Britney Spears is being investigated for "dental abuse" of her two sons.
Ohfergawdsake.
The allegation is just the latest that she has "appalling" parenting skills.
She's a dishpit. Why should her parenting skills be any greater than any of her other social skills?
Now it can be revealed that the charges are based on a claim that she is not taking steps to ensure her children receive the best possible dental care.
Not... cavities? Tell us they don't have cavities! Oh, that would be too much to bear!
The complaint, lodged with Department of Children and Family Services, alleges poor dental hygiene, as well as poor eating and sleeping habits for Sean Preston, two next month, and 11-month old Jayden James.
"Sean Preston definitely has moss growing on his fangs. Both of Jayden James' teeth are green."
Britney, 26, is currently battling ex-husband Kevin Federline for custody.
He's a non-entity, but he brushes after every meal.
But does he floss?
The allegations are contained in legal papers filed yesterday by Federline's attorney, suggesting it might have been K-Fed who lodged the complaint. It was reported in the US that Brit gives her sons bottles of fizzy drinks and lets them snack on sugary food.
Oh, the humanity!
In February last year, the DCFS interrogated Britney after the notorious car seat incident with Sean Preston. And in April 2006 they spoke to her after he fell out of a high chair, but no action was taken.
Tusk. Tusk. Sitting in a high chair without a seatbelt! What is the world coming to?
It was also reported K-Fed's people tried to serve papers to a Britney insider yesterday when the man freaked out, dove into the lawyer's car and sped off.
"Beemer, don't fail me now!"
Police were called to investigate the hit-and-run.
What hit and run? Tell us he didn't run over the lawyer with his own Beemer?
And Spears's ex-manager, Larry Rudolph, is in hiding because he doesn't want to testify against Britney. He is afraid it could hurt her custody chances.
He keeps obsessively brushing his teeth.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
The best jape so far is that Cletus thinks she's an unfit parent because she's become pregnant again with Barack Obama's luv child.
Whenever I see someone doing this, I always roll down the window and yell to them: "Kids make great airbags!" People like Spears justify demands that prospective parents should first obtain a child-bearing license. Her parenting skills are on a par with her music, except that her worthless music is better.
#5
It's the culture - you wouldn't want the kids to be the butt of jokes of their redneck peer group because of the number of teeth they had. Kids with glasses are teased and called 'four eyes', they'd be called 'twenty eight tooth' or something.
#9
Well, she's from Kentwood, LA. What else would you expect from Kentwood? Demographics: 34% White, 64% Black. Median Income $17,297. 37.6% of the population lives below the poverty line.
Me thinks dental hygene isn't high on the list for most folks from Kentwood. Gawd, have you seen their teeth down there?
Posted by: Big Gromolet7601 ||
08/29/2007 11:17 Comments ||
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#10
Wasn't the toothbrush was invented in Louisiana? I figure if it was invented anywhere else, it would've been called the teethbrush...
#12
I live daily with a 2-year-old whose parent wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, and it sucks. If we're lucky, and if we're given the time, we may be able to correct the majority of the problems created by poor parenting by the time the child graduates from college. It's not a fun thing. People with poor or nonexistent parenting skills are a real threat. The biggest problem is that 1) Spears doesn't recognize she has a problem, and 2) Federline is equally as bad.
A curse upon all those idiots and their psycho-babble that have robbed two generations of children of a proper childhood, and upon the parents that actually BELIEVE this runny brown fecal matter.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/29/2007 19:56 Comments ||
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#13
Of course, I hate to bring this up, but most kids don't get all their teeth until about 2 years old, and those are temps anyway. Also, the ADA "recommends" that kids younger than 2 not even go to the dentist, as the treatments may cause more harm than good.
But, I also grew up just a few years ago NOT wearing seat belts, NOT wearing a bike helmet, and only having a lap belt to protect me when I was these kids' ages. And, I'm only in my mid-30s. Ah, gotta love the "safety police" and the nanny state it creates.
Posted by: BA ||
08/29/2007 21:38 Comments ||
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(AKI) - With below-normal rains, an influx of displaced people, insecurity and worsening health conditions sparking a "dramatic deterioration" in Somalia's Shabelle region, long viewed as the strife-torn country's breadbasket, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today appealed for 22.4 US million dollars to feed 1.2 million people and avoid a looming break in food supplies.
The number of people in need represents an increase of 200,000 over previous estimates. Without new contributions, food will start running out in the faction-riven East African country in October, the Rome-based WFP said.
