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21 dead in festive Gaza weekend
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 3: Non-WoT
5 00:00 whatadeal [13] 
4 00:00 trailing wife [6] 
11 00:00 Valentine [9] 
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1 00:00 Frank G [9] 
1 00:00 gromgoru [8] 
3 00:00 Shipman [5] 
1 00:00 Alaska Paul [6] 
2 00:00 Anguper Hupomosing9418 [4] 
6 00:00 Chuck Darwin [3] 
11 00:00 Frank G [7] 
6 00:00 Shipman [9] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
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3 00:00 Yala Islamic College and School of Bomb Making [4]
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5 00:00 Pappy [11]
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4 00:00 BA [6]
1 00:00 USN, ret. [8]
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Page 2: WoT Background
5 00:00 Mullah Lodabullah [5]
5 00:00 whatadeal [9]
13 00:00 whatadeal [8]
4 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [5]
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1 00:00 Frank G [6]
3 00:00 gromgoru [3]
1 00:00 Excalibur [4]
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7 00:00 Broadhead6 [6]
1 00:00 Zhang Fei [7]
5 00:00 BA [14]
5 00:00 trailing wife [9]
1 00:00 whatadeal [11]
5 00:00 Shipman [6]
2 00:00 Besoeker [5]
2 00:00 3dc [9]
8 00:00 SR-71 [7]
2 00:00 gromgoru [4]
2 00:00 Jackal [7]
2 00:00 john [10]
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12 00:00 BA [10]
4 00:00 Procopius2k [4]
4 00:00 Excalibur [6]
6 00:00 gromgoru [5]
4 00:00 USN, ret. [6]
3 00:00 xbalanke [11]
5 00:00 Redneck Jim [6]
Page 4: Opinion
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11 00:00 whatadeal [8]
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16 00:00 JohnQC [10]
2 00:00 CrazyFool [6]
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Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
14 00:00 Phineter Thraviger [13]
4 00:00 Were-Jackal [6]
3 00:00 JohnQC [8]
5 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [4]
2 00:00 Frank G [9]
13 00:00 USN, ret. [6]
3 00:00 Redneck Jim [3]
5 00:00 Excalibur [8]
7 00:00 USN, ret. [8]
3 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [8]
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Africa North
Nurses to be spared execution: Gaddafi’s son
SOFIA - Five Bulgarian nurses who were sentenced to death in Libya for deliberately infecting children with the HIV virus will not be executed, the son of Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi said Saturday. Saif Al Islam Gaddafi guaranteed that the women would not be executed in an interview in Paris that was published in Bulgaria’s 24 Chassa newspaper.

The European Union, which Bulgaria joined on January 1, is campaigning ineffectually for the release of the medics.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/28/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So, there will be a ransom tribute rightful compensation. The barbary pirates would be so proud, nothing really has changed.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 01/28/2007 9:24 Comments || Top||

#2  "...The Dey of Tripoli considered himself at war with the United States of America and was acting accordingly, with one notable exception that we shall examine momentarily. As far as Yusef Bey was concerned, he was at war with the entire United States - Navy and Merchant Marine alike - and they were all fair game. The United States, on the other hand, in its majesty, glory and wisdom, had not made a reciprocal declaration and therefore had very little to bargain with. In fact, as we have seen, US crews were releasing Tripolitian prisoners.
Yusef’s own peculiar outlook on things complicated matters a bit. He did consider himself at war and was acting as such – but if we were willing to come up with enough money, he was willing to let Philadelphia’s crew go, whether or not hostilities had been concluded. This was and had been standard operating procedure in that part of the world for centuries. After all, there were only so many people and desert outposts one could conquer, taxes and baksheesh could only go so far, and every now and then the navies of the world cracked down on active piracy. That left ransom – an ancient and honored form of royal income that by the time we encountered it had been refined to an art form.
It was a pretty simple operation, really. You captured your prisoners and separated them by ability to pay. The poor frequently ended up enslaved while everyone else was kept in conditions that while unpleasant were frequently no worse and occasionally better than those the average subject of the Dey toiled under. This was not a reflection of any compassion on the Dey’s part but rather a simple, hardheaded business decision – dead captives brought nothing, while live ones were always a bargaining chip. There was no real malice here, and it was certainly nothing personal. It was simply business, and on the whole it was reasonably profitable..."


