#1
Janet Incompetano looking for Holywood campaign contributions? Heads should roll for this false mission. I'm very glad all our security issues have been taken care of
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/27/2010 14:08 Comments ||
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#2
WTF is with Napolitano? First she targets vets. And her expanding pool of victims that cried over W's DHS are suprisingly silent. Going through AP security in a bathing suit may bring some publicity but is not going to stop this. What will?
Posted by: Fire and ice ||
11/27/2010 15:29 Comments ||
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#3
Last time I looked, the FBI wasn't part of DHS. Under what authority is this being done? Cybercrime? I see. Of course, Obama's control over the intertubes would only be excercised in an emergency, right? This is one? Says who? Oh, the RIAA. Well, alrighty, then.
They are just practicing using entities that can't defend themselves. Blogs next. Better not say anything derogatory about the TSA, they're pretty sensitive about the abuse they've been getting lately involving matters of national security.
TEHRAN - An earthquake of 5.6 magnitude jolted a mountainous area of southern Iran on Friday but Iranian media said that so far there were no reports of casualties.
The quake took place at 1603 local time (1233 GMT) near Firouzabad in the Fars province. It jolted the mountainous area, Irans state TV quoted Tehran Universitys Seismological Centre as saying.
So far there has been no reports of possible casualties, the official IRNA news agency said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/27/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
no casualties reported
DAMMIT
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/27/2010 2:19 Comments ||
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#2
MEMO
To. Haliburton
Subject.
Insufficient Amplitude/inaccuracy, of the Earthquake Machine.
Desired rsponse.
MORE
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/27/2010 2:27 Comments ||
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#3
Sorry, The Haliburton Earthquake machine is running on Green-Power.
[Emirates 24/7] A six-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet during a festival held in a Saudi town to welcome the return of a resident from pilgrimage in the holy city of Makkah, local newspapers reported on Friday.
Residents of Al-Haqu in the southern province of Jizan were shooting in the air to celebrate the return of a local pilgrim from Makkah when the bullet lodged in the boy's chest, killing him at the scene, they said.
"The person who fired the weapon turned himself in to the authorities straight away," a police front man said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2010 00:00 ||
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What goes UP must come down,
(Unless you work for NASA)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/27/2010 2:22 Comments ||
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[El Universal] Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro warned that the liquidation of President Hugo Chavez would lead to "bloody festivities" in Venezuela as the massive riots that followed the liquidation in Bogota of Colombian candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitan (known as El Bogotazo). Therefore, any move by the United States in this regard would be a "stupid" thing to do, Castro said, as reported by local newspapers.
"I do not think that the United States is cherishing such a stupid thing as encouraging the murder of Chavez, because it would be like a burning Bogota," said the former Cuban president during a meeting with a group of Latin American scholars on Wednesday. Castro's remarks were quoted on Friday in Granma, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, AFP reported.
In an article published on Friday, Castro also criticized a meeting held last week by conservative groups at the US Congress.
Fidel Castro's warning was related to Chavez's accusations about a USD 100 million plot to kill him. "Chavez knows what to do," the former Cuban president said, referring to the speech delivered by the Venezuelan president on Thursday at the Venezuelan National Assembly. Chavez asked politicians to pass laws punishing opposition actions.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2010 00:00 ||
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Castro: Venezuela will burn if Chavez is killed
Only if the celebratory fireworks get away.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/27/2010 2:24 Comments ||
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#2
Chavez probably will be killed WHILE Venezuela is burning.
#3
Sorry, Fidel. Our undercover hitmen among his trusted circle, advisors, and intelligence agencies have already been given the "go" codeword. It's too late
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/27/2010 10:21 Comments ||
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#4
If by "burn" he meant "celebratory bonfires", then I think he might be right.
[El Universal] Alarms are ringing loud in the business sector. According to the Venezuelan Confederation of Industries (Conindustria), 234 companies have been expropriated so far this year.
"The private sector is seriously deteriorated, public policies implemented in the last few years have been steadily destroying jobs," said Carlos Larrazabal, president of Conindustria.
The data do not include government's seizures in the agricultural sector. However, The infamous However... these figures confirm the intensification of the expropriation policy in the past two years. According to estimates released by Conindustria, the State took over 56 companies between 2002 and 2008; in 2009 it seized 131 firms, and expropriations have doubled in 2010.
In this sense, Larrazabal said that the radicalization of economic policies, as announced by Hugo Chavez, will worsen the economy. "The radicalization of the process, as some have threatened, is going to complicate the investment climate and at the end of the day Venezuelans will continue to pay the consequences."
Fernando Morgado, the President of the Venezuelan Council of Trade and Services (Consecomercio) agreed with Larrazabal and said that there are no signs of recovery, in the short term.