"The Shabelle regions usually export food to other regions, but this year they cannot feed themselves so the most vulnerable require our help," WFP Country Director Peter Goossens said. Also, families driven from the capital, Mogadishu, by fighting need food for the coming months. "Donors were extremely generous toward the people of Somalia in this tough year, and I appeal for that spirit to continue to help end the suffering of the growing number of weakest Somalis, mainly women and children. We cannot desert them in their time of need," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2007 00:00 ||
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Been there. Done that. Got the body bags.
You can all starve.
Posted by: Gary and the Samoyeds ||
08/29/2007 23:02 Comments ||
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It's been another terrible month in Zimbabwe. The high point was the issue of a new bank note. Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank issued a Z$200,000 note (as in a two-hundred thousand Zimbabwean dollar note). With inflation now around 5000 percent a year, the bank had to do something. But the new note, while worth 13 U.S. dollars at the official exchange rate, gets you only one American dollar on the more realistic black market. The government imposed price controls has destroyed the market economy.
Refugees are still the big story. South African government authorities are now acknowledging the problem posed by Zimbabweans who are fleeing the Mugabe dictatorship. Britain is making plans to evacuate its (estimated) 15,000 citizens. About a third of the 13 million population is already believed to have fled to neighboring countries in search of work and food. Over 5,000 a day are still leaving. That means another two million people gone in the next year, if the exodus stays steady. The government does not have sufficient police or military forces to seal the borders.
Robert Mugabe's government continues to tighten the screws. On August 3 the government made a law that allowed state police and intelligence agents to monitor all internet communications and phone lines as well as packages and mail flowing through the postal system. The law is aimed at opposition political groups. But at the rate people are fleeing the country, Mugabes watchdogs will soon have no one to watch.
#1
The government does not have sufficient police or military forces to seal the borders.
Nor any interest to do so. When the goal is to depopulate the country of all but the most docile, letting go those with the gumption to leave effortlessly accomplishes the goal.
#3
Related to recent science news that GLOBAL WARMING + ENVIRON DEGRADATION, etc may lead to the depopulation = emptying of whole countries or regions. GLOBAL DIASPORA(S) > for certain nations or regions, the future OWG-NWO might mean there will be no one to rule or govern.
#4
One day, just as contemporary scientists now debate whether a comet-asteroid killed off the dinosaurs or were dinos already becoming naturally extinct in favor of mammalians, a similar question(s) will be asked for Humanity itself -during this MOUD-IAN APOCALYPSE known as the GLOBAL WOT, did Mankind change/improve hinmself for the better, in favor of benevolence, selflessness, and worldwide peace; or did Mankind's foibles end up destroying same???
A pregnant woman has been told that her baby will be taken from her at birth because she is deemed capable of "emotional abuse", even though psychiatrists treating her say there is no evidence to suggest that she will harm her child in any way.
Social services' recommendation that the baby should be taken from Fran Lyon, a 22-year-old charity worker who has five A-levels and a degree in neuroscience, was based in part on a letter from a paediatrician she has never met.
Hexham children's services, part of Northumberland County Council, said the decision had been made because Miss Lyon was likely to suffer from Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy, a condition unproven by science in which a mother will make up an illness in her child, or harm it, to draw attention to herself.
Continued on Page 49
#8
I'd be willing to bet it's an EU-wide phenomena, OldSpook. There are pockets of it in the US, as well. On the other hand, we have scores of social services "experts" that continuously place children in danger by putting them BACK into abusive and dangerous households, in order to "keep the family united" - even when it's known to be a very risky and dangerous situation. IIRC, at least 40 kids are killed every year in the US because of such "returns".
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/29/2007 20:49 Comments ||
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#9
I weep for the Brits. Like somebody said, Orwell's 1984 was meant as a warning, not a user's manual.
Child Services in most states here tend to be a pack of jackals, too.
(AKI) - Exiled Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky has reacted angrily at hints by authorities in Moscow that he may have been behind the murder of outspoken journalist Anna Politkovskaya. "These are the statements of psychopaths. It (the allegations made against him) are the proof that they are sick, sick in the mind", Berezovsky was quoted as saying by the Milan-based Corriere della Sera on Tuesday.
The British-based oligarch, once a member of former Russian president Boris Yeltsin's inner circle, was reacting to remarks made by Russia's prosecutor general Yuri Chaika implicating him in Politkovskaya's shooting on 7 October 2006.
On Monday Chaika announced that 10 arrests had been made, in connection with the journalist - a prominent critic of Russian President Valdimir Putin - including the direct organisers, accomplices and the assassin himself. Among those arrested as accomplices are people working within Russia's interior ministry and secret services, but it was hinted that the mastermind of the murder was the oligarch living outside Russia.
