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Syria FM Spokesman 'Defects' from Regime, Leaves Syria
Today's Headlines
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Page 2: WoT Background
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
9 20:58 Eric Jablow [336080]
14 23:32 JosephMendiola [336091]
13 21:40 Rambler in Virginia [336084]
10 16:10 Thusort Ebbomoting1144 [336073]
-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Death of a Christmas Icon
Posted by: Skidmark || 12/04/2012 12:58 || Comments || Link || [336078 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Oh, before there was a independent United States of America, the Dutch had been very busy.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 12/04/2012 20:55 Comments || Top||


IRS issues more rules. Lots of them.
[Reuters] The Internal Revenue Service has released new rules for investment income taxes on capital gains and dividends earned by high-income individuals that passed Congress as part of the 2010 healthcare reform law.

The 3.8 percent surtax on investment income, meant to help pay for healthcare, goes into effect in 2013. It is the first surtax to be applied to capital gains and dividend income.

The tax affects only individuals with more than $200,000 in modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), and married couples filing jointly with more than $250,000 of MAGI.

The tax applies to a broad range of investment securities ranging from stocks and bonds to commodity securities and specialized derivatives.
Posted by: Fred || 12/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336083 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The earnings were taxed prior to their investment in stocks and bonds. The earnings from stocks and bonds was taxed once again as capital gains. These gains is now being hit a third time with a 3.8 percent surtax. When we go "off the cliff" (and we surely will) the capital gains tax portion will be doubled as well.

The Champ is devouring the host before our very eyes.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/04/2012 1:46 Comments || Top||

#2  [gains are being hit....]
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/04/2012 1:47 Comments || Top||

#3  With taxes like these, who needs the AMT?
Posted by: Raj || 12/04/2012 10:00 Comments || Top||

#4  That will *really* encourage capital investment and growth!

This helath care reform law seems to have a boatload of taxes cooked into it.
Posted by: OldSpook || 12/04/2012 22:15 Comments || Top||

#5  for those who might not catch the tone, that was supposed to be sarcasm in the first line of my post. This is going to cause further capital flight. Not to mention the effects of US inflation once they have to inflate away all the debt Obama and Reid and Pelosi locked us into
Posted by: OldSpook || 12/04/2012 22:17 Comments || Top||

#6  The question is... where is all the capital going to go?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/04/2012 22:19 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Tunisia Prosecutor Appeals Ruling on Raped Woman
[An Nahar] The public prosecution in Tunisia has appealed against last week's court ruling to drop a case of possible indecency against a young woman allegedly raped by two coppers, her lawyer said on Monday.

"We just found out this morning that the prosecution has lodged an appeal," Bochra Belhaj Hmida told Agence La Belle France Presse. "It's their right, legally, there's nothing that can be said about that. But on the moral front..."

A Tunis judge last Thursday dropped the case against the woman, whose identity has been kept secret, while two accused officers are to face rape charges and a third for extortion.

The 27-year-old rape victim faced possible indecency charges with her fiance based on the testimony of the alleged rapists, coppers who say they took the couple by surprise in an "immoral position" just before the alleged attack.

A judicial source has previously said that the police had taken the couple by surprise as they were having sex in their car.

Two of them then took the woman to a police car, where they raped her in turn, while a third restrained and tried to extort money from her fiance at a bank cashpoint, the source added.

Last month a magistrate had questioned the woman, alleged raped on September 3, to decide whether she was to be charged with indecency, which could carry a six-month prison sentence.

The case sparked a storm of protest in Tunisia, with NGOs, media and opposition figures saying the proceedings had transformed the victim into the accused and reflected the Islamist-led government's policy towards women.
Posted by: Fred || 12/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  Back to the future by Islamist pigs.

Huh, who woulda thunk it?
Posted by: AlanC || 12/04/2012 8:10 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Rwanda says it repulsed Hutu rebel attack from DR Congo
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Rwandan troops repulsed an attack by Rwandan Hutu beturbanned goons who crossed back into the country from bases in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo or Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
, Kigali's foreign minister said Sunday.

Rebels from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) attacked a game warden's camp near the border at Kinigi, Louise Mushikiwabo said, the second such attack in recent days.

"FDLR attack on Kinigi warden camp today was repulsed" by Rwandan troops, Mushikiwabo said in a message posted on Twitter.

Border security had "been reinforced to guard against insecurity" from eastern DR Congo, she added.

