Hi there, !
Today Sat 12/20/2008 Fri 12/19/2008 Thu 12/18/2008 Wed 12/17/2008 Tue 12/16/2008 Mon 12/15/2008 Sun 12/14/2008 Archives
Rantburg
533616 articles and 1861742 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 98 articles and 353 comments as of 19:46.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT    Local News    Politix   
Life for doctor in Glasgow airport terror bid
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
0 [] 
1 00:00 JosephMendiola [] 
0 [] 
4 00:00 Frank G [2] 
4 00:00 Besoeker [] 
1 00:00 Perfesser [] 
2 00:00 JosephMendiola [3] 
13 00:00 tu3031 [3] 
1 00:00 tu3031 [7] 
2 00:00 AzCat [1] 
0 [2] 
0 [] 
0 [1] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
4 00:00 JosephMendiola []
2 00:00 lftbhndagn [3]
0 []
2 00:00 Pappy [1]
13 00:00 JFM []
1 00:00 gorb [4]
0 [2]
1 00:00 sinse [6]
4 00:00 SteveS [4]
4 00:00 Anonymoose [7]
0 [1]
8 00:00 Pappy []
0 [4]
1 00:00 g(r)omgoru [1]
3 00:00 SteveS []
0 [5]
0 [4]
1 00:00 g(r)omgoru []
0 [6]
2 00:00 Old Patriot []
2 00:00 sinse [1]
0 []
0 [1]
3 00:00 JDB [1]
13 00:00 GolfBravoUSMC [1]
4 00:00 Abu Uluque [6]
Page 2: WoT Background
8 00:00 Snogum Guelph7607 [1]
3 00:00 sinse [3]
0 []
1 00:00 tipover [5]
0 [5]
11 00:00 DMFD [4]
0 [4]
1 00:00 gorb []
1 00:00 trailing wife []
4 00:00 JFM [5]
0 [1]
3 00:00 ed [1]
2 00:00 Abu do you love [1]
1 00:00 g(r)omgoru [4]
2 00:00 rjschwarz [1]
7 00:00 tu3031 [4]
0 []
1 00:00 g(r)omgoru []
0 []
6 00:00 Frank G [1]
0 [1]
1 00:00 Last Breath Farm Resident []
8 00:00 Nimble Spemble [1]
0 []
6 00:00 JosephMendiola []
1 00:00 g(r)omgoru []
Page 3: Non-WoT
0 [4]
2 00:00 ed []
3 00:00 rjschwarz [3]
0 [2]
12 00:00 eltoroverde [6]
1 00:00 Alaska Paul [2]
0 [1]
8 00:00 tipper [2]
9 00:00 tu3031 [1]
0 [1]
0 []
1 00:00 3dc []
5 00:00 Vinegar Ebbiting2525 []
8 00:00 Frank G [1]
7 00:00 Ularong Brown6050 [1]
0 [1]
22 00:00 JosephMendiola []
2 00:00 bigjim-ky [3]
1 00:00 g(r)omgoru [2]
2 00:00 newc []
11 00:00 Deacon Blues []
4 00:00 swksvolFF [1]
Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
10 00:00 Cornsilk Blondie [3]
19 00:00 Jolutch Mussolini7800 [2]
1 00:00 Besoeker [1]
0 []
23 00:00 Frank G [4]
1 00:00 Besoeker [1]
Page 6: Politix
2 00:00 Nimble Spemble []
7 00:00 tu3031 []
3 00:00 Mike Kozlowski []
5 00:00 Frank G [2]
21 00:00 Frank G [6]
Bangladesh
1971 remnants still active in politics
A band of key players, who made a botched attempt to abort the birth of Bangladesh, is none other than the top brass of Jamaat-e-Islami, young in 1971.

They had joined forces with the Pakistani occupation army to commit what shaped up into a full-blown genocide in the nine-month bloody war. For Motiur Rahman Nizami, now chief of Jamaat and the then president of Islami Chhatra Shangha, it was a parallel struggle to protect every inch of Pakistan during the Liberation War.

The head of the Islamic party said the activists of the student front had been pledge-bound to attack the mainland Hindustan [India] to protect a united Pakistan.