The person who ordered the crime, Chaika said, was living outside Russia and wanted to "destabilise the situation in the country ... and return to the previous ruling system, when money and oligarchs decided everything." Most observers say that the remarks clearly referred to Berezovsky. But Berezovsky said that the allegations were just part of a Kremlin orchestrated smear campaign directed at him.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2007 00:00 ||
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NEWSMAX/LUCIANNE > THE SOVIET UNION RETURNS TO RUSSIA + RUSSIA ASSUMING COLD WAR CHARACTERISTICS.
*PRAVDA > CAN WORLD ECONOMIES SURVIVE WITHOUT THE USA; + REGNUM > RUSSIA CONVINCES CZECHS TO DELAY MISSLE DEFENSE. TAIPEITIMES > RUSSIA'S "VITAL SPACE" [aka TOTAL POWER] AT THREAT FROM CHINA.
(AKI) - A controversial Serbian Orthodox prelate, Archbishop Filaret, on Tuesday went on hunger strike after he was banned for the fourth time by Montenegro's authorities from entering the country. He is reportedly on a list of 44 individuals alleged to be helping fugitives accused by UN's Hague-based war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Filaret, whose Mileseva diocese covers southwest Serbia and a part of northern Montenegro, was to hold religious rites in the Montenegrin town of Pljevlja, but was stopped at a border crossing by Montenegro police.
The archbishop's earlier attempts to cross to Montenegro, where his diocese has some 70,000 believers, have also been blocked. Filaret rejected the accusations that he has assisted war crimes indictees, saying he didnt know where the main fugitives, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his general Ratko Mladic were hiding, claiming that Montenegro was violating his human and religious rights.
Karadzic and Mladic are among five remaining fugitives accused by the UN tribunal of war crimes and genocide against Muslims during Bosnias 1992-1995 civil war. "I dont know where they are, but they are in my heart because Im a Christian, Filaret told Serbian media.
Montenegro's authorities claim they are acting on instructions from the UN tribunal and wont allow the archbishop to enter the country as long as hes on the list. "Shame on you, I didnt come here to hold political speeches, but to pray with my people, Filaret yelled at a cordon of Montenegro policemen who blocked his entry.
He then camped at a border crossing, saying he was beginning a hunger strike and would take only water and medicine, until his rights were restored.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2007 00:00 ||
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So will this be one of them Bobby Sands hunger strikes, a Cindy Sheehan celebrity hunger strike, or a Club Gitmo hunger strike?
It's important to differentiate...
(AKI) Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik has warned that Bosnia-Herzegovina could be dissolved if Muslim leaders do not stop attacking Serb entity Republika Srpska (RS) and demanding its abolition. RS must be respected and we will respect others as much as they respect us, Dodik said on Monday.
The controversial RS prime minister said he wasnt afraid of threats by the high representative of the international community in Bosnia, Miroslav Lajcak, to sanction him for his statements which allegedly undermine the countrys constitutional system and the Dayton peace accord. "Bosnia-Herzegovina is a Dayton construction, based on an agreement which I respect, but whether it will last, or how long, doesnt depend on me but on many others, he said. I dont want to go to Sarajevo in a manner which would be humiliating for RS. "If someone wants to talk to us, it must be based on partnership relations, he added.
Under the Dayton peace accord, Bosnia was divided into two entities, RS and a Muslim Croat federation, but the international community which safeguards peace in Bosnia has stripped entities of most state powers for the sake of strengthening the central government.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2007 00:00 ||
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Dodik's got a good point - Muslim Bosnia is the seat of a lot of militant Islamic activities. The Serbs are no angels, but maybe this time around we will better understand WHY they 'oppress' the Muslims.
With the election of Abdullah Gül as the 11th president of the Turkish republic, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has found an opportunity to compensate for the damage done by the incompatibility of the government with former President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.
The AK Party will now face no obstacles in passing the bills which previously vetoed by Sezer in the 22nd legislative term of Parliament. Among these vetoed bills is the constitutional amendment known as 2B, which would allow the sale of former forest land that the ruling AK Party sees as a source as much as $25 billion income. The government argued that the passage of this bill would make the Turkish economy more resistant to external shocks.
The bill on foundations, which allows for the returning of previously confiscated property of minority foundations; the ombudsman bill; the public administration bill; the oil bill; the bill on the Higher Education Board (YÖK); and the bill on local administration are also among those the AK Party is expecting to pass in the new president's term.
The AK Party's parliamentary group decided to rush these bills to the agenda of Parliament immediately after Gül's election as President. The AK Party plans to keep Parliament open until Oct. 1 after the government is established. The official opening of Parliament was originally scheduled for Oct. 1, but the AK Party will use this extra time for the passage of the previously vetoed bills, particularly those on the Court of Accounts, on foundations and on the ombudsman, taking into consideration the EU Progress Report to be published on Oct. 21.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2007 00:00 ||
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The Federal Election Commission has fined one of the last cycles biggest liberal political action committees $775,000 for using unregulated soft money to boost John Kerry and other Democratic candidates during the 2004 elections.
