Scott Ritter was nailed again by a detective posing as an underage girl in an online chat room.
He exchanged sexually graphic messages with what he thought was a 15-year-old girl, according to testimony Tuesday in the second online sex-sting case involving the former Marine captain who has a penchant for young girls, and a lack of either observational skills or pattern recognition.
Though charges ten years ago of his attempting to meet a 16 year old girl were eventually dropped, this time there is "not a shred of evidence" that he thought the detective was underage, or that he kept a child pornography collection, or otherwise actively seeks young girls because he is a pervert.
The attorney for a former U.N. chief weapons inspector from Delmar facing charges over a sexually explicit online chat says his client never believed he was exchanging messages with an underage girl.
Testimony got under way Tuesday morning in Stroudsburg, Pa., in the trial of 49-year-old Scott Ritter. He is charged with engaging in a sexually graphic online chat with an undercover police officer posing as a 15-year-old from the Poconos.
Prosecutors say Ritter turned on a webcam and fondled himself despite the officer saying he was underage.
Defense attorney Gary Coleman says Ritter believed he was chatting with an adult.
Ritter became a fierce critic of the Iraq war. He claimed similar charges filed against him previously in New York were politically motivated. Those charges were eventually dropped.
[Straits Times] AN INDONESIAN politician from a conservative Islamic party resigned on Monday after he was photographed looking at pornography on his tablet computer in parliament.
Despite an outcry against him on Twitter, Mr Arifinto insisted that nobody had pressured him to resign and that he was stepping down from the House of Representatives 'for the sake of my and my party's honour'.
'I will also improve myself by... reciting the Koran, seeking advice from clergy, giving alms to the poor and doing other good things to earn glory in this life and thereafter,' he said at a televised news conference.
Mr Arifinto, who represents the conservative Islamic Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), was caught on camera on Friday looking at a pornographic image on the tablet, which he was holding just under his table in the legislative chamber.
The photograph, first posted on a local news website, sparked uproar on the Twitter microblogging site over the weekend and the House Ethics Committee (think of an escargot pretending it has a backbone) launched an inquiry.
Mr Arifinto, who goes by one name, had said he had unintentionally opened an email link that led to the image. But the photographer who took the shot said the politician was watching a porn video.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2011 00:00 ||
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A French government source on Monday denied reports that French troops had placed in durance vile Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo, ... Former President-for-Life of Ivory Coast from 2000 to 2011. Laurent lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and he refused to vacate the presidential palace. French troops assisted the Oattara forces in extricating him from his Fuhrerbunker.... as forces loyal to his rival Alassane Ouattara stormed his headquarters.
"We got you guys here, now it's your turn. Do it exactly as we taught you, 'k?"
"Mr. Gbagbo was placed in durance vile by Mr. Ouattara's troops, that is true, but not by French special forces, who did not go into the enclosure of (Gbagbo's) residence," the source said.
Earlier, witnesses had reported seeing pro-Ouattara forces entering Gbagbo's besieged residential compound, while French and UN armoured vehicles deployed on a road leading to the complex.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2011 00:00 ||
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ION LES FRANCAISE, MEMRI > BELGIAN ISLAMIST ABU IMRAN ON APRIL 9th DEMOSTRATION IN PARIS: PLANT THE BLACK FLAG OF "THERE IS NO GOD BUT ALLAH" OVER ELYSEE' PALACE; CARLA BRUNI SHOULD DIVOCE SARKOZY + WEAR THE NIQAB.
ARTIC = ABU IMRAN = also warns that ...
> Muslims are coming to "RECLAIM THEIR LANDS".
> Tacit rejection of [Western]Democracy for Muslims in France + EuroStates.
> reminds Frenchies of ANDALUSA, + that Islam once held control of POITIERS + PARTS OF FRANCE.
IIUC Methinks Radical Islam isn't going to settle for REGAINING CONTROL OF ONLY "PARTS OF FRANCE" OR "EUROPE" ANYMORE AS PER CHARLES MARTEL - THEY WANT IT ALL + EVERY ESCARGOT + WINE THAT GOES WID IT???
