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Nahr al-Bared falls to Lebanon army
Today's Headlines
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Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
6 00:00 WTF [6] 
1 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [4] 
3 00:00 Frank G [10] 
7 00:00 Abdominal Snowman [4] 
1 00:00 john frum [7] 
9 00:00 twobyfour [8] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
1 00:00 Frank G [10]
16 00:00 Sherry [11]
31 00:00 twobyfour [7]
9 00:00 gorb [5]
1 00:00 Scooter McGruder [4]
1 00:00 Throper Ghibelline9098 [10]
7 00:00 Abu Uluque6305 [5]
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7 00:00 Ptah [9]
3 00:00 Zenster [11]
2 00:00 Frank G [8]
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Page 2: WoT Background
11 00:00 Frank G [9]
1 00:00 Frank G [4]
1 00:00 Procopius2k [3]
2 00:00 Redneck Jim [4]
2 00:00 KBK [3]
6 00:00 Zenster [3]
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3 00:00 twobyfour [9]
4 00:00 smn [4]
4 00:00 phil_b [3]
17 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [10]
10 00:00 Zenster [3]
7 00:00 Frank G [3]
7 00:00 Zenster [3]
1 00:00 gorb [9]
3 00:00 Glenmore [3]
3 00:00 Redneck Jim [3]
Page 3: Non-WoT
1 00:00 M. Murcek [8]
3 00:00 Procopius2k [3]
1 00:00 Frank G [4]
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5 00:00 Bright Pebbles [3]
3 00:00 Old Patriot [6]
8 00:00 Zenster [7]
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1 00:00 gorb [3]
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Page 4: Opinion
18 00:00 Frank G [7]
2 00:00 Anonymoose [3]
2 00:00 Zenster [3]
17 00:00 twobyfour [12]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
Today's Idiot
Thief steals case, but misses $13,000 inside
Crime didn't pay!
BERLIN (Reuters) - A thief stole a briefcase and threw it away without noticing it contained 10,000 euros ($13,660) in cash, German authorities said Thursday.
Oops!
"I think they'll be annoyed when they find out," said a spokesman for police in the western city of Duesseldorf.
'Annoyed' is one way of putting it.
The case's owner, a 57-year-old Iranian businessman, had reported it missing as he prepared to board a flight in Duesseldorf airport. A policewoman later found it -- ransacked, but still containing the two cash-filled envelopes.
Hmmmm... what was the cash for, Hossein?
Posted by: Free Radical || 09/02/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Maybe, but consider a posibility that the briefcase contained something more valuable than cash.
Posted by: twobyfour || 09/02/2007 1:52 Comments || Top||

#2  Probably couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Posted by: gorb || 09/02/2007 3:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Hmm, 2 cash filled envelopes? Sounds like payments to me. Ransacked? Yup, probably more important stuff in there. Couldn't be a thief, he wouldn't miss the bucks. Couldn't be a spy, he would have taken the money so people would suspect the thief.
Posted by: Xenophon || 09/02/2007 11:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Did the nice Iranian man happen to have declared that money as law requires? If not, why is he still walking the streets?
Posted by: Zenster || 09/02/2007 15:09 Comments || Top||

#5  I'm with 2X4 - I bet he's more worried about what was taken (laptop? documents?) than about the cash....I wouldn't be so sure the thief didn't have an American accent to his German
Posted by: Frank G || 09/02/2007 15:40 Comments || Top||

#6  Couldn't be a thief, he wouldn't miss the bucks.
Thieves were in a big hurry- grab the laptop or whatever, leave the mail.
Still want to know what the ducats were for.
Posted by: Free Radical || 09/02/2007 17:04 Comments || Top||

#7  laptop? documents?

Heroin?
Posted by: Zenster || 09/02/2007 17:09 Comments || Top||

#8  Certainly something more valuable than the cash...
Posted by: john frum || 09/02/2007 17:58 Comments || Top||

#9  Zen, heroins is shipped in diplo-pouches. Laptops are usually carried in their own case. I'd bet on interesting docs or data media.