I think that covers it quite nicely.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 01/28/2007 9:39 Comments || Top||

#3  Shame the Bulgarians don't have the stones of, say, Ethiopia.
Posted by: Excalibur || 01/28/2007 11:44 Comments || Top||

#4  It's not matter of stones, this is where a lack of force projection comes in. That said, the Bulgars do have some funky umbrellas.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/28/2007 15:46 Comments || Top||

#5  It's not matter of stones, this is where a lack of force projection comes in

That's pretty ironical, isn't it? Through terror proxies quite a few otherwise negligible muslim countries can/could project their forces and have a weight unproportionated to their real importance (think iran able to act decisively in south america)... an ability the overhelming majority of western countries lack.
you're absolutely right. What can Bulgaria do about it? Resort to terror?
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 01/28/2007 17:07 Comments || Top||

#6  That's where the umbrellas come in 5089.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/28/2007 17:21 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Barclays' millions help to prop up Mugabe regime
Barclays bank is helping to bankroll President Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, providing millions of pounds of support for his vilified land reforms, The Observer can reveal. Mugabe's opponents describe the bank's activities as a 'disgrace' and an 'insult' to the millions who have suffered human rights abuses.

Barclays is the most high-profile of three British-based financial institutions, which, in total, have provided more than $1bn in direct and indirect funding to Mugabe's administration. The other two companies are Standard Chartered Bank and the insurance firm Old Mutual. According to influential newsletter Africa Confidential, that first disclosed the Barclays' loans, the British organisations provide an economic lifeline keeping Mugabe's regime afloat.
But it's just business.
A spokesman for Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, likened the bank's actions to its support of South Africa's apartheid regime and urged a boycott.

One of the most controversial of Barclays' Zimbabwe loans is the £30m it provides to a state-sponsored agricultural 'facility' aiming to sustain land reforms that saw Mugabe seize white-owned farmland and drive more than 100,000 black workers from their homes. The government has expelled more than a million opposition supporters from Harare and Bulawayo, dumping them in the countryside.
Sorta makes them complicit in the whole affair, doesn't it?
Britain backs targeted international sanctions against the regime - although there are no economic sanctions - which prevent Mugabe or his political associates travelling to Europe or the US. It is estimated that Barclays, Standard Chartered Bank and Old Mutual have lent the Mugabe regime about £100m by purchasing treasury bills and government bonds.

Any commercial bank operating in Zimbabwe must reinvest 40 per cent of its profits in government bonds. Barclays has arranged finance facilities worth $110m to Zimbabwean companies involved in tobacco, mining, sugar, manufacturing and the horticultural sectors. Last year Barclays bought South Africa's Absa bank for more than £2bn, making it one of the Mugabe government's biggest private financiers.

Barclays says it has had customers in Zimbabwe for decades and abandoning them now would make matters worse. A spokesman said: 'We have been in Rhodesia Zimbabwe since 1912 and have 1,000 employees serving 150,000 retail, business and corporate customers in the country. We are committed to continuing to provide a service to those customers in what is clearly a difficult operating environment. As with all other banks and businesses, Barclays is required to comply with the regulations of the Reserve Bank. This involves participating from time to time in the purchase of treasury bills and government bonds.'

Old Mutual, the London insurance firm, holds investments on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange worth about 16 per cent of the market and has a stake in Zimbabwe Newspapers, which publishes the Herald and the Chronicle. Nobody from Old Mutual was available for comment.

