
Beyond the 10,000 Congolese driven from Angola, hundreds more remained under arrest in Angola in "unhuman conditions," said Floribert Chebeya, president of Voice of the Voiceless.
But nobody could hear him when he said it...
Congo authorities said they were in negotiations with Angola over the alleged expulsions and arrests. Congolese officials were told the Congolese who were driven out or arrested had been mining diamonds without permits, Interior Minister Theophile Bemba said.
That's why they were robbed twice on the way out of the country.
Congo, like Angola, is coming out of a war fueled in part by diamond sales. Congo is estimated to have lost millions of dollars through illegal plundering of its resources during its war. News of Angola’s crackdown came as Congo announced a record year for diamond sales from its territory -- more than 27 million carats.
Almost sounds like genocide. Maybe the UN ought to study this problem so that nobody will get genocided.
Voice of the Voiceless has been trying to tell 'em about it, but nothing comes out when they move their lips.
Posted by: Super Hose || 01/30/2004 1:46:20 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Honey, I don't think I should buy you that diamond, don't you know that they are covered in African blood?"

"I don't get that ring, it'll be your blood that's spilled!"
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 14:14 Comments || Top||

#2  One word, "gemesis"
Posted by: Chemist || 01/30/2004 15:23 Comments || Top||

#3  Paying for A Diamond is Forever.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 15:39 Comments || Top||

#4  MMMMMMmmmmm ..... Jill St. John
Posted by: Frank G || 01/30/2004 20:02 Comments || Top||


Caribbean
"Bush wants to kill me!"
Fidel Castro hysterically accused U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday of plotting with Miami exiles to kill him as part of his administration’s hardening policies against the communist-run island. ’’We know that Mr. Bush has committed himself to the mafia ... to assassinate me,’’ the Cuban president said, using the term commonly employed here to describe anti-Castro Cuban Americans. Castro’s comments came at the end of a long-winded 5Âœ hour speech that began Thursday night and continued into early Friday at the closing of a conference bringing together activists across the region who oppose the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
I’ll bet a lot of them were thinking they’d be dead before he finished.
The Cuban leader didn’t back up his accusations with specific details.
"There are plots to kill me!"
"What kind of plots?"
"Deep plots!"
Castro also criticized the Bush administration’s Commission for a Free Cuba -- a panel set up last October and headed by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. When Bush announced the commission last October, Powell suggested that the goal is not to ease Castro out but to plan a strategy for Cuba once the 77-year-old leader is no longer in power.
Like who gets the major league league baseball team in Havana.
’’I can die a natural death or I can die a planned death,’’ Castro said. ``It really doesn’t matter to me how I die, but I will surely die fighting.’’
Just hurry up and die, please.
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 1:25:26 PM || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Jeeez! Fidel says people want to kill him like it's a bad thing! Can't help it if Castro and Cuba are on President Bush's 'Things To Do' List!... Nice Fisking, BTW!
Posted by: Jack Deth || 01/30/2004 13:32 Comments || Top||

#2  "Bush wants to kill me!"

This is something that bin Laden should be complaining about.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/30/2004 14:25 Comments || Top||

#3  It is true. The CIA offered me some money, but I'm holding for a better price.
Posted by: Sorge || 01/30/2004 14:54 Comments || Top||

#4  Poor Fidel.No Hollywood celebs visiting,no Democratic activists dropping by,no more Russian money,nobody from Africa singing your praises,Europe has forgotten you,and now,insult of insults,Washington is ignoring you(think about it-how many times does Cuba come up when they're briefing the President on the WOT or Korea).Just how irrelevent has Castro become?The US is detaining prisoners at a base on Cuban soil and there have not been any interviews w/Castro asking for his opinion on this or any other aspect of the WOT.Sorry Fidel,when Pres.Bush hears Castro mentioned,he's trying to remember if he's a second baseman or shortstop,not some scheme to have you killed.
Posted by: Stephen || 01/30/2004 17:20 Comments || Top||

#5  I didn't know Castro was running on the Democratic Ticket! He sure sounds like one of them. Did Fidel also know that the Vice-Prez went over to the CIA several times after 9/11? Must have been when they hatched the plot to: A) Kill Castro, B) Invade Iraq, C) Stifle Civil liberties, D) Enrich Haliburton, or E) All of the above. Does anyone know what medication they are missing? Can we take up a collection and get him and the DNC some?
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 01/30/2004 17:21 Comments || Top||

#6  Yankees leave castro in peace for Christ sake. Suckers.
Posted by: Faisal || 01/30/2004 17:55 Comments || Top||

#7  Luckily ol' Rob REDford is on hand in Cuba to talk about the Good Old Days of La Revolucion and cry in their beer about missing che guevera. Still a few old-school commies around to stroke the dictator's ego.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 01/30/2004 19:01 Comments || Top||

#8  " This tastes funny. I must have been poisoned!"
" It tastes funny because you're eating your beard. "
" Which has been poisoned! "
Posted by: Charles || 01/30/2004 19:10 Comments || Top||

#9  Good Heavens! I'm agreeing with Faisal! BTW heathens don't capitalized Hey Zeus.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 19:11 Comments || Top||

#10  not likely faisel, but we may leave him in pieces.......
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 21:48 Comments || Top||

#11  Don't flatter yourself, asshole. If Bush wanted to kill your sorry ass, you'd be DEAD.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 01/30/2004 22:25 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Rapid Fielding Initiative Breaks Down Doors
Competitive and military advantage isn’t always due to overwhelming force ... sometimes it comes from being smart, flexible and willing to try new ways of doing things
One of the little noticed after-effects of the Afghanistan campaign was the establishment, in early 2002, of the Rapid Fielding Initiative (RFI). This was an army program that recognized that American army troops did not always have the best weapons and equipment. RFI was intended to do something about that, and do it quickly. You could see RFI coming. There were three existing trends pushing it.
First, there was a lot more new technology coming on the market that troops could use. Some of it came from the companies that created equipment for the hiking and camping market (boots, rucksacks, all manner of outdoor clothing). Other stuff came from hunting suppliers (new gun sights). There was a flood of new electronic gear, like lighter and more reliable GPS receivers and computer gear.

The second trend was that the troops were all on the Internet, and like never before, were in touch with each other via military related BBSs, listservs and chat rooms. Troops have always been coming up with new ideas about how to use civilian gear for military purposes. But before the Internet came along, each soldiers discovery spread slowly. Now, information about new discoveries gets spread army wide within hours.
The Army of Blog strikes again

Finally, there was SOCOM (Special Operations Command), which had long possessed it’s own RFI powers, and budget to go with it. SOCOM could buy neat new weapons, as well as equipment. SOCOM could also afford to buy expensive stuff (night vision gear and satellite phones). SOCOM personnel were on the Internet as well. By 2001, thousands of soldiers were speculating on the Internet how much more effective they could be if they had SOCOMs freedom to quickly get new stuff that allowed them to do their job better.
When American troops went into Afghanistan in early October, 2001, it was several hundred SOCOM Special Forces that did most of the work. Once the media got to the Special Forces guys, stories started coming out about the non-standard gear they were using. American infantrymen being sent to Afghanistan saw those stories, as did people in the Pentagon. Connections started to get made. Among other things, someone in the Pentagon realized that the army would not look too good if too many journalists interviewed too many troops who had bought civilian equipment with their own money. Especially if the new equipment, from a civilian supplier, was obviously superior to the stuff the government was giving the troops. With this kind of incentive, the Rapid Fielding Initiative was quickly set up and became a big success.

The Iraq campaign gave the RFI another workout. A typical incident involved all the raids troops had to make and the problems with getting through sturdy locked doors. Some troops knew of special equipment police departments used, others knew of special equipment fire fighters used to break into burning buildings. The proper equipment was soon in the troops hands, and many lives, both American and Iraqi, were saved. Stories came back from Afghanistan and Iraq about how great the RFI gear was and all was well with the troops and the brass in the Pentagon.
Posted by: rkb || 01/30/2004 12:11:18 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's that "can do attitude."
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 13:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Some troops knew of special equipment police departments used, others knew of special equipment fire fighters used to

And some knew special equipment Jimmy Rockford used....
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 13:51 Comments || Top||

#3  Somehow when reading the last paragraph the theme song to COPS comes to mind.
Posted by: Chemist || 01/30/2004 15:20 Comments || Top||

#4  Some troops knew of special equipment police departments used, others knew of special equipment fire fighters used to break into burning buildings.

Those'd be the Reserves, God Bless 'em all!
Posted by: Ptah || 01/30/2004 15:27 Comments || Top||

#5  If memory serves, at least at first that equipment was sent to the troops not by DoD, but by civilians back home who paid for it and paid to have it shipped to the troops in theater.
Posted by: MommaBear || 01/30/2004 21:35 Comments || Top||


Polish President is "detained" in Canada
This is from Al Kamen’s "In The Loop" column deep inside section A of the Washington Post...required reading for Washington insiders and political junkies.
We warned Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski on Wednesday that he’d pay a price for violating the sacred rules of Oval Office photo ops — namely, all pablum and smiles, no substance. Kwasniewski got seriously into President Bush’s face during their little get-together Tuesday, interrupting and visibly annoying Bush with demands that Polish visitors be allowed to come here without visas, just as other Europeans, even those who opposed the Iraq war, are able to do. Poland sent 2,500 troops to Iraq, hoping for inclusion in the visa waiver program. Bush, with the cameras rolling, smiled, ducked, weaved and finally wandered off into touting his guest worker proposal — which of course has nothing to do with visa waivers. The much-loathed visa requirements are a big deal in Poland, forcing long lines and making Polish travelers feel like second-class Europeans. So Bush offered to treat them like first-class Mexicans and Central Americans.
Ouch.
Kwasniewski headed home empty-handed after the meeting, and promptly got detained by Canadian authorities when a snowstorm forced his plane to divert from Gander to St. John’s, Newfoundland. "We saw what it feels like when an unexpected guest arrives who in the beginning is treated as a potential illegal immigrant. And this is how we were treated," Kwasniewski good-naturedly told reporters at a news conference Wednesday, according to a Reuters account. "The passengers from my plane were held in a place where we could not leave," he said. "It all took about three hours."
"Security, we have a lunatic passenger here who keeps claiming he’s the president of Poland."
Things got better, he said, after some Polish sailors saw him and began asking for autographs, so it was clear he was famous.
"Cancel that; he is the president of Poland. My bad."
The U.S. ambassador to Poland, Christopher R. Hill, was on the plane, and Kwasniewski quoted him as saying: "I hope you won’t be so upset about U.S. visa rules, now that you’ve seen how it is in Canada." Canadian officials, meanwhile, say the group was not detained, but put in a transit lounge.
Poland is sending their sons and daughters in harm’s way, and taking a stand for freedom. Not whining and snarking from the sidelines. Surely the U.S. could do a bit better in the "thank you" department.
Posted by: seafarious || 01/30/2004 11:48:43 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sounds easier to get a visa in Saudi Arabia than in Poland. Good work, Foggy Bottom.
Posted by: Anonymous || 01/30/2004 11:59 Comments || Top||

#2  Do I need a Visa to go to Poland? But sounds like it's a real bugger for the Polish.
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 12:13 Comments || Top||

#3  Do I need a Visa to go to Poland?