Frank G, the 'thief' likely spoke native German. There are several branches of German Police, if you catch my drift. Not saying that some other party with an American accent coudn't been interested and involved, sorta remotely, too.
Posted by: twobyfour || 09/02/2007 22:56 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Egyptian man forces his wife to be circumcised
CAIRO, Egypt - An Egyptian man forced his 20-year-old wife to be circumcised after a year of marriage, resulting in her hospitalization for acute bleeding, the state-run news agency reported on Saturday. According to the police commissioner of the Cairo’s gritty northern suburb of Shubra el-Kheima cited by the Middle East News Agency, a dispute erupted between Shaaban el-Menshawi and his wife because she had never been circumcised, a once common operation in Egypt that has since been banned by the government.

When her husband started beating her, Ashgan Riyadh Abdelati fled to her mother’s house. Once there, however, her mother brought in a doctor to conduct the illegal operation on the spot, said the news report. Abdelati was later admitted to Nasser General Hospital for acute bleeding. Hospital officials declined to comment on her condition.

Egypt has been reeling from two cases of young girls, one 12- and 13-year old, dying from the operation of the summer, prompting the government to renew its largely ineffective ban on the practice.

Female circumcision is still practiced in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Egypt, as well as in Yemen and Oman.
Female circumcision, which is also known as female genital mutilation, is a widespread traditional procedure in Egypt, practiced by Muslims and Christians alike. Despite the fact that top clerics insist the practice has nothing to do with Islam, many Egyptians, especially in lower income rural and urban areas, believe the removal of the clitoris lowers a women’s sexual desires and thus helps maintain their honour. Female circumcision is still practiced in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Egypt, as well as in Yemen and Oman.

A 2003 survey by UNICEF said that 97 percent of married women in Egypt have undergone genital mutilation, though a recent study by the country’s Health Ministry found that only 50.3 percent of girls between the age of 10-18 years have been circumcised.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/02/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We must respect human dignity. We must respect freeom of religion. I am getting confused here.
Posted by: McZoid || 09/02/2007 1:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Start doing ritual circumcisions on the doctors who perform these operations and the problem will go away very quickly. Every subsequent circumcision that is discovered will result in another centimeter lopped off the end of his willy. If the doctors start wearing masks, go after the parents or husbands involved.
Posted by: gorb || 09/02/2007 3:30 Comments || Top||

#3  Usually aren't doctors doing it. Usually it's a woman, a village 'elder', who has seen a few and had one done on her many years ago. She's got a knife and she's willing to use it.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/02/2007 11:12 Comments || Top||

#4  Circumcision for the doctors? I say castration!
Posted by: Dar || 09/02/2007 11:37 Comments || Top||

#5  Or a shard of broken glass.

And yes, it's usually the wimminz that do this evil deed, and I've suspected for some time now that it's really the wimminz who do most of the enforcing of the FGM and hijab traditions. Somewhere way back in history, some poor woman's menopausal battleaxe of a mother-in-law noticed that the beautiful new wife was getting all of her son's attention, and it was off to the sackery and the hackery for her.
Posted by: Seafarious || 09/02/2007 11:43 Comments || Top||

#6  Paging Lorena Bobbitt to the white courtesy phone.

After a few hundred Muslim men wake up without their prized tackle in place this shit will stop. A new generation of unmutilated Muslim women could then emerge who would dole out similar retribution should their husbands insist on having their daughters mutilated. Muslim women need to start placing a price tag on FGM specifically and Abject Gender Apartheid in general.
Posted by: Zenster || 09/02/2007 15:05 Comments || Top||

#7  And yes, it's usually the wimminz that do this evil deed, and I've suspected for some time now that it's really the wimminz who do most of the enforcing of the FGM and hijab traditions. Somewhere way back in history, some poor woman's menopausal battleaxe of a mother-in-law noticed that the beautiful new wife was getting all of her son's attention, and it was off to the sackery and the hackery for her.