A spokesman for Standard Chartered Bank confirmed his institution had lent Mugabe money through purchase of government bonds. He said: 'This is part of doing business in Zimbabwe.'
Posted by: Steve White || 01/28/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  F*cking disgrace.
Posted by: Spot || 01/28/2007 6:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Poor mal bastard. Will he never go away?
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/28/2007 7:11 Comments || Top||

#3  So, Barclays wants the farmland? Collateral?
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/28/2007 7:55 Comments || Top||

#4  Old Mutual is an international financial services group based in London. Formerly based in South Africa, Old Mutual offers a wide range of financial services in three principal geographies. Having major assets in the United Kingdom and in the United States, Old Mutual also operates in Namibia, Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Originally founded in 1845 as a mutual insurance company, Old Mutual focuses on asset management and asset gathering. The company, which deals with life assurance, asset management, banking and general insurance businesses in African regions such as Namibia, Malawi and Kenya is listed on the London Stock Exchange as well as the Johannesburg, Namibian, Malawi, Stockholm and Zimbabwe stock exchanges.

Any further questions?

Posted by: Besoeker || 01/28/2007 8:20 Comments || Top||

#5  Old Mutual focuses on asset management and ASSET GATHERING.
Nope, they"re after the consficated farmlands when Zimbob defaults/bankrupts.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/28/2007 8:33 Comments || Top||

#6  It's an Afri thing, you wouldn't understand.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/28/2007 8:41 Comments || Top||

#7  If Zimbob DOES pay, Barclays will need to rent a huge warehouse to hold all the worthless psper currency, no guards need apply.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/28/2007 9:07 Comments || Top||

#8  Its a insult to the depositors and stockholders of Barclay's. Their assets are being wasted on a boondoggle.
Posted by: 3dc || 01/28/2007 9:55 Comments || Top||

#9  "There's a lot of money in boondoggles."
WC Fields
Posted by: Phineter Thraviger || 01/28/2007 12:23 Comments || Top||

#10  And so, the Crimson Permanent Assurance was launched upon the high seas of international finance.

It's fun to charter an accountant
And sail the wide accountancy,
To find, explore the funds offshore
And skirt the shoals of bankruptcy!

It can be manly in insurance.
We'll up your premium semi-annually.
It's all tax deductible.
We're fairly incorruptible,
We're sailing on the wide accountancy!
Posted by: Elmert Crosh5077 || 01/28/2007 18:48 Comments || Top||

#11  /monty
Posted by: Frank G || 01/28/2007 19:18 Comments || Top||


Britain
Muslims urged to refuse 'un-Islamic' vaccinations
ht to Instapundit, who calls it evolution in action
Posted by: Frank G || 01/28/2007 14:16 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Children who have not been vaccinated should be banned for entering hospitals or making use of the school system. There is no reason the rest of us should put our families at risk from religious zealots who insist on making themselves plague bearers.

In fact, why stop there? Be vaccinated or be deported.
Posted by: Excalibur || 01/28/2007 15:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Ex, no can do. There's plenty of non-Islamic nuts who also refuse vaccination for religious reasons, or because they still refuse to believe that vaccinations did not cause their children to be autistic. They're born here, their parents were, too. Where we gonna deport them?

If they want to be stupid like that, let their genes die out. Think of it as chlorinating the gene pool....
Posted by: Swamp Blondie || 01/28/2007 16:08 Comments || Top||

#3  Sorry. Meant to say did cause thei kids to be autistic.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie || 01/28/2007 16:09 Comments || Top||

#4  http://www.cdc.gov/travel/hajj.htm

Saudi Arabia Hajj Requirements

All travelers arriving from countries known to be infected with yellow fever (as shown in the World Health Organization [WHO] Weekly Epidemiological Record) must present a valid yellow fever vaccination certificate in accordance with the International Health Regulations.

or all arrivals. Visitors from all over the world arriving for the purpose of "Umra" or pilgrimage or for seasonal work are requested to produce a certificate of vaccination against meningitis issued not more than 3 years and not less than 10 days before arrival in Saudi Arabia

Adults and children over the age of 2 years must receive the vaccination against meningococcal meningitis with the quadrivalent vaccine (serogroups A,C, Y and W135).

Children between 3 months and 2 years of age must be given two doses of the A vaccine with a 3-month interval between the two doses.