No you don't. This was a big deal for Kwasniewski as he promised on TV that after this visit the visa requirement will be lifted.
The problem is, the visa process seems totally random. Some get it, others don't. Two of my friends applied in Poland and received visas valid for 10 years (one was pre-9/11, the other post-9/11). What irks most people is the cost of rejection (applying), something like $160US.
With my vast experience in applying for visas, I can conclude that if you are rich and have a good job, then you will get the visa.
BTW, that Newfoundland incident was hilarious.
Posted by: Rafael || 01/30/2004 12:49 Comments || Top||

#4  Rafael, we've always taken people with good jobs. I'm not surprised. And what's wrong w/being financially able to support yourself when you want to come to another country?

We have enough domestic and international leeches.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 13:10 Comments || Top||

#5  So they give out passports in Cracker Jacks boxes and detain the Prez of Poland...

So how're we doing on that northern Friendship Fence, anyway?
Posted by: .com || 01/30/2004 13:31 Comments || Top||

#6  But we're talking about tourist visas, for short term stays. Long term visas are a different story and almost every country in the world has them (which I agree with).
The two examples that I gave, both friends applied for a tourist visa, and for some reason were given visas valid for 10 years (multiple entry, maximum stay at any one time is 6 months). The usual length I think is 3 months (single entry) extendable to 6 months with approval.
It's true that most people who stay for 6 months are probably working illegaly, if they're not studying. So there are people who abuse the system. My guess though, is that visa applications are a lucrative business, so the visas won't be lifted anytime soon.
Posted by: Rafael || 01/30/2004 13:34 Comments || Top||

#7  What is the problem here? We should allow Polish people into the US without a VISA. The Poles are real allies and their actions speek much louder than many of the words of some of our old Europe "allies."
Posted by: CanaveralDan || 01/30/2004 15:16 Comments || Top||

#8  Ah .com, we built the Friendship Fence with uh, snow. It seems to works real great on Polish Presidentsnon-visa immigrants, but may not last past early spring. You know, global warming and all. You guys don't support Kyoto, so what can I say?
Posted by: john || 01/30/2004 15:30 Comments || Top||

#9  Maybe State is still ticked about all those refugees that came over in the 40s and 50s during that bit of "Communist Unpleasantness"?
Posted by: Pappy || 01/30/2004 22:15 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Maybe Israel should encourage Hamas et al to try kidnapping
Not an article
I’ve been trying to figure out in my own demented mind why Israel would negotiate such an obviously lopsided deal with Hizbollah. After much thinking I pondered a ’game theory’ explanation. Obviously, by using ’game theory’ I don’t mean to belittle the horrible consequences of these games.

If Israel can get Hamas to play the ’kidnapping’ game instead of the ’suicide bombing’ game, it may be good for Israel. This is because the kidnapping game requires more sophisticated planning, more recon, more logistics coordination than the ’suicide bombing’ game which mostly requires cannon fodder, a few maps and the bomb hardware - all of which Hamas, IsJihad, etc. have gotten down cold.
Posted by: mhw || 01/30/2004 11:29:46 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  reasons

1. They have this thing about getting back their own citizens, and their soldiers bodies. Nothing strategic, its just the way they are.
2. They want to make nice with Hezbollah, just to quiet the northern front (i could see this if it was Labor - doesnt sound like Sharon to me)
3. Theyre trying to maneuver Hezb away from Iran/Syria
4. Some variation of 3, but mainly at the initiative of the US, whose good will is badly needed as the security barrier proceeds.
5. They are positioning Hezbollah to have more influence in the territories, as they despair of any alternatives there.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 01/30/2004 11:52 Comments || Top||

#2  I believe Sharon called it "Jewish Emotion".

Sadly, it is a far cry from an earlier era of no negotiations with Terrorists.

A couple of recent comments:

Hezb. saying that they will continue to kidnap.

Hamas saying they will copy Hezb. kidnapping plans to free Hamas terrorists.

All the while, Israel continues to slowly bleed.
Posted by: Daniel King || 01/30/2004 12:49 Comments || Top||

#3  Please finish the thought. Do you mean that it is good because it ties up more resources and therefore diminishes resources for homicide bombing? I don't get it.
Posted by: Sue Bob || 01/30/2004 13:28 Comments || Top||

#4  sue bob,

Do you mean..." Well the answer is 'sort of'. It is not so much a matter of 'more' resources; rather a matter of 'different' resources structured differently. The more complex an operation, the more difficult and the more complex an operation, the easier it is to detect and counter. Israel may have reason to think it has greater intel capacity than formerly (maybe because some of the releasees have been compromised) and feel more confident of thwarting a kidnapping operation.

Of course, LH disagrees (I think) and has 5 more conventional hypotheses.
Posted by: mhw || 01/30/2004 13:49 Comments || Top||

#5  I dunno--- a long, stretched out "kidnapping/hostage" scenario might be more demoralizing in the long run than the "mass murder by homicide bomber". IIRC, the Iran hostage crisis dominated the front pages for far longer than the Beirut bombing of the Marine barracks. There is always hope for someone held alive, then someone irretriveably dead. Hopes deferred may be more devasting than grief...
Posted by: Sgt. Mom || 01/30/2004 14:05 Comments || Top||

#6  mhw - of course i dont know, and you could be right, but id think a higher probability to the more conventional reasons.

Your hypothesis is still intriguing though.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 01/30/2004 14:31 Comments || Top||

#7  and i think the most likely is number 5

1. theres evidence the PA is close to the point of collapse
2. Israel wants a player at that point - Dahlan and other moderates have already proven themselves to weak - and Israel DOESNT want Hamas and IJ to dominate, however helpful that might be diplomatically.
3. They have a history of counter-intuitive "strange alliances" when they get desperate - eg Hamas during the first intifada - by contrast Hezbollah may look like people they can work with. Before you get all disgusted about working with terrorists remember this is life or death for them.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 01/30/2004 14:36 Comments || Top||


International
Annan Agrees to Kidman Film at United Nations
The United Nations said on Thursday that a movie starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn would be made at U.N. headquarters in New York, where Hollywood has failed for decades to get permission to film.
Sean Penn will feel right at home.
The movie, to be directed by Sydney Pollack, is called "The Interpreter." Kidman would play a Kenyan-born U.N. translator who overhears an assassination plot, becomes a target herself and helps stop the killing of an African leader addressing the U.N. General Assembly.
Ok, stupid plot, but does she take her clothes off?
Shashi Tharoor, the U.N. undersecretary-general for public affairs, said it was the first time in recent memory the world body, including Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the presidents of the Security Council and the General Assembly, had allowed a feature film to be made in the building. Chilean Ambassador Herald Munoz, this month’s Security Council president, told Reuters earlier in the week the only query he received was from his Spanish colleague, Inocencio Arias, who wondered how one became an extra.
And how is this related to the WOT? As long as she’s filming there, they’ll be too busy drooling over her to pass any stupid resolutions.
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 11:23:22 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Re: Nicole Kidman

Whitest. Kenyan. Ever.
Posted by: Unmutual || 01/30/2004 11:52 Comments || Top||

#2  I just hope that Kofi doesn't take his clothes off. Ewwww!
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/30/2004 11:57 Comments || Top||

#3  amazing what you can do with makeup these days.
Posted by: buwaya || 01/30/2004 12:07 Comments || Top||

#4  or a body-double...
Posted by: .com || 01/30/2004 12:11 Comments || Top||

#5  ...I'm sure whatever nudity is there will be very tasteful and entirely necessary to the conspiracy.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 01/30/2004 12:18 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Clark appealed to suspected terror group!
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark sought the political support of a Muslim group that is under FBI investigation for terror ties, sources told the Daily News. The Democratic presidential candidate’s videotaped message was played Dec. 27 in Chicago for the annual conference of the Muslim American Society and the Islamic Circle of North America - a Queens group being probed by the FBI counterterrorism agents, said two federal law enforcement officials.
Ooooooooooooops.
Both groups have held conferences featuring speakers accused of terror ties and have published material supporting suicide bombings against Israel. Clark campaign spokesman Matt Bennett said yesterday they were unaware of the allegations or the FBI probe.
"I knew nothing!"
"I wish I could be there with you in person," Clark said in his four-minute video. "I hope I will have your support in the months and years ahead." An audiotape of the Clark speech was provided by terrorism investigator Steven Emerson and first aired on MSNBC. Two past conference speakers face terror-related indictments and a third is identified in FBI reports as a Hamas terror leader. In March 2002, American Muslim magazine - described as "the voice of [the Muslim American Society]" - interviewed assassinated Hamas leader Abu Bakr’s wife, who said she was "willing to give my life and the lives of my children" and advocated "standing beside the families of the martyrs." Another article explained that "martyr operations are not suicide."
It was written by one who went into a hospital for lip reattatchemnt soon after.
Islamic Circle President Talat Sultan and Muslim American Society spokesman Raeed Tayeh denied their groups have terror ties.
"Lies! All lies!"
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 01/30/2004 11:06:46 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  well..it's going to hurt him - but I think he's already dead.
Posted by: B || 01/30/2004 11:11 Comments || Top||

#2  I think he's already dead.
Politically, yes. Unfortunately, he's another Clinton appeaser/hanger-on and still sucks oxygen and takes up space. He needs to go...
Posted by: Old Patriot || 01/30/2004 12:31 Comments || Top||