Nizami's speech is evident in the September 8, 1971 issue of the Daily Sangram that carried a report headlined "Chhatra Shangha activists will protect every inch of Pakistan's land". Nizami worked his way deeper into mainstream politics with the backing of the BNP-led four-party alliance. He is now an alliance candidate from Pabna-1 constituency for the year-end national elections.

Nizami is not alone.

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 12/17/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


Nizami sings old Jinnah song
On the occasion of the country's Victory Day yesterday, Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami repeatedly expressed his support for Pakistani leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah's two-nation theory basing on which Pakistan was created in 1947.

Noted historians, educationists and intellectuals of the country termed Nizami's remark an "audacious" and "tendentiously wrong reading of history" because Bangladesh was not liberated based on the two-nation theory but Bangalee nationalism.

They said making such remarks amounts to an act of sedition.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 12/17/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Madoff Was Huge Dem Donor
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/17/2008 08:03 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Shock, horror and surprise.


Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 12/17/2008 9:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Madoff seems well-experienced to head up the Social Security Administration. One Ponzi scheme is pretty much like another. After he gets out of prison, that is.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon || 12/17/2008 9:51 Comments || Top||

#3  It's time to get out the popcorn:

Kos declares Madoff Public Enemy #1
It appears he defrauded a bunch of their favorite "charities". The best part is a lawyer representing the investers said that even if you got out 2 years ago, you might have to share with the suckers other investors. Here is a partial list:

Advocates for Environmental Human Rights $450,000 2005
ACLU Foudation $600,000 2006
ACLU Foundation $500,000 2004
ACLU Foundation $350,000 2004
ACLU Foundation $300,000 2007
American University, Washington College of Law, War Crime Research Office $103,000 2004
Amnesty International USA $250,000 2004
Amnesty International USA $300,000 2007
Amnesty International USA $250,000 2004
Amnesty International USA $1,000,000 2005
Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict $150,000 2006
Center for International Environmental Law $600,000 2006
Center for Investigative Reporting $300,000 2006
Center for Justice and Accountability $450,000 2006
Center for Public Integrity $316,000 2005
Center for Public Integrity $900,000 2008
Center for Public Integrity $107,000 2007
Citizens for Global Solutions $250,000 2006
Crimes of War Project $60,000 2004
Crimes of War Project $23,400 2007
Crimes of War Project $60,000 2005
Crimes of War Project $200,000 2008
EarthRights International $200,000 2005
EarthRights International $325,000 2008
Heartland Human Care Services, Inc.: National Immigrant Justice Center $720,000 2008
Human Rights First $100,000 2002
Human Rights First $1,500,000 2005
Human Rights First $350,000 2004
Human Rights Watch $225,000 2002
Human Rights Watch $250,000 2004
Human Rights Watch $500,000 2005
Human Rights Watch $1,000,000 2007
Human Rights Watch $172,500 2007
Interights $600,000 2006
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights $300,000 2006
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers $250,000 2004
National Institute of Military Justice $510,000 2007
National Security Archive $110,000 2006
National Security Archive Fund, Inc. $200,000 2008
NYU Center for Human Rights and Global Justice $130,000 2007
NYU Center for Human Rights and Global Justice $130,000 2007
NYU Center for Human Rights and Global Justice $160,000 2005
Physicians for Human Rights $350,000 2006
Physicians for Human Rights $350,000 2008
Physicians for Human Rights $233,000 2005
Physicians for Human Rights $260,000 2005
Physicians for Human Rights $209,850 2006
The Center for Justice and Accountability $100,000 2005
University of Minnesota Human Rights Center $175,000 2007
Vera Institute of Justice $250,000 2004
Vera Institute of Justice $250,000 2005
Posted by: Frozen Al || 12/17/2008 13:11 Comments || Top||

#4  Madoff appears to have done us a favor.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/17/2008 13:15 Comments || Top||

#5  Wow. Nothing has made my day quite like the perusal of this list. Dig deeper libs, your favorite organizations are coming up a liiiiiitle short this year. Hah!
Posted by: remoteman || 12/17/2008 14:36 Comments || Top||

#6  So in a nutshell, Madoff was stealing money from a certain set of people and giving it to their favorite causes and charities. He is like a modern day Robin Hood.
Posted by: SteveS || 12/17/2008 16:28 Comments || Top||

#7  SteveS,
It's better than that. The liberals were giving him money to invest in the name of these "charities". He then proceeded to steal the money. No money, no activity by these charities.