"Nothing suggests that things will improve. We are totally convinced that uncertainty will continue to limit investments," Morgado said in the framework of the World Trade Day, organized by Consecomercio.
The businessman added that Venezuela's economy since 1999 to date can be described as a "lost decade." Millions of acres have been "unduly seized"; the manufacturing sector has "fallen on hard times" and basic industries have been brought to a "standstill." These aspects have shaped a "hopeless" outlook.
The business leader urged the authorities to take steps to reverse the economic downturn, such as easing controls, encouraging production, and the elimination of exchange controls, as well as respect for private property.
"The challenge is to defend economic freedoms... we should be ready for the worst," Morgado said.
Noel Alvarez, the president of the Federation of Trade and Industry Chambers (Fedecamaras), said that the government is "harassing" the business sector and stated that the Constitution is violated whenever the government expropriates a company.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2010 00:00 ||
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When socialism stealing from its own citizens becomes a country's government policy, expect the neighbors to be next.
(KUNA) -- US Vice President Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden made on Wednesday the case for ratifying in Congress the new START treaty with Russia affirming that President Barack B.O. Obama "has shown that missile defense and arms control can proceed hand-in-hand." "In September 2009, when President B.O. decided to alter his predecessor's plans for missile defense in Europe, some critics claimed that we had sacrificed our allies in the interest of the "reset" with Russia. Others thought that we would derail the reset by proceeding with the new plan. The skeptics were wrong on both counts," wrote Biden in an op-ed published in today's Wall Street Journal.
"At NATO's summit in Lisbon last weekend, President B.O. united Europe behind our missile-defense plans and received strong support for the New Start Treaty that is currently before the Senate. In doing so, he proved that missile defense and arms control can proceed hand-in-hand," he added.
Some Republican Senators, mainly Senator Jon Kyl who is negotiating with the White House, have hinted that the treaty could not pass before next year when the new Congress takes over and they have been asking for more allocation of money for modernizing US nuclear capabilities and to remove any Russian precondition on deploying US defense missile systems.
Biden noted that "it is hard to remember how much relations between the United States and our European allies had frayed before this administration took office. U.S. leadership was viewed negatively by many foreign publics, and U.S. policies often met with opposition from our traditional partners." "The positive atmosphere in Lisbon and the substantial progress on priorities like missile defense, arms control and the Russia reset simply would not have been possible without nearly two years of intensive diplomacy," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2010 00:00 ||
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ION WAFF > PUTIN IN BERLIN FOR TRADE TALKS FOR FREE TRADE ZONE [FTZ] FROM LISBON[Portugal] TO VLADIVOSTOK {Russia], VISA-FREE.
#2
Not nearly as pissed as the men and now women who have to server on that boat. At least the uniform doesn't identify the vessel you serve on, else the crew would never take shore leave.
#10
At least the uniform doesn't identify the vessel you serve on, else the crew would never take shore leave.
Dress blues used to have 'rockers' for the right shoulder that had your unit's name.....Found my old ATKRON 165 rocker the other day.
#11
This article is a complete invention, a fairy tale. The Jimmy Carter is tied up here in Washington State, not deployed in the Western Pacific, mixing it up with the Norks.
#1
ahh but i read today that China has already protested against the sending of the USS George Washington
so unfortunately the natural justice or moral argument that China would have to bite its tongue... does not work in practice
China doesn't have to be fair, it just does what the hell it wants as a belligerent, aggressive new power feeling its oats, like Germany circa 1937
Sadly ... Sydney Morning Herald reported this morning that...
"China's Foreign Ministry said it was ''concerned'' after the US said it would send an aircraft carrier strike group into the Yellow Sea.
The nuclear-powered carrier USS George Washington, which will be accompanied by the cruiser USS Cowpens and the destroyers USS Lassen and USS Stethem, will carry more than 6000 sailors and 75 aircraft into the sensitive region.
''We oppose any act that undermines peace and stability on the peninsula,'' a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said, echoing the Premier, Wen Jiabao, who urged ''restraint'' and an end to ''provocative military acts''
#3
This should provide many entertaining opportunities for interested parties to play a little cat & mouse. Hope no one gets carried away!
And speaking of carried away, I can't help wondering (hypothetically speaking, of course) whether a carrier battle group and a couple of Ohio class subs carrying TLAMs would provide enough assets to decapitate NKor and neutralize anything within artillery range of Seoul before the city took a pounding. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
#4
I agree, gorb. The protest was rather half-hearted.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
11/27/2010 8:49 Comments ||
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#5
i will be very curious to see what happens next.... don't think we are on the brink of war in the koreas but you know, every now and then the world surprises you
i would watch the futures and options markets.... somebody always knows in advance and if they lay their bets they make a big profit.
isn't that what happened for al Q shorting airline stocks and making millions off 9/11?
if china has given the green light to NK for more action it should show in the markets for those that know how to look (sadly i do not know how to pinpoint suspicious activity in this)
#6
...fortunately, there are no visiting Austrian Archdukes in the area. However [the infamous However]...let us not forget it was the posturing bureaucrats playing the 'game' that would make a charnel house of world by lighting the fuse that resulted in hundreds of millions of deaths in the first half of the twentieth century.