#3  But like some genius at LGF noted (I can't find it) he outranks... General Food, Captain Crunch and Private Driveway No Tresspassing.
Still laughing at the last...
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 15:55 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Kerry: Bush fails as commander in chief
Democratic front-runner Sen. John Kerry, responding to Republican questions about his ability to lead the nation, said that President Bush has failed as commander in chief.
"Yup. Hang it up. Lousy job..."
While debating his six rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination in Greenville, South Carolina, Kerry said Bush broke his promise that he would "build a legitimate global coalition" and go to war only "as a last resort."
"Yup. Coalition's illegitimate. All bastards. Went to war as the 4th resort, not the last."
"He did not go to war as a last resort, and I think he fails the test of the commander in chief," said Kerry, a decorated Navy veteran of the Vietnam War. "I intend to hold him accountable in this election, because the American people’s pockets are being picked to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, and our troops are at greater risk than they needed to be," said the senator from Massachusetts. "And we deserve leadership that knows how to take a nation to war if you have to."
"Not that I'd ever expect to have to, mind you. I'm sure the French would bail us out long before it came to that."
Earlier in the day, Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, questioned Kerry’s ability to lead the nation in the post-September 11 era. While calling Kerry’s service in the military "honorable," Gillespie faulted Kerry’s voting record in the Senate, where he is serving in his fourth term. "His long record in the Senate is one of advocating policies that would weaken our national security," Gillespie said.
Ahhh, but he also has a record of advocating policies that would strengthen our national security. It depends on what day of the week it is and which constituent he's writing to...
Kerry, along with Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, voted to support the war in Iraq. Edwards says his vote was based on intelligence information and that an independent commission should be formed to determine if that information was credible.
Yep. Form a committee. That always works. Just think of all the good things that've come out of committees. There's... ummm...
At Thursday night’s debate, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean attacked Kerry as weak on health care, saying the Democratic Party needs a candidate "who is willing to get stuff done."
"And I'm just the guy you need to do stuff!"
"If you want a president who is going to get results, I suggest that you look at somebody who did get results in my state," Dean said.
"Which is minuscule, admittedly, and chock full of hippies, but otherwise representative of This Great Land of Ours™..."
The barb came in what was an otherwise cordial debate in which the presidential contenders focused their attacks on President Bush’s policies on the war on terror and Iraq. Before the debate, Dean said his campaign’s insurgent appeal won’t change despite the departure of his campaign chief after losses in New Hampshire and Iowa. But after placing third in the Iowa caucuses and second in the New Hampshire primary, Dean played down his chances in the seven states holding primaries and caucuses Tuesday.
"I'm toast! No! No! I'm not, really... I still have some money left!"
He said his campaign is focused on the Michigan caucuses February 7, where 153 delegates are at stake. "We’re going to have to win eventually," Dean said.
"With all these states, the law of averages says we have to, eventually..."
"But the question was do we have to win on February 3?
"Or do we win three or four elections from now? Or when Hell freezes over?"
"Of course we want to. But we don’t have to. What we’ve got to do is amass as many delegates as we can."
"Really. We don't have to win anything. We're in this for the principle of the thing. I never really wanted to be president. I just like to holler on national teevee..."
Dean currently leads the Democratic delegate count with 113. Kerry, the front-runner in the race with his strong victories in New Hampshire and Iowa, has 94 delegates. To win the Democratic nomination, a candidate must have at least 2,161 delegates. States holding contests Tuesday are South Carolina, Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Mexico and North Dakota. Dean shook up his campaign staff Wednesday, naming Roy Neel, a one-time aide to Al Gore, as the effort’s new chief executive officer, and running off losing campaign manager Joe Trippi. The Dean campaign, which has raised more money than any other Democratic effort and opted out of public financing, may also be having financial problems. Some staffers have been asked to do without a paycheck for two weeks.
Not senior staffers, mind you...
"The Dean campaign has spent about $8.5 million overall in this race, with the majority of that, over $5 million, being between Iowa and New Hampshire," said CNN consultant Evan Tracey of TNS Media Intelligence. "Interestingly enough, he’s not running any ads now in the February 3 states. But he spent a lot of money in those states, even going back to last summer. Essentially, he’s going to walk away from that ad buy money in those states. And clearly a lot of the money he had been spending in those states was pulled out to bolster the New Hampshire effort." Dean’s aides said they are trying to arrange for him to campaign this weekend with former Vice President Al Gore, although they did not offer any details. Trippi, meanwhile, said Thursday he still believes in Dean and is confident he will be selected as the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.
Nobody else has made him a job offer, huh? That's too bad...
Kerry went into the debate with two strong endorsements. He picked up the endorsement of Rep. Jim Clyburn on Thursday morning. The South Carolina Democrat is a leader in the black community. Clyburn’s endorsement could be significant in Tuesday’s primary, in which as many as half the Democrats casting ballots are expected to be African-American. Kerry already has the support of the state’s senior U.S. senator, Ernest "Fritz" Hollings. Former president Bill Clinton has not endorsed any of the seven Democrats. But when asked Thursday if Kerry is too liberal to be the party’s standard-bearer, Clinton pointed out that Kerry stood with him to cut back budget deficits at the start of his first year in office.
Not too close to him, of course. But Bill wasn't standing that close to the guys actually cutting the deficits, either.
Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, meanwhile, stumped in Oklahoma before heading to South Carolina to pick up the endorsement of Rock Hill Mayor Doug Echols.
Doug's always wanted to meet Madonna...
In Oklahoma, Clark stressed his military record and his status as a political newcomer. A senior campaign official said Clark, who narrowly edged out Edwards for third place in New Hampshire, would campaign aggressively in South Carolina, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona. The former NATO supreme commander had yet to decide whether to make a serious effort in Missouri, where Kerry leads most polls after the withdrawal of favorite son Dick Gephardt, the official said.
Depends on how many truckloads of votes the Teamsters can kick in...
Edwards played up his Southern roots; he has described the South Carolina primary as a must-win for his candidacy to move forward. "I grew up here, I’ve lived here my entire life," he told reporters Wednesday, describing his connection to the South. "I’ve represented a Southern state, North Carolina, in the U.S. Senate."
"Not spectacularly, of course, but I was there. And I have a nice haircut. It's much more manageable than Kerry's hair..."
Meanwhile, Lieberman received a boost Thursday from the Arizona Republic newspaper, which endorsed him. Most of the candidates will gather Friday morning in Columbia, South Carolina, for a forum with working families, and then will be hitting the campaign trail to other battleground states.
Posted by: Tao Gold || 01/30/2004 10:52:09 AM || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Fails as CnC? This means so much coming from Botox Boy. Let's see: We get the W in Afghanistan and Iraq, we jug Sammy and toe tag is hell-spawn, Libya agreees to give up their WMD as a direct result , it looks as if we're gearing up to go after Binny and through it all Frawnce and the UN puppetshow are exposed for the incontinent dog and monkey rodeo that they truly are. All in all, I give it a B+/A-.

Posted by: Rex Mundi || 01/30/2004 11:16 Comments || Top||

#2  Sorry, Kerry, but you lost the claim to "decorated veteran" when you pretended to throw those decorations on the Capitol steps. What vile creatures these candidates are...
Posted by: snellenr || 01/30/2004 12:07 Comments || Top||

#3  Kerry's dumber than a keanulint.
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 01/30/2004 12:09 Comments || Top||

#4  Regardless of who emerges as the Democratic presidential nominee, the race has already served its greater democratic purpose: It has blown away George W. Bush's wartime aura of patriotic infallibility.

Not only Howard Dean, the passionate truth-teller about Iraq, but Senator John Kerry, Gen. Wesley Clark and others have found their voices to question almost all aspects of Bush's post-Sept. 11 performance.

They are bringing home to Americans the worldwide debates about their president's penchant for exploiting and fanning fears by exaggerating dangers, taking unilateral actions abroad, and squandering U.S. credibility.
Posted by: Tao Gold || 01/30/2004 12:35 Comments || Top||

#5  Tao: Wow...you regurgitate right on cue don't you? Hit all those talking points like a true automaton. Dean as passionate truth teller? That's the best one I've heard since,
"Yeeeaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh"
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 01/30/2004 13:02 Comments || Top||

#6  Does Faisal have another pseudonym?

And I LOVE the "unilateral" lie -- why don't the people who believe that one move to France or Germany, if they love those pusswarts so much?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 13:19 Comments || Top||

#7  Hit all those talking points like a true automaton. I've often suspected that the Democratic Party recruits people (operatives?)like Tao Gold to spew the daily talking points on popular websites. Everytime a online forum gets popular, no matter what the forum's subject is, the TGs start showing up.
Posted by: 11A5S || 01/30/2004 13:36 Comments || Top||

#8  RC, I think Tao and Faisal are one in the same. I tangled with him/them yesterday much to my distaste.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 01/30/2004 13:59 Comments || Top||

#9  Didn't Kerry and Hanoi Jane support the North Vietmanese (i.e. Viet Cong) against our own troops during the vietnam war?

Yup.. war hero...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/30/2004 14:11 Comments || Top||

#10  Howard Dean, the passionate truth-teller about Iraq,

Nope Faisal and Tao different. Tao is a refugee from the BlogFoeAmerica. Play with the ComeBack Bat today Tao?
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 14:33 Comments || Top||

#11  [spoken in a robotic voice]
I AM TAO GOLD. I HAVE NO THOUGHTS OF MY OWN. IF FRANCE IS NOT INVOLVED IT IS NOT LEGITIMATE. NO BLOOD FOR OIL. SAVE THE OWLS. I WANT TO MAKE HOT MONKEY LOVE TO HOWARD DEAN. I'LL GIVE HIM A REASON TO SCREAM.

YEEEEEEAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH
Posted by: AllahHateMe || 01/30/2004 15:10 Comments || Top||

#12  Amazing how there's no point trying to start a discussion up without getting insulted.

Despite Kay's devastating indictment, Bush and the boys are refusing to blink.

While no longer insisting, as they were until last week, that weapons would eventually be found, Bush, Cheney and others have slipped into their secondary argument: Saddam was evil and needed to be removed anyway.

But that was not their chosen tool to scare Americans into supporting their war. Rather, it was that Saddam could attack America with his deadly weapons, using missiles or terrorists.

To get around that blatant inconsistency, the White House is now trying a new tack: that Bush had never characterized Saddam's danger as "imminent," only as "grave and growing."

There is a difference?

The last time the White House tried such hair-splitting was when Bill Clinton argued it was not "sex" that he had had with Monica Lewinsky.

The difference in this case, of course, is that more than 500 Americans and nearly 15,000 Iraqi soldiers and civilians are dead.

As for the policy of toppling bad guys, of whom there are many, Human Rights Watch had something to say this week in a major report.

Humanitarian interventions, it said, are best reserved for stopping ongoing or imminent slaughters, as in Rwanda (where no one intervened in time) or in Iraq in 1988 when Saddam was gassing Kurds (and Washington winked). And such actions are best taken multilaterally.

The lone sheriff tableau is exclusively American — an outdated one at that, resurrected nonetheless in times of trouble for comforting reassurance. But if a Newsweek poll is any indication — Kerry leading Bush, 49 per cent to 46 per cent — the president may have overstayed his welcome in that role as well.
Posted by: Tao Gold || 01/30/2004 16:02 Comments || Top||

#13  TG,
Kay's devestating indictment? Don't make me barf. If you f*cking lefties would quit lying about what Kay said maybe we would discuss it with you. Kay did say he thought the weapons might have been moved to Syria. Did you catch that you mindless toad? For that matter, quit lying about what Bush said. He never said Saddam was an 'imminent threat'! And yes, you sackless mental midget, there is a huge difference between a imminent threat and a growing danger. Look up imminent in a dictionary, that is if you can read you illiterate troglodyte. If you could wrap your puny mind around the concept of 'preemption' you could understand that 'imminent' is not required for 'preemption'. Human Rights Watch? They think people protesting in Iraq is worse than people being shredded in plastic shredders, and you except reasonable people to take them serious? Please define 'multilateral'? Because obviously it doesn't mean in concert with other countries, because you limped-dicked piece of shit: THERE ARE OTHER FUCKING COUNTRIES HELPING IN IRAQ! I am so sick of hearing the same, mindless lies repeated by you and your mindless ilk. Quit lying you son of a bitch. Then, and only then, can you expect a friendly debate.

As for the Newsweek poll, try not to blow your wad yet, loser. Bush hasn't even started campaigning against Kerry yet.

FOAD
Posted by: Swiggles || 01/30/2004 16:53 Comments || Top||

#14  Here's one from the Long Memories Department:

http://www.usvetdsp.com/jf_kerry.htm

Have a look at some photographs and some thirty-year-old interviews that Red-White-n-Blue All-American War Hero(tm) Kerry doesn't want anyone to see.

