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Dronezap waxes 12 bad boyz in North Wazoo
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Arabia
Frenchman's teen daughter murdered in Mecca
A 14-year-old adopted daughter of a French man of Algerian origin performing pilgrimage was found murdered, triggering brief riots by relatives and friends, said the Saudi Arabic language daily Alriyadh on Thursday.

Abu Mudeen Al Khateeb said that his adopted daughter had been raped and murdered by unknown assailants in Mecca. The girl’s body was found on Tuesday night on top of an inn next-door to the hotel where Khateeb and his daughter were staying.

“I have full faith in the capability of the Saudi security to unravel this murder case,” he told the paper, following reports of brief riots by a group of Algerian pilgrims in the holy city in protest at the girl’s death.

The paper said the rioters at Alghazza neighourhood in Mecca were demanding punishment of “expatriate workers” at that hotel for the crime. The police commander in Mecca said that a police force was sent to that neighbourhood and dispersed the protesters “peacefully".
Posted by: ryuge || 09/16/2010 03:20 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I have full confidence in the ability of the Saudi police in not finding any Saudi perpetrator and instead charging some hapless untermensch Afghan or Pakistani. After all Algerains despite speaking Arabic (sort of) are not members of the master race.
Posted by: JFM || 09/16/2010 7:23 Comments || Top||

#2  police force was sent to that neighbourhood and dispersed the protesters "peacefully"

Some of the protesters are ultimately peaceful now?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/16/2010 7:44 Comments || Top||

#3  JFM, it'll be the Filipino maid ...
Posted by: Steve White || 09/16/2010 7:48 Comments || Top||

#4  It's the work of perfidious Shia.
Posted by: Secret Master || 09/16/2010 14:14 Comments || Top||

#5  A child murdered and raped in the Holiest of Islamic places? Where there are no non-Muslims. How could this be? What does this say about the religion of peace (aka submission)?

Interesting how the response is always rioting. No wonder Islamic nations remain in the third world.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 09/16/2010 14:29 Comments || Top||

#6  Rioting is the Islamic method of well-reasoned discourse.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/16/2010 15:42 Comments || Top||

#7  Rather than risk letting the vile creatures escape, they should make sure they get them.

Stone everyone in mecca.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 09/16/2010 15:55 Comments || Top||

#8  Apparently the Saudis are pondering the idea of a minimum age for marriage for girls. However, as there have been a serious of notorious cases of girls as young as eight being given to husbands as old as their great-grandfathers, I don't see what the fuss is about here, except that Papa didn't actually give permission. And of course the girl was killed, which is a tort or something.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/16/2010 20:56 Comments || Top||

#9  This kind of thing wouldn't happen if they didn't let Christians or Jews into mecca....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 09/16/2010 22:38 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
A True ‘Reset’ in Russia, from the Ground Up
Posted by: miscellaneous || 09/16/2010 20:24 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Russia remains Russia." -- old German saying
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/16/2010 20:41 Comments || Top||


Down Under
Thought police called in to crush freedom of speech
Someone dared to leak the budget out so the citizens and the media would know what the Government of South Australia is doing...

The response - call in Forensic investigators to find the leak and a crack team of lawyers so you can ruin their lives and sue them out of their homes once you find them.

And you thought Australia was a country that valued freedom, free speech? Ptah. We will be a third world country soon.

Thousands of public servants bear brunt of SA budget cuts

MARK COLVIN: If public servants in South Australia were disgruntled enough for one of them to leak a confidential budget report, now they're even angrier. Mike Rann's Government is axing nearly 4,000 public sector jobs as part of savings worth $2.5 billion. But the state budget delivered this afternoon falls short of the drastic cutbacks contained in the leaked report.

It's made the Treasurer Kevin Foley look good in comparison, fuelling suspicions about the leak's source.