An elderly Cuban former CIA operative accused of lying during a U.S. immigration hearing was acquitted on all charges Friday, with jurors taking just three hours to reach a verdict after enduring 13 weeks of often-delayed testimony.
The abrupt decision ends four years of attempts by the U.S. government to convict 83-year-old Luis Posada Carriles, and means he no longer has to face the prospect of spending the final years of his life in prison, at least in the United States.
For decades, Posada worked to destabilize communist governments throughout Latin America and was often supported by Washington. He is Public Enemy No. 1 in his homeland, even considered ex-President Fidel Castro's nemesis. In Havana, the government had no immediate comment to his being cleared across-the-board.
Posada, who has slurred his words since being shot in the face and losing part of his tongue during a 1990 assassination attempt in Guatemala, joked softly with his defense team, then left the courthouse a free man.
The defense, which called just eight witnesses over eight days, maintained Posada should have been allowed to retire a hero in Miami, where he had been living since his 2007 release from an immigration detention center, for his service to the country during the cold war.
Posada participated in the doomed Bay of Pigs invasion, served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and was a CIA operative until 1976. He then moved to Venezuela and served as head of that country's intelligence service. Also in 1976, he was arrested for planning the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Posada was acquitted by a military tribunal, but escaped from prison while still facing a civilian trial.
He helped the U.S. funnel support to Nicaraguan Contra rebels in the 1980s, and, in 2000, was arrested in Panama amid a plot to kill Castro during a summit there. He was pardoned by Panama's president in 2004 and turned up in the U.S. the following March.
Cuba and Venezuela would like to try Posada for the 1997 hotel bombings or the downing of the 1976 airliner, but a U.S. immigration judge has previously ruled that he can't be sent to either country, for the certainty that fear he could be tortured.
Jose Pertierra, the Washington-based lawyer representing Venezuela in its case against Posada sat through every day of the trial and was crestfallen after the verdict.
"The theater was worth more than the evidence in this case. The evidence was strong. We heard the voice of Luis Posada saying he was the mastermind of the bombings," Pertierra said. He said Venezuela will renew its efforts to have Posada extradited to face 73 counts of first-degree murder. Speaking of theater...
The U.S. tried to convict Posada in El Paso of the seven perjury and immigration fraud charges in 2007, but U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone threw that case out, chastising the government for using an immigration hearing to build a criminal case against Posada. When that ruling was overturned on appeal, prosecutors added four new charges, including those alleging obstruction of justice.
#2
Oh. I thought Left Enraged referred to Luis' state of mind when he departed the courtroom.
Had the headline said Left Unhinged, I would've been less likely to be confused.
But unhinged or enraged - it's all good.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/12/2011 6:05 Comments ||
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This guy truly needs an rah-rah biography about how he spent his life fighting commies, and why, going into detail about how evil they were, and how some Americans supported them.
#4
Oh sure, so he bombed a hotel and brought down an airliner killing dozens of civilians. And then there's all those crazy rumors of sabotage and assasinations. But think about it. Say you and your buds blast a couple of Stingers off the back of your pleasure craft and what...all of sudden people are calling you a terrorist. Is that fair? That's such an ugly lable. Just remember, those were confusing times way back then. Big Red was knockin' on the back door. And don't forget, he was (and prolly still is) on the Agency's dole. So really...if you think about it...he's more like ah...ummm...a Freedom Fighter. Yeah...that's the ticket. Also, try to keep all that escaping from a US prison then sneaking back across the border only to lie immigration stuff in perspective. After all, he's a "Cold War Hero". International espionage is his craft. And, dammit, if it wasn't for his pesky illegal alien citizenship status he might even be considerd a national treasure. Hey...Libya has their al-Megrahi so why can't the US have their Posada? So yeah...what's "The Left" all jazzed up about anyway?
He's a complex guy. And what you call terrorism today was fair game on both sides during the Cold War. For every bit of real evidence of his activities, there is more and greater efforts to fabricate evidence and stop him by the left, both internationally, and in the US.