America Coming Together (ACT) raised $137 million for its get-out-the-vote effort in 2004, but the FEC found most of that cash came through contributions that violated federal limits. The groups big donors included George Soros, Progressive Corp. chairman Peter Lewis and the Service Employees International Union.
The settlement, which the FEC approved unanimously, is the third largest enforcement penalty in the commissions 33-year history.
ACT, which ceased operations in 2005, was formed in late 2003 and rapidly deployed an enormous organization to do the retail-level grunt work of politics. It opened more than 90 offices in 17 states from which it mobilized an army of more than 25,000 paid canvassers and volunteers to knock on doors, stuff envelopes and make phone calls urging voters to defeat President Bush and support Democratic or progressive candidates including Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate.
The FEC dismissed allegations that that Kerrys campaign and the Democratic National Committee violated campaign laws by coordinating with ACT or accepting excessive contributions from the group.
ACT was among a new breed of political committee, known as 527 groups, that stretched campaign finance rules on their way to shaping the 2004 elections. Operatives used the 527s, named for the section of the IRS code under which they were registered, to spend money on politics outside the FECs purview.
But the groups have largely faded from the political landscape as the FEC has sought to rein them in. Late last year, commissioners handed down a total of $630,000 in penalties to three top 527s: Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, MoveOn.org and the League of Conservation Voters, and there are more complaints pending.
But the heads of two of the non-profit campaign finance reform groups behind many of the complaints, including the one that led to the ACT penalty, say its all too little, too late. This action comes more than three years after our FEC complaints were filed and nearly three years after the 2004 presidential election was held, read a statement from Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, and Gerry Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center.
Plus, they argued, the fine represents only a tiny fraction of the amount ACT spent illegally on the 2004 elections.
Wertheimer also is involved in a lawsuit to compel the FEC to pass a set of comprehensive rules regulating 527s, without which he said the groups are likely to reemerge in the 2008 campaign. Horrors! A .57% fine! That will teach them!
#2
On top of the three quarters of a million dollar fine, Mr. Soros threw away one hundred thirty seven million dollars just on that effort in that election. This story doesn't cover the other groups and campaigns he has funded since 1999 or so, and certainly after the 2000 election. I would be surprised if the sum is even so little as half a billion dollars from Mr. Soros' personal fortune, not including donations from the little people.
Via Lucianne.com
WASHINGTON -- For the last 15 years, California authorities have been trying to figure out what happened to a businessman named Norman Hsu, who pleaded no contest to grand theft, agreed to serve up to three years in prison and then seemed to vanish.
"He is a fugitive," Ronald Smetana, who handled the case for the state attorney general, said in an interview. "Do you know where he is?"
Hsu, it seems, has been hiding in plain sight, at least for the last three years. Since 2004, one Norman Hsu has been carving out a prominent place of honor among Democratic fundraisers. He has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions into party coffers, much of it earmarked for presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
In addition to making his own contributions, Hsu has honed the practice of assembling packets of checks from contributors who bear little resemblance to the usual Democratic deep pockets: A self-described apparel executive with a variety of business interests, Hsu has focused on delivering hefty contributions from citizens who live modest lives and are neophytes in the world of campaign giving.
On Tuesday, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr. -- a Washington lawyer who represents the Democratic fundraiser -- confirmed that Hsu was the same man who was involved in the California case. Barcella said his client did not remember pleading to a criminal charge and facing the prospect of jail time. Hsu remembers the episode as part of a settlement with creditors when he also went through bankruptcy, Barcella said.
The bulk of the campaign dollars raised by major parties comes from the same sources: business groups, labor unions and other well-heeled interests with a long-term need to win friends in the political arena. But the appetite for cash has grown so great that politicians are constantly pressured to find new sources of contributions. Hsu's case illustrates the sometimes-bizarre results of that tendency to push the envelope, often in ways the candidates know nothing about.
As a Democratic rainmaker, Hsu -- who graduated from UC Berkeley and the Wharton School of Business -- is credited with donating nearly $500,000 to national and local party candidates and their political committees in the last three years. He earned a place in the Clinton campaign's "HillRaiser" group by pledging to raise more than $100,000 for her presidential bid.
Records show that Hsu helped raise an additional $500,000 from other sources for Clinton and other Democrats.
"Norman Hsu is a longtime and generous supporter of the Democratic Party and its candidates, including Sen. Clinton," Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the campaign, said Tuesday. "During Mr. Hsu's many years of active participation in the political process, there has been no question about his integrity or his commitment to playing by the rules, and we have absolutely no reason to call his contributions into question or to return them."