Kerry loves to wrap himself in flags, only it's usually North Vietnamese and Viet Cong flags he wraps himself in. Wrapping himself in the American flag is something new for him.
Posted by: Anonymous || 01/30/2004 17:30 Comments || Top||

#15  TG: Hot in the kitchen today, ain't it. After Faisal fowled the place up yesterday, noone's in the mood to suffer fools. Simply spewing the party line (any party) doesn't wash around here. Since you're actually arguing your points, fine. I suggest some true research.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 01/30/2004 18:05 Comments || Top||

#16  Geeez Swiggles! Well done and thanks!
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 19:25 Comments || Top||

#17  JFK returns from Viet Nam, learns war hero on his resume will not propel him to Demoncrat Party stardom, takes the politically expedient route by turning far left ANTI-WAR activist, provides aid and comfort to the enemy, votes to defund the South Vietnamese army, and advances his political career.Fast forward to the present. JFK votes for the liberation of Saddam from power, learns his pro-war stance will not propel him to the Demoncrat president nomination, turns anti-war, seeks to separate the men and women in uniform from the Commander in Chief in wartime, votes to DEFUND the war effort, provides aid and comfort to the enemy, and advances politically.
Posted by: Garrison || 01/30/2004 21:21 Comments || Top||

#18  Tao wrote -squandering U.S. credibility

you mean the why clinton squandered us credibility...always bowing to someone else's interests and taking care of your own interests does not when much respect in the middle east.
Posted by: Dan || 01/30/2004 22:39 Comments || Top||

#19  --as in Rwanda (where no one intervened in time)-

Yup, Kofi turned a blind eye and the frogs aided the Hutsis to escape.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 23:17 Comments || Top||


Nasrallah: Failure to release murderer will result in Dire Revenge™
Hat tip LGF
Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday that Israel would regret not releasing militant Samir Kuntar in the prisoner exchange deal carried out Thursday, and said members of his organization would kidnap Israeli soldiers again.
"You won’t let us kill civilians so we’ll kidnap their protectors"
In 1979, Kuntar murdered a police officer and three members of the Haran family in the northern city of Nahariya. Speaking at a festive ceremony held in honor of the Lebanese prisoners freed by Israel on Thursday, Nasrallah said that in future kidnappings, the Israeli soldiers would survive the abduction and be live hostages. The remark was a reference to the fact that the three soldiers abducted by Hezbollah in October 2000, whose bodies were returned Thursday as part of the prisoner exchange, were killed prior to the kidnapping. "Next time I promise you we will capture them alive," Nasrallah told those attending the Hezbollah rally.
Then his legs shrank.
Nasrallah also said that to make progress on a deal involving Kuntar, his organization could reveal some details pertaining to the fate of missing Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad, who was captured in southern Lebanon in 1986. Along with the threats in his speech, Nasrallah also expressed his regard for Israel, and for its concern for abducted citizens. "As a bitter enemy of Israel, I express respect."
*twang* "Damn that harp!"
Thousands gathered for the festive ceremony at Beirut’s international airport, and greeted the 33 Lebanese prisoners released in the exchange between Israel and Hezbollah. Tens of thousands of people lined the airport highway for several kilometers and packed a Hezbollah rally at the militant group’s stronghold in south Beirut to celebrate the homecoming. Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid, a Hezbollah leader and one of the most famous prisoners released, was the first to step off the plane. He was followed by another famous ex-prisoner, guerrilla leader Mustafa Dirani. Obeid burst into tears as his children and other relatives mobbed him, hugging and kissing him. The scene was repeated with other men released by Israel in the deal, who met their loved ones at the airport VIP lounge. "We hope for more victories and more liberation of prisoners, God willing," Dirani said earlier by phone from the German government plane that brought the prisoners to Lebanon.
"Heil Haman!"
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 01/30/2004 10:20:33 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Next time I promise you we will capture them alive," Nasrallah told those attending the Hezbollah rally.

The Israeli leadership would be wise to formulate a plan to "liquidate" Nasrallah. And soon.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/30/2004 12:04 Comments || Top||

#2  In somewhat less reported news: A number of freed Hezbollah militia members asked Germany authorities for political asylum and did not board a plane to Beirut, according to a broadcast report. At least three or four Palestinians are understood to have taken advantage of their stopover at a Cologne airfield to announced they had no intentions of flying back to Lebanon, said the report on ARD television. Reports from Beirut earlier had said 21 Lebanese nationals arrived at Beirut airport although initially 23 Lebanese were released under the exchange. Two decided not to travel to Beirut. Lebanese national Fadi Oulyan stayed in Germany, and the other went to the West Bank. Both men had criminal charges against them in Lebanon. Along with the Lebanese there were five Syrians, three Moroccans, three Sudanese, and one Libyan on board the plane.
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 14:10 Comments || Top||

#3  #1. In case you did not know, IDF pussies only fight women and children :-). Nasrallah kicked the IDF and israel's ass hard driving them outta lebanon.
Posted by: Faisal || 01/30/2004 18:02 Comments || Top||

#4  Me un Faisal got 'em on the run!
Posted by: Baby Assad || 01/30/2004 19:26 Comments || Top||

#5  Faisal - you are such an idiot. Explain how hizbulla kicked out the idf. There was no reason to keep their forces there in a gurrella war - it was a strategic move. The purpose was to stop the attacks on the northern border. These attacks have for the most part ended. Why because these a-holes your glorify are scared of the retailiation. If their asses were beat how is it the idf airforce can shake downtown beriut and damascus without retailation? Explain that asshole. You only post a absurd statements with no facts. You cannot even give an articulated response.
Like to see you take on some of those idf personal you call pussies.

Nasrallah will get his once Bush is re-elected, we have an old score to settle. Just hope your near when the jdams start falling.
Posted by: Dan || 01/30/2004 19:27 Comments || Top||

#6  Baby Assad - why would you pick the name of a loser?
Posted by: Dan || 01/30/2004 19:28 Comments || Top||

#7  Baby Assad - why would you pick the name of a loser?
Posted by: Dan || 01/30/2004 19:28 Comments || Top||


East Asia
Death for Japan cult chemist
A Japanese chemist who oversaw the development of nerve gas used in a 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway has been sentenced to death. Masami Tsuchiya, 39, became the 11th member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult that carried out the attack to be sentenced to death. Prosecutors said he was the second most important person behind the attack, after the cult’s leader Shoko Asahara. The verdict on Mr Asahara’s seven-year trial is expected next month. Tsuchiya was enrolled on a doctorate programme in chemistry at Tsukuba University when he became involved with Aum, according to Kyodo news agency. He was charged with murder and attempted murder in the subway gassing and other attacks. He was accused of heading the cult’s drive to develop chemical weapons including VX, mustard and sarin gases. Sarin was used in the March 1995 attack, which killed 12 people and left 5,000 people injured. Tsuchiya also produced sarin gas for a July 1994 attack on a residential area in the central Japanese city of Matsumoto which killed seven people and injured 144 others, presiding judge Satoru Hattori said.
About time, they hang them in Japa by the way.
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 9:13:11 AM || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Where's human rights watch, Mike Farrell and AI? should'nt they be begging for this twisted scum sucking bastard's life about now?
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 9:25 Comments || Top||

#2  I didn't realize Japan had the death penalty. Good for them.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 9:42 Comments || Top||

#3  Where's human rights watch, Mike Farrell and AI?
Bush isn't hanging them, so they don't care.
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 9:43 Comments || Top||

#4  What do they use:lethal injection,beheading.etc.?
Posted by: Raptor || 01/30/2004 9:49 Comments || Top||

#5  Raptor, they use a noose.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 10:32 Comments || Top||

#6  My views on the death penalty agree pretty much with the views expressed by the Pope. In that interest letting me begin a rousing rebuttal in the defence of Masami Tsuchiya's human rights .... (thinking, thinking ... need an angle ... sarin gas ... injured 5000 people... hmmm?) I think I will await a better case to argue.
Posted by: Super Hose || 01/30/2004 11:55 Comments || Top||

#7  The lefty NGO/academic axis doesn't want you to know that Japan has the death penalty and their media allies are very helpful in this regard.
One of their favorite claims, in fact, is that the US is the only major industrialized country that does retain the death penalty.
On campus, rank and file Mumia Cong are simply not aware of Japan's death penalty and often flatly refuse to believe it when told.
To them, Japan is a peaceful enlightened country of flower-arranging atom-bomb victims and could not possibly be killing people under judicial order.
These are generally the same asshats who refuse to believe that socialistic, navel-gazing Sweden has an army, let alone conscription.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 01/30/2004 15:18 Comments || Top||

#8  Now AC you will admit that the Japaneese do have a natural touch for flowers (which I envy).
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 17:20 Comments || Top||

#9  I didn't realize Japan had the death penalty

The Japanese don't talk about it. Their legal system is also no-nonsense. The L.A. City Council would go into spasms if the LAPD did half what the Japanese police can do.
Posted by: Pappy || 01/30/2004 21:43 Comments || Top||

#10  Ever since I saw Raising the Red Lantern and watched Wife #3 jerk and struggle all the way over to the tower of death, I can not support the death penalty.

{She had been caught in bed with another man, and her husband ordered the servants, as was his legal right, to hang her.}

Self-defense: you, your family, your nation - no arguement.

I would even support killing him during an attempted escape from jail knowing what he is capable of and knowing that he might want to do it again.

But somehow, when I think of having to walk through the actual logistics - Monday buy poison; Tuesday buy needle - I can't not picture doing that and staying sane. And therefore, would not want anyone else to go insane somehow, executing him on my behalf.

I do not wish this to be taken that somehow the victims' families should "just move on". You never "move on". But do we not learn to 'endure without bitterness' as part of our culture's sense of maturity?

This very different from "endure because society doesn't give a harry rat's ass about your pain" because you are say ... a Coptic Christian family whose daughter was kidnapped in Egypt, a Bantu woman raped in a Somoli refugee camp, a Dalit whose house was burned by a Uppercaste hired hooligans.

Enduring these things is not maturity. You stand alone, because society has decreed that you, being different, have no right to demand the majority rouse themselves on your behalf. That is injustice.

But this specific case in Japan is different. This man and others in the cult have been brought to justice. This man had been found guilty.

I simply can not bring myself to say "Kill Him". I believe life without possibility of parole is sufficient. Japanese jails are not Club Med.
Posted by: Adriane || 01/30/2004 22:49 Comments || Top||

#11  "I simply can not bring myself to say "Kill Him"."

Gotcha covered,Adriane.
"Kill that bastard"
Posted by: Raptor || 01/31/2004 9:36 Comments || Top||


Home Front
NIH director defends sex research
EFL & Buttloads of fun.
The director of the National Institutes of Health said his agency will continue to fund sex research, including studies involving pornography and prostitution that have been criticized by House Republicans.
Are we studying this problem? Or maybe we should really focus in this issue!
"I fully support NIH’s continued investment in research on human sexuality," Dr. Elia A. Zerhouni wrote in a letter to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, that bypassed the Republican committee chairmen who oversee the agency.
Note to Dr. Zerhouni: Write to Uncle Teddy about drinking and driving.
The director’s letter reported on NIH’s "comprehensive review" covering several projects criticized by congressional Republicans and conservative activists.
Here we go...
Those projects included a $147,000 Northwestern University study that paid women to watch pornography, another that studied prostitutes at truck stops and one that examined "two-spirited" transvestites in American Indian cultures.
IMYGOODNESS. I always figured that one day I will get married, make love to my wife, and have children. How do the previous three studies fit into to my worldview?
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 01/30/2004 9:09:42 AM || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "and one that examined "two-spirited" transvestites in American Indian cultures."

