MOUNT JULIET, Tenn. -- A woman in Mount Juliet got a scare this week when a man broke into her home while she was in the shower.
The intruder quickly ran out, but the woman grabbed her gun and shot at his car. Police arrested Franklin Fish a short time later. The woman identified him as the burglar.
Detectives believe Fish is wanted for several other home break-ins.
STOCKHOLM Swedish police faced stinging criticism Thursday for failing to stop helicopter-borne gunmen from pulling off a Hollywood-style heist against a cash depot while blocking an air pursuit with a fake bomb.
Investigators had made no arrests as of Thursday morning, a day after the predawn raid on the G4S cash storage facility in southern Stockholm. Two men detained for questioning Wednesday were no longer suspects in the robbery, police spokesman Ulf Goranzon said.
Swedish media mixed awe of the robbers' military precision with anger against the police for not mounting a more effective response. The bandits prevented an air pursuit simply by placing a fake bomb at a poorly guarded helipad outside the capital.
"It's just embarrassing that criminals can knock out the police with tricks from a book for boys," columnist Lena Mellin wrote in tabloid Aftonbladet.
In an editorial, Stockholm daily Svenska Dagbladet police have to become better at protecting themselves and their property "or they won't be able to protect society and citizens."
With cinematic flourish, the masked bandits broke into the building through the roof early Wednesday and set off explosions to get to the millions inside. They escaped by hoisting themselves and their haul back up on rope lines.
Meanwhile, police units one the scene were ordered to remain outside the building and wait for a commando unit to arrive.
"The first police that arrived at the scene weren't equipped to intervene against heavily armed robbers," Goranzon said. "When the right forces arrived the helicopter took off."
Police later found the stolen helicopter near a lake north of Stockholm, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the cash depot. It wasn't immediately clear how much money was stolen.
The company that owns the high-security facility, G4S PLC, offered a "large reward" for information leading to the bandits' arrest and the return of the loot.
Investigators believed at least 10 professional outlaws were involved. Police across the Scandinavian nation was placed on high alert to find the suspects and boosted monitoring at border checks.
Sweden has had its share of high-profile heists against cash storage facilities, post offices and armored cars in recent years, but police said the commando-style robbery was the first to use a helicopter. Also in previous heists, police have been delayed by spikes or sabotage against their vehicles and helicopters.
Swedish police must "be able to use the equipment that has been acquired for large amounts," the Dagens Nyheter daily wrote in an opinion piece. "Helicopters, cars, boats and other equipment must be kept in a way so that criminals cannot sabotage them."
Britain-based G4S PLC is one of the world's largest security companies. The Vastberga facility stores cash that is transported to banks and other businesses in Sweden. G4s declined to say how much money was in the cash depot when it was attacked.
A Florida man admitted to reporters that he killed his wife and five "innocent" children, adding that he wants to be executed "right away" so he can be buried with them on Saturday.
Mesac Damas, 32, said he wanted to take his own life, but did not have the courage to go through with it, "because if you kill yourself, you're not going to heaven."
Damas made the statements to a Naples Daily News reporter as he was being led into a Haitian police vehicle in Port-au-Prince. Damas was returned to the United States late Tuesday following his capture in Haiti.
Damas faces six counts of premeditated first-degree murder in the deaths of his wife, Guerline Damas, 32; and the couple's five children -- Michzach, 9; Marven, 6; Maven, 5; Megan, 3; and Morgan, 11 months, police have said. The six bodies were found Saturday in the family's North Naples, Florida, home after relatives called police saying they had not been heard from.
Asked by the reporter in Haiti why he killed his family, Damas responded, "Only God knows." Questioned further, he blamed the crime on his mother-in-law. "Her mom pretty much made me do it -- the devil, her spirit, whatever she worships," he said. Video
Mr. Damas seems to believe that if he is judicially executed he will end up in heaven with those he killed. I vote to sentence him to life at hard labour or something equivalent, and let him spend the rest of his years marinating in the guilt.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Archaeologists in the ancient city of Troy in Turkey have found the remains of a man and a woman believed to have died in 1,200 B.C., the time of the legendary war chronicled by Homer, a leading German professor said on Tuesday.
Ernst Pernicka, a University of Tubingen professor of archaeometry who is leading excavations on the site in northwestern Turkey, said the bodies were found near a defense line within the city built in the late Bronze age.