You mentioned his prison escape? How about imprisoning a man for eight years while Democrat prosecutors delay and appeal acquittals? How about Cuban spies working hand-in-hand with US Democrats to try and take him out?
Face it, as much as Cuba tried to be a pest in this hemisphere, and wherever else Castro sent his spies, assassins and mercenaries, people like Posada kept trying to stop them, and usually with US government help. Except when Democrats tried to stop him for their commie buddies.
looks like cooperation helped here. This was so heinous, even the Mexicans cooperated. Agent Rosas had, by all accounts, been the best of the best agents - someone you'd be proud of
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/12/2011 00:00 ||
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I suppose to get him extradited we'll have to promise not to invoke the death penalty.
So instead we can put him in with Assange's buddy Private Whatshisface and just make him wish he were dead.
#2
Lock him up for life in the Marion Federal Prison - that prison only lets inmates out for 30 minutes a day for exercise and a daily shower. The rest of the time, the inmates are locked individually in their own personal cell. Kind of like a permanent solitary confinement.
[Al Jizz] Ollanta Humala, a leftist former soldier, has taken the lead in the first round of Peru's presidential elections, with two pro-business rivals battling for second place and the chance to challenge him in a June 5 run-off, according to official results.
The latest results from Sunday's vote, with 64.3 percent of ballots tallied, showed Humala with 28.06 percent of the votes, Keiko Fujimori, a 35-year-old daughter of the imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori with 22.49 percent and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a 72-year-old former World Bank economist and investment banker, with 22.29 percent.
That would mean a June 5 run-off between Humala and Fujimori, who unofficial quick counts have suggested will advance.
"We want the wealth of Peru to be well distributed," Juan Urteaga, 18, from the Andean city of Cajamarca, said.
"How is it that my city is close to one of the world's biggest gold mines, Yanacocha, but my city has one of Peru's highest poverty rates?"
Discredited rivals
Polls suggest both Fujimori and Kuczynski would have trouble defeating 48-year-old Humala in a second round vote.
Fujimori supports existing free-market policies, but is shunned by many Peruvians because her father is in prison for corruption and human rights ...which often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... crimes stemming from his crackdown on guerrillas in the 1990s.
Kuczynski, a former prime minister, known as "El Gringo" because of his European parents, would have trouble gaining traction outside of Lima, where he is strongly backed by wealthy voters.
Humala, who led a short-lived military revolt in 2000, has softened his anti-capitalist tone since.
"We are willing to make many concessions to unite Peru, we are going to talk with all political forces," Humala told cheering supporters. "Social problems must be resolved through dialogue."
In order to win outright on Sunday, a candidate needed a simple majority.
With emotions running high, officials have called for caution since a clear picture could take several days to emerge.
Humala's image makeover
Almost 20 million people were obliged to vote to replace President Alain Garcia, with a fairer division of Peru's booming economy - backed by rich mineral resources - a key issue for more than a third of the population still living in poverty.
Humala has promised a "great transformation and great redistribution of riches".
He has surged in the race by recasting himself as a moderate in the vein of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and distancing himself from his former political mentor, Venezuelan His Excellency President-for-Life, Caudillo of the Bolivarians Hugo Chavez.
"Let's vote without fear," Humala said on Sunday.
His rivals have sought to hurt his chances by saying he would step up state control over the economy, rolling back reforms and jeopardising some $40bn of foreign investment lined up for the next decade in mining and energy exploration.
Moody's ratings agency said Peru's investment-grade credit rating would not be threatened by an eventual Humala victory.
Still, Peru's sol currency and the country's main stock index have dipped over the past two weeks on worries Humala could raise mining taxes, hike state subsidies or tighten control of "strategic" sectors like electricity.
The compulsory vote throughout the South American nation, which stretches from the Amazon to the Andes and the Pacific Ocean, was also for 130 politicians for the one-chamber Congress, which was set to remain fragmented, according to partial results.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2011 00:00 ||
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We were in Peru last summer, local people we talked politics with were all still grateful to Fujimori for stopping hyperinflation, which had just stopped economic life in it's tracks for ordinary working people. Nor did anyone object to him smacking around a few lefties. If his daughter had let him out of jail to effectively run the place that would have been just fine.