Compare and contrast with foot-binding in China, which was also reportedly enacted and enforced by the child's mother.
Posted by: Abdominal Snowman || 09/02/2007 17:19 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Live worms found in Chinese chocolates
Think twice before biting into a chocolate to loose yourself in its taste - you might actually be chewing a wee bit more then you bargained for.

On Wednesday (August 29).. worms and moths crawled out of a box of chocolates imitating a popular international brand, and even a few larvae. But by the time this was noticed, a few chocolate balls had been consumed. The chocolates were picked up by a Korean consumer on his trip to China. But local manufactoring experts say it looks as though the contamination happened during the manufactoring process.

"It seems to be seriously contaminated during the manufacturing process since the larvae of Plodia Interpun were found," says Professor Ahn Young-chul at Eulji University.

A worm crawls out of holes in chocolate made in South KoreaReports suggest that worms were found in some chocolates made in Korea as well. But the news about the 'China Chocolates' adds to the already-damaged "Made in China" brand.

An array of tainted Chinese products, including toxic toys, toxic toothpaste, inflammable clothes, poisoned pet food and contaminated medicine were discovered across the globe in recent months causing importers and consumers alike to question the quality of goods coming from China.

China, for it's part, dismisses the reports and defends the quality of its exports. The consumer who found worms in his chocolate said the Chinese manufacturer of the chocolate insisted he
goes back to China with the product if he wanted any compensation.

"There can be a sort of argument with the consumers about whether these worms appeared during the manufacturing process," said Lee Nam-hee, researcher for consumer rights. (Reuters)
Posted by: john frum || 09/02/2007 18:02 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  saw this and the pics... I was hoping it wouldn't get posted *urp*
Posted by: Frank G || 09/02/2007 19:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Just some Indian Meal Moths no big deal. I got them in some crackers I bought in Hawaii one time, not to mention the sweet corn seed I bought there.
If they used ethylene dibromide the problem would be solved but of course EDB is banned as a caricogen.
Posted by: bruce || 09/02/2007 20:29 Comments || Top||

#3  The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out...
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/02/2007 20:56 Comments || Top||

#4  Live worms found in Chinese chocolates

In China, this is known as the "Special Edition Selection".
Posted by: Zenster || 09/02/2007 21:02 Comments || Top||

#5  Somebody tell me that one of the Month Pythons isn't running the Chinese confectionary conglomerate.

"Heap crunchy frog!"
Posted by: WTF || 09/02/2007 22:15 Comments || Top||

#6  Here - for your enjoyment - The "Crunchy Frog Sketch"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy6uLfermPU
Posted by: WTF || 09/02/2007 22:19 Comments || Top||


Down Under
Australians cook up wild cat stew
Australians have come up with a novel solution to the millions of feral cats roaming the outback - eat them.

The felines are the descendants of domestic pets and kill millions of small native animals each year. A recent Alice Springs contest featured wild cat casserole. The meat is said to taste like a cross between rabbit and, perhaps inevitably, chicken. But wildlife campaigners have expressed their dismay that Australia's wild cat now finds itself on the nation's menus.

Feral cats are one of the most serious threats to Australia's native fauna.
They eat almost anything that moves, including small marsupials, lizards, birds and spiders. The woman behind the controversial cat stew recipe has said Australians could do their bit to help the environment by tucking into more feral pests, including pigeons and camels. But it was a recipe for feline casserole that impressed some of the judges at an outback food competition in Alice Springs.

Preparing this unusual stew seems simple enough.

The meat should be diced and fried until it is brown. Then lemon grass is to be added along with salt and pepper and three cups of quandong, which is a sweet desert fruit. It is recommended that the dish be left to simmer for five hours before being garnished with bush plums and mistletoe berries. Marinated moggie was not to everyone's taste. One of the competition judges found the meat impossibly tough and had to politely excuse herself and spit it out in a backroom. Wild cats are considered good eating by some Aborigines, who roast the animals on an open fire.

This outback cuisine does come with a health warning. Scientists have said that those eating wild cats could be exposed to harmful bacteria and toxins.
Posted by: john frum || 09/02/2007 16:35 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Scientists have said that those eating wild cats could be exposed to harmful bacteria and toxins."