Documentation of polio vaccination is required for infants and children 15 years of age or younger. Children over 15 years of age should present documentation of the same vaccinations requested for adults.
Posted by: john || 01/28/2007 16:22 Comments || Top||

#5  Children who have not been vaccinated should be banned for entering hospitals or making use of the school system.

Especially if their parents refuse to wash their hands because the lotion uses alcohol...
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 01/28/2007 16:38 Comments || Top||

#6  I expect they will suffer the consequences of their actions.
Posted by: Brett || 01/28/2007 16:49 Comments || Top||

#7  I expect they will suffer the consequences of their actions.

From diseases-ridden Gaia, perhaps, but from english society, which will bend backward to accomodate, I doubt it.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 01/28/2007 16:51 Comments || Top||

#8 
"They're born here, their parents were, too. Where we gonna deport them?"


Well, the middle of the ocean works for me! Drop off the Donks too, while we're at it!

Posted by: Chuck Darwin || 01/28/2007 17:52 Comments || Top||

#9  If they want to be stupid like that, let their genes die out. Think of it as chlorinating the gene pool....

Swamp Blondie, here's link which explains why it doesn't work this way.
Posted by: gromgoru || 01/28/2007 18:43 Comments || Top||

#10  When I first purused this headline, I thought it said "Muslims urged to refuse 'un-Islamic' vacations". Then, I thought, where exactly does one go, as a strident Muslim, to have vactation? Qom, Mekkka, Medina?

Oh, and I hear that Beirut is lovely this time of year, too.
Posted by: BA || 01/28/2007 21:18 Comments || Top||

#11  Why is this guy still a doctor? Revoke his license for making a suggestion like that.
Posted by: Valentine || 01/28/2007 23:27 Comments || Top||


Murder in a Teapot
Salt required, it's an ABC blog.
British officials say police have cracked the murder-by-poison case of former spy Alexander Litvinenko, including the discovery of a "hot" teapot at London's Millennium Hotel with an off-the-charts reading for Polonium-210, the radioactive material used in the killing.
ABC is now 'discovering' the hot teapot, previously reported.
A senior official tells ABC News the "hot" teapot remained in use at the hotel for several weeks after Litvinenko's death before being tested in the second week of December. The official said investigators were embarrassed at the oversight.

The official says investigators have concluded, based on forensic evidence and intelligence reports, that the murder was a "state-sponsored" assassination orchestrated by Russian security services. Officials say Russian FSB intelligence considered the murder to have been badly bungled because it took more than one attempt to administer the poison. The Russian officials did not expect the source of the poisoning to be discovered, according to intelligence reports.

Russian officials continue to deny any involvement in the murder and have said they would deny any extradition requests for suspects in the case.

Sources say police intend to seek charges against a former Russian spy, Andrei Lugovoi, who met with Litvinenko on Nov. 1, the day officials believe the lethal dose was administered in the Millennium Hotel teapot. Lugovoi steadfastly denied any involvement in the murder at a Moscow news conference and at a session with Scotland Yard detectives.
"Lies! All lies!"
Russian security police were present when the British questioned Lugovoi, and British officials do not think they received honest answers from him.
"By Jove, Trevor, I do believe he's right. He is all lies."
British health officials say some 128 people were discovered to have had "probable contact" with Polonium-210, including at least eight hotel staff members and one guest. None of these individuals has yet displayed symptoms of radiation poisoning, and only 13 individuals of the 128 tested at a level for which there is any known long-term health concern, officials said.

The Millennium Hotel has closed the Glow in the Dark Pine Bar and other areas where Litvinenko and Lugovoi met on Nov. 1, although the hotel says the remaining public areas "have been officially declared safe" and are open to the public.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/28/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Vlad Putin looks and acts just a bit more like Doctor Evil with each passing day. Somehow I doubt President Bush took a sufficiently deep gander into the man's soul. Perhaps Mahmoud Ah-Madman-inejad can act as his pint-sized human accessory...

