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Today: 77 articles and 154 comments as of 9:02.
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15 Islamists with suicide belts detained in Moscow
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Duke Lacrosse Fake-Rape Claims: 160 TV News Stories - Duke Accuser Murder Conviction: 3 TV Stories
[CNSNEWS] When Crystal Mangum falsely accused several Duke lacrosse players of rape in 2006, there were 160 television news stories in the first five days after the players were incarcerated
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
, but in 2013, when Mangum was convicted of murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison, there were only 3 television news stories, a difference in coverage of 5,233%.

When the Duke lacrosse-rape story broke in March/April 2006, it was huge news, garnering massive, widespread coverage by the networks ABC, CBS, and NBC, as well as by FOX, CNN and MSNBC, and the print press, such as USA Today, New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
and Washington Post.

Basically, the story was that members of the Duke lacrosse team had a party on March 13, 2006 at an off-campus house where two strippers had been hired to perform -- one of them was Crystal Mangum, then 27 years old. At some point there were some verbal exchanges between Mangum and some persons at the party. Mangum left with the other stripper and later that evening/early morning Mangum told police she had been raped.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Permanent Party Propaganda Machine has got to keep their base motivated. Two-Minute-Hate programming at its usual.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/28/2013 8:49 Comments || Top||

#2  Crystal Mangum
That was her name then? How the hell did I miss that? Age is a killing thing.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2013 8:52 Comments || Top||


-Obits-
Thoughts on Mom’s Arrival in Heaven, and Thanksgiving 2013
[PJ Media] As we give thanks and count our blessings, writer Tom Blumer provides a poignant reminder.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2013 07:10 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Happy Thanksgiving - A classic
Posted by: Frank G || 11/28/2013 15:18 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hell it's still damn funny after 50 times.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2013 18:39 Comments || Top||

#2  They can't run the country, either.
Posted by: gorb || 11/28/2013 18:43 Comments || Top||

#3  Too bad he didn't use wild turkeys. They're actually very good flyers.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 11/28/2013 20:33 Comments || Top||


WaPo to Sell Off its Home - Relocate to the 'Burbs
Graham Holdings, the former parent of The Washington Post, has reached a deal to sell the newspaper's longtime headquarters at 15th and L streets NW to Carr Properties for $159 million. The newspaper, now owned by Amazon founder Jeffrey P. Bezos, will continue to rent space in the building until it identifies a new headquarters location, a search that began before Bezos bought the paper.
Sure.
There's an old strip mall on Jeff Davis Highway near Fredericksburg that should work...
The Post's editorial and business operations occupy the building, about four blocks north of the White House. The Post also once printed newspapers in the building, but after readership started shifting to the suburbs in the 1970s and '80s, it ceased printing on the downtown presses in 1999.
And the next logical step would be to cease printing entirely!
O.T. Carr III, president of Carr Properties, has said in the past that the Post headquarters, located a few blocks from the booming apartment corridor on 14th Street, would make sense as a mixed-use project. Historic preservation groups decided not to nominate parts of the properties as historic landmarks, removing a possible barrier to redevelopment.
Too bad; not even a historic structure worth saving!
Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth told employees in February that she had begun exploring the sale of the headquarters and relocating, saying the goal was to "give us a more modern, bright, open and efficient building that better supports and advances our mission into the future."
Of course.
And smaller. Much, much smaller...
Graham Holdings has been jettisoning real estate now that it no longer owns the sinking flagship newspaper. The deal for the downtown D.C. building is expected to close at the end of March.
Posted by: Bobby || 11/28/2013 10:38 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  some former telemarketer boiler room must be available somewhere. "Into your cubicles! Crank out some Truthiness™ now!"
Posted by: Frank G || 11/28/2013 11:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Brother Ray's Real Estate has a hint:
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2013 18:47 Comments || Top||


Average American to consume 4,500 calories during Thanksgiving dinner
[MYFOXDC] The average American will probably consume more than 4,500 calories and 229 grams of fat during a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

According to the Calorie Control Council, dinner alone can add up to 3,000 calories. Another 1,500 calories can come from dips, chips and drinks before and after the big meal.

The American Heart Association offers tips for healthier holiday eating.
To sum up their advice, on holiday eating: Don't.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I generally forego the dips, chips, and drinks and default to a quiet, calorie burning nap in the corner with Fido.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2013 2:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Reminds me of the guy who goes to the doctor and asks himl what to do for living longer.
Doctor: "Well no alcohol, no tobacco, no coffee, eat moderately, only vegetables and with little salt, no cakes or sugary dishes, ever go to bed early, avoid TV and gheart-stirring spectacles and most imùportant no sex.

Patient: And thst will make me live longer?

Doctor: I don't know but life will definitely feel longer.
Posted by: JFM || 11/28/2013 4:26 Comments || Top||

#3  M: Too many free radicals. That's your problem.