-a good use of our tax dollars I'm sure.
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 9:43 Comments || Top||

#2  So, where do I go to apply for a grant?
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 9:46 Comments || Top||

#3  To go around the committee chariman to write to Kennedy is grounds for dismissal. Nevertheless, he will probably get the Tenet treatment and a medal.
Posted by: Tancred || 01/30/2004 10:22 Comments || Top||

#4  I'd rather set fire to my wallet than have my tax dollars wasted like this. That way, at least I can warm my hands over the fire.
Posted by: Unmutual || 01/30/2004 11:05 Comments || Top||

#5  In other news, Kennedy has announced his support for the project by assigning his female staffers as research subjects for the project.
Posted by: B || 01/30/2004 11:21 Comments || Top||

#6  Ted's opinion in these matters is important.
He represents the Aqua Lung - Aqua Love Association.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 14:25 Comments || Top||

#7  You getting all this Faisal?
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 15:56 Comments || Top||

#8  and one that examined "two-spirited" transvestites in American Indian cultures.

The Arizona Repulsive did a huge article on this last month - a perfect case for keeping such studies in the private sector.
Posted by: Pappy || 01/30/2004 22:18 Comments || Top||

#9  This was from their 97-98 PR release. I read that Harvard's endowment is about $19 BILLION. Time to cut off the funds and make these guys get their cash from their universities. Surely they could get by on $10 billion?

Hmmm, I smell a tax-cutting proposal from W, but I'm sure he'd only increase funding.
--
What is the total fund-raising goal of Campaign Northwestern and how is it allocated?
The total goal is $1 billion. The goal includes:
* $360 million for the University's endowment
* $262 million for new and renovated facilities
* $378 million for current operations, including development of new curriculum.

How much money has been raised to date?
The campaign began its "quiet phase," or the efforts prior to the public announcement, on Sept. 1, 1996; approximately $457 million already has been raised. That total includes several major gifts that were previously announced. It also includes $170 million from members of the University's Board of Trustees, all of whom have made personal commitments to Campaign Northwestern.

Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 23:03 Comments || Top||

#10  At this very moment, I'm putting together a proposal for next fiscal year, involving me, my assistants Tiffany, Kimberly, Brandy and Trixie, two cases of Jolly Green Giant cream corn, and a pair of roller skates. I figure it should be good for $60-70 million.
Posted by: Fred || 01/30/2004 23:42 Comments || Top||


Africa: West
Iranian held over Nigeria photos
An Iranian has been arrested by Nigerian police for taking photographs of what they say are strategic buildings in the capital, Abuja. The man is alleged to have taken pictures of sites such as the Supreme Court and the Nigerian National Petroleum Tower. Nigeria has strict rules on photography and the police are sensitive about public buildings being photographed.
Kind of like Iran has about taking pictures of prisons.
There has been no comment on the arrest from the Iranian embassy. Investigations going on National police spokesman, Chris Olakpe, said the man was arrested last week on suspicion of spying on the nation.
Presidential spokeswoman Remi Oyo said: "In his camera he had about 15 shots of important buildings including the Ecowas secretariat and some buildings of foreign countries."
Embassies, perhaps?
Both said the man was being interrogated.
Painfully, I hope.
The Nigerian security agencies are trying to establish whether there is a link between the Iranian and militant Islamic groups or "Talebans" in Yobe and Borno states, northeast of the country.
Now there is a redundent question if ever I heard one.
Ms Oyo said: "Investigations are going on and the government will continue to ensure that we are not drawn into unnecessary chaos of any kind."
As opposed to their normal domestic chaos.
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 9:01:45 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If he said he was going to sell the buildings to idiot infidels in an email scam, all would probably be forgiven.
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/30/2004 16:24 Comments || Top||


Africa: Southern
Zulu warriors surround SA leader
Scores of supporters of a mainly Zulu party carrying their traditional weapons have confronted South African President Thabo Mbeki. Armed police and bodyguards cleared a path for the president after he was surrounded by some 50 opposition supporters with spears and shields.
Very sharp stabbing spears, the classic Zulu weapon.
Mr Mbeki is in KwaZulu-Natal province ahead of elections due this year. Tensions are rising between the ruling ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party, which controls the province. The incident was condemned by the ANC.
"Put those spears down, you could put an eye out!"
"These actions are a flagrant violation of the right to freedom of movement which all South Africans, including the President, enjoy," a party statement said. Earlier this week, Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi accused the ANC of trying to stop them campaigning and attacking its supporters. Thousands of people died in clashes between supporters of the two parties in the province in the 1980s and 1990s, and clashes have broken out again ahead of the forthcoming elections. Mr Mbeki urged both parties not to return to the battles of the past. "During the elections the two parties must agree that they will work in such a way that the people in KwaZulu-Natal are able to vote for any party without fear of being intimidated," he said.
"As long as they vote for the ANC"
At the weekend, a march of Inkatha supporters degenerated into violence leaving several people injured. KwaZulu-Natal is one of the two provinces not controlled by the ANC.
Think I’ll put a couple bucks on the Zulus.
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 8:52:12 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Assegai (I think that's the spelling) were developed from spears, and share some construction details, but they're used more like short swords.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 10:35 Comments || Top||

#2  Here's an idea: let's complain about our "rights" being violated (rights which can only be achieved through civilized behavior and reasoned discourse between free peoples) while dressing up like brutal, tribal, anti-intellectual, bloodthirsty savages brandishing spears and making threatening gestures.

If you want to join the rest of the free world, you'd best understand that it is only logic, reason, and civil discourse which can solve your political woes, and that behaving like backward savages can lead to nothing more than the destruction of a civilized society.

Whether or not SA leadership is corrupt, behaving like tribal relics of 10,000 years ago will do nothing to further your cause.
Posted by: Unmutual || 01/30/2004 10:41 Comments || Top||

#3  Unmutual, what I think happened is that the Zulus are related to the Matabele as an off-shoot by about 150-200 years. After the Second Chimurenga, (The Rhodesian War), about 40,000 Matabele were slaught, and who did it? Bob Mugabe and the Wailers, aka Green Bombers. Who other than Mbeki is saying that Bob is a good guy, apart from some Nigerians? Now who is pissing who off. I knew both Mashona people (Bob's tribe) and Matabele and some Zulus, and I know who I'd trust even with pointy spears. Mbeki is a stinker, and there's more to follow
Posted by: Rhodesiafever || 01/30/2004 14:37 Comments || Top||

#4  Damn Rhodesiafever... I'm gonna have to read a few books it looks like. All I got is Richard Harris in me mind.

BTW Faisal... I recommend Zulu for all angry Moslems.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 15:42 Comments || Top||

#5  #2 Here's an idea: let's complain about our "rights" being violated (rights which can only be achieved through civilized behavior and reasoned discourse between free peoples) while dressing up like brutal, tribal, anti-intellectual, bloodthirsty savages brandishing spears and making threatening gestures.

Thanks for coming out of your tea-party to tell us that, Unmutual. Mind giving us your opinion on the quaint ANC custom of "necklacing". and the rapidly-growing (and imported from Zimbabwe) sport called the "white-farmer hunt"?
Posted by: Pappy || 01/30/2004 21:24 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Iran replaces Iraq, becomes top funding source for Arafat’s Fatah
Iran has become the main financier of the largest Palestinian insurgency group in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israeli military sources said that over the last year Iran and its Hizbullah ally have supplied the ruling Fatah movement with as much as 90 percent of the organization’s requirements to maintain the Palestinian war against the Jewish state. The sources said Iran has replaced Iraq in financing Fatah operations against Israel. Until early 2003, Iraq was pumping about $2 million a month to Palestinian insurgents, mostly Fatah, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The sources said Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat has steadily reduced funding to Fatah and provides no more than 10 percent of Fatah’s requirements to maintain the war. "Arafat is hardly involved in the financing of the war. Iran is," a senior military source said. "But without Arafat, Iran would not have the Fatah infrastructure to finance."

"In every [Palestinian] town and village, you can find groups of Fatah people who have been financed and trained by Iran," [Res.] Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad, director of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s political-military unit, said. The Iraqi funds were halted in March 2003 when the United States invaded Iraq and ousted the regime of Saddam Hussein. On Tuesday, Israeli security sources said Arafat has again resumed the harboring of Palestinian insurgents wanted by Israel. The sources said the insurgents included recruiters for suicide bombers or the bombers themselves. In all, the sources said, about 30 Palestinian fugitives wanted by Israel have found safe haven in Arafat’s headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. In another development, the Israeli government held its first meeting to draft a plan for unilateral separation from the Palestinian Authority. The meeting was led by National Security Council chairman Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland National and included officials from the Mossad intelligence agency.
Posted by: PlanetDan || 01/30/2004 8:44:26 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I still don't understand why we are leaving Iran alone. Any ideas???
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 01/30/2004 10:18 Comments || Top||

#2  It's as if there is a waiting game going on. That maybe the folk of Iran will somehow oust the mullahs. Iran is a strange nut to crack. Will it be a revolution or will those you speak for allah take it to the promise land?
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 12:07 Comments || Top||

#3  Maybe GWB will wait until a crucial moment such as one where a confrontation between the clerics and the population is brewing, then tip it over the edge with a little push, such as a JDAM or Tomahawk attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Or maybe I'm just crazy.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/30/2004 14:48 Comments || Top||


Africa: East
Army advances in western Sudan
Sudan’s army has captured a border town as it moves to end an uprising sparked by greviances over government neglect of the western region of Darfur. Refugees fleeing across the border have confirmed that government forces are now in the Sudanese town of Tine. More than 100,000 people have fled the fighting into Chad. Aid agencies say the humanitarian crisis is escalating. On Thursday, two civilians died and 15 were wounded after Sudanese bombs landed in Chad. Arab militiamen, backed by Sudanese Government forces, have been fighting a year-long rebellion by two groups. Diplomats have described the fighting as "ethnic cleansing", with entire villages inhabited by dark-skinned people who speak African languages being destroyed.
Any comment, Rev. Jackson? NAACP? Hello?
The little publicised conflict has flared as peace talks to end the separate 20-year war in the south of the country have been making substantial progress.
Well, they are African peace talks. A escalation in bloodshed is to be expected.
Refugees say the government is bombing their villages to drive them out but this is the first time the bombs have landed in Chad. Those who have been forced to flee their homes accuse the government of using aircraft to bomb their villages, with Arab militia groups then mounting follow-up raids.
Classic combined arms offensive.
Many of those crossing the border have walked for several days, having left their homes with few, if any, possessions. The UN’s refugee agency says it is concerned about the harsh border terrain and poor weather conditions refugees are forced to endure - with scorching sun during the day and bitter cold at night.
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 8:41:58 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Any comment, Rev. Jackson? NAACP? Hello?