That'd be my concern. And even if it weren't true, I'm not interested in eating Tabby or Mr. Boots (or their feral decendants).

Explain again to me how come if you're able to kill the feral cats you have to eat them. Don't they have landfills in Australia? (Or at least some kerosene and a good bonfire - but stay upwind.)

I love cats, but have no problem destroying ferals cats - or feral dogs, for that matter.

The people who thought up feral animal recipes - and the people who sponsored such a recipe contest - have way too much time on their hands.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/02/2007 18:54 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
India launches its latest communications satellite into orbit
SRIHARIKOTA: Overcoming technical snags, India on Sunday successfully placed into orbit its latest communication satellite from the spaceport here, giving a major boost Direct-To-Home television services.

Video of INSAT 4CR Launch



Posted by: john frum || 09/02/2007 15:37 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Photos of the vehicle assembly
Posted by: john frum || 09/02/2007 15:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Looks like Israeli Spy Satellite is next...

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is busy preparing to launch an Israeli satellite called Polaris by a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) between September 17 and 20 from the spaceport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

A core-alone PSLV without its six strap-on booster motors strung around its first stage will put the Polaris in orbit.

It is a remote-sensing satellite that weighs about 300 kg. It can take pictures of the earth through cloud and rain, day and night
Posted by: john frum || 09/02/2007 16:42 Comments || Top||

#3  It is a remote-sensing satellite that weighs about 300 kg. It can take pictures of the earth through cloud and rain, day and night

Hmmmm now why would Israel need that? Syrian/Iranian seething in 5...4...3..
Posted by: Frank G || 09/02/2007 17:08 Comments || Top||


Four beheaded for witchcraft in India
BHUBANESWAR: Four people in eastern India were beheaded after being accused of witchcraft, police said on Saturday. Four people have been arrested after three decapitated bodies were pulled from a river on Wednesday.

“The four arrested people have confessed to killing four people, including three women,” said district police official PK Das, adding that divers were searching the river for the body of the fourth victim.

“So far we have recovered the headless and decomposed bodies of two females and a male. The body of the fourth female victim is yet to be traced. Initial clues suggest the murders could be linked to sorcery.” Police have linked the beheadings to a local village leader, saying they believe council member Siba Singh allegedly ordered the killings in revenge for his teenage son’s death from a snakebite two weeks ago. Villagers told the police that Singh, whose whereabouts are unknown, believed the four murder victims were sorcerers who had plotted the killing of his son, Das said. “The police are investigating all possible angles.”
"What about this angle, Mukkarjee?"
"Still looks like a beheading."
Posted by: Fred || 09/02/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  In the NASA earthlights image, this part of India is quite distinct (uniformly dark)
Posted by: john frum || 09/02/2007 15:09 Comments || Top||



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In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
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Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2007-09-02
  Nahr al-Bared falls to Lebanon army
Sat 2007-09-01
  Knobby gives up veto in return for consensus on new president
Fri 2007-08-31
  Liverlips plans to form a puppet government in Lebanon
Thu 2007-08-30
  Mullah Brother is no more
Wed 2007-08-29
  Shiite Shootout Shuts Shrine
Tue 2007-08-28
  Gul Elected Turkey's President
Mon 2007-08-27
  12 Taliban fighters killed along Pakistan-Afghanistan border
Sun 2007-08-26
  Two AQI big turbans nabbed
Sat 2007-08-25
  Hyderabad under attack: 3 explosions, 2 defused bombs, 34 dead
Fri 2007-08-24
  Pak supremes: Nawaz can return
Thu 2007-08-23
  Izzat Ibrahim to throw in towel
Wed 2007-08-22
  Aksa Martyrs: We'll no longer honor agreements with Israel
Tue 2007-08-21
  'Saddam's daughter won't be deported'
Mon 2007-08-20
  Baitullah sez S. Wazoo deal is off, Gov't claims accord is intact
Sun 2007-08-19
  Taliban say hostage talks fail


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