Life is good.
Posted by: Frozen Al || 12/17/2008 17:09 Comments || Top||

#8  Thanks, Mr. Madoff. You did real Americans a favor.
Posted by: Jolutch Mussolini7800 || 12/17/2008 18:13 Comments || Top||

#9  Non-profits take a huge market loss? Ok, I'll bite.... where did the investment PROFITS go during the good times?
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/17/2008 18:23 Comments || Top||

#10  I'm popping as fast as I can, Al.

Extra butter? Parmesan? ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 12/17/2008 18:57 Comments || Top||

#11  Chili powder on mine.
Posted by: no mo uro || 12/17/2008 21:22 Comments || Top||

#12 
Kos declares Madoff Public Enemy #1

KRYMB!
Posted by: mrp || 12/17/2008 21:56 Comments || Top||

#13  Bring on the Show Trials!
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/17/2008 22:05 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Every nation has an army, Pakistani army has a nation
Posted by: ryuge || 12/17/2008 05:55 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Pakistani establishments have acquired great tenacity to strongly believe their own bluffs even in the face of unquestionable proof.

Geez, buddy. Ya save the money quote for the end, not the beginning...
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/17/2008 11:06 Comments || Top||


Iraq
TNR- Don't hold your breath waiting for withdrawal from Iraq
From a left pub

...For all the talk of withdrawal and timetables, however, nothing like that is likely to happen. It is true that, as a result of the successful surge that the Democrats and some Republicans opposed, tens of thousands of American troops will begin to exit Iraq in the next three years. But American and Iraqi military and diplomatic officials insist that a residual U.S. force of considerable size is likely to remain for the medium to long term, as will the U.S. bases in Iraq that Democrats over the last two years have insisted must not be permanent.

predictions in the opinion piece:
combat troops to be reclassified as trainers
exceptions to 'all out' to be made
conclusion in the piece: everything that Obama says was great anyway
Posted by: mhw || 12/17/2008 08:34 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  exceptions to 'all out' to be made

This has already happened in Mosul. One of the secrets to being a prophet is to wait till something happens, and then "predict" it.

Posted by: Frozen Al || 12/17/2008 13:57 Comments || Top||

#2  The terms of the US-IGA pact doesn't surprise me - again, MUSLIM/ISLAMIC MIL HISTORY suggests that the militant will likely return one day to refight the Battle/ WAr for Iraq, whereupon said same history also suggests [weakened]WESTERN ARMIES, INTERESTS USUSALLY GET THEIR BUTTS KICKED IN RIGHTEOUS, TAKE-OFF-THEIR-CRUSADER/INFIDEL HEADS, SCIMITAR-WAVING MUSLIM INDIGNATION.

And thats NOT even counting complementary Appearance by any ISLAMIST HIDDEN IMAM-MAHDI [Osama-Moud Islamist Apocalypse].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/17/2008 20:08 Comments || Top||


The Sole of Liberation
Real change is afoot.
Posted by: eltoroverde || 12/17/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front Economy
To Catch a Thief
Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion fraud is giving politicians and investors who failed to diversify another excuse to blame too little enforcement in U.S. financial markets. Talk about compounding a case of misplaced trust. The real lesson is that financial enforcement nearly always fails to protect investors, and this Ponzi scheme is merely typical.

Since 2000 and especially after the fall of Enron, the SEC's annual budget has ballooned to more than $900 million from $377 million. Its full-time examination and enforcement staff has increased by more than a third, or nearly 500 people. The percentage of full-time staff devoted to enforcement -- 33.5% -- appears to be a modern record, and it is certainly the SEC's highest tooth-to-tail ratio since the 1980s. The press corps and Congress both were making stars of enforcers like Eliot Spitzer, so the SEC's watchdogs had every incentive to ferret out fraud.