Nothing in their interest. Wrong color of aggressor, and the oppressed have no money.
Posted by: Pappy || 01/30/2004 21:12 Comments || Top||


Home Front
SWAT team called to local mosque?
This is bizarre, but apparently true
‘Leaders of the Islamic Center of Cleveland have struck a temporary legal compromise to keep peace during today’s prayer service and upcoming Feast of Sacrifice. The mosque’s board of trustees suspended Damra this month after he was indicted on charges that he had hidden past ties to terrorists when he sought U.S. citizenship. But the mosque elders voted to overrule the board of trustees’ decision, and Damra refused to leave. Said one of the center’s staffers: ‘We are a God-loving, God-fearing, peaceful community.’ Parma Mayor Dean DePiero said Thursday night that police will be at the mosque today and throughout the weekend but that their presence likely will be scaled back from the SWAT team that gathered at the mosque a week ago.
I filed this under "terror networks" because the Cleveland.com site filed it under "terrorism"
Posted by: Tresho || 01/30/2004 8:38:49 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Whoops, the Parma mayor spoke on 1/29, not 1/23. It is interesting that the mosque elders overruled the board of trustees and refused to suspend an imam indicted for ties to terrorism, talk about a Fifth Column. In an unrelated (?) story, a NE Ohio Catholic priest was put on a leave of absence from his ministry after he was arrested when local police raided his rectory & found marijuana plants being cultivated there. No one can overrule a Catholic bishop besides the Pope.
Posted by: Tresho || 01/30/2004 8:51 Comments || Top||

#2  "It is interesting that the mosque elders overruled the board of trustees and refused to suspend an imam indicted for ties to terrorism,"

good! It's time we all understood just what these madrassas and mosques really mean when they say they "are a God-loving, God-fearing, peaceful community."
Posted by: B || 01/30/2004 11:17 Comments || Top||

#3  When you support a terrorist, don't be surprised our police are around.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 13:12 Comments || Top||

#4  SWAT teams ought to be stationed at the local mosque.
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/30/2004 20:25 Comments || Top||


Middle East
U.S. has quietly expelled dozens of Saudi diplomats
[snipped, posted yesterday]
Posted by: PlanetDan || 01/30/2004 8:35:16 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  my bad. this is the direct link:
http://216.26.163.62/2004/ss_saudis_01_29.html
Posted by: PlanetDan || 01/30/2004 8:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Wow.

If true, I take back almost every bad thing I said about State except about the 'Visa Express' program.
Posted by: badanov || 01/30/2004 8:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Sorry, I take back NOTHING I've said about the State Department. They're still being too kind, particularly in their not being open and honest about why this was done. If they wanted to be tough on the Saudis, they'd openly state why they did this; as it is, they're not even admitting they did it.

This is a gem, too:

The agency said Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar Bin Sultan has refused to take responsibility for the Saudi embassy in Washington. The agency cited a source as saying he hasn’t entered the embassy in years. "Many diplomats have not seen the ambassador for years," the source said. "Bandar spends most of his time at his mansions around the U.S. and the world, instead of carrying on his ambassadorial duties."


What kind of ambassador never goes to his embassy? The kind that's not an ambassador. He should be PNG'd and sent back to Saudi Arabia, with a request that we be sent a REAL ambassador.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 01/30/2004 9:19 Comments || Top||

#4  Here's a different spin on it:
The US State Department recently revoked the diplomatic visas of 16 people affiliated with an Islamic institute in Virginia, in the latest step in an ongoing joint American-Saudi attempt to "curb the spread of extremist Islamic rhetoric" in the US, the Washington Post, citing a top Saudi official, reported. The joint crackdown has led to an "exodus of Riyadh's diplomats from the United States in recent months." In its Thursday edition, the Post, citing a US official, said 16 staffers at the Fairfax-based Institute for Islamic and Arabic Sciences in the United States are among two dozen Saudi personnel whose diplomatic credentials were revoked recently. According to the unnamed official, the revocations were in the framework of "an ongoing effort to protect the homeland." He added the Saudis have been told that they must leave within two weeks. Around 70 people with Saudi diplomatic credentials have left the United States in the past four months, the Saudi official said.

Saudi spin machine on full power, "We told them to come home. It was our idea, nothing to see, move along."
Posted by: Steve || 01/30/2004 10:44 Comments || Top||

#5  don't let the screen door hit you...
Posted by: B || 01/30/2004 11:13 Comments || Top||

#6  I still think we should send a few of them back in plastic bags. Or 50 gal drums, wrapped in bacon with their throats cut.

But then I'm no diplomat.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 01/30/2004 19:06 Comments || Top||


Israel Military Blows Up Attacker’s Home
Israeli forces raided the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Friday in response to a deadly Jerusalem bus bombing and demolished the house of the Palestinian policeman who blew himself up in the attack. Ten Israelis were killed and more than 50 wounded in Thursday’s suicide attack, the deadliest in four months. Such bombings in the past triggered large-scale Israeli military raids, but Israel this time appeared to have decided on a more measured response.

The Bethlehem incursion, the first in six months, was small in scale, and Israel did not clamp a closure on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as it had done routinely in the past. There were competing claims of responsibility for Thursday’s suicide bombing, with Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin announcing on Friday that his Islamic militant group was behind the attack. Just hours after the blast, however, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group with ties to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, said it sent the bomber. Yassin offered no explanation for the Hamas military wing’s delayed claim of responsibility. "The evidence shows that they carried out this attack. ... There is a videotape of the individual who carried out the attack and it will be distributed throughout the West Bank," he said.

Yassin also said Friday that his group is making every effort to seize Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips for the release of Palestinians in Israeli jails. The declaration came a day after a prisoner swap between Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah. Israel released more than 400 prisoners, the vast majority Palestinians, in exchange for an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers. The swap boosted the standing of Hezbollah in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and appeared to put Hamas on the defensive. Yassin said he believes Israel will only free Palestinian prisoners under pressure. "There is no solution to the prisoner issue except with the kidnapping of soldiers of the enemy and exchanging them with our own prisoners," he said.

The target of the Bethlehem raid was the Aida refugee camp on the outskirts of town. Several dozen jeeps and armored vehicles moved slowly through darkened streets in convoys, training spotlights onto houses. Soldiers ringed the house of the bomber, Ali Jaara. Figures could be seen moving past brightly lit windows in the building’s second floor and walking down an outdoor staircase. A few hours later, troops blew up the house with explosive charges. The military said only that an operation was in progress in Bethlehem and surrounding areas and that troops arrested several suspected militants. It was the first military operation in the city since troops left the town in July as part of a larger withdrawal called for under a U.S.-backed peace plan. Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat condemned the raid. "Instead of sending soldiers and tanks to Bethlehem, Israel’s government should have sent negotiators to resume a meaningful peace process," Erekat said.

Also Friday, troops shot to death an Islamic Jihad member, Jihad Suwaiti, near the West Bank city of Hebron. The military said the man fired shots from a Kalashnikov assault rifle as soldiers came to arrest him, and troops returned fire, killing him.

In the Gaza Strip, a tank crew shot and killed two Palestinians. The military said it fired on a group carrying two explosive devices and rocket-propelled grenades near the Israeli settlement of Dugit shortly after midnight.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, troops demolished six buildings — one of them a four-story apartment complex — where Hamas militants captured by Israeli forces used to live. More than 50 people were left homeless. The arrested men from the violent Islamic group are accused by Israel of being behind two recent shooting ambushes that killed five soldiers. The Islamic Jihad leader in the West Bank town of Jenin also was arrested. Sharif Tahaymeh had been on Israel’s wanted list for more than three years. The stepped-up military activity appeared to be a response to Thursday morning’s suicide bombing in Jerusalem, which ripped apart a bus just a block from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s official residence. Sharon was not home at the time of the blast. Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz met later Thursday to consider options after the bombing. Israel’s leadership was divided over how hard to hit back but appeared to have decided on a measured response. The 24-year-old bomber was a Palestinian police officer — causing much chagrin within the Palestinian Authority, which has been under international pressure to use its police force to stop such attacks.

The attack also disrupted a visit by two senior U.S. State Department officials, David Satterfield and John Wolf, who were trying to persuade Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia to meet with Sharon as a way of restarting the stalled "road map" peace plan. The two envoys were at Israel’s Defense Ministry when the bomber struck.

After yesterday, this should be good troll bait.....
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 7:26:48 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yassin also said Friday that his group is making every effort to seize Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips for the release of Palestinians in Israeli jails

That is exactly the reason the Israelis should have never bargained in the first place. Now having established an exchange rate, the Paleos are probably thinking that for a half dozen soldiers, Sharon will empty the jails for them.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 01/30/2004 9:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Jersey, good point. Appeasement (the Arabs like to call it negotiation) almost always backfires like that. Another amusing variable of dealing w/people who think nothing like you or I do.
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 9:23 Comments || Top||

#3  i dont think their reaction to Hamas will be the same as that to hezbollah, and it wont take long for Hamas to see that. As far as i can tell there is some kind of deal making going on with Hezbollah. Things seen and things unseen.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 01/30/2004 10:02 Comments || Top||

#4  The attack also disrupted a visit by two senior U.S. State Department officials, David Satterfield and John Wolf, who were trying to persuade Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia to meet with Sharon as a way of restarting the stalled "road map" peace plan. The two envoys were at Israel’s Defense Ministry when the bomber struck.

Nothing like a good dose of reality. The question is, will the State Department finally come to their senses? Probably not.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 01/30/2004 12:08 Comments || Top||

#5  The 24-year-old bomber was a Palestinian police officer — causing much chagrin within the Palestinian Authority, which has been under international pressure to use its police force to stop such attacks.

Hmmmmmmmmm. Doesn't sound like that strategy's working out too well, does it?
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/30/2004 20:40 Comments || Top||


Iran
Iran`s Governors: Elections cannot be held on Feb 20
From IRNA EFL
Iran`s governors, in a letter addressed to the Interior Minister, announced "Keeping in mind the current conditions, it will not be possible to hold the 7th Majlis elections on February 20th, as previously scheduled."
"So just forget the whole idea. We don't really need elections, anyway..."
They have stressed in the letter, "Our comprehensive surveys across the country has led us to the joint conclusion that an acceptable national level competition among the parliamentary elections` hopefuls, in the course of which the nation`s rights would be respected in a free and fair election is impossible under the current conditions." The governors have referred to the year-long efforts made by the elections officials to increase the level of national participation in the elections, the result of which was reflected in the candidacy of a large number of hopefuls across the nation. "But the vast scale, illegal disqualification of the hopefuls, and those who are fully trusted in different provinces, by the representatives of the Guardians Council, that has been quite unprecedented in the history of the revolution... and has raised serious concerns regarding the national interests among those who care for the future of the Islamic Revolution and Iran."
Meanwhile, Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi had this to say: "There is no crisis and the eventual problems are just tension typical of electoral days, which have always existed." The plot thickens. Stay tuned.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 01/30/2004 6:28:48 AM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