James Bond: "Free radicals," sir?

M: Yes. They're toxins that destroy the body and the brain, caused by eating too much red meat and white bread and too many dry martinis!

James Bond: Then I shall cut out the white bread, sir.
Posted by: European Conservative || 11/28/2013 6:54 Comments || Top||

#4  Forget the victuals and calories. Here's some holiday conversation guidance from the White House.

These people really are quite desperate.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2013 7:01 Comments || Top||

#5  JFM that is my father's favorite joke and one of mine.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2013 8:53 Comments || Top||

#6  The talking points article is a hoot. Well actually the comments were. 18 comments to zero that she's got a lot a' damn gall to suggest what needs to be talked about.

Happy Thanksgiving to all Rantburgers out there.

What do you call a 4500 calorie dinner?

A pleasant start to Football.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 11/28/2013 10:22 Comments || Top||

#7  Rather reminds me of the "domestic violence goes up during the Superbowl" meme.

Then you have WaPo's Ezra Klein's tweet that a Thanksgiving dinner is the "equivalent of 35 food stamp meals."

I'm surprised they haven't politicized Hanukkah.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/28/2013 10:39 Comments || Top||

#8  "Jesus would want you to sign up for the Silver Plan on Healthcare.gov"
Posted by: Frank G || 11/28/2013 11:54 Comments || Top||

#9  "equivalent of 35 food stamp meals."

He may be right, but not for the assumed reason. The big city grocery store sells gigantor sub sandwiches, like feeding me two or three times depending upon the work day, for $3 if food stamp qualified. I'd guess that 2/3 the price is picked up by stamps.

In that case, a twenty dollar turkey would buy two of these sandwiches, each making six adult meals. But at $3 a sandwich it buys 21 adult meals.

And the problem, der Klein, is that in order for the tax money to get to that stamper, lets be giving, costs twice the benefit given. So I would have to pay 10% sales tax on an $80 purchase to cover the taxpayer portion of 1 sandwich. Good sandwiches too, probably cost me $20 to purchase all the goodies.

Ok, so tax money is not that liquid, then let's look at money put into unemployment tax on working people, or more realistically businesses. Those taxes result in the hiring of fewer people vs. income, so more unemployment, and the middle man of Government taking their cut on transfering money.

Its stupid and obvious. The people footing the bill are now hammered with a condom tax, rather other people maybe needing condoms tax, the Free Shit Army knows the scam and rabbles for being professionally unemployed, and the fed is trying to stretch the scam. We may be looking back a year from now and thinking good times, good times.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2013 12:14 Comments || Top||

#10  Babe you're on a roll!
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2013 18:52 Comments || Top||

#11  I wish I were not. I'd rather talk good Scotch than cheap tricks. When a dog goes mad and bites somebody, the bobbleheads scream that there must have been a dog whistle, and Cujo is impossible, especially if its their pooch. I had a feeling the bull was coming before they knocked on my china shop door, and of course politics at the dinner table is as old as booze so there is no other reason to prod other than in your face; as Zenobia noted brittle smiles. Not even the courtesy of a John Has a Long Green Bean, an actual verbal command to invade the cassarole dish

See, families brave the weather, get stuck at airports, get into accidents, trying to at least once a year get together for at least face time, and these plods, not just incapable of giving thanks, but surpasses the lack of couth to thank the givers, no, these shits are the people who take your last beer without asking, complain about it not being a good beer, and leave right after finishing it. Its then you realize the brand of beer you had didn't matter, they were going to bitch about it because its you.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2013 19:59 Comments || Top||

#12  B-U-U-U-R-P ...

Methinks ths good Perts in the Artic mean 45,000, not 4500.

We're ignoring the Fruitcake factor again, aren't we???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/28/2013 21:53 Comments || Top||

#13  Ah, holiday pemmican. Done right, its darn right.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2013 22:16 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Suspected murderer killed by mob inside police station in Egypt's Sharqiya
[Al Ahram] Tens of angry youth in the Egyptian governorate of Sharqiya lynched Wednesday an alleged murderer inside the local cop shoppe, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported. The man, Tamer Abdel-Al, was a suspect in the murder of a police officer and was being interrogated in the local cop shoppe when tens of angry villagers stormed the building and beat him to death.

Sharqiya -- Egypt's third largest governorate by population, located east of the Nile Delta -- has been plagued by mob violence. During the last two and a half years, its villages have witnessed over a dozen mob killings.

Mob killings of alleged criminals, egged on by communal acceptance, have spread across rural areas in Egypt amid a chronic security vacuum and a surging crime rate.

The last mob killing was reported in early May, when hundreds of locals in Qataweya village, situated near Sharqiya's capital Zagazig, killed the son of Moslem Brüderbund figure Rabie Lasheen. The victim, Youssef, was a 16-year-old secondary school student.