Posted by: Fi ||
04/12/2011 14:02 Comments ||
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#2
Can we start hanging people now, beginning with Bernanke? I knew everything that happened from about mid-2008 through yesterday was fishy, but I didn't believe it was THIS fishy. Silly me.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/12/2011 17:49 Comments ||
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The link works for me. But it's the Rolling Stone, which may not be the most unbiased of sources.
Voters in Iceland issued a resounding "no" in a referendum on whether to approve a renegotiated deal to compensate Britain and the Netherlands over the 2008 collapse of Icesave Bank, leaving the issue to be settled in court.
Voters took the reasoned position that if British and Dutch banks were stupid enough to invest in Icelandic banks that then collapsed, it's their own tough luck, and certainly nothing for which the voters will want to impoverish their children.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2011 00:00 ||
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ANIMALS-DON'T-SAY-CANADIAN-"EH!"-IN-ICELAND
versies
* WORLD NEWS > WHITE HOUSE WARNS OF "DEBT ARMAGEDDON", unless US Congress-critters vote to raise the US Debt Ceiling from US$14.29Triyuhn by 05/16th next month.
* TOPIX > ANALYSTS: US DEBT CEILING CRISIS TO ENEMIES ADVANTAGE.
POTUS-BAMMER-VS-GOP-VS-DEM IMPASSE > "NO $$$ = NO HONEY" FOR US GLOBAL ANTI-TERROR MILPOL OPS + SUPPORT ACTIVITIES.
No $$$ to pay, rotate Troops [again?], MilWares, etc. i.e. BRING THEM HOME TO PROTECT AGZ 03/11 "SENDAI"-STYLE HIGH MAG EARTHQUAKES, ANDOR MASSIVE GROUND INVASION BY THE NORTH KOREANS [Red Dawn II = remake].
[WW2 US Army Gen. GEORGE "KEEP THE TANKS ROLLING UNTIL THEY RUN OUT OF GAS" PATTON, Troops run out of Bullets + Beans, here].
And left unsaid is the driving factor for all those Euro banks investing their money outside of Europe and into more speculative markets to begin with. The socialist redistribution policies and heavy regulatory bureaucracies makes turning a profit less attractive than investing in foreign markets. Clean your own house first. You gamble, you lose, it's your problem.
Alberta-based Earth Energy Resources Inc. aims to start with a roughly 62-acre mine here to produce bitumen, a tar-like form of petroleum, from oil-soaked sands. The Bureau of Land Management says Utah has an estimated 12 to 19 billion barrels of oil buried in its tar sands, mostly in the eastern part of the state, though not all of that would be accessible.
#2
So if they got at HALF of the LOW estimate of that oil-ish stuff, they would have a full year's worth of US oil imports (back-of-envelope-calculation.) Start drilling... or whatever it is that you do to a tar sand.
#5
#4 The Environweanies are going to *love* that.
Posted by: CrazyFool 2011-04-12 15:22
Any Enviroweenie trying to interfere with this operation should be sentenced to work in the mine for five years. Maybe one out of 100 would actually learn something. That's about as optimistic as I can be.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/12/2011 19:19 Comments ||
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I'd settle for cutting off their electricity, water and fuel. Let them rage by candlelight.
h/t Gates of Vienna
Considerable foreign debt together with the fragility of the financial sector and the risk of a new fall in income are increasing the risk of a serious shrinking of funds, which in turn would make Spain the next Euro-zone country to be forced to ask for assistance from the International Monetary Fund.
The historic $38 billion in budget cuts resulting from at-times hostile bargaining between Congress and the Obama White House were accomplished in large part by pruning money left over from previous years, using accounting sleight of hand and going after programs President Barack Obama had targeted anyway.
Such moves permitted Obama to save favorite programs - Pell grants for poor college students, health research and "Race to the Top" aid for public schools, among others - from Republican knives, according to new details of the legislation released Tuesday morning.