Wolfson did not immediately respond Tuesday night to questions about Hsu's legal problems.
Though he is a fugitive, Hsu has hardly kept a low profile. The website camerarts.com, which sells photographs taken at political events, features shots of Hsu at several fundraisers he hosted at Manhattan's elegant St. Regis hotel -- including a June 2005 luncheon for Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento).
Hsu lives in New York City. Efforts to contact him were unsuccessful. Barcella said Hsu chose to respond through his lawyer.
Records show that Hsu has emerged as one of the Democrats' most successful "bundlers," rounding up groups of contributors and packaging their checks together before delivering the funds to campaign officials. Individuals can give a total of $4,600 to a single candidate during an election cycle, $2,300 for the primaries and $2,300 for the general election.
One example of the kind of first-time donors Hsu has worked with is the Paw family of Daly City, Calif., which is headed by William Paw, a mail carrier, and his wife, Alice, who is listed as a homemaker. The Paws -- seven adults, most of whom live together in a small house near San Francisco International Airport -- apparently had never donated to national candidates until 2004. Over a three-year period, they gave $213,000, including $55,000 to Clinton and $14,000 to candidates for state-level offices in New York.
The family includes a son, Winkle Paw, who Barcella said was in business with Hsu. Another son works for a Bay Area school board, while one daughter works for a hospital and another for a computer company. "They have the financial wherewithal to make their own donations," Barcella said. "It didn't come from Norman."
#1
"Barcella said his client did not remember pleading to a criminal charge and facing the prospect of jail time."
The olde 'I don't remember defense'. Perfect for the Clintonian team of scam artists.
#2
See ASIA TIMES > WELCOME TO HILLARY'S WARS. One fo the reasons the Demoleft started campaigning/posturing early is that they want to impress on the minds of mainstream Amer that the Dem Party will de facto control Washington DC = USG-NPE after Dubya leaves office in Jan 2009 = gets blown up by Radical Islam beforehand. By this scope, the Dems are basically campaigning for Cabinet positions in the post-Dubya Dem admin, notsomuch to be POTUS per se.
A new Arizona state law to require employers to verify the immigration status of employees is being blamed and credited for chasing illegal aliens out of the state. It's the second such development in just the last week: WND reported earlier how a new Oklahoma law requiring the deportation of arrested illegal aliens was prompting an exodus from that state.
The developments are the result of state actions already launched when a brokered plan in the U.S. Senate to create a path to legal residency for the millions of illegal aliens in the country collapsed.
The new report comes from the Arizona Republic, which said the state's strong economy has been a magnet for illegal aliens for years, but the law is looming on Jan. 1. "I would say we are losing at least 100 people a day," Elias Bermudez, founder of Immigrants Without Borders and host of a daily talk-radio program aimed at undocumented immigrants, told the newspaper.
The report said it's impossible to count exactly how many illegal aliens have fled because of the new law, ...
because the illegals don't announce it to the newspapers
... but interviews with immigrant advocates, community workers and real-estate agents confirm the number is significant.
"Some are moving to other states, where they think they will have an easier time getting jobs," the report said. "Others are returning to Mexico, selling their effects and putting their houses on the market."
The report said the number is expected to mushroom as the deadline approaches. "This is exactly what it is supposed to do. (Illegal aliens) have no business being here, none," said state Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, an architect of the law to sanction employers. "Shut off the lights, and the crowd will go home. I hope they will all self-deport."
Companies found in violation of the ban on knowingly hiring unauthorized workers face a 10-day business license suspension on the first offense. A second offense could mean they would be ordered to shut down permanently.
An estimated 14 percent of the 2.6 million workers in Arizona are foreign-born; about two-thirds of non-citizens are undocumented, officials said.
They'll reverse this law in a few years when the businesses have no one to hire, the middle class folks have no one to help them around the house, and the working class notices that everything's going to hell.
Posted by: ed ||
08/29/2007 09:09 ||
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It is a great irony that in Arizona, unlike California, illegals could not easily ghettoize, and are forced to integrate, resulting in far greater assimilation over a shorter period of time.
And yet Arizona acts to push out its remaining non-assimilated illegals, while the far larger numbers and percentage of non-assimilated illegals are encouraged by California.
But it has always been different. Even the Catholic church put California under a different religious order than Arizona hundreds of years ago.
NEW DELHI - India on Tuesday invited bids from defence contractors around the world for its purchase of 126 fighter jets in a deal estimated at nearly nine billion dollars. The ball is now rolling, defence ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar said of the worlds largest fighter plane deal in 15 years.