International
U.S. Rebuffs Europe at Climate Conference
Early last month, several Republican senators, House members and aides traveled to Milan, Italy, for the ninth round of international global climate negotiations...
And then the fun began...
NET handed out fliers depicting Inhofe, Senators Larry Craig (R.-Idaho) and Craig Thomas (R.-Wyo.), who were also part of the U.S. delegation, as the "Three Blind Mice." NET accused the senators of doing the bidding of coal and mining interests while ignoring the scientific "consensus" on global warming. "I want to get this framed," Sen. Thomas joked.
C'mon, Senator! Don't take it so blasted seriously!
The senators, along with Representatives Chris Cannon (R.-Utah) and Fred Upton (R.-Mich.), met with several environmental groups, including NET, to discuss energy policy and global warming. Sen. Inhofe asked the groups to explain their energy policy. NET President Phil Clapp avoided the question, providing instead a rambling, confused exposition on U.S. energy policy over the last 30 years.
If you've got nothin', attack the guys who have somethin'...
Sen. Thomas asked, "So what is with you people? You don’t want coal, you don’t want natural gas, you don’t want oil, and now I see you don’t want wind power. How do you propose to fuel the American economy?" Clapp responded by saying that the American economy can be more efficient through greater use of renewable energy (though, apparently, not wind) and that, in fact, EU countries were four times more efficient than the United States. To which Sen. Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.), another member of the delegation, responded: "You’re telling me that France and Germany, which have double-digit unemployment, and stagnating economies, are more efficient than the U.S.? That’s insanity. It’s just plain wrong. America is the world leader in energy technologies."
Did you ever notice the dearth of people who've ever actually worked for a power company in the environmental organizations who're telling the entire world how to generate power for the next few hundred years? Not knowing something about the subject, one can let one's mind roam through the stars, inventing ideal systems that do wondrous things never seen before. They're not bothered by mundane details like population density, growth patterns, line distances, average usage per hour, peak usage, maintenance requirements... I think of it as the Blavatsky school of technological planning.
The meeting with environmental groups was tame in comparison to a meeting the following day with the European delegation. As Sen. Inhofe explained the U.S. position on Kyoto, EU officials rudely snickered and laughed aloud. "You can laugh and smirk and continue to ignore scientific facts about global warming," Inhofe said, "but by regulating CO2, you’re putting heavy shackles on your economies. You’re hurting the poor in your own countries." To their obvious displeasure, Sen. Inhofe reminded the Europeans that, according to their own Environment Ministry, only two EU countries will meet their Kyoto targets. "So you’re burdening your economies, and for what?," he asked. "Sen. Inhofe, we’re not like the U.S.," said an official from the Netherlands. "We have a conscience about how we grow our economies. We realize there are limits."
"In fact, we're imposing them on ourselves!"
"Well, that certainly explains why I don’t see much growing over there," responded Sen. Thomas. "In America," Sen. Sessions said, "we have the ingenuity to both protect our environment and grow our economy." At one point, Sen. Inhofe asked the EU delegation if they were interested in discussing the latest science of global warming. He was rebuffed, as the official from the Netherlands, with a whiff of disdain, said that the science was settled—human beings, through fossil fuel emissions, are causing it. His evidence? "I can only skate on my pond three months out of the year. Years ago, it was 5 and 6 months."
Years from now it might be 8 or 9 months. Don't forget the prospect of nuclear winter...
"Excuse me, sir, but that’s not science," Inhofe said. "That’s an anecdote."
Yeah, but that's all he's got...
In a panel discussion titled "Beyond Kyoto," a French official said, "Don’t worry about precise emissions levels." It’s important, he said, to "just take into account our ambition to address this problem."
"Intentions are much more important than results!"
Perhaps the most interesting viewpoint came from a Swiss panelist, who at one point said global climate policy is really about "promoting social and economic equality."
"Think of it as a social engineering tool..."
According to a seminar held later in the day by the UN Development Programme, Kyoto, according to panelists, is really about promoting gender equality. A panelist from Sweden said that gender equality "is good for the environment because men and women have an equal footing in making environmental decisions."
That statement makes no sense whatsoever. And has nothing to do with the subject purportedly under discussion...
A gender specialist from the UN called for "paradigm shifts" in global warming policy, and by that she meant that energy policies and technologies "must be responsive to gender" and must be made "from a gender perspective." And further, she stated that gender equality must be "the core organizing principle for energy policy."
Likewise, if your garage door is stuck halfway down, you've got to be "responsive to gender" while trying to get it unstuck. And I long ago made sure that gender equality was the core organizing principle for broiling lamb chops.
Finally, after promoting social and economic equality and gender equity, conference participants meandered to the global climate fashion show, where proud members of the international community unveiled a new "climate symbol." As the emcee shouted into the microphone, "We want to make the climate symbol a fashion accessory!!"
Knock y'rself out, Bub.
After the conference, Sen. Inhofe said, "We need to look into this whole process. This is an industry of UN bureaucrats feeding off the American taxpayer. It’s outrageous."
As long as the money's flowing, there'll always be somebody standing there with a bucket.
Posted by: Super Hose || 01/30/2004 6:18:40 AM || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Interesting article SH. Many of the articles I read dealing w/global warming seem to suggest that the earth is going to warm up to a degree by the mere fact that we're still coming out of an ice age. I would say that this warming prolly has been exacerbated somewhat by fossil fuel emissions. It would be helpful to get a truly independent non-partisan scientific group together to do more studies. I don't know enough about the Kyoto fine print to say whether or not we're doing the right thing for the USA. I will say though, being an avid outdoorsmen and a staunch conservationist we need to get our own water systems, wetlands, and air un-fucked. When my wife can't eat tuna more then once a week when she's pregnant because the mercury levels are too high, I'd say there's a definite problem we need to fix.
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 7:10 Comments || Top||

#2  Someone should tell Hans Brinker that if the global warming kooks are right he'll soon be able to strap on his silver skates and and fly down the salt water canals just like his greatgreatgrand dad did. (In the so called little ice age)
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 8:14 Comments || Top||

#3  I recommend The Skeptical Environmentalist as a good read on this. Note: I have not read it myself. But, it' interesting because the Danish (?) scientist who wrote it set out in his research to prove that global warming was a result of greenhouse gas, but he was surprised to find that the data did not support that conclusion. Of course, because there are so many foundations and research budgets riding on the tautology that emissions are bad and must be cut, that his book was roundly criticized by the mainstream scientific community.

Link
Posted by: mjh || 01/30/2004 8:56 Comments || Top||

#4  human beings, through fossil fuel emissions, are causing it.
I thought it was cow farts (or is that burps) that was doing it.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/30/2004 9:15 Comments || Top||

#5  C'mon... this is really Scrappleface, isn't it? I mean, real humans with any self respect wouldn't really say things like, she meant that energy policies and technologies "must be responsive to gender" and must be made "from a gender perspective", would they (But if so, I'm sure American male pollution is much more offensive than the average female pollution)??

Just in case this actually happened, a BIG SHOUT OUT to the good U.S. Senators for resisting Eurobabble and telling it like it is...

"Don’t worry about precise emissions levels. "It’s important, he said, to "just take into account our ambition to address this problem."

Pathetic, yet strangely entertaining!

CF: I am a good global citizen because I have installed a cattlitic converter on my cow's orifices:)
Posted by: Hyper || 01/30/2004 9:58 Comments || Top||

#6  Is this article a joke? Whoever wrote this must still be in primary school. I'm not saying that there aren't some feral green organisations pushing their own agenda however this is written in a away that alludes at these saintly senators far away from home being confronted by some ogres. It's pathetic jurnalism. I'm sure the point could have been made in a rather more professional manner. While I don't buy leftwing propaganda bullshit, this is a perfect example of the other extreme.
Posted by: Igs || 01/30/2004 10:13 Comments || Top||

#7  First: attaboy, Senators! Finally we got a day's work for their day's pay.

a French official said, "Don’t worry about precise emissions levels." It’s important, he said, to "just take into account our ambition to address this problem."

Translation: as long as our hearts are in the right place, who cares what happened to our brains?

mjh: I have read The Skeptical Environmentalist and he makes a good case. Not perfect but a welcome balance to the argument. By the way, could you embed links in the future? Just pasting them throws Fred's formatting off. Thanx.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/30/2004 10:18 Comments || Top||

#8  How'd a buncha post-modernist idjits get into the conference in the first place?

Oh, wait...
Posted by: mojo || 01/30/2004 11:01 Comments || Top||

#9  Jarhead, there is a physicist at GMU that has lead the call for independent confirmation of the science behind global warming. I have his name at home but am drawing a blank here at work. He has pointed out that at the convention where Koyoto was drafted, there were several hundred experts in hard science that offered input. Many disagreements were had, and a compromise draft was prepared agreeing to areas for further study. After the majority of the scientists left the compromise was redrafted and signed by 80 or so participants in the conference (not a standard procedure for scienctific conferences).

Unfortunately, the remaining 80 had a specific agenda that they were pushing and few of the 80 had expertice inhard scientists. Many of the signatories are, in fact, doctors but hold their doctorates in political science and economics. They were, basically, a collection of Social Engineers who saw global warming as a way to level the playing field between the 1st and 3rd worlds.
The JMU physicist is actually an enviromentalist who drives a Prius and everything. His belief that we are neglecting other important ecological problems like damage to the ocean and improper solid waste disposal as we chase the Global Warming specter. He points out that if man made emmisions are causing Global Warming, then we need to take effective action to curtail emmissions throughout the world not just in the 1st world. For example, uncontrolled emmisions in industrializing Indonesia are much more dangerous than carefully controlled emmissions in the US or UK.
I share his beliefs, due to a bunch of mumbo jumbo that I won't list here. Like you I would like to see available research cash used to make tuna safe to eat, because, damn it, I like to have a tuna steak now and again.

Here is a link to another example of UN Social Engineering that doesn't address the root cause. Kofi Anan wants European countries to open their borders to people fleeing poor economic conditions in Africa. Like our problems with Mexico, the resolution never addresses fixing the socialist or other form of kleptocracy that the folks are fleeing. For instance, if I wanted to found an economically prosperous country from scratch, I would locate it in Mexico before founding a country in the US. Annan attacks forterss Europe over migrants.


I now reliquish the digital microphone to our compatriot IGS, who, no doubt intends to do some ranting of his own - all of which will be based on solid facts. Take it away IGS. ZZZzzzz
Posted by: Super Hose || 01/30/2004 11:23 Comments || Top||

#10  Sorry for mispelling Kyoto. I tried to search using my own spelling. My search proved fruitless. The point of the search was to provide a link to the posting on Australia's Animal Fart Tax from back in June. It's worth a read for those having a bad day.
Posted by: Super Hose || 01/30/2004 11:31 Comments || Top||

#11  Jarhead, we are in the process of getting our environment "un-fucked". Levels of every airborne pollutant measured by the EPA have dropped in the past 30 years. Example: Ambient levels of airborne lead have dropped by 99% since 1970. In some parts of the country, the air is cleaner today than at any other time in the past century. Ditto for the streams, rivers and lakes in the US (just ask old-timers in Cleveland about the Cuyahoga river).

Part of the reason for your wife being unable to eat tuna is not because there is more mercury in the tuna, but because we are more aware of the negative effects of low levels of mercury. Our instruments are much better at detecting low levels of chemicals in food, and we have much greater understanding of the risks of those low levels. In reality, you and your wife live in a far cleaner environment today than your parents did some 40 years ago.
Posted by: Captain Holly || 01/30/2004 11:34 Comments || Top||

#12  Here's a link to one critical review of the underlying science behind Kyoto. The website supports a paper that was published last year which essentially says that errors in the seminal paper underlying Kyoto (Mann, et al) were directly responsible for its conclusions. It's especially interesting (to me, anyway) because it reveals the process underlying the science -- including communications between the authors and Mann himself.
Posted by: snellenr || 01/30/2004 12:04 Comments || Top||

#13  Jarhead, actually we're LONG overdue for our next ice age. Ice ages last 1 hundred thousand years and then go into periods of relative warmth (like now) that last a few thousand years. The normal state of the planet over the last 500,000 years has been ice age with a few short periods of warmth. We have been out of the ice age for 11,000 years... 8,000 years overdue for the next one... based on the last 4 that all had warm periods of about 3,000 years. It has been hypothesized that organized farming by civilization that started about 9,500 years released CO2 and modified our cycle to allow for an extension of the warm period. In other words... it might be that by cutting back on green house gases we could force ourselves into another ice age. The point is that no one knows and anyone who says they do and tries to preach what should be done is completely full of sh-t.
Posted by: Damn_Proud_American || 01/30/2004 12:09 Comments || Top||

#14  As much as I'd like to post a "thumbs up" for Inhofe, Thomas and Craig, I find the source dubious. It really IS written like an opinion piece.