#7
''We oppose any act that undermines peace and stability on the peninsula,'' a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said,
Except when WE do it, he added hastily.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/27/2010 12:32 Comments ||
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#8
Too bad the "Rods from God" system is not available, Drop one on Kimmie's Palace an watch the Groveling Commence.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/27/2010 12:35 Comments ||
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#9
I can't help wondering ... whether a carrier battle group and a couple of Ohio class subs carrying TLAMs would provide enough assets to decapitate NKor and neutralize anything within artillery range of Seoul before the city took a pounding.
I don't think so. The Norks have a lot of artillery pieces dug into the high ground on their side of the border. Think big, heavy guns and rocket launchers. They have had a lot of time to dig well into the mountains and hills. They've also used the time to set up a lot of camouflage and dummy sites.
Even if we had our 'A' game going it would take a while to neutralize them all.
I am told that an artillery piece can fire four rounds a minute even if it's being served by 'C' category, malnourished troops. Think a few thousand guns at four rounds a minute and the effect on Seoul and its suburbs.
Catastrophe.
So no, I wouldn't look for a decapitation scenario anytime soon. Only way to stop those guns is to bribe/convince the local and regional commanders not to give the orders to fire.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/27/2010 12:45 Comments ||
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#10
"Rods from God"
Hot damn!
Let 'er rip!
Posted by: Goldies Every Damn Where ||
11/27/2010 14:10 Comments ||
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#11
There is going to be a war on the Korean
Peninsula. It is just a matter of when not if.
Posted by: Fire and ice ||
11/27/2010 14:58 Comments ||
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[Al Jazeera] Portugal's parliament has approved its budget for next year, which will result in the government making drastic cuts in public spending to reduce the deficit.
The bill was passed comfortably on Friday after the main opposition Social Democratic Party abstained in the vote.
"Now that the budget has been approved we must immediately get to work to create the conditions necessary for it to be implemented," Teixeira dos Santos, the finance minister, said after the vote.
Jose Socrates, the prime minister, said in a brief statement after parliament approved the spending plan, that the country had "no alternative at all'' to the cuts.
"We must make this effort,'' he said.
Harsh measures
The budget aims to reduce the deficit from 7.3 per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) to 4.6 per cent next year, requiring savings of around $6.85bn through a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes.
The spending cuts include a significant reduction in public sector wages, prompting anger from unions, who on Wednesday staged what was the country's biggest strike in two decades.
The deficit reached 9.3 per cent last year - the fourth highest in the eurozone after Greece, Ireland and
Spain.
Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri, reporting from Lisbon, said that local residents will be hit hard.
"This is already one of Europe's poorest countries, and these spending cuts will impact greatly on the Portuguese," she said.
The Portuguese austerity measures carried a political cost for the minority Socialist government, which managed to pass the plan only after negotiating its content with the main opposition party.
All other parties voted against it, saying it would worsen hardship in a country that is among the continent's poorest, where the average wage is around $800 a month.
EU role
Portugal's high debt and low growth have alarmed investors, fueling speculation it may be the next European country to need a bailout, after Greece and Ireland.
But the government has repeatedly stated that it does not want or need international financial assistance of the kind provided to Greece in May - and currently being negotiated with Ireland.
However, analysts have said that in order for Spain, the fifth largest EU economy, to avoid problems, Portugal should accept a bailout earlier rather than later.
The European Commission, the European Central Bank and the German government have all denied they have asked Portugal to take financial aid, despite reports of pressure from various officials.
The Financial Times Deutschland quoted unidentified sources as saying some Eurozone states wanted Lisbon to seek aid.
"If Portugal were to use the fund, it would be good for Spain, because the country is heavily exposed to Portugal," the paper quoted a source in Germany's finance ministry as saying.
Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the EU commission, dismissed the report as "absolutely false, completely false", saying an aid plan for Portugal had neither been requested nor suggested.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2010 00:00 ||
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[Pak Daily Times] The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said on Friday that it was seeking to prevent and respond to gender-based violence against women and girls among more than 20 million victims of Pakistain's recent floods.
"Displacement creates a host of risk factors that increase the vulnerability of women and girls to many forms of violence. The rights, needs and vulnerabilities of women and girls are sometimes overlooked in emergencies, when many humanitarian factors are focused on reaching a large number of people in the shortest period of time," UNFPA added. "There is a great need to recognise that gender-based violence can, and very often does, occur in these situations and to build survivor-centred response services."