In my book Russia keeps quietly edging closer to reapplying for that open spot in the Axis of Evil.
Posted by: Sic_Semper_Tyrannus || 01/28/2007 2:01 Comments || Top||

#2  Russia is already part of the Axis of "Countries sitting on vast natural resources while committing demographic suicide."
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 01/28/2007 4:09 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
A deal in the desert for Sen. Reid?
RTWT - the sleaze oozes
It's hard to buy undeveloped land in booming northern Arizona for $166 an acre. But now-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid effectively did just that when a longtime friend decided to sell property owned by the employee pension fund that he controlled.

In 2002, Reid (D-Nev.) paid $10,000 to a pension fund controlled by Clair Haycock, a Las Vegas lubricants distributor and his friend for 50 years. The payment gave the senator full control of a 160-acre parcel in Bullhead City that Reid and the pension fund had jointly owned. Reid's price for the equivalent of 60 acres of undeveloped desert was less than one-tenth of the value the assessor placed on it at the time.

Six months after the deal closed, Reid introduced legislation to address the plight of lubricants dealers who had their supplies disrupted by the decisions of big oil companies. It was an issue the Haycock family had brought to Reid's attention in 1994, according to a source familiar with the events.

If Reid were to sell the property for any of the various estimates of its value, his gain on the $10,000 investment could range from $50,000 to $290,000.

It is a potential violation of congressional ethics standards for a member to accept anything of value — including a real estate discount — from a person with interests before Congress.

In a statement, Reid's spokesman Jon Summers said that the transaction was not a gift and that the price was due to the property's history and the fact that only a partial interest was sold. Reid's action on the lubricants issue was unrelated to the sale and reflected the senator's interest in fairness for small businesses, Summers said.

Reid "has never taken any official action to provide personal financial benefit to me, and I would never have asked him to," Clair Haycock has told The Times. Haycock's son, John, who runs the petroleum-products distribution company with him, said in a recent e-mail that it was "absolutely wrong" to connect the land sale and Reid's lubricants legislation, which did not pass.

Legislative efforts

Records and interviews show that beginning in the mid-1990s, Reid tried several times to push legislation that would have protected lubricants distributors from abrupt cancellations by their suppliers. Though unsuccessful, the legislation sent a clear message to the oil firms that there was congressional interest in the matter, according to Sarah Dodge, then-legislative director for an industry group that worked on the bill.

By the time of the land sale, the Haycocks say, they had lost interest in the issue and were not aware that the legislation had been introduced.

Because an employee pension fund had owned the land Reid purchased, labor law experts contacted by The Times said, a below-market sale would raise additional questions. Pension fund trustees like Clair Haycock have a duty in most cases to sell assets for their market value, the experts said.

"I think this would have been considered a potentially serious issue" at the time, said Ian D. Lanoff, who led the Labor Department's pension division during the Carter administration and was provided basic details of the case — though not the identity of the lawmaker — by The Times.

"Theoretically it's a serious issue for the trustee who sold the property, though practically it may not be" because the pension plan is now closed and its obligations were met, Lanoff said.

John Haycock said his workers received all promised benefits from the Haycock Distributing Co. pension plan and were therefore unaffected by the land transaction. Federal records confirm this.

Reid's interest in the barren parcel dates back to the period of 1979 through 1982, when he and Clair Haycock bought the 160 acres. Haycock bought a three-eighths interest, equivalent to 60 acres, for $90,000 — $1,500 an acre. Reid, then a Nevada lawyer and political figure, bought the other five-eighths, the equivalent of 100 acres. They did not divide the parcel.

The property has sweeping mountain and mesa views and now abuts a housing development, which could make it attractive to developers. But there are some limitations. The land has a steep wash, or desert streambed, and the adjacent land has a gravel pit.

In early 1987, Haycock turned over his interest in the land to the pension fund, for which he acts as trustee. The fund provided retirement benefits for about 80 employees, and under law, employers must contribute to such funds each year.

In the early 1990s, California investors bought the entire 160 acres from Reid and Haycock for a little over $1.34 million — around $8,400 an acre. The new owners obtained approval to develop a mobile home and recreational vehicle park. But a few years later they defaulted, and Reid and the pension fund were once again the land's joint owners.