Yet they still failed to nail Bernard Madoff. Since at least 1992, when the SEC sued two accountants peddling Madoff investments while promising sky-high returns, the commission missed opportunities to dig deeper into his operations. In 1999, trader Harry Markopolos wrote that "Madoff Securities is the world's largest Ponzi Scheme," in a letter to the SEC. More recently, multiple SEC inquiries and exams in 2005 and 2007 found only minor infractions.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/17/2008 23:37 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Run In Circles, Scream and Shout
Posted by: Anonymoose || 12/17/2008 18:58 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF {"TWIST AND SHOUT" Beatles scene]???

Gut Nuthin.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/17/2008 19:58 Comments || Top||


A Christmas Card from the Stock Market
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/17/2008 18:08 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Culture Wars
You can't spell ''cliché'' without Che.
Kyle Smith, NY Post

MEET Che Guevara. Just think of him as Jesus plus Abraham Lincoln with a touch of Moses and Dr. Doug Ross. After 4œ hours of watching Dr. Ernesto "Che" Guevara heal the sick, teach the illiterate, daze the women, execute the lawless, defeat the corrupt, uplift the peasantry and spew the sound bite, I was convinced there would be a scene in which he turned water to Bacardi.
I'm sensing a little sarcasam in the tone here.
You can't spell cliché without "Che." And as I endured this mad dream directed - or perhaps committed - by Steven Soderbergh, I wondered where I'd seen it all before. The booted stomping through the greensward, the jungly target shooting? It's a remake of Woody Allen's "Bananas," right? Minus punch lines - or perhaps with them. "We are in a difficult situation," Che observes, at a point when his army is surrounded and forced to eat its horses.
I could be wrong about this, but I get the distinct impression this is going to be a negative review.
The story of the Argentine doctor Ernesto "Che" Guevara is played with much broody self-importance by Benicio Del Toro. It will be shown in two parts after its one-week opening run. That way, on consecutive evenings, it can bore everyone but activist grad students.
Yeah, I'd say he's not feelin' the love here.
There are banana boats of chitchat about Bolivian mining strikes and agrarian land reform amid messages about how "a true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love" (that, and Molotov cocktails) and "you have to live as if you've already died." If ever a movie needed Kim Cattrall to slink into the frame, it's this one. "Honey, love the beret, but if anything's to die for, it's the quilted Chanel tote, not toothless Bolivian farmers." . . .

This isn't a movie so much as a siege. When the screen flashed "Day 302," I thought it was updating me on how long I had spent in the theater without food, water or access to the Red Cross.

Che, although armed, allows himself to be taken alive, which means an amusing execution in the dust instead of righteous death in battle. Soderbergh (who went native and showed up at the Toronto Film Festival in chunky glasses and arrested-for-vagrancy grooming) takes Che's point of view as the moment of expiration arrives, sharing with us a vision of a blinding white light as the furry comandante slips into Commie heaven. Say hi to the Rosenbergs for me! Fidel says, "See ya soon."
Posted by: Mike || 12/17/2008 12:52 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Look like another Big Winner...
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/17/2008 15:22 Comments || Top||

#2  If the title is not already a bumpersticker, it should be.
Posted by: Galactic Coordinator Shomoling8274 || 12/17/2008 15:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Sorry, Benicio, but we've seen the early numbers and it looks like we'll be paying you in Cuban pesoes.
Viva la Revolucion!
Steve
Posted by: Soderbergh || 12/17/2008 17:25 Comments || Top||

#4  Benicio was good in Usual Suspects (I reminded by teh post below)
Posted by: Frank G || 12/17/2008 21:44 Comments || Top||


Kos: Madoff Swindled All The Usual Suspects
Posted by: Grunter || 12/17/2008 12:21 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Every dark cloud has a silver lining!
Posted by: Squinty Angilet3529 || 12/17/2008 16:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Madoff. Screwing greedheads andlefty sympathizers!
What's not to like?
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/17/2008 16:47 Comments || Top||

#3  And Kos still manages to lay the blame squarely on George Bush's shoulders.
It's amazing, how could they have ferreted out such a tenuous link?
They must be geniuses over threre.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 12/17/2008 16:47 Comments || Top||