Youssef was accused of shooting a 28-year-old man for insulting his father over his affiliation to the Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood's political wing, in a Facebook post.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  "you have the right to remain silent... forever"
Posted by: Frank G || 11/28/2013 11:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Egyptians like their police?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/28/2013 11:37 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Nigeria Sharia Police Smash 240,000 Bottles of Beer
[An Nahar] Police enforcing Islamic law in Nigeria's city of Kano publicly destroyed some 240,000 bottles of beer on Wednesday, the latest move in a wider crackdown on behavior deemed "immoral" in the area.
The horror! The horror!
The banned booze had been confiscated from trucks coming into the city in recent weeks, said officials from the Hisbah, the patrol tasked with enforcing the strict Islamic law, known as sharia.

Kano's Hisbah chief Aminu Daurawa said at the bottle-breaking ceremony he had "the ardent hope this will bring an end to the consumption of such prohibited substances".

A large bulldozer smashed the bottles to shouts of "Allahu Ahkbar" (Holy Shit! God is Great) from supporters outside the Hisbah headquarters in Kano, the largest city in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north.

Kegs containing more than 8,000 liters of a local alcoholic brew called "burukutu" and 320,000 cigarettes were also destroyed.

"We hope this measure will help restore the tarnished image of Kano," said Daurawa.
"Oh, yasss! We much prefer being known as an ignorant and intolerant backwater! Please leave us to stew in our poverty and corruption."
Since September, the Hisbah have launched sweeping crackdowns and made hundreds of arrests in Kano following a state-government directive to cleanse the commercial hub of so-called "immoral" practices.

The 9,000-strong inquisition moral police force works alongside the civilian police but also has other duties, including community development work and dispute resolution.

Sharia was reintroduced across northern Nigeria in 2001, but the code has been unevenly applied.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They should be taught how to open them to drink.
Posted by: Dale || 11/28/2013 0:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Launch Looking Glass and maintain. Alert Norfolk to prepare RFR (run FUCK! run). See if Offurt still exists, if they do, tell them to do what ever they do. Turn off the Cheyenne Mt. Cam. We are going to war for the American way. Beer Is Life. Repeat Beer Is Life.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2013 8:58 Comments || Top||

#3  240,000 bottles of beer on the wall, 240,000 bottles of beer. Take one down and pass it around, 239,999 bottles of beer on the wall.
Posted by: Thumper the Fragrant || 11/28/2013 9:37 Comments || Top||

#4  Love that pic. Has so much to offer and looks like she's having a grand ole time too.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/28/2013 9:40 Comments || Top||

#5  I like to point these things out to my liberal associates who point and laugh at the crazy eyed absolutism of Carry Nation and her superstitions.

Too many though get their news from the post-teen mickey comedy channel or are busy arguing whether lisa simpson is 8 or 25, cuz shez haght.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2013 12:20 Comments || Top||

#6  Savages.
Posted by: gorb || 11/28/2013 18:45 Comments || Top||

#7  German girl, anytime they are beer they are happy for the moment. The moment....
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2013 18:53 Comments || Top||


Former Congolese VP 'Surprised' by ICC Witness Tampering Charges
[An Nahar] Former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba said Wednesday he was surprised at being charged in the International Criminal Court
... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
for witness tampering in his war crimes trial.

"I understand the charges but I am very surprised," said Bemba during an initial hearing at the court in the Hague.

Bemba, his lawyer Aime Kilolo and his former private secretary Fidele Babala Wandu have been charged for allegedly being "part of a network for the purposes of presenting false or forged documents and bribing certain persons to give false testimony in the case against Mr. Bemba."

In that case, Bemba, 51, faces three war crimes counts and two of crimes against humanity for murder, rape and pillage committed by some 1,500 members of his private army in the neighboring CAR between October 2002 and March 2003.

Kilolo, who is Bemba's defense lawyer in the war crimes case, said he was "surprised at being deprived of my freedom while I spend most of my time at the Hague in the ICC buildings where I have my offices."

The lawyer was tossed in the slammer
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
at Brussels airport while Wandu was arrested in Kinshasa.

Two others -- a member of Bemba's defense team Jean-Jacques Mangenda Kabongo and Narcisse Arido, a defense witness -- are also in jug.

The arrests were the first for witness tampering in a case tried by the ICC.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


Mozambique Police Fire Tear Gas at Anti-Conscription Protest
[An Nahar] Police fired tear gas Wednesday to disperse youths rioting in central Mozambique after reports of forced conscription as the military battles a revived rebel group, a rights group and residents said.

Security forces clashed with protesters in central city Beira, according to the Human Rights League (LDH).

"There is a revolt on the part of the population. The police have been using tear gas," LDH representative Helder Jafar told Agence La Belle France Presse.

There were "many injuries and arrests", he added.