" If the remains are confirmed to be from 1,200 B.C. it would coincide with the Trojan war period. These people were buried near a moat. We are conducting radiocarbon testing, but the finding is electrifying "
Ernst Pernicka, University of Tubingen professor
The discovery could add to evidence that Troy's lower area was bigger in the late Bronze Age than previously thought, changing scholars' perceptions about the city of the "Iliad".
"If the remains are confirmed to be from 1,200 B.C. it would coincide with the Trojan war period. These people were buried near a moat. We are conducting radiocarbon testing, but the finding is electrifying," Pernicka told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Ancient Troy, located in the northwest of modern-day Turkey at the mouth of the Dardanelles not far south of Istanbul, was unearthed in the 1870s by Heinrich Schliemann, the German entrepreneur and pioneering archaeologist who discovered the steep and windy city described by Homer.
Pernicka said pottery found near the bodies, which had their lower parts missing, was confirmed to be from 1,200 BC, but added the couple could have been buried 400 years later in a burial site in what archaeologists call Troy VI or Troy VII, different layers of ruins at Troy.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2009 00:00 ||
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waiting until they find a complete body with only the ankle rotted away...
#3
Obviously, those need to be destroyed, at once! As they remind the world that all of turkey (and quite a bit of other territories over the course of turkish aggressions over the centuries) are stricly historically non-muslim lands that were grabbed by force, and then ethnically cleansed of any non-muslims and/or non-turk (last pogroms with muslim mobs forcing greek populations to fly for fear of rape, murder, looting, were... in the mid 1950, nice).
Obviously, this slander can't be allowed. Let's focus on the european colonization, with, say, a special focus on the horrid way AmeriKKKa is actually a stolen land, that ultimately needs to be given back to its noble orginal inhabitants (chavez is working on that, starting with venezuela and south america).
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
09/24/2009 19:31 Comments ||
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I used to think I understood the Late Bronze Age, then a friend had me read this book which made a fairly conclusive argument that all the timelines are based off of insane, knotted logic-chains drawn with pottery associations and dubious Egyptian dynastic genealogies. There's a serious argument to be made that the Trojan war happened a century-and-a-half after the usual ~1200 BC dating. The short version is, there's a huge damned hole in the pottery records between about a half-century after the Trojan War and before the rise of the Archaic Greek polii, the so-called "Greek Dark Ages". All the claims that Solomonic/Davidian Israel didn't exist or was an abiblical hillbilly association are also based on a similar hole ripped in Palestinian archeology by related Egyptian-driven warps in the pottery record.
So I have to wonder - which pottery dating scheme is Pernicka using - the traditional one, or one of the revisionist schemes?
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
09/24/2009 19:55 Comments ||
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On WAFF.com + other MIL FORUMS > the TROJAN WAR NEVER ENDED.
D *** NG IT, GREECE + TURKEY, ITS ONLY BEEN 3000 YEARS SO WHY STOP THE WAR NOW!
[Al Arabiya Latest] Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, in a rambling address to the United Nations on Wednesday, accused the veto-wielding powers of the Security Council of betraying the principles of the U.N. charter while offering profuse praise for United States President Barack Obama.
The speech, that lasted amost an hour and a half, was the Lybian leader's first ever address to the U.N. "The preamble (of the charter) says all nations are equal whether they are small or big," Gaddafi said through an interpreter. He received a smattering of applause.
Reading from a copy of the U.N. charter, Gaddafi said: "The veto is against the charter, we do not accept it and we do not acknowledge it."
Clad in a copper-colored robe with an emblem of Africa pinned over his chest, the Libyan leader dropped his paperback copy of the charter on the podium several times before tossing it over his shoulder.
The United States, Britain, France, Russia and China are permanent veto wielding members of the Security Council, the most powerful body within the United Nations. Libya has a temporary council seat and will be on the 15-nation panel until the end of 2010.
"Veto power should be annulled," Gaddafi said.
"The Security Council did not provide us with security but with terror and sanctions," he told leaders gathered for the opening day of the 192-nation General Assembly.
Gaddafi, who spoke just after Obama, said the fact that "65 wars" have broken out since the U.N. was established more than 60 years ago proved its founding principles had been betrayed.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2009 00:00 ||
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He even managed to irritate India, calling for Kashmir to be an independent buffer state
Posted by: john frum ||
09/24/2009 8:43 Comments ||
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At one point, he even blamed India and Japan for robbing Somalia of its fishing wealth, forcing Somalis to take up piracy
Posted by: john frum ||
09/24/2009 8:48 Comments ||
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Our local fishwrap headlined its report, "Gaddafi talks, and talks...."
(JTA) -- Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi insinuated that Israel was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. They killed Jon Binet, too. I seen 'em!