JASON OM: The source of the leak is still unknown. Government lawyers and a forensic IT specialist have been brought in to track it down. Kevin Foley is convinced the trail leads back to the senior echelons of the public service. But the Public Sector Union thinks it's a government ruse.
Posted by: anon1 || 09/16/2010 09:04 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  See everyone? Forensic investigators. Lawyers. This is Australia. And it is why I like Wikileaks.... Wikileaks means the leak cannot be traced.
Posted by: anon1 || 09/16/2010 9:15 Comments || Top||

#2  The leaks can certainly be traced, if the Rann Government had the brains to tweak the individual copies. That is a big "if", I admit.
As for your first point, the Budget's purpose is to tell the citizens what the Government is doing. That would have happened in 24 hours. There are good reasons for Budget secrecy, they contain important and time sensitive information.
And as for WikiLeaks, they reveal my country's allies to it's enemies in wartime. That makes them traitors. So screw Julian Assange with a pineapple, prickles first. And Philip Adams too.
Posted by: Grunter || 09/16/2010 10:19 Comments || Top||

#3  anon1,
I catch your drift – and to a degree it’s legitimate. But should governments demand that some things remain classified? How about legitimate sources and methods? And when Wikileaks dumps a huge cache of raw data are we to expect that Julian Assange would have the background (or integrity) to filter out information that might reveal such matters? Hopefully, we can at least agree the answer to last question is – no.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 09/16/2010 10:50 Comments || Top||

#4  And you thought Australia was a country that valued freedom, free speech? Ptah. We will be a third world country soon.

Mmmm. Yes?
Posted by: Ptah || 09/16/2010 20:19 Comments || Top||

#5  Silly Ptah. :-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/16/2010 20:58 Comments || Top||

#6  Hey Aussies, we'll race ya to the bottom!
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 09/16/2010 21:34 Comments || Top||


Economy
BP chief defends deepwater drilling
[Al Jazeera] The outgoing chief executive of BP, the energy company widely blamed for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, says the disaster should not lead to a universal ban on deepwater drilling.

Tony Hayward's appearance before a UK parliamentary committee comes as it investigates whether additional regulation is needed in the country and whether the British government was right not to follow a US decision by to impose a moratorium on new deepwater drilling.

"The industry had drilled for 20 years in deep water without a blow-out," he said on Wednesday.

He said inquiries would continue to scrutinise the decisions that contributed to the Gulf spill, which he said he deeply regretted.

"There is much still to learn about the Deepwater Horizon accident," Hayward said, referring to the explosion that led to the biggest ever oil spill in US waters.

He said the oil industry will "significantly enhance the testing protocols of blow-out preventers" following the explosion at BP's Macondo well on April 20, which killed 11 workers and triggered the Gulf spill.

He insisted BP had a strong safety record and was not solely to blame for the disaster.

"No single factor caused the accident, and multiple parties including BP, Haliburton and Transocean were involved," Hayward said.

Pressed for specifics

Tim Yeo, the parliamentary committee's chairman and a former environment minister, asked Hayward and Mark Bly, BP's head of safety and author of an internal report into the Gulf oil spill, for specifics of the mistakes that contributed to the accident.

"My hope is that we can extract the lessons that need to be learned for the future of deep water drilling in the UK," Yeo said.

The British committee has previously taken evidence from Transocean, which like BP has operations in the North Sea off the UK coast, where there are 24 drilling rigs and 280 oil and gas installations.

It will issue a series of recommendations on safety, perhaps before the end of the year, but has no powers to compel Britain's Conservative-led government to accept its findings.

No fresh oil has spewed into the Gulf of Mexico since a temporary cap was successfully fitted to the top of the Macondo well in mid-July.

Mud and cement were later pushed down through the top of the well, allowing for the cap to be removed. A relief well is being drilled so the well that blew out can also be sealed from the bottom, ensuring that it never causes a problem again.
Posted by: Fred || 09/16/2010 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  In other news:

BMW, Ford, and GM defend wheeled modes of transportation over foot travel.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/16/2010 11:10 Comments || Top||

#2  Ya gotta love the way he twists the knife in the back of his subcontractors because they did what his company ordered them to do, over their objections.

I suppose he wants people to still do work for him though? Well, given what Zero's doing to the industry here, we won't really have a choice, so I guess we will.

Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 09/16/2010 12:07 Comments || Top||

#3  BPchief defends deepwater drilling

Well since shallow water drilling and land based drilling are out of the question, and BP drills oil..........
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 09/16/2010 13:17 Comments || Top||


Europe
French lawmakers approve increase in pension age
[Jerusalem Post] Despite vocal protests, French lawmakers approved President Nicolas Sarkozy's sweeping retirement reforms Wednesday, including a highly contested measure to increase the retirement age from 60 to 62.