Residents confirmed police fired tear gas in several outlying neighborhoods of Beira while protesters threw stones at a cop shoppe.

"There are barricades in the streets and cars are being burnt," said Stella Santos, who lives in Manga, one of the affected Beira neighborhoods.

"They say they (the military) are conscripting the young people," she told AFP.

Local newspapers reported that the military was going from door to door forcibly conscripting youngsters to fight against a revived Renamo insurgency elsewhere in the central Sofala province.

Some Beira residents who asked to remain anonymous told AFP that the conscription was a "fact", and that the military used "kidnappings" to increase its numbers.

"The population is furious. They want to burn any car that passes through the city," said a student.

Three neighborhoods were believed to have been affected.

Authorities slammed the reports as "a rumor aimed at discrediting this sacred, patriotic duty to the fatherland by the youth."

"It is not true that the National Defense Ministry or other security forces are undertaking forced recruitment for military service," the department said in a statement.

Though Mozambican law allows for involuntary conscription of youths aged 18 years and above, in practice, anyone who does not wish to serve can get out of the draft if they provide a justification.

The 13 000-strong force is therefore almost exclusively staffed with volunteers as a soldier's stipend is enticement for many of the country's poor, unemployed youths.

Since April this year the army has waged ongoing battles against Renamo guerrillas around 200 kilometers (120 miles) north of Beira in the Gorongosa district, as well as around the town of Muxungue to the south.

The Beira protests come just a week after the candidate for opposition party the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) was elected mayor in local elections.

The city is only the second not controlled by the ruling Frelimo party.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Britain
When it comes to diversity, Britons vote with their feet
h/t Gates of Vienna
Liberals are almost as likely to flee diversity as conservatives, according to new research by Prof Eric Kaufmann for Demos. Some 61 per cent of white people who were ‘very comfortable’ with mixed marriages (the best indicator of views on race) moved to whiter areas during the period, compared to 64 per cent of those who were ‘fairly uncomfortable’. The Sunday Times called it ‘polite white flight’.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/28/2013 11:43 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  polite white flight
rollin with yur homies in the middle of the night
outta here were going now
but we staying true to school and vote like a cow
Yale
Princeton
Gernaldine Jones
This ends the rhyme part and I ain't stoned.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2013 19:00 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Leftist in Honduras presidential race says she is winner, victim of fraud
[Pak Daily Times] The leftist who believes she was elected as Honduras' next president said on Tuesday that her campaign had been hit by massive fraud and that she would announce her plans in 48 hours.

"On Friday, I will give my remarks on the final outcome of the elections. We will defend the will of the people as it was expressed at the polls," Xiomara Castro, wife of deposed ex-president Manuel Zelaya, wrote in a Twitter posting.

Castro, who would be her country's first woman president and has not been seen in public since she claimed victory late Sunday, said her victory was decisive, but that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal manipulated 19 percent of the votes to favor her top rival Juan Orlando Hernandez of the ruling conservative party.

The electoral tribunal has said Hernandez won with 34 to 29 percent, with 68 percent of polling stations tallied. But "the TSE (electoral council) hid 19 percent of the ballots on election night which altered the outcome," Zelaya wrote on his Twitter account. "Within 48 hours results from around the country will be in" and the alleged fraud will be ironed out, he said.

"We will confirm our victory, and if it were the opposite, we also would acknowledge it," Zelaya said warning: "Nobody should speculate; we will look at the dimensions of the fraud -- and what was properly done."

Tensions were running high as the political standoff went kaboom! into violence on the streets of Tegucigalpa earlier. Police beat and used tear gas against about 800 people demonstrating in support of Castro.

"Why are the people asked to come out and vote if they are not going to respect the result? There has been a massive fraud here," charged student Carlos Garcia. About 100 police in helmets and riot gear used gas and then truncheons to beat the chanting youths and send them scrambling.

Students fled from police, running to their nearby campus, and at the entrance gates authorities lobbed more tear gas at them. The university called off classes for two days as post-electoral tensions deepened. Local government institutions are so weak and the police so corrupt that Honduras is on the brink of becoming a failed state.

Gangs run whole neighborhoods, extorting businesses as large as factories and as small as tortilla stands, while narco mobs use Honduras as a transfer point for shipping illegal drugs, especially cocaine, from South America to the United States.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  look for Obama's DOS to recognize her win
Posted by: Frank G || 11/28/2013 11:35 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
China To Engage In 'Six Inevitable Wars' Involving U.S., Japan, India And More, According To Pro
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 11/28/2013 12:36 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  First wars come first.

* TOPIX, DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [WaPo] CHINA SENDS WARPLANES [several Fighters + EW Recce aircraft] INTO NEW AIR DEFENCE ZONE AFTER US, JAPAN, SOUTH KOREA INCURSIONS.

Counter-response + Counter-counterresponse.