The subject of gender-based violence is sensitive in most societies, and particularly so in Pakistain, where it is rarely discussed, said UNFPA. Programmes that address the problem do so discretely, but experts say there is a huge gap in service provision.
UNFPA has undertaken capacity-building initiatives in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... Punjab and Sindh, introducing participants and future trainers from government and humanitarian agencies to basic principles to fight the scourge, including case management, using a confidential, survivor-centred, and comprehensive approach.
As part of a coordinated inter-agency response, UNFPA and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) are co-leading response and prevention efforts.
Donors have provided over $1 million to UNFPA to support such services.
Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch... UNICEF reported on Friday that in one of the flood-devastated rural areas, Shahdadkot in Sindh, the waters caused near-total destruction with returnees finding no homes, food, schools or livelihoods. A UNICEF mission early this week found that while the majority of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) were returning in Sindh, stagnant flood waters continued to block some.
Over 270 schools were still being used for shelter, housing some 40,000 people, while an additional 54,000 IDPs, including over 31, 000 children, remained in camps in Balochistan, UNICEF spokesperson Marixie Mercado told a news briefing in Geneva.
The November 2010 Damage and Needs Assessment, conducted by the Pak government, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, estimated the overall flood recovery and reconstruction costs at between $8.7 billion and $10.8 billion. UNICEF has provided 2.8 million people with clean drinking water on a daily basis, along with vital sanitation and hygiene facilities and 10 million vaccines, and set up or helped maintain hundreds of treatment centres for malnourished children and women.
To date, UNICEF has received $169 million of its $251 million appeal and Mercado warned that unless the remaining third was received, UNICEF's emergency and recovery operations would be affected as of January, with an impact on all aspects of its activities.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2010 00:00 ||
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The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said on Friday that it was seeking to prevent and respond to gender-based violence against women and girls among more ...
Huh, the only way the UN could do that is to provide NO, NONE, ZIP, NADA UN personell. Somehow I doubt that's what they have in mind.
Posted by: Alan Cramer ||
11/27/2010 13:04 Comments ||
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The U.S. was the primary producer of rare earths until the 1990s, when the Chinese began undercutting the Americans on cost. Now companies in the U.S. and Australia are ramping up production at two rich sites for rare earths, but the process will take years. Getting from rocks to the pure metals and alloys required for manufacturing requires several steps that U.S. companies no longer have the infrastructure or the intellectual property to perform.
#3
It's not the mining of rare earths that is the problem. Processing them is extremely polluting. Rare earths are actually more common than copper, cadmium and lead.
Bastnaesite, a mineral that contains the lighter weight rare earths, must be first crushed to a fine, powdery sand, which is then put in a tank of liquid through which air is bubbled. The rare earths are then skimmed from the surface.
Then they must be separated with acid or solvent.
Monazite, that has some heavier rare earths, must be boiled in hot sulfuric acid or hot sodium hydroxide, later to be treated with hydrochloric acid.
All told, it can take "dozens, or hundreds" of steps to separate the various rare earths.
Posted by: Goldies Every Damn Where ||
11/27/2010 14:12 Comments ||
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#5
I do not know if silver futures are tied to this, bugging me is the knowledge that I watched a silver piece of jewelry bought on amazon skyrocket to triple the price I paid this summer and then fall back down.
Posted by: Fire and ice ||
11/27/2010 15:01 Comments ||
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#6
Dude...you mean they might do a reunion tour? "Get ready, cuz here I come..."
A US Border Patrol spokesman says country singer Willie Nelson was charged with marijuana possession after 6 ounces was found aboard his tour bus in Texas.
Patrol spokesman Bill Brooks says the bus pulled into the Sierra Blanca, Texas, checkpoint about 9am Friday. Brooks says an officer smelled pot when a door was opened and a search turned up marijuana.
Brooks says the Hudspeth County sheriff was contacted and Nelson was among three people arrested.
#3
I remember when Tommy Chong was busted, because his chain of head shops were selling "illegal" marijuana smoking appliances, just like every other head shop in the country, and the feds wanted to set an example.
Having a search warrant to look for marijuana appliances at his house, the federal agent noticed a substantial pile of cut marijuana sitting on his coffee table.
So he asked, "Is that marijuana?"
Tommy Chong looked at him derisively and said, "I am Tommy Chong. Are you kidding?", or words to that effect.
It was later said that when he was sent to prison for six months, he got more respect than a Mafia Don. They all stayed on their best behavior, so there would be no excuse for the authorities to crack down on him.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
TEHRAN - An earthquake of 5.6 magnitude jolted a mountainous area of southern Iran on Friday but Iranian media said that so far there were no reports of casualties.
[El Universal] Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro warned that the 