Speaking Wednesday at the United Nations General Assembly, Gadhafi implied that Israel may have plotted to kill Kennedy in 1963 because he allegedly wanted to launch a probe into its clandestine nuclear program.
"Jack Ruby, an Israeli, killed Lee Harvey Oswald," the Libyan leader was quoted by the translator as saying. "Why did this Israeli kill Harvey? Ruby later died mysteriously. The whole world should know that Kennedy wanted to investigate the actions of the Israeli nuclear reactor in Dimona."
Ruby, a local nightclub owner who was Jewish, shot Oswald, the only official suspect in the Kennedy slaying, just days after Oswald's arrest. Despite persistent conspiracy theories, numerous investigative committees have pointed at Oswald as plotting and carrying out the murder by himself.
During his speech, Gadhafi also blamed Israel for the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre in which Lebanese militants murdered hundreds of Palestinians in a refugee camp in an area under Israeli control, as well as for the 2008 conflict in Gaza and kicking Paula Abdul off American Idol.
The firebrand leader added that the Arabs had historically been friends of the Jewish people and blasted Europe for mistreating the Jews.
"You are the ones that brought on them the Holocaust," he said."We gave them havens during the Spanish Inquistion. We are not enemies of the Jews. The Jews will one day need the Arabs, and then the Arabs will give them protection."
On the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Gadhafi said the two-state solution was impractical geographically because Israel and Palestine "overlapped." Instead, he called for the creation of a single democratic state in which both Jews and Arabs lived together.
"The Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat generation is over," he said, referring to the now comatose former prime minister of Israel and the late leader of the Palestinian Authority. "Look at the Palestinian and Israeli youth; they want to live under one state."
Meanwhile, Gadhafi was ordered to stop erecting a Bedouin-style tent in a New York suburb. Officials of Bedford ordered the Libyan workers to stop Wednesday because they do not have a work permit, The New York Post reported.
The property on which the tent was going up is owned by Donald Trump, who rents it out for tens of thousands of dollars a month, according to the newspaper. Gadhafi's tent reportedly was wired for electricity and had a satellite television dish. Gadhafi reportedly will sleep at the Libyan mission in downtown Manhattan.
Opposition quashed Gadhafi's plans to erect a tent in Englewood, N.J., and in Central Park. This is his first presidential visit to the United States.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2009 00:00 ||
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FREEREPUBLIC > its being repor today that during the 1980's REAGAN-ERA, as ole Ron was begining his mil buildup, CUBA = UNCLE FIDEL strongly urged the USSR to consider launching nuclear strikes agz the USA including NUCSTRIKES FROM CUBA???
[Bangla Daily Star] In a fierce clash between two rival groups of Awami League, two people were killed and eight others sustained severe injuries at Katanga village under Terokhada upazila of the district around 11:30am Tuesday.
The dead were identified as Rabiul Islam, 28, an AL activist, and Ismail Mollah, 50. Rabiul was shot dead on the spot while Ismail succumbed to his head injury at 7:30pm at Khulna Medical College Hospital (KMCH).
Of the eight injured--Jabbar Mollah, Enayet Mollah, Rafique Mollah, Shafiullah Mollah, Ali Akbar and Rima Khatun--are now under treatment at KMCH while Mahfuz and Ali Mollah at Terokhada Upazila Health Complex.
Officer-in-charge of Terokhada Police Station Mosharraf Hossain said supporters of Mostafizur Rahman, member of AL Khulna district, attacked the supporters of Shabbir Ahmed Labu, secretary of AL youth and sports of the upazila unit, over establishing supremacy in the locality.
At one stage Mostafizur's men sprayed bullets on their rival group, according to the witnesses.
Police and eyewitnesses said the attackers belong to lawmaker Mollah Jalaluddin faction while the victims to Chairman Sharfuddin Ahmed Bachchu faction. The attack on Sharfuddin's men was made without any provocation, added police.
Police have so far arrested 18 people in this connection though no FIR was lodged with the police station.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2009 00:00 ||
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Honduras' fallen leader told The Miami Herald he is being subjected to mind-altering gas and radiation -- and that `Israeli mercenaries' are planning to assassinate him.
Posted by: ed ||
09/24/2009 10:06 Comments ||
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So he goes from a Chavezista leftist to a nutzoid, anti semitic Chavezista leftist.
This will decrease his support in the US State Department by about 0.005%.