* SAME > [USA Today = AP] SOUTH KOREA, JAPAN [military aircraft] DEFY CHINESE AIR DEFENCE ZONE.

* SAME > BEIJING [China] REJECTS SEOUL'S [South Korea's] CALL FOR ADJUSTMENT TO ITS AIR ZONE.

* TOPIX > JAPAN IS "PRIME TARGET" OF CHINA'S NEW AIR ZONE: [Chinese] STATE MEDIA.

Japanese-controlled Okinawa + Archipelago, Senkakus, + Yonaguni = threats to China's future, post-Reunification? "Pearl Harbor"
of TAIWAN into WESTPAC.

versus

* YAHOO NEWS > IS CHINA'S NEW AIR DEFENSE ZONE A GAME-CHANGER?

Why yes - yes, it is.

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > OPINION: FROM JAPAN TO US, CHINA EMBARKED ON A BOLDER [more MilPol
"aggressive"] FOREIGN POLICY!?

"Post-US" Manifest Destiny + Alfred Thayer Mahan Hegelian Dialecticism + "Great Game" + Anti-US OWG Globalism + "Think Locally/Nationally, Act Globally" + "Peace thru Weakness" + .... ....
- D *** NG IT, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG???

* SAME > [WantChinaTimes = Voice of Russia] NEW ADIZ [Air Defense Identification Zone] FOR SOUTH CHINA SEA PLANNED: FOREIGN MINISTRY.

PHIL in the way of PLA strategic access into SOPAC = SOUTH PACIFIC.

* TOPIX, SAME > CHINA RULES OUT AIR DEFENCE ZONE ALONG SINO-INDIAN BORDER - THE TIMES OF INDIA.

IMO read RISING IRAN = aka Russia's "other" BFF + Bammerika's + SecState Jaaawhn "Prsidential" Kerry's new anti-Qaeda, etal. BFF in Assadian Syria.

BEIJING = BAMMER/USA IN SYRIA = WANNA SEE IFF IRAN WILL DO AGZ POST-2014 AFPAK- OR PAKISTAN-BASED HARD BOYZ = PAK TALIBAN + AYMAN ZAWAHIRI'S "CORE" AL-QAEDA, ETAL.

* TOPIX > [SCMP] CHINA TELLS JAPAN IT WOULD CONSDIER CANCELING ITS NEW AIR ZONE - IN [a mere?] 44 YEARS!?

On or about the Year 2057 - 2058, plus-minus.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/28/2013 23:48 Comments || Top||


Europe
EU human rights court reviews French burqa ban
The European Court of Human Rights began its review of the French burqa ban on Wednesday, looking to see if it violated the rights of the woman who brought the case to the court.

The French law prohibiting garments that conceal the face in public dates back to 2011. Violators of the ban face a fine. French officials said the ban is an attempt to liberate Muslim women who are sometimes forced to wear a burqa or a niqab. Muslims contend that the ban stigmatizes their religion.

Seventeen judges from different European counties are hearing the case, and a decision is not expected for several months.

The case started the same day the Court of Appeal in Paris upheld the decision of a private daycare to fire a woman for refusing to remove her headscarf at work.
Posted by: ryuge || 11/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:


Merkel forges 'grand coalition'
[CSMONITOR] German shares outperformed their peers in Europe on Wednesday after the country's major parties agreed to form a new government and a measure of consumer confidence hit a six-year high.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Practical, pragmatic leadership, consensus across the major parties, willingness to work together, willingness to prevent the wackos in the parties from seizing control -- wow, and consumer confidence goes up.

Might be a lesson here for the idiot American political class.

Naaaaaah....
Posted by: Steve White || 11/28/2013 9:30 Comments || Top||


Berlusconi Expelled From Senate in Italy
[NY Times] Having spent months manufacturing procedural delays or conjuring political melodrama in hopes of saving himself, Silvio Berlusconi
...former Italian prime minister, known for his plain (for a European politician) speaking and his liking for hookers a third his age or less...
on Wednesday could no longer stave off the inevitable: Italia's Senate resoundingly stripped him of his parliamentary seat, a dramatic and humiliating expulsion, even as other potential troubles await him.

In the hours before the vote, Italian senators read speeches for or against Mr. Berlusconi, the powerful former prime minister. Mr. Berlusconi responded with an outdoor rally in central Rome, transforming the day into a televised, split-screen standoff: On one side was the former prime minister, declaring himself a victim of persecution and pledging to remain a political force; on the other was the Senate, with a majority of rival politicians, who finished their speeches and lowered the boom.

His expulsion was confirmed through a series of votes, and after a day of passionate arguments, the reaction in the chamber was striking after the final tally: silence.

"I think we are at a crossroads today," Senator Gianfranco Casini said during the speeches before the vote. "However it goes, a 20-year period is concluded."