The contenders will have to meet three guiding principles: meeting the operational requirements of the Indian air force, a fair and transparent selection process and a deal benefiting domestic arms firms. Industry sources say the Russian-built MiG-35 and MiG-29 aircraft and the US-based Lockheed Martin F-16 and Boeing F-18 were frontrunners. Also in the race to replace a chunk of Indias ageing fleet of MiG-21s are Eurofighters Typhoon, Saabs Gripen and Dassaults Rafale and Mirage. But price considerations have left these contenders at a disadvantage, defence officials told AFP.
Eighteen of the fighters would be bought off the shelf while the remaining 108 planes would be manufactured under licence in India, officials quoting the tender documents said. The Indian air force expects the batch of 18 planes would be supplied inflying condition and deployed at the latest by 2012, a senior defence ministry official said.
India would also hold the option of purchasing another 64 fighter jets under the same terms and conditions, the official said.
India called for bids as the operational fighter fleet of the Indian air force in 2007 plunged to an all-time low of 576 aircraft, from nearly 750 in early 2000, experts said.
The contract will be the first time Indias huge defence establishment has bought fighters after evaluating rival bids through a global tender. The tender also said the deal would be subject to so-called offset obligations -- meaning a large part the cost will have to be spent in India. The Indian military introduced this clause into all major defence deals in the mid-1990s as a way of protecting itself from non-delivery as well as boosting its own domestic armament industry.
Indias Russian-built mainstay MiG-21s are more than 30 years old and spare parts shortages have hit its combat squadrons of British-supplied Jaguar and Sea Harrier aircraft.
With US offerings seen as having a strong chance, the deal could also mark a major shift away from Indias traditional dependence on Russian military hardware. Relations between Moscow -- which meets 75 percent of Indias armament needs -- and India are now bumpy due to a delay in the delivery of a Russian aircraft carrier and bickering over escalating costs.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/29/2007 00:00 ||
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Relations between Moscow -- which meets 75 percent of Indias armament needs -- and India are now bumpy due to a delay in the delivery of a Russian aircraft carrier and bickering over escalating costs.
Is there some sort of congenital predisposition that compels Russia to piss in the punchbowl at every opportunity? Here's hoping that India somehow overcomes it usual obsessively penurious bias and finally buys itself some high performance American hardware. One would think that Russia's constant pandering to Islamic terrorist nations would militate India away from doing business with them but the lure of saving a couple of paise must be totally overpowering.
#4
Eighteen of the fighters would be bought off the shelf while the remaining 108 planes would be manufactured under licence in India, officials quoting the tender documents said.
f16 maybe but that's about it
Posted by: Boss Craising2882 ||
08/29/2007 10:32 Comments ||
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#5
Let's not do a Clintonesque transfer of military technology that's any more recent than, say, the F16-C or D. Minus the more interesting bits of avionics.
#6
Too late. AESA radar is included in both the F-18 and F-16 bids.
Posted by: ed ||
08/29/2007 10:49 Comments ||
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#7
Ofer up some early model F-16s or Hornets as a freebie (like apucher does w/ dope) to get the inside line on new aircraft. Lots of these old birds in mothballs. of course the EU and WTO would have a severe case of panty-waddage to contend with....
#8
Mig-21's and parts For Sale
Flying $85,000 plus Shipping (01/13/07)
These Mig 21's are now disassembled and ready from shipping 03/03/07
The Mikoyan Gurevich MIG-21 Fishbed is the most produced jet aircraft of all time and the most produced combat aircraft since WWII. It is the longest production run combat aircraft, lasting for more than 45 years. The MIG-21 is the most widely used combat aircraft ever, in operation in approximately 50 countries on four continents.
http://www.tankride.com/Russian_Tanks_For_Sale.html
Hind Gunship's (Czech) For Sale
Condition: Display or Major work to Fly
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/29/2007 15:07 Comments ||
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#9
The Mikoyan Gurevich MIG-21 Fishbed is the most produced jet aircraft of all time and the most produced combat aircraft since WWII.
McDonald's has sold the most hamburgers and Thomas Kinkade the most paintings and neither of them have any reputation for premium quality either.
#12
The Mig-21 has also killed more pilots than even the infamous F-104 "Widowmaker". The way the cockpit was designed and the way the ejection seat worked, the aircraft took off the legs just above the knees. You couldn't get down by parachute fast enough to keep from bleeding to death. It also had a nasty habit of flaming out at low altitude. Most of the problems were corrected by the time the "J" model came out, but by then there were tens of thousands of the older aircraft. We won't even talk about the Chinese knock-offs...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/29/2007 23:49 Comments ||
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(AKI/DAWN) - Pakistani president Gen Pervez Musharraf was prepared to forfeit his military uniform in exchange for a political deal that would guarantee him another five years in office, sources have told the Pakistani news agency, Dawn.