Development slowed in the late 1990s, and Reid and the Haycocks say the property became a cash drain. In 1999, according to Reid's office, the senator began working without success with developer Craig Johnson on a plan for the property. At some point, Reid's office said, he offered to give the land to Johnson, who declined. Johnson has confirmed that offer. In a statement Reid's office provided, Johnson described the listless market and the property's challenges.

In 2001, Haycock Distributing Co. decided to convert its existing pension fund into a 401(k) retirement program. In liquidating its assets, the firm decided that the plan must quickly sell its share of the property.
Posted by: Frank G || 01/28/2007 16:37 || Comments || Link || [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I can't wait the late night infomercial on buying Realestate with Harry Reid.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 01/28/2007 18:42 Comments || Top||

#2  "Make BIG money in real estate - ask Harry Reid how!"
Posted by: Shush Omolung9989 || 01/28/2007 19:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Buy my book "Real Estate: Nothing Down and 10¢ on the Dollar" from DNC Publishing.
Posted by: Harry Reid || 01/28/2007 19:59 Comments || Top||

#4  No, buy my cattle futures trading book!
Posted by: Hillary Rodham || 01/28/2007 21:33 Comments || Top||

#5  It is wrong for these guys to go into public service and come out rich, richer, and richest. It does not have to be illegal to be corrupt; it does not have to be illegal to smell.
Posted by: whatadeal || 01/28/2007 23:20 Comments || Top||


Lieberman Might Back Republican in 2008
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2000 who won re-election as an independent last year, says he is open to supporting any party's White House nominee in 2008. "I'm going to do what most independents and a lot of Democrats and Republicans in America do, which is to take a look at all the candidates and then in the end, regardless of party, decide who I think will be best for the future of our country," Lieberman said Sunday.

"So I'm open to supporting a Democrat, Republican or even an Independent, if there's a strong one. Stay tuned," said the three-term lawmaker who caucuses with Senate Democrats.

Lieberman is an ally of GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a 2008 hopeful, and supports President Bush's new Iraq strategy. Lieberman won re-election as an independent last fall when Democrats backed an anti-war candidate who won the party primary.

Speaking of which politician he may support in 2008, Lieberman said, "Obviously, the positions that some candidates have taken in Iraq troubles me. Obviously, I will be looking at what positions they take in the larger war against Islamist terrorism." He added, "I am genuinely an independent. I agree more often than not with Democrats on domestic policy. I agree more often than not with Republicans on foreign and defense policy."

The senator said he wanted to select someone "I believe is best for the future of our country. ... Party is important, but more important is the national interest. And that's the basis that I will decide whom to support for president."
Posted by: Jackal || 01/28/2007 14:37 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Lieberman, football, Charlie Brown. If he really thought that way, why is he caucusing with the Democrats and voting same even after they rejected him?
Posted by: ed || 01/28/2007 16:05 Comments || Top||

#2  I've been watching Lieberman since 2000. Although I vote conservative (especially on social programs), I think he'd be willing to sacrifice his political career to protect the U.S. in the manner it should be protected.
Posted by: Xenophon || 01/28/2007 18:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Joementium is a sly ole dog. He's applying maximum leverage (err veiled threat)as we approach the non-binding resolution vote.
Posted by: Captain America || 01/28/2007 19:43 Comments || Top||

#4  I agree, Xenophon. Senator Lieberman is making it plain that day-to-day he is concerned about many issues, but long term only the WOT matters. I quite agree with him.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/28/2007 21:05 Comments || Top||


Hillary hits presidential campaign in Iowa
Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton has taken her bid to become the first female US president to Iowa, where the party will hold its first election to pick the 2008 candidate. One week after entering the race, the US senator and wife of former president Bill Clinton told a packed school gymnasium in Des Moines that President George W Bush's Republican administration had reversed decades of progress. "I fear the current president and vice-president are going to leave a pretty big hole to be dug out of," she told 1,400 placard-waving supporters.
Posted by: Fred || 01/28/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What decades of progress is she talking about? The only Arab country that likes is less than they did before Bush was President is maybe France. Maybe.
Posted by: Mike N. || 01/28/2007 1:32 Comments || Top||