I find it hard to believe that the LLLs would expose their true motives so loudly during such a conference; another reason to doubt this article.

Oh, and for those of you wanting good, rational analysis of the environmental question, try "The State of Humanity" by the late great Julian Simon.
Posted by: Unmutual || 01/30/2004 13:11 Comments || Top||

#15  --"We want to make the climate symbol a fashion accessory!!"--

And use up more of the earth's precious resources (which I want to protect) so I can make MONEY!
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 13:17 Comments || Top||

#16  And Sweden's pushing gender equality is kind of suspect after the animal sex article yesterday.

EEEWWWWWW!
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 01/30/2004 13:19 Comments || Top||

#17  Appreciate the feedback y'all. Good info.
Posted by: Jarhead || 01/30/2004 13:29 Comments || Top||

#18  I thought it was cow farts (or is that burps) that was doing it.

I think it's the sheep in New Zealand.
Posted by: Rafael || 01/30/2004 13:52 Comments || Top||

#19  I am IMPRESSED. Let's get rid of the State Dept. and simply send a few Republican (no Boniors or McDurmots, please) Congressmen.
Posted by: Jackal || 01/30/2004 14:10 Comments || Top||

#20  The environmentalists' search for political power is sickening.
1."Don’t worry about precise emissions levels.....just take into account our ambition to address this problem."
Same as the pilot who remarked, "I'm flying at Mach 1.5 and all my NAVAIDS are out so I don't know where I'm headed, but I'm not worried because I'm making great time." Do these people get paid for what they do?

2....energy policies and technologies must be made "from a gender perspective."
A friend from Florida just told me how he had helped two ladies get a car started, then remarked, "I bet red-neck women know how to jump start a car or truck with a dead battery." See? Redneck husbands already have a gender based energy policy--'Let the old lady start her own damn truck'.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 01/30/2004 15:23 Comments || Top||

#21  "I bet red-neck women know how to jump start a car or truck with a dead battery."

They drive straight shifts and park on a hill... it's in the bloodline. And yes the good ones are spoken for.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 16:02 Comments || Top||

#22  DPA, actually from all the data I have seen, the 20th century had a mostly flat change in temperature with a few statistically insignificant changes. It may be that we are headed for a new ice age unless humanity can unlock enough CO2 to prevent it. As someone once wrote (paraphrase) "It may turn out that humanity is not the Earth's equivalent of a virus, but that humanity IS Earth's equivalent of an immune system."
Posted by: Chemist || 01/30/2004 16:10 Comments || Top||

#23  DPA is generally correct, but with one important correction - WE ARE IN AN ICE AGE NOW. and have been for well over a million years. The last 11.5k years have been what is called an inter-glacial where the ice-sheets temporarily recede and based on past data is due to end around now.

Chemist is also right that the last 150 years have been notable for a lack of climate change. and a resonable case can be made that CO2 emissions may have in fact delayed the end of the inter-glacial. And note that we have no real idea why ice ages and inter-glacials occur in the first place. If CO2 emissions have delayed the end of the inter-glacial then it would be a truly amazing piece of good fortune. A return to the ice age proper would cause deaths on a scale never seen before. Literally billions of people would die! The year without a summer that occured around 1880 gives a flavor of what would happen when many died of famine in northern countries.

The not inconsiderable irony about Kyoto is that global warming were it to happen would be generally beneficial.
Posted by: phil_b || 01/30/2004 17:11 Comments || Top||

#24  DPA is generally correct, but with one important correction - WE ARE IN AN ICE AGE NOW. and have been for well over a million years. The last 11.5k years have been what is called an inter-glacial where the ice-sheets temporarily recede and based on past data is due to end around now.

Chemist is also right that the last 150 years have been notable for a lack of climate change. and a resonable case can be made that CO2 emissions may have in fact delayed the end of the inter-glacial. And note that we have no real idea why ice ages and inter-glacials occur in the first place. If CO2 emissions have delayed the end of the inter-glacial then it would be a truly amazing piece of good fortune. A return to the ice age proper would cause deaths on a scale never seen before. Literally billions of people would die! The year without a summer that occured around 1880 gives a flavor of what would happen when many died of famine in northern countries.

The not inconsiderable irony about Kyoto is that global warming were it to happen would be generally beneficial.
Posted by: phil_b || 01/30/2004 17:11 Comments || Top||

#25  I've read The Skeptical Environmentalist and some of the others who poke holes in the science. Key problem is trying to use limited time-series data to validate models that have lots of assumptions about a natural system with lots of possible feedback loops and layering on top another set of assumptions about what the impacts are going to be of human societies a 100 years from now. Latest relatively non-partisan statement from some US scientists is that some warming is going on and that it is likely that at least some of it is human induced. Note that this is not the same thing as saying it is mostly due to CO2 or that the dooms day scenarios are likely. Also note that there are some opportunities to control the release of methane that are more likely to be a win-win rather than trying to control CO2. Here are some links if you are interested. Knock yourselves out.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/12/18/MNGNV3PH9D1.DTL&type=science

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2002/2002_Hansen.pdf

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/castleshendersonresponse.pdf
Posted by: Larry || 01/30/2004 17:29 Comments || Top||

#26  From the first link in post #25

"It is scientifically inconceivable that after changing forests into cities, turning millions of acres into farmland, putting massive quantities of soot and dust into the atmosphere and sending quantities of greenhouse gases into the air, that the natural course of climate change hasn't been increased in the past century.''

Increased?? I am astonished a reputable scientist would say this. I can only assume he said 'altered' and the journalist doctored it.

Here is another dubious quote:

But the AGU did suggest that continuing scientific research "provides a basis for mitigating the harmful effects of global climate change through decreased human influences."

Any reputable scientist should know about the 'future knowledge problem' That is you can not make preictions about what future research will tell you. Future research may well conclude that we can mitigate the effects of climate change by 'increased human influences'.

I'll avoid a major rant on the subject but this stuff drives me nuts!!!!
Posted by: phil_b || 01/30/2004 19:08 Comments || Top||

#27  Hell Phil.... rant on I'm listening.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/30/2004 19:20 Comments || Top||

#28  SH, not much pointin posting further comments on this article, my dog can write better than that (she's very talented), and fyi, I'm not a compatriot. I was just pointing out that the article cannot be considered serious unbiased journalism, but rather a rant/opinion piece by someone who is not able to provide a critical analysis of the issues. In other words, it's crap.
Posted by: Igs || 01/30/2004 23:39 Comments || Top||

#29  Me too Shipman, can you believe it!? Rantburg U indeed.
Posted by: Lucky || 01/30/2004 23:55 Comments || Top||


Home Front
U.S. Government Offers Free Cyber Alerts
The U.S. government’s ambitious new cyber alert system transmitted its first Internet warning on its opening day of business Wednesday, cautioning computer users about a fast-spreading infection that causes victims to launch an electronic attack against Microsoft Corp. The Homeland Security Department said the Web site where Americans can sign up for the free cyber alerts and computer advice, www.us-cert.gov, received more than 1 million visitors Wednesday, up from a few thousand visitors one day earlier. The new National Cyber Alert System will send urgent e-mails about major virus outbreaks and other Internet attacks as they occur, along with detailed instructions to help computer users protect themselves.

The program, announced Wednesday, represents the government’s effort to develop a trusted warning system that can help home users and technology experts. The announcement comes 11 months after such an alert system was described in the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, a series of proposals endorsed by the Bush administration and the technology industry to improve online security. The government christened the new warning system by transmitting its first alert, about a newly discovered version of a fast-spreading virus known as "Mydoom" or "Novarg." The cleverly designed virus, spread by e-mail, poses as an authentic error message and entices users to click on it to infect their computers. Infected machines were programmed ultimately to launch an automated attack against Microsoft’s Web site. "There is a clear need for this kind of system to be developed," said Amit Yoran, the Bush administration’s cyber security chief. "Receiving information from the Department of Homeland Security gives people a certain level of confidence." The alerts will function independently from the Homeland Security Department’s well known color-coded system, which reflects the national threat level.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., quickly criticized the alert system, describing it as inadequate because it doesn’t require companies that suffer major virus outbreaks to notify the government. He also predicted that hackers will mimic the e-mail alerts transmitted by Homeland Security to trick computer users. "I would bet money that will happen," Schumer said.
"So no alert system at all is much better..."
Yoran said alerts will be digitally signed so computer users can determine the e-mails aren’t forged; each alert also will be published on the Web site for the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team. Previous government efforts to distribute warnings about Internet attacks were sharply criticized by congressional investigators, who complained in July 2002 that those earlier warnings were mostly issued after Internet attacks were long under way. They blamed the government’s inability to analyze imminent Internet attacks, fears about raising false alarms and staff shortages. Wednesday’s inaugural alert came roughly five hours after researchers discovered the latest version of the virus spreading on the Internet. Yoran acknowledged the difficult balance between providing warnings quickly and making sure they’re accurate. "I’m sure we’ll take some kicks in the shins," he said.

Yoran indicated the government will focus on distributing information as quickly as possible, correcting any wrong or outdated information as U.S. computer investigators learn new details. "In the absence of information, the operator community is going to rely on whatever information is out there," he said. "It’s better to have our voice heard rather than letting people operate in the dark." The new alert system also sets up potentially serious conflicts with leading software companies, including Microsoft Corp., which discourage any public disclosures about new security flaws in their products until engineers can study the problems and offer software patches for their customers. Yoran said the government will aggressively warn consumers about vulnerabilities, in some cases revealing threats "above and beyond what specific commercial vendors may not wish to disclose."
Posted by: tipper || 01/30/2004 1:45:13 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Can you see it now?
Please note the following cyber-warning. We have received intelligence that [CLASSIFIED], a know terrorist group will[CLASSIFIED] on or about [CLASSIFIED]. The cities of [CLASSIFIED] and [CLASSIFIED] are of particular interest to the [CLASSIFIED]. This information was obtained by [CLASSIFIED]. Please take all appropriate precautions.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 01/30/2004 9:15 Comments || Top||

#2  chuck..you should give "do not drink coffee while reading" alerts before posting like that!
Posted by: B || 01/30/2004 9:51 Comments || Top||

#3  Well, if Schumer doesn't like it.....it must be good.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 01/30/2004 12:24 Comments || Top||



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Fri 2004-01-30
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Thu 2004-01-29
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Wed 2004-01-28
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Tue 2004-01-27
  Abu Sayyaf commander banged in Jolo
Mon 2004-01-26
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Sun 2004-01-25
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Sat 2004-01-24
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Fri 2004-01-23
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Thu 2004-01-22
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Wed 2004-01-21
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Tue 2004-01-20
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Mon 2004-01-19
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