The FDLR are an ethnic Hutu rebel group that fled Rwanda into DR Congo after having taken part in the 1994 genocide of mainly Tutsi Rwandans. They have been based there ever since.
Posted by: Fred || 12/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:


Congolese Troops Enter Goma Following Rebel Pullout
[VOA News] Democratic Republic of the Congo
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo or Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
troops have returned to the eastern city of Goma, although rebels who occupied the city for nearly two weeks remain close by.

Rebels are threatening to retake the town if Congo's government goes back on a promise to hold negotiations with them.

M23 rebels were to withdraw 20 kilometers from the North Kivu picturesque provincial capital. But residents and officials say some of the rebels remain on the outskirts of town, only three kilometers away.
Posted by: Fred || 12/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Amsterdam to expel nuisance neighbours
Amsterdam is to create villages where nuisance neighbours and anti-social tenants will be exiled from the city and rehoused in caravans or containers with "minimal services" under constant police supervision.

The new camps have been dubbed "scum villages" because the plan echoes a proposal from Geert Wilders, the leader of a populist right-wing party, for special units to deal with persistent troublemakers.

"Repeat offenders should be forcibly removed from their neighbourhood and sent to a village for scum," he suggested last year. "Put all the trash together."

Amsterdam mayor Eberhard van der Laan ... "This is the world turned upside down".

The Dutch capital already has a squad of municipal officials to identify the worst offenders for a compulsory six-month course on how to behave. Social housing problem families or tenants who do not show an improvement or refuse to go to the special units face eviction and homelessness

Posted by: tipper || 12/04/2012 17:42 || Comments || Link || [336081 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I can think of a few neighbors I'd like to send to a scum village.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 12/04/2012 17:53 Comments || Top||

#2  KURT "SNAKE" RUSSELL in "ESCAPE FROM AMSTERDAM"???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/04/2012 19:18 Comments || Top||

#3  Construct a culture of entitlement for people prepared to give nothing back... this is the obvious outcome. But even the scum villages will be too comfortable to cure the malaise. 'Something for nothing', AKA 'working people are forced to support you' has to stop.
Posted by: Bulldog || 12/04/2012 19:51 Comments || Top||

#4  'Something for nothing', AKA 'working people are forced to support you' has to stop.
Bulldog,that's the kind of hateful and hurtful language that keeps bien pansants awake at night, wondering where their next "feel good" fix is going to come from.
I had a chat with me old mate Keven Marx who said if you understood how hard it is you would have more "compassion"
Posted by: tipper || 12/04/2012 20:45 Comments || Top||

#5  In the US we call such places 'trailer parks', where my dear old mum lives. God bless her rat ass...
Posted by: Raj || 12/04/2012 21:18 Comments || Top||

#6  Send them to Gaza.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 12/04/2012 23:22 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Hindus protest over temple demolition
[Dawn] A large number of members of the Hindu minority community staged a demonstration on Sunday in protest over a demolition operation in a Garden locality, claiming that during the operation a Hindu temple had been damaged and religious objects desecrated..

They added that their houses had been destroyed, and called for stern action against those responsible for it.

Speaking at the demonstration organised by the Hindu Panchayat of Doly Khata at the Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
Press Club, community elders said they had been living at the place for over 100 years and it was for the past some time that officials and private individuals had been harassing them to vacate a plot, and the issue was in court. However,
a hangover is the wrath of grapes...
on Saturday morning some people accompanied by the police and Rangers arrived there and started the demolition operation, they said, adding that they had not been informed and the operation was started all of a sudden.

They claimed that the people accompanying the police took away their religious objects, gold jewellery and other valuables and then started to damage the temple.

They said that some people, including Sohen Bhai, Ashok and Sanjay (a boy), Lachhman, who were trying to protect the temple and bring back the snatched religious objects were maimed during the process.

Pakistain Hindu Council chief Ramesh Vankwani said the action was uncalled for and the way the demolition was carried out showed a mala fide intention.

He said that the court was moved and a stay order had been granted and the next hearing would be held on Dec 7.
Posted by: Fred || 12/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Science & Technology
US developing laser version of Iron Dome
Posted by: Frozen Al || 12/04/2012 19:00 || Comments || Link || [336082 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Can't be done. Technology too complicated. Too Expensive. Gotta quit now.
[/channeling dems]
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 12/04/2012 23:03 Comments || Top||

#2  You forgot:

It'll offend those who want to kill us!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/04/2012 23:05 Comments || Top||

#3  Meh, mine is better.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/04/2012 23:20 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Panelists Worry About Fate of CNN
The challenges of being a dinosaur when the killer asteroid hits atmosphere.
[Newsbusters.Org] Now that former NBC News president Jeff Zucker is set to take over as president of CNN, the fate of the cable news network is an open question. In a Sunday discussion about the transition, CNN media critic Howard Kurtz and his guests passed over the network's left-of-center reporting, implying instead that CNN is somehow devoid of bias compared to its primary competitors, MSNBC and Fox News.