#2  "I fear the current president and vice-president are going to leave a pretty big hole to be dug out of," she told 1,400 crazed placard-waving supporters moon bats.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/28/2007 6:59 Comments || Top||

#3  We get to watch and listen to this, potentially, for another 22 months. The only thing that is going to make things interresting is Hillary's character assasination squads and when she has to speak "passionately". She has two speeds for public speaking; calm/contrived seemingly under the influence of happypills and shrill/sreechy/preachy.
Posted by: TomAnon || 01/28/2007 8:27 Comments || Top||

#4  LOL - the greatest punishment for Donk disloyalty to the country is that they have to listen to her
Posted by: Frank G || 01/28/2007 8:38 Comments || Top||

#5  She and the nutroots deserve each other. I'm hoping for brutality worthy of Lenin during the primary with Clinton losing the election to Giuliani in a landslide. That would be cathartic.

Posted by: Classical_Liberal || 01/28/2007 18:36 Comments || Top||

#6  These Bolshevik Douche Nozzles™ should not be allowed to spew their seditionist filth in the schools. Can't stop them going onto college campuses (yet), but they should be banned from going into any school below the college level.
Posted by: Chuck Darwin || 01/28/2007 20:07 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Benzir marriage on the rocks? No, no! Certainly not!
The Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) has contradicted reports that Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari had split, terming them “baseless propaganda” against the PPP and its leaders. Benazir Bhutto’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar said that it was a “baseless, false and bogus story”. He said that Benazir and Zardari were living together and had no differences, as reported by a magazine.
Posted by: Fred || 01/28/2007 12:32 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:


Benazir's marriage on the rocks?
The Bhutto-Zardari marriage is over, according to an article in the Indian magazine Outlook by Mariana Babar, a Pakistani female journalist friendly with Benazir Bhutto.

According to Ms Babar, “a little over two years from that heady, emotional November, as we settle into 2007, a chill seems to have seeped into the romantic saga that the Benazir-Zardari matrimony has always been for this country. The fizz has gone out of the love story, Benazir and Zardari don’t live together, their marriage is an empty shell, a partnership of pretences, a form they must maintain because Pakistan, like much of South Asia, can’t accept a woman politician divorced from her husband. You could say it’s a separation that’s still dressed as marriage.

“For months now, the souring of the Benazir-Zardari saga has been the staple of whispers in PPP circles. The buzz attained credibility in November last year when an English daily led its front page with the bruising header: ‘Benazir desperately trying to save her marriage’. The PPP didn’t issue any denials. Last year too, in a money-laundering case filed by the earlier Nawaz Sharif government, Benazir told a Swiss court that she wasn’t associated with offshore companies being investigated for their links to Zardari. The statement was perceived as an attempt on her part to distance herself from her husband.

“A prominent Pakistani close to both Zardari and Benazir, who too now lives abroad, says: ‘The marriage is over. Both have decided to get on with life and live in countries of their own choosing. There has even been a distribution of assets; that’s why her statement last year to the Swiss court.’ But this doesn’t mean Benazir will legally formalise the split—and it isn’t only because of the political factor. As a lady friend of Benazir’s told Outlook, ‘Benazir is too conservative to go in for a divorce. Once, till late in the night, she kept advising me against seeking divorce.’

“There are, however, incontrovertible signs of their marriage being on the rocks if not totally kaput. For one, Benazir lives in Dubai, Zardari in a New York apartment with his dogs. His friends there invite sneers from the extremely class-conscious Pakistanis. As a former foreign secretary told this correspondent, ‘We were having dinner at this posh restaurant and in walked Asif with a group of men who would never be seen in polite company.’ Influential expat Pakistanis say Benazir did not stay with her husband when she visited the Big Apple last September, choosing instead to reside with a friend there. The PPP explained it saying she needed a larger space for party work,” writes Babar.
Posted by: Fred || 01/28/2007 12:31 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Benazir and Zardari don’t live together, their marriage is an empty shell, a partnership of pretences, a form they must maintain because Pakistan, like much of South Asia, can’t accept a woman politician divorced from her husband. You could say it’s a separation that’s still dressed as marriage.