Mr. Berlusconi, 77, is now staring at a cascade of stubborn realities. His removal from the Senate means that he is without elective office for the first time in roughly two decades and that he has lost the special immunities awarded to politicians. With other legal cases underway against him -- and the possibility that new litigation will be filed -- Mr. Berlusconi is now far more vulnerable than he was when, as prime minister, he seemed virtually untouchable, swatting away sex and corruption scandals.

He is also expected to soon start performing community service for the tax fraud conviction that forms the basis for his removal from the Senate. Moreover, a court in Milan has ruled that Mr. Berlusconi cannot seek any public office for the next two years. For a man who once dominated Italia with a ribald swagger, Mr. Berlusconi is suddenly a sharply reduced figure, having recently watched several of his longtime lieutenants break away from him.

Determined to show his political viability, Mr. Berlusconi bused in supporters from around Italia for the rally outside his palace in central Rome. They waved flags, braved the November cold and sang songs hailing their leader.

"It's just unfair that they would condemn him when Parliament is full of people who are way worse than him, who have avoided taxes, stolen public money and worked against the people," said Alessandra Abbate, 49, a supporter from Bologna. "This country would be nothing without him."
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  He's 77. I think he has won.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2013 8:59 Comments || Top||


The Grand Turk
Istanbul Monastery 'to be Turned into Mosque'
[An Nahar] A ruined fifth century monastery in Istanbul is to be turned into a mosque next year, local media reported Tuesday, amid a row with Greece over possible similar moves for the ancient Hagia Sophia complex.

The plans for the Monastery of Studios, which was dedicated to St John the Baptist and was considered the most important of Constantinople, were revealed by the Hurriyet Daily News.

Religious authorities in the city could not immediately be reached for comment on the report, which comes amid increasing criticism of the government over its attempts to impose Islamic values on secular society in Turkey.

Last week, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc angered Greece when he voiced hope that Hagia Sophia, a stunning Byzantine monument that dates back almost 1,500 years, would be converted into a Musselmen place of worship.

Two churches of the same name in other parts of Turkey have recently been turned into mosques, adding to the estimated 83,000 across the country.

Hurriyet said the monastery, which has been left in ruins by fire and earthquakes with only part of the church remaining, would be restored next year and then converted.

Hagia Sophia, now one of Istanbul's most popular tourist attractions, was a church for centuries -- and the seat of the Patriarchate of Istanbul -- before the Ottomans turned it into a mosque in the 15th century.

Both Hagia Sofia and the Monastery of Studios were turned into museums after the founding of modern Turkey by Mustafa Kamal Ataturk in 1923.

Debate about the role of religion in Turkish society has intensified in the run-up to a highly-charged election period, kicking off next March with local polls.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A young man of Constantinople
Up a minaret yelped out a yodel:
"Enjoy yourself, Turkey,
But nothing too quirky,
For eating stuffed ham is ignoble!"
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 11/28/2013 17:04 Comments || Top||

#2  'Twas a maiden of olde Istanbul
Who protested rapacious misrule:
She hennaed her nails,
Coyly lifted six veils,
And rode round the hareem on a mule!
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 11/28/2013 20:20 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
5-day polio drive continues successfully: DHO
[Pak Daily Times] District Health Officer Dr Khalid Randhawa on Wednesday said the five-day polio
...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
campaign, which started on November 25, had been continuing in the city, the cantonment and 13 union councils of the Pothohar Town in a successful manner. He said under the drive over 230,000 children had so far been administered the polio vaccine. Randhawa said 849 mobile health teams were operating in the areas in the immunisation campaign. He said polio drops were also being administered at 76 health centres to ensure that all children were immunised. He said the District Health Department had completed the drive, which started on November 18 and ended on November 23, in six tehsils of the district including Kallar Syedan, Murree, Taxila, Kahuta, Gujjar Khan and Kotli Sattian.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
ISF Frees Syrian Man Kidnapped in Tripoli, Arrests 6
[An Nahar] The Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch has freed a Syrian, who was kidnapped more than two weeks ago in the northern city of Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
, and tossed in the slammer
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
six suspects, the state-run National News Agency reported Wednesday.

NNA said Ramzi Youssef Labadi was kidnapped in Tripoli's al-Mina on Nov. 10, and his abductors had asked for a $200,000 ransom.

Following intense investigation, the Intelligence Branch arrested six people involved in the kidnapping and freed Labadi, it said.

No ransom was paid, the agency added, without giving further details on the identity or nationality of the abductors.

The war in neighboring Syria has led to the rise of kidnappings in Leb.

Security sources have said that the abduction of mainly wealthy businessmen has risen more than seven-fold.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Culture Wars
Cornell BDS group justifies hypocritically using Israeli web technology
h/t Gates of Vienna
Last week, the ZF and I discovered that a number of groups that push boycotts for Israel are using WiX, an Israeli web technology, on their websites.