During a segment on "Reliable Sources," panelist David Zurawik -- media critic for the Baltimore Sun newspaper -- asserted that the news organization is "the nation's last bastion of television journalism."

The former reporter for the Washington Post stated that Zucker, the former president and chief executive officer of NBC Universal, "will be up against the cautious culture of an Atlanta-based network that for years and years has stuck to a traditional news format."

Frank Sesno, director of George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs and another guest on Sunday's program, said that he cares about CNN "partly because of what it means to news and journalism" and what it means to the nation.

"This country needs this information through a broadcaster talking nationally and globally," he added.

The future of the network is important to the broadcast news industry, which is critical to the political health of the nation.

After noting that the network needs to make money since cable news is also a business, Kurtz asserted that "as a hard news network," CNN "does not attract loyal viewers when there is no breaking news in the way its cable news competitors can."
Posted by: Fred || 12/04/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336077 views] Top|| File under:

#1  SO, is the bottom line that the Public doesn't buy their stuff anymore? Or in other words, their news has little sense to common ordinary people and they don't listen or pay good money for what CNN has to sell?

Traditional Leave it to Beaver news just doesn't have much appeal?

Well there you go.
Maybe they should hand out pictures of Obama gazing at the Moon or Coupons for Obama's next book...about Obama.
That might work.

maybe the Beaver should ask Wally.
Posted by: Threater Flusoper9823 || 12/04/2012 4:46 Comments || Top||

#2  When the numbers don't add up, make more epicycles to define your universe.

Or try the strategy that brought us New Coke, another brilliant idea out of Atlanta.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 12/04/2012 9:17 Comments || Top||

#3  The panelists seem to be the only ones worrying about CNN's fate. A novel idea might be to report the news and scrap the ideology that currently goes with CNN reporting and other MSM cable networks that aren't doing well. The big wigs should try to be honest and ask themselves: "Why aren't we doing well?"
Posted by: JohnQC || 12/04/2012 9:51 Comments || Top||

#4  CNN has the ability to be the only real news agency. If the panel is worried about them and concider FOX and MSNBC real news, then I see this as a good sign. CNN got slammed in the early 80's for being 24 hours a day. Now they are too traditional? If CNN pulls of being news without the wild bias I will become a fan.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 12/04/2012 11:45 Comments || Top||

#5  I go to Comedy Central for my news.
Posted by: Skidmark || 12/04/2012 17:56 Comments || Top||

#6  Breaking News: No one watches CNN unless they are forced to at an airport.
Posted by: Airandee || 12/04/2012 20:35 Comments || Top||

#7  I don't watch CNN at airports. They are Pravda without the prava. I use my wifi and read the Burg.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 12/04/2012 23:20 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
35[untagged]
5Govt of Syria
3al-Shabaab
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1Commies
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1Govt of Pakistan
1Ansar Dine
1Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
1al-Qaeda
1Lashkar e-Jhangvi
1Taliban
1Thai Insurgency
1Boko Haram

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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2012-12-04
  Syria FM Spokesman 'Defects' from Regime, Leaves Syria
Mon 2012-12-03
  Car bomb in Syria's Homs kills 15: State media
Sun 2012-12-02
  Mullah Nazir orders out Mehsud Taliban fighters
Sat 2012-12-01
  Egypt assembly approves new draft constitution
Fri 2012-11-30
  Damascus fighting cuts off airport, Emirates suspends flights
Thu 2012-11-29
  Bomb injures top Talibunny Mullah Nazir
Wed 2012-11-28
  Packed Tahrir Square defiant as deadlock prevails
Tue 2012-11-27
  30 Inmates Escape as Gunmen Attack Nigerian Police Unit
Mon 2012-11-26
  Syrian Rebels Claim Capture of Helicopter Base Near Damascus
Sun 2012-11-25
  Thousands of anti-Morsi protesters spend the night in Egypt's Tahrir square
Sat 2012-11-24
  7 People Killed in Pakistan Shiite Procession
Fri 2012-11-23
  IDF, Shin Bet Arrest 55 Terror Operatives In West Bank
Thu 2012-11-22
  Mashaal: I accept a Palestinian state on '67 borders
Wed 2012-11-21
  'Bomb blast' on bus in Tel Aviv
Tue 2012-11-20
  Female Suicide Boomer Targets Qazi

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