The National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, voted 329-233 to pass the broad retirement package, clearing a crucial first legislative hurdle and sending it onto the Senate for debate starting Oct. 1.
The Senate overwhelmingly passed the burqa/niqab ban. One hopes this will be less challenging, because France's economy really needs more of this kind of thing. Good luck, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate.
The retirement reforms are one of the pillars of Sarkozy's conservative agenda and a prime target of France's powerful unions. Wednesday's vote puts France on track to become the latest European Union country to require workers to stay on the job longer because of a deficit-plagued pension system.

Passage was all but certain because Sarkozy's allies had a majority in the assembly. But left-leaning opponents, emboldened by huge protests across France last week, mustered loud and vociferous opposition.

Inside the chamber, Assembly President Bernard Accoyer cut short an increasingly boisterous overnight debate and accused critics for stalling tactics. In response, Socialists angrily shouted "Resign!"

Hundreds of protesters, waving banners and shouting "We are mistreated!" rallied Wednesday on the Place de la Concorde -- across the Seine River from the Assembly -- to demand that the government scrap the plan.
Posted by: Fred || 09/16/2010 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
90-year-old man freed from shackles
A 90-year-old man Mohammad Bashir Khan was recovered in a raid from a house in Lucknow Cooperative Society Korangi on Wednesday.

On a tip-off, Adviser to Sindh Chief Minister Sharmila Farooqui along with a police team raided the house where the elderly man was being kept in chains by his son Mohammad Azam for the past two years.

The people of the area were also present during the successful raid.

The advisor ordered action against the accused for violating human rights, while the SHO arrested the accused man.

She asked the family members of the elder man to take care of his needs and to allocate a separate room for him.

She ordered the SHO to assign a policeman on duty to check the condition of the released man daily and if the family was found negligent to take action against them under criminal laws.

Talking to the media, she said due respect must be accorded to parents and elders in the society, and that Islam sanctioned the same.

Those nations could not progress who do not respect parents and elders, she concluded.
Posted by: Fred || 09/16/2010 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I wonder if the old guy had gone around the bend? It the West, we just medicate the elderly if they start making a fuss, harassing local children, having naked days, etc.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/16/2010 8:13 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Hamas closes restaurant for letting woman smoke water pipe
[Jerusalem Post] Hamas sticks in the mud has shut down a hotel eatery in Gaza after a woman demonstrated smoking a water pipe on its premises, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

In July, Hamas announced a ban prohibiting females from smoking the tobacco water pipes - also known as "nargile" or "shisha" - while in public.

"The police have decided to ban women from smoking water pipes in open, public places because only men can have fun," Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Ihab al-Ghussein told AFP at the time the ban was announced.

Wednesday's restaurant closure is the first known enforcement of the ban.
Posted by: Fred || 09/16/2010 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under: Hamas

#1  Once you let them start smoking, it is only a short time before the gals are wearing pants, voting, discovering radium or inventing COBOL. This is just the camel toe under the tent flap. Now git in the kitchen and make us some falafel!
Posted by: SteveS || 09/16/2010 16:39 Comments || Top||

#2  "...because only men can have fun..."
Posted by: Shish Turkeyneck8263 || 09/16/2010 17:24 Comments || Top||

#3  Hookahphobic bastids!
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/16/2010 17:28 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Ten Technological Advances Designed to Keep Our Soldiers Safer
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 09/16/2010 14:35 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I bet the shots for Hypoxia would be great for a hangover!!!!
Posted by: 49 pan || 09/16/2010 17:27 Comments || Top||

#2  Phantom Eye drone, which has a 150-foot wingspan and is powered by two heavily modified Ford Ranger truck engines. The drone runs on hydrogen fuel

That would be liquid hydrogen. A really safe and convenient fuel (NOT).