One of those was Cornell University's "Students for Justice in Palestine." People on Twitter made fun of them for their obvious hypocrisy.

Finally, Cornell SJP came out with a long, nonsensical, convoluted justification for their BDS inconsistency; 1500 words of hilarious attempts to make themselves look a little less idiotic:
It's like middle age rulers expelling all Jews, except Jewish doctors.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/28/2013 11:51 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I searched, and was unable to find out who the leadership of the group is. It's just a faceless group.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 11/28/2013 14:58 Comments || Top||

#2  I'd suggest that the reason they have a commercial web front end is that they're probably some sort of astroturf movement.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 11/28/2013 14:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Perhaps that ad group Snowy? Would not surprise me.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2013 19:02 Comments || Top||


CNN and MSNBC Lose Almost Half Their Viewers in One Year
[NEWSBUSTERS.ORG] It's been a tough year for the liberal cable news outlets.

Data released Tuesday show CNN shedding 48 percent of total viewers since last November and MSNBC dropping 45 percent.

The numbers were even worse in the all important demographic of people aged 25 to 54 as CNN's ratings dropped 59 percent and MSNBC's 52 percent.

In an off-election year, and with last November's numbers skewed higher as a result of the presidential election, it should be expected for ratings to decline.

However,
death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate...
Fox News didn't see close to these losses. In total day, FNC is only down 18 percent since last November and 30 percent in the demo.

As you might imagine, prime time numbers were also down.

CNN was off 54 percent in total viewers and 62 percent in the demo. MSNBC declined 50 percent in total prime time viewers and 57 percent in the demo.

By contrast, FNC was second in all of cable in prime time this November averaging over 2 million viewers. This represented a decline of 21 percent in total viewers and 41 percent in the demo.

As such, no matter how you slice it, the liberal cable networks fared much worse in the past twelve months than their far more centrist competitor.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  No doubt they'll decide that they need to pivot more to the left...
Posted by: PBMcL || 11/28/2013 0:13 Comments || Top||

#2  The numbers were even worse in the all important demographic of people aged 25 to 54 as CNN's ratings dropped 59 percent and MSNBC's 52 percent.

Indeed worrisome (in my best Steven Hawking mind-voice), the 25-54 group represent the non-basement dwellers, the earners. Numbers matter.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2013 6:39 Comments || Top||

#3  One niggling concern is that the huge drop over all of the demo is that it means that the demo is not watching TV at all.

Where are they getting their info? I fear that they're becoming even lower information which is not a good thing.
Posted by: AlanC || 11/28/2013 7:38 Comments || Top||

#4  Breaking up the arrangement of cable and satellite providers to bundle programming, and thus force these venues into an open market, will kill them.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/28/2013 8:47 Comments || Top||

#5  Even unintelligent people do not like being lied to. Eventually viewers catch on to the antics.

Unfortunately a lot of young people think John Stewart is the news.
Posted by: Airandee || 11/28/2013 8:55 Comments || Top||

#6  The time has come. NSA Government cable and satellite provider exchanges, a kool website, subsidies. If you like your dish, cable, and kliker, you can keep them.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2013 8:56 Comments || Top||

#7  Minor concern AlanC, minor concern. Take heed, MODS monitor this stuff.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2013 9:00 Comments || Top||

#8  I'm feeling little to no sympathy for the water bearers for Champ (a total incompetent) who they helped elect and are were keeping in power.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/28/2013 9:50 Comments || Top||

#9  CNN shedding 48 percent of total viewers since last November and MSNBC dropping 45 percent.

People are waking up - A New Dawn in America ?

Posted by: Black Charlie the Infinitesmal || 11/28/2013 10:18 Comments || Top||

#10  niggling - Petty, especially in a nagging or annoying way; trifling

See Ship, I'm right there with you so let us not niggle over the verbiage. ;^)
Posted by: AlanC || 11/28/2013 10:22 Comments || Top||

#11  Where are they getting their info?

Intertubes?

And it indeed is "info" and not "news." Then again, the media hasn't really reported news in a very long time.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/28/2013 10:44 Comments || Top||

#12  It’s not just a narrow political viewpoint that’s at play. It’s simply a bad product. After a certain level of exposure even the gullible tire of “Don’t listen to those people…they’re all selfish and irrational”.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 11/28/2013 10:54 Comments || Top||

#13  I'd suspect the numbers are actually worse. If asked if I had watched 3letter for news this weeks I would have to say yes. If asked why, I would have to respond that if my visit was 30 minutes later than my appointment it would never have happened.