Sounds like a certain Presidential candidate and her ex-presidential husband
Posted by: Frank G || 01/28/2007 14:26 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Yad Vashem web site launches Farsi language version; Arabic one planned
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 01/28/2007 11:53 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And this will do what (except for giving the intended audience ideas)?
Posted by: gromgoru || 01/28/2007 18:47 Comments || Top||


Olde Tyme Religion
An imam's journey from city to suburbia
Sheik Reda Shata pushed into Costco, a discount superstore chain, behind an empty cart. He wore a black leather jacket over his long, rustling robe, a pocket Koran tucked inside.

The imam, a 38-year-old Egyptian, seemed not to notice the stares from other shoppers. He was hunting for a bargain, and soon found it in the beverage aisle, where a 32-can pack of Coca- Cola sold for just $8.29. For Shata, this was a satisfying Islamic experience. "The Prophet said, 'Whoever is frugal will never suffer financially,'" said the imam, who shops weekly at the store and admits to praying for its owners. He smiled. "These are the people who will go to heaven."

Seven months have passed since Shata moved to this suburban town in New Jersey to lead a mosque — Masjid Al-Aman, which means Mosque of Peace — of prosperous, settled immigrants. It is a world away from Brooklyn, New York, where he toiled for almost four years, serving hundreds of struggling Muslims for whom the United States was still new.

His transition is a familiar one for foreign-born imams in the United States, who often start out in city mosques before moving to more serene settings.

For Shata, Middletown promised comfort after years of hardship. He left behind a tiny apartment for a house with green shutters set amid maple trees and sweeping lawns. He got a raise. He learned to drive. But the suburbs have brought challenges that Shata never imagined.

His congregation in Brooklyn may have been on the margins of American society, but it was deeply rooted in Islam. Muslims in Middletown were generally more assimilated and less connected to their mosque.

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: ryuge || 01/28/2007 10:03 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Have to hand it to him, turning a bargain in a case of Coke into a religious experience was something even Madison Avenue never though of.

Well, that's all well and good. Now what is he preaching in his mosque with his flock? That is what we REALLY want to know. Bottom line.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/28/2007 14:18 Comments || Top||


Home Front Economy
Free Staters missed goal, but movement endures
By now, 20,000 liberty-minded Americans should have started packing their wagons to head east – to the new frontier of libertarianism in New Hampshire.

But more than three years after the Free State Project announced it had chosen the Granite State as its home base for furthering bare-bones government, the movement has fallen way short on membership goals.

The group had hoped that by 2006 it would have 20,000 like-minded people pledged to move here. Once that target was reached, the committed masses would have then hauled their families and furniture to New Hampshire, ultimately integrating into state culture and politics.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Anonymoose || 01/28/2007 10:36 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  “For many folks, this is a novel and interesting idea

Interesting yes, novel...? Hardly. GEDULD EN MOED (Patience and Courage) Motto of the Oranje Virj Staat (OFS).
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/28/2007 12:08 Comments || Top||

#2  #1 Agreed, Boesoeker. There were more than a few Abolitionist families from Upstate New York that went west to "Bloody Kansas" to keep it a Free State.

I wish the new Granite Staters the very best of luck and I hope they succeed.
Posted by: JDB || 01/28/2007 14:56 Comments || Top||

#3  :>
I've never seen Bloody Kansas and OFS mentioned together.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/28/2007 15:49 Comments || Top||



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Sun 2007-01-28
  21 dead in festive Gaza weekend
Sat 2007-01-27
  Salafist Group renamed "Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb"
Fri 2007-01-26
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Thu 2007-01-25
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Wed 2007-01-24
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Tue 2007-01-23
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Mon 2007-01-22
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Sun 2007-01-21
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Sat 2007-01-20
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Fri 2007-01-19
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Thu 2007-01-18
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Wed 2007-01-17
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Tue 2007-01-16
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