The president's team of emissaries, led by the chief of the country's Inter-Services Intelligence organisation, Lt Gen Ashfaq Kiani, and Pakistan People's Party (PPP) chairperson Benazir Bhutto are understood to have met in London on Monday to discuss a political compromise for achieving a grand national reconciliation.
According to sources, President Musharraf has offered to take off his uniform even before the presidential elections. But in the trade-off, he wants all political parties to agree to elect him president for the next five years after the next general election. Sources told Dawn he wants the powers of the office of the president to remain untouched - at least up to the end of his new term.
The package of offers discussed at the meeting is reported to include the formation of a national government and the appointment of a chief election commissioner by consensus.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
He'd look snazzy in a Star Fleet uniform, or maybe Home Depot...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/29/2007 10:58 Comments ||
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#2
Star Fleet, as in 'The Red-Shirted Crewman' uniform???
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chief Benazir Bhutto has proposed to the Musharraf government that one-third of the caretaker government should be from her party, and has also proposed a name for caretaker prime minister, Geo news reported on Tuesday. The channel quoted sources as saying Bhutto has also asked for a constitutional amendment allowing candidates to contest elections in absentia, from abroad.
The only thing less effective than a Unity Government is a caretaker government.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2007 00:00 ||
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The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Central Executive Committee will meet today (Wednesday) in London to finalise a plan for the Sharif brothers return, PML-N Information Secretary Ahsan Iqbal said on Tuesday.
Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif will chair the first-ever PML-N meeting after the Supreme Court verdict allowing the Sharif brothers to return from their exile.
Ahsan said the party leadership would finalise the place of arrival of the former PM and his brother in the country. The party has planned to receive them before the approaching Ramadan, he said, adding that the final date would be announced after the meeting. Calling the reports about the Sharif-Musharraf contacts as baseless, he said if the PML-N wanted a secret deal with Musharraf it would not have opted for a judicial process. He said his party would continue its efforts for the restoration of democracy and that it would oppose the imposition of an emergency in the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2007 00:00 ||
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Long, weepy article in the LA Times about the suffering of Iran's people. Short Round is even criticized.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/29/2007 00:00 ||
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[5 views]
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#1
Too bad most of these people weren't even born yet when the Shah was dragging Iran kicking and screaming into the 20th century. Otherwise they might have a stronger appreciation for just how very little wealth is trickling down from their fabulously wealthy Mullahs in Tehran.
In the early years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the government was reluctant to import spare parts from Europe and the U.S. Instead, it insisted on manufacturing inferior replacements inside Iran and, later, on shutting down functioning equipment to provide spare parts for other machines.
This catastrophic deterioration of Iran's industrial sector is a direct result of
Khomeini's program of khodkafa'i, or self-sufficiency and it has had all the beneficial aspects of China's "Great Leap Forward" that encouraged villagers to smelt their own iron. Just as the Chinese peasants ended up melting useful tools and utensils to meet political quotas, so does Iran's industry decommission perfectly functional equipment to serve as a source of spare parts. Behold the awe and splendor of a centrally planned society!
Iran is probing complaints that a prayer leader in the city of Mecca verbally attacked Shiite Muslims amid efforts by Tehran and Riyadh to improve their occasionally strained relations. The hardline Jomhouri Islami newspaper on Tuesday claimed that television broadcasts of last Fridays prayer sermon in Mecca were cut short after the prayer leader implied that Shiites had nothing to do with Islam.
Jomhouri Eslami reported that prayer leader Sheikh Saleh Al-Taleb had said in Mecca on Friday that one of the non-Arab nations is provoking a sectarian crisis, in a reference to Shiite Iran. According to the allegations, also repeated on Iranian state television, he added, The role played by this group has nothing to do with the prophet, in reference to Shiite Islam.
There was no confirmation from Saudi Arabia concerning the text of the sermon. I did not actually listen to actual words, but our embassy in Riyadh is pursuing the matter, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said. There were some speeches regarding the (Shiite) imams, our embassy has discussed it with the officials there. We hope that the sanctity of the different Islamic sects is preserved and we all follow a unified path.
The head of Irans organisation for hajj has also protested to the authorities in Riyadh that Saudi security forces were mistreating Iranian pilgrims visiting Mecca.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2007 00:00 ||
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[2 views]
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#1
Even if the West never screws up sufficient courage to put Muslims in their place we can still rely upon the Struggle for Islamic Purity to do the job for us. There is simply no way on earth that Islam will ever be able to rid itself of its own demons. Being More Islamic Than Thou will hound it to its grave. The only problem is that they will take millions or billions of us with them on their express trip to Hell.