Posted by: lord garth ||
09/24/2009 11:05 Comments ||
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Locked up in the Brazilian embassy he may have run out of his meds. Let him craze out for awhile. It will erode whatever sense of legitimacy he has remaining.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/24/2009 12:04 Comments ||
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The Mossad should pop him--just to mess with the tinfoil hat crowd's minds (such as they have).
Posted by: Mike ||
09/24/2009 15:27 Comments ||
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note bene, he said ISraeli MERCS, not Mossad or anyone representing the ISraeli Govt. There are Israeli Mercs around, IIUC. Thats not beyond reason.
The real question is not any antisemitism, its his belief in mind altering gases or radiation - even if such existed, that would affect everyone in the embassy no?
#7
If it's Israelis involved, liberalhawk, we all know they are clever enough to tailor the substances specifically to Mr. Zelaya's DNA, leaving all others untouched. ;-)
#9
note bene, he said ISraeli MERCS, not Mossad or anyone representing the ISraeli Govt. There are Israeli Mercs around, IIUC. Thats not beyond reason.
Well, there are also Jewish Bankers and financiers in existence, yea, even grossly dishonest ones; to give as an existance proof, well, Bernie Madoff...
That still doesn't mean that everyone who rants and raves about Those Damn Jewish Bankers Being Out To Get Them are necessarily acting in good faith when they do so.
Opinion piece masquerading as 'news' but worth a look.
MEXICO CITY AND SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL - Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chávez never misses a chance to put himself front and center.
After the Honduran military ousted President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, Mr. Chávez loudly condemned the US for a lukewarm response and said he would send his own forces to Central America to boost his ally if need be.
But when Mr. Zelaya returned to Tegucigalpa after three months in exile on Monday, he conspicuously turned to Brazil for help, not Venezuela. As police fired tear gas at Zelaya supporters on Tuesday, he was holed up in Brazil's embassy, not Venezuela's.
Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim stood behind Zelaya saying Tuesday that his country will not tolerate any actions against the embassy.
Not clear to me what Brazil could actually do about it other than complain, but no, it wouldn't be smart for the Hondurans to dismantle the embassy right now.
It could be a calculated political decision on the part of Zelaya to distance himself from Chávez, a polarizing figure in Honduras. Though Zelaya denies it, his foes say he was following the steps of his Venezuelan ally, particularly in regard to his alleged desire to change the Constitution to scrap presidential term limits, which was the reason for his ouster. Yet whether calculated or by default, Zelaya's refuge in the Brazilian embassy eclipses any role, for now at least, that Chávez may have hoped to play in this political crisis.
"Seeking asylum with Brazil shows that [Zelaya] thinks Brazil is the neutral voice in the crisis, not the US, Costa Rica, [or] Venezuela. He's essentially throwing in his lot with the party he thinks has the best chance to get him restored to power," says Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, a consultancy based in New York. "It's a tangible representation of a power shift in the region."
It is clear that Zelaya and Chávez remain staunch allies.
So don't expect the Honduran people to be fooled, even if Bambi and the Hildebeast have no clue ...
Chávez, who calls Honduras's interim leaders "coup mongers," has seized every possible opportunity to rail against the US for not coming down harder on leaders in Honduras.
Mr. Farnsworth says he believes that a prolonged crisis in Honduras works in Chávez's political favor. "So long as it remains unsettled," he says, "he can work with it to somehow blame the United States and promote his own interests."
Nonsense. He's going to do that anyway. What would settle Oogo's hash would be a bold statement of support by Bambi for Micheletti and the Hondurans. Zelaya would have to fold and Oogo could do nothing but whine.
But Chávez's flair for rhetoric has been tempered in this case by the unusual fact that Chávez and the US are on the same side, says Rafael Cortez, a political analyst at the Tendências consulting group in São Paulo, Brazil. "Chávez's rhetoric loses some of its force, in this case he and Obama are both defending the Constitutional order," Mr. Cortes says.
No, they're defending Mel's attempt to circumvent the 'constitutional order'. Isn't it sad that an American president is on the same side as Oogo?
Mr. Chavez's lack of a role isn't for wont of trying, however. It was Chávez who announced to the world that Zelaya had returned home. "President Manuel Zelaya, along with four companions, traveled for two days overland, crossing mountains and rivers, risking their lives. They have made it to Honduras," Chávez trumpeted on Monday.
But Zelaya, perhaps worried about the lack of Honduran support for Chávez's radical brand of leftism and anti-American bombast, appears to have returned the favor by keeping Chávez at arms reach.