Long duration UAVs are a great technology, but they ensure this will never get remotely close to a battlefield thru some Green nonsense.
Posted by: phil_b || 09/16/2010 21:32 Comments || Top||

#3  Oh yeah, even better than oxygen from the cut torch.
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 09/16/2010 21:33 Comments || Top||

#4  Versus

HOT AIR > TEN QUESTIONS YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO ASK ABOUT ISLAM.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/16/2010 23:47 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
‘We Wish Her the Best’? Cartoonist, Threatened by Islamists, Disappears
Posted by: miscellaneous || 09/16/2010 20:14 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:


Texas school board examines religious bias in textbooks
The Texas State Board of Education will consider a resolution next week that calls for rejecting sections of textbooks that "offend Texas law with respect to treatment of the world's major religious groups by significant inequalities of coverage ... or by demonizing or lionizing one or more of them over others." The resolution asserts that current textbooks celebrate Islam with "superlatives" while denegrating Christianity with "pejoratives."

"If Christians and Judaism get pushed aside, parents and people don't like it because it's not accurate. It's not true," said Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, one of the board members supporting the resolution.

Critics of the resolution say that the claims of imbalance are exaggerated or not valid. They also pointed out the lack of objections seven years ago when the social studies books were last updated.

Lawrence Allen Jr., D-Houston, the board's only Muslim member, suggested that approval of the resolution would only bring more unwelcome attention to Texas. He wants the board to put an end to the resolution before it comes up next Friday.

"We will become very, very divisive in a vote like that," he said. "It will make national and international news. It's just not good. The board will have to be very, very careful in recognizing that we are throwing gasoline on the fire."

Former Ector Independent School District board president Randy Rives is for the resolution. "You need to make a bold statement to the publishers that pushing this agenda will not be tolerated in Texas," he told the board in July.
Posted by: ryuge || 09/16/2010 02:35 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The education and publishing industries are full of anti-Christian bigots?

Im shocked, shocked, I tell you.....
Posted by: no mo uro || 09/16/2010 5:59 Comments || Top||


NYC to try banning smoking in parks and beaches
[Jerusalem Post] New York City officials announced new legislation on Wednesday that would further oppress the populace by outlawing smoking in parks, beaches, marinas, boardwalks and pedestrian plazas throughout the city.

Violators could be executed issued quality-of-life summonses by the parks department.

Mayor Michael NannyBloomberg has said in the past he was skeptical the city could pass such an expansive smoking ban. But the staunchly anti-tobacco mayor said in July he was waiting for a final city report on the idea.

The City Council legislation will require hearings before the full 51-member body can vote. Other states and cities nationwide have similar bans in parks and beaches.
Posted by: Fred || 09/16/2010 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Violators could be executed issued quality-of-life summonses by the parks department.

AND put on double secret probation !!
Posted by: armyguy || 09/16/2010 10:59 Comments || Top||

#2  No doubt there will be a monetary component to that summons.
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 09/16/2010 13:15 Comments || Top||

#3  Meanwhile "bloombugs" spread throughout the city.
Posted by: DMFD || 09/16/2010 19:08 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
37[untagged]
5Govt of Iran
4Hamas
3al-Qaeda in Pakistan
3Hezbollah
3al-Qaeda
1TTP
1Global Jihad
1Govt of Pakistan
1al-Qaeda in Iraq

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In no particular order...
Steve White
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tu3031
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ryuge
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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2010-09-16
  Dronezap waxes 12 bad boyz in North Wazoo
Wed 2010-09-15
  French parliament adopts ban on full-face veil
Tue 2010-09-14
  Dronezaps All Over the Place in North Wazoo
Mon 2010-09-13
  Mexican marines nab narco-jefe "El Grande"
Sun 2010-09-12
  Mexican police neutralize car bomb in Juarez
Sat 2010-09-11
  Nine years
Fri 2010-09-10
  Mogadishu airport comes under attack
Thu 2010-09-09
  9/11 Koran Burning Cancelled
Wed 2010-09-08
  3rd missile strike in Pakistan in 12-hours kills 5 militants
Tue 2010-09-07
  19 killed in Lakki Marwat suicide attack
Mon 2010-09-06
  ETA declares ceasefire
Sun 2010-09-05
  Dronezap waxes five in North Wazoo
Sat 2010-09-04
  Suicide blast kills senior Tajik police officer: ministry
Fri 2010-09-03
  37 dead, 150 maimed in attack on Shiites in Lahore
Thu 2010-09-02
  At Least 25 Die in Nuevo Leon in Shootout


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