Something the administration policy scouts like and the democrat I Ching throwers don't, is people do not like listening to bad news.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2013 11:53 Comments || Top||

#14  the daily show w jon steward has been averaging about 2M viewers the past few years

over half the viewers are 18-49
Posted by: lord garth || 11/28/2013 12:05 Comments || Top||

#15  Our universities have been preaching the extreme left ideal and no morals in journalism for years. These students that believe its ok to slant news and spin it to their ideological leaning are now leading the newscasts. Once integrity is lost in real news stations people look elsewhere. Sadly the most honest news on TV is the satirists.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 11/28/2013 12:43 Comments || Top||

#16  CNN and MSNBC down? Another reason to be thankful!
Posted by: Bobby || 11/28/2013 15:55 Comments || Top||

#17  Actually, I get most of my news from Rantburg. I believe I am better informed than the average TV news watcher. Bet they don't know anything about the nuggets from the Urdu press, for example. On the other hand, I may miss stories about things like the latest health scare. (Killer Bacteria in your Kitchen Sponge!!!)

Plus I get the collected wisdom of the commenters here. And an occasional troll to bat around.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 11/28/2013 16:52 Comments || Top||

#18  niggling - Petty, especially in a nagging or annoying way; trifling

See Ship, I'm right there with you so let us not niggle over the verbiage. ;


AlanC with all due respect, it is very likely you are using a dictionary compiled by the establishment for the establishment, just a friendly warning.

/A reverend down yo strt.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2013 19:06 Comments || Top||

#19  There is more real news on CCTV-9 (ChiCom) and on RU and AlJiz than on any of the US channels that just have idiots jabbering about Washington idiots/crooks/morons.

Posted by: 3dc || 11/28/2013 21:16 Comments || Top||

#20  #18 /A reverend down yo strt.

Someone say reverend? [opens editor, flips back a few weeks]

Hey Muse, has Reverend Al forsaken
Reverend ham and reverend bacon?
His uninvited midnight snack,
A scrawny, mouthy bird of black,
Can never sate the appetite
That used to gorge on chicken, white
And dark, and fries, and all the sides
Black Jesus for his pals provides.
What self-respecting storefront preacher
Would dine on such a wretched creature?
If Al had stuck to fatter fowls
He might be sporting sleeker jowls.

I think his self-esteem has shrunk
From all the years of brawl and bunk:
The race's Falstaff, Santa Clause
And Robin Hood has finally paused
To ponder all the stuff he's done
Invoking heaven's murdered son.
In public, he's still brash and glib
But not so much, back at his crib.

Tawana's unlaid ghost now stalks
Up to his bedroom door, and knocks
And hollers "Damn, I shoulda knew!
The one who kidnapped me was you!
You said that I'd be getting paid...
When this shit's done I'll be a maid,
And if I can't work as a nurse,
I'll whip you with this empty purse!"

blah blah blah blah

blah blah blah blah blah chamber door,
As circling crows caw, "Revermore!"
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220 || 11/28/2013 21:39 Comments || Top||

#21  Lots of good stuff, this one is Gold.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2013 21:41 Comments || Top||

#22  Bob Dylan, is that you?
Posted by: Secret Asian Man || 11/28/2013 23:08 Comments || Top||

#23  shipman, you sound like one of the low info people we hear. Learn something, hug a dictionary.
Posted by: Fat Bob Thraiting5901 || 11/28/2013 23:42 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
36[untagged]
12Arab Spring
6Govt of Pakistan
3Taliban
3Govt of Iran
2Boko Haram
2Govt of Syria
2Hezbollah
2Jamaat-e-Islami
2Ansar al-Sharia
1HUJI
1Islamic State of Iraq
1Salafists
1Abu Sayyaf
1al-Qaeda in the Levant
1Moro National Liberation Front
1Narcos

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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.
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Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2013-11-28
  15 Islamists with suicide belts detained in Moscow
Wed 2013-11-27
  US warns Karzai it may leave no troops in Afghanistan
Tue 2013-11-26
  Libyan Militiamen Battle Government Forces in Benghazi
Mon 2013-11-25
  More than 160 killed as Syrian rebels try to break siege
Sun 2013-11-24
  Nuclear deal reached with Mad Mullahs™
Sat 2013-11-23
  Belmokhtar deputy killed in Mali
Fri 2013-11-22
  Militias pull out of Libya's capital, Tripoli
Thu 2013-11-21
  20 killed in assault on Police Station by Shaboobs
Wed 2013-11-20
  Yemen Drone Strike Kills Three 'Qaida' Suspects
Tue 2013-11-19
  At least 18 killed in explosions targeting Iranian embassy in Beirut
Mon 2013-11-18
  Syria Rebels Bomb Government Building, Kill 31
Sun 2013-11-17
  Hezbollah commander killed in Syria
Sat 2013-11-16
  Militias attack Libyan protesters, killing 31
Fri 2013-11-15
  Iraq Bombers Kill 43 as Millions Mark Shiite Holiday
Thu 2013-11-14
  Bomb blasts outside Karachi imambargahs wound 14


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