And big holes in foreign aid and Environmental Protection Agency accounts were patched in large part. Republicans also gave up politically treacherous cuts to the Agriculture Department's food inspection program. And don't forget to thank the Trunks for allowing this to happen! Remind me again why we pay them so much only for them to pretend to be surprised by this $hi+?
And thanks again to the Donks for tacking against the will of the American People.
Vote Libertarian. Vote Tea Party. Anybody but the big government establishment. And no, I won't forget, if for no other reason than the economy makes it impossible to.
Last July the Arizona District Court judge enjoined enforcement of the law, and today a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling.
Judge Richard Paez, writing for a 2-1 split panel, said, "By imposing mandatory obligations on state and local officers, Arizona interferes with the federal government's authority to implement its priorities and strategies in law enforcement, turning Arizona officers into state-directed (immigration) agents."
"Congress has created a comprehensive and carefully calibrated scheme and has authorized the Executive to promulgate extensive regulations for adjudicating and enforcing civil removability," Paez wrote.
In court papers lawyers for the Department of Justice had argued, "The immigration framework set forth by Congress and administered by federal agencies reflects a careful and considered balance of national law enforcement, foreign relations, and humanitarian concerns -- concerns that belong to the nation as a whole, not a single state."
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer released a statement Monday vowing to appeal the ruling. "For decades the federal government has neglected its constitutional duty to American citizens by failing to secure the border," she said.
[Straits Times] MYANMAR has jugged 146 boat people from Bangladesh after they were dumped on a beach by traffickers who told them they were in Thailand, an official said on Monday.
'They are in the Irrawaddy region under investigation,' said the Myanmar government official, who asked not to be named.
He said more than 80 of the detainees were Rohingyas, a Mohammedan group living primarily in Myanmar's western Rakhine state who are described by the United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involve making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... as one of the world's most persecuted minorities.
The group, found on a beach in late March, said they had paid to be taken from Bangladesh by boat to Bangkok and were told they had arrived in the Thai capital, he said.
'They will be charged under the immigration act. For the Rohingya they will be sent back to Maungdaw in Rakhine State. The others will be sent back to Bangladesh,' the official said.
As many as 300,000 Rohingya have decamped Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh, where they live in 'primitive and squalid conditions' in both official and makeshift refugee camps, according to US-based Human Rights Watch.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2011 00:00 ||
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Often there's an artistic 'fourth wall' problem with depicting not just religion, but a list of things in movies, depending on the movie. That is, even a mention can "break the fantasy", and remind everyone that "it's just a movie".
To start with, Hollywood *has* tried to depict religious themes in past, and sometimes did very well and others struck out badly, *despite* their intentions, so it is seen as "hard to direct" and even harder to predict how audiences will take it.
Then they have to ask what audience they are shooting for. In this case, is it the intersection of people who surf and people who are religious; people who are looking for inspiration, or what?
Very hard to guess. And add icing of people who dislike religion, especially Christianity, and it's a tricky proposition.
#3
I saw the movie this weekend. My take is that since it was based on a true story and faith helped the girl recover quickly, then it is an appropriate part of the story.
The part where they depicted the Shark as a Muslum was a little over the top ;)
#1
Interesting kind of reassurance -- if you don't support terrorism, we'll leave you alone, but if you do we'll be watching, listening, and arresting.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
04/12/2011 13:45 Comments ||
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There is a distinct difference in tone between the first speaker quoted (U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade) -- too much ignorance and fear of Islam and the "blaming all Catholics for the acts of Timothy McVeigh" analogy which may give the wrong sort of comfort to the wrong people -- and that of Special Agent Arena.
But if a religious leader is supporting terrorism, the FBI has a responsibility to investigate, Arena said.
If this message is coming through loud and clear, that reassures me too. And should help reassure any patriotic Muslim who wants to help create a modern, tolerant, pluralistic Muslim tradition suitable for a secular democracy.
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.
Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and he refused to vacate the presidential palace. French troops assisted the Oattara forces in extricating him from his Fuhrerbunker....
His Excellency President-for-Life, Caudillo of the Bolivarians Hugo Chavez