#2
Most Muslims view most Muslims as apostates. Ismailis believe that 97% of the "ummah" are not real Muslims. Last I heard, the largest unity sect - Wahabis, Jamaatis, Ikhwanis and variants - involves about 35% of Muslims. Other Sunni groups, like Sufis, generally form less than 10% of the total. Shiites are only 15% of the cult. So why aren't they fighting each other to the death? Because Hadith quotes of the phony "prophet" reveal a prediction of sectarianism within the cult.
Dhimmi Pundits like Karen Armstrong and John Esposito would be well aware that islamic "prophecy" claims that, after Muslims slaughter Kafirs (disbelievers like Armstrong and Esposito) at qiyamah ("end of days"), the apostate wars begin again (a "War of Apostasy" was fought against Yemen, in 632 to 634 AD), in preparation for the return of Jesus to earth.
Anyone who says either that Islam is a religion of peace or that Muslims are not a threat to Western life and liberty, is either morally bankrupt or pathologically stupid. Screw human rights for Muslims, and recognition of sovereignty of majority Muslim entities.
#3
Some say paedophiles, rapists and spree killers have their human riots violated by imprisonment or execution. Some would literally offer their own neck, the necks of their wives and daughters, to these cultists rather than stand up and fight.
#4
When they have ANTI SHARIA sermons throughout the muzz world, it will be a beginning...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/29/2007 11:00 Comments ||
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#5
Mig-21's and parts For Sale
Flying $85,000 plus Shipping (01/13/07)
These Mig 21's are now disassembled and ready from shipping 03/03/07
The Mikoyan Gurevich MIG-21 Fishbed is the most produced jet aircraft of all time and the most produced combat aircraft since WWII. It is the longest production run combat aircraft, lasting for more than 45 years. The MIG-21 is the most widely used combat aircraft ever, in operation in approximately 50 countries on four continents.
http://www.tankride.com/Russian_Tanks_For_Sale.html
Hind Gunship's (Czech) For Sale
Condition: Display or Major work to Fly
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/29/2007 15:03 Comments ||
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#6
DOH! Wrong article! Dopey Me! Should be under the India airplane article.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/29/2007 15:09 Comments ||
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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.
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.
The allegation is just the latest that she has "appalling" parenting skills. 
It's been another terrible month in Zimbabwe. The high point was the issue of a new bank note. Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank issued a Z$200,000 note (as in a two-hundred thousand Zimbabwean dollar note). With inflation now around 5000 percent a year, the bank had to do something. But the new note, while worth 13 U.S. dollars at the official exchange rate, gets you only one American dollar on the more realistic black market. The government imposed price controls has destroyed the market economy. 
(AKI) - A controversial Serbian Orthodox prelate, Archbishop Filaret, on Tuesday went on hunger strike after he was banned for the fourth time by Montenegro's authorities from entering the country. He is reportedly on a list of 44 individuals alleged to be helping fugitives accused by UN's Hague-based war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Filaret, whose Mileseva diocese covers southwest Serbia and a part of northern Montenegro, was to hold religious rites in the Montenegrin town of Pljevlja, but was stopped at a border crossing by Montenegro police. 
With the election of Abdullah Gül as the 11th president of the Turkish republic, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has found an opportunity to compensate for the damage done by the incompatibility of the government with former President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. 
NEW DELHI - India on Tuesday invited bids from defence contractors around the world for its purchase of 126 fighter jets in a deal estimated at nearly nine billion dollars. The ball is now rolling, defence ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar said of the worlds largest fighter plane deal in 15 years.
(AKI/DAWN) - Pakistani president Gen Pervez Musharraf was prepared to forfeit his military uniform in exchange for a political deal that would guarantee him another five years in office, sources have told the Pakistani news agency, Dawn. 
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chief Benazir Bhutto has proposed to the Musharraf government that one-third of the caretaker government should be from her party, and has also proposed a name for caretaker prime minister, Geo news reported on Tuesday. The channel quoted sources as saying Bhutto has also asked for a constitutional amendment allowing candidates to contest elections in absentia, from abroad.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Central Executive Committee will meet today (Wednesday) in London to finalise a plan for the Sharif brothers return, PML-N Information Secretary Ahsan Iqbal said on Tuesday. 
Iran is probing complaints that a prayer leader in the city of Mecca verbally attacked Shiite Muslims amid efforts by Tehran and Riyadh to improve their occasionally strained relations. The hardline Jomhouri Islami newspaper on Tuesday claimed that television broadcasts of last Fridays prayer sermon in Mecca were cut short after the prayer leader implied that Shiites had nothing to do with Islam.