#4  He has watched upon the evil. Dan 9:14

Smite em ALL!
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/17/2008 17:52 Comments || Top||


Home Front Economy
‘Helicopter Ben’ confronts the challenge of a lifetime
Posted by: tipper || 12/17/2008 11:54 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Not a helicopter.
Posted by: Perfesser || 12/17/2008 15:34 Comments || Top||


Sing! Heavenly Muse
Derb-man strickes again
....I told you, in any case, back in 2005, that the Bush economy was all a lie. Why don’t you listen? The fundamental things apply as time goes by. Debts come due. What goes up, comes down. A person who isn’t disciplined enough to accumulate a decent deposit on a house purchase, probably isn't going to be disciplined enough to meet the mortgage payments. Nations whose citizens are frugal and honor productive, innovative manufacturers are more likely to prosper than nations whose citizens are spendthrift and honor “community organizers” and whiz-kid securities traders. Governments that drop boxcars full of money into fractious Middle Eastern sandpits, enact vast new welfare programs in hopes of currying votes, and shower the world with treasury bills like snowflakes so that their people can buy more toys, trinkets, gadgets, and lingerie than they need, will have less stable financial systems than those who don’t. Nations in which “Chief Diversity Officer” is an actual job category, with a higher salary than a credentialed engineer, have sunk too deep in frivolity ever to be fished out. And the Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.

For conservatives, paradise is well and truly lost. You could in fact, if you had a few months to spare, rewrite Milton’s epic with George W. Bush as Adam, the GOP as Eve, Reagan as Moses, Bill Buckley as the Muse, and so on. Who is Satan, though? I'm not sure, though I think I know where the bastard lives.

It’s all very unfair. Conservatism is being cursed all around by association with George W. Bush, who has not been at all conservative where it matters: fiscal oversight, government spending, national sovereignty, war. Conservatives wept with joy to see him veto whatever it was he vetoed about embryonic stem cells, whatever they are, hardly minding that he had debauched the currency, opened the borders, acquired expensive client states, and turned the burner to full throttle under the welfare state hot-air balloon.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/17/2008 05:02 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  John Derbysire = British crank.
Posted by: Milton Fandango || 12/17/2008 13:07 Comments || Top||

#2  John Derbysire = British crank.

Except of course when he's exactly corect as he is here.
Posted by: AzCat || 12/17/2008 13:31 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
71[untagged]
4Govt of Pakistan
4Govt of Iran
2TTP
2al-Qaeda
2Iraqi Insurgency
2Jamaat-e-Islami
2Lashkar e-Taiba
1Hezbollah
1Iraqi Baath Party
1PLO
1Islamic Courts
1Taliban
1Abu Sayyaf
1al-Qaeda in Iraq
1al-Qaeda in Arabia
1Hamas

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


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

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

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2008-12-17
  Life for doctor in Glasgow airport terror bid
Tue 2008-12-16
  Bomb Found at Paris Department Store
Mon 2008-12-15
  Somali president fires PM, who refuses to go
Sun 2008-12-14
  Frontier Corps refuses security to NATO terminals
Sat 2008-12-13
  Indian Navy repulses attack on ship off Somalia, captures 23 pirates
Fri 2008-12-12
  Captured terrorist Kasab my son, admits Pop
Thu 2008-12-11
  14 alleged Islamic extremists detained in Belgium
Wed 2008-12-10
  Hamid Gul to be 'declared terrorist'
Tue 2008-12-09
  Masood Azhar confined to his headquarters
Mon 2008-12-08
  Paks torch 160 NATO supply trucks
Sun 2008-12-07
  Al-Shabaab set up regional administration
Sat 2008-12-06
  Suspected US missile kills 3 in Pakistan
Fri 2008-12-05
  Iraq Presidency Council approves US troop pact
Thu 2008-12-04
  Italy: Police arrest two Moroccan terrs
Wed 2008-12-03
  Abu Qatada back in jug


Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
3.128.204.140
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (26)    WoT Background (26)    Non-WoT (22)    Local News (6)    Politix (5)