Chávez's footprint on his return is counterproductive for Zelaya, given the strong rejection that so many in Honduras give the Venezuelan leader, says Kevin Casas-Zamora, the former vice president of Costa Rica and now at the Brookings Institution. It could raise questions about Zelaya's real intent to start a "process of national dialogue," says Mr. Casas-Zamora. "This only confirms in the eyes of the people in government that the person behind the plot of his return is Hugo Chávez."
The episode is not likely to stoke tensions between Brazil and Venezuela, though, even as each seeks to hold the mantle of regional leader. Chávez and Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva are allies and they are clearly on the same side. "Lula has a good relationship with Chávez in spite of the differences in the tone of their discourse," says Cortes.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/24/2009 00:00 ||
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Diplomats and activists streamed out of the increasingly isolated Brazilian Embassy in Honduras where ousted President Manuel Zelaya holed up with a shrinking core of supporters and relatives, prompting Brazil to urge the U.N. Security Council to guarantee the compound's safety.
Zelaya's backers ventured out at several points in Honduras' capital to skirmish with police, after hundreds of their colleagues were routed by baton-wielding soldiers from the street in front of the embassy and police roadblocks sealed off the mission building Tuesday. Authorities denied local media reports that three people died in the confrontation.
The entire country was largely shut down, with almost no cars or pedestrians in the streets and few businesses open under a nearly round-the-clock curfew decreed by the interim government that ousted Zelaya in June. It accused Zelaya of sneaking back into the country Monday to create disturbances and disrupt the Nov. 29 election scheduled to pick his successor.
Foreign Minister Carlos Lopez said the government would not try to enter the embassy to arrest Zelaya, but he also said Honduras' interim leaders had no intention of yielding on the central point demanded by the international community: the reinstatement of Zelaya to serve out the remaining four months of his term.
The government briefly set up loudspeakers near the embassy and shut off water and power to the building, apparently to harass Zelaya's supporters inside. At least 85 Zelaya supporters and part of the embassy's staff later left the building; none were detained. Services were later restored to the building.
"We know we are in danger," Zelaya said during interviews with various media outlets. "We are ready to risk everything, to sacrifice."
Soldiers stood guard on neighboring rooftops and helicopters buzzed overhead. About 174 people detained in the clash outside the embassy were later released. A doctor interviewed by Radio Globo said 18 people were treated at the public hospital for injuries.
At the United Nations, Brazilian Ambassador Maria Luiza Viotti cited the tense situation around the compound in asking the Security Council to hold an emergency meeting on Honduras. She voiced concerns about the safety of the embassy and of Zelaya.
Zelaya, forced out of his country at gunpoint June 28, triumphantly popped up in the capital Monday, telling captivated supporters that after three months of international exile and a secretive 15-hour cross-country journey, he was ready to lead again.
He said Tuesday that he had no plans to leave the embassy and he repeatedly asked to speak with interim President Roberto Micheletti.
Later in the day, Lopez, the foreign minister, quoted Micheletti as saying that "I will talk to anybody, anywhere, any time, including ex-president Manuel Zelaya." But Lopez said the offer did not include allowing Zelaya to serve out his presidential term or avoid arrest on a Supreme Court warrant charging the ex-leader with treason and abuse of authority.
A U.N. truck showed up at the embassy with hot dogs to feed Zelaya's supporters and Brazilian staffers - the only food that U.N. workers could find in a city where nearly every business was closed.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2009 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] The ousted Honduran President, who has taken refuge in the Brazilian embassy, has called on the United Nations not to forsake the people in the Central American country.
Manuel Zelaya expressed appreciation for the stance assumed by the United Nations on the Honduran crisis, asking for more global action "at this critical time," AFP reported on Wednesday
"We are grateful for all that the international community has done... but now we ask all of those who are at the United Nations not to abandon the Honduran people at this critical time," Zelaya said.
He expressed his willingness to hold 'face to face' talks with the head of the de facto government Roberto Micheletti, installed by the country's US-backed military in a coup.
Zelaya's supporters have taken to the streets in the capital Tegucigalpa, swarming the vicinity of the Brazilian embassy, where their constitutional President stays.
Honduran police, using tear gas and rubber bullets, have been trying to disperse the crowds supporting Zelaya.
According to a Xinhua report, so far 143 people have been arrested and 18 more injured in violent demonstrations.
The Washington-based Human Rights Watch Organization has warned the interim government against abuses and the use of excessive force to disperse Zelaya's supporters.
Micheletti, in a rare gesture since Zelaya's ouster on June 28, has offered to talk to him in an effort to resolve the crisis that has been gripping the poor Central American nation for the past three months.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2009 00:00 ||
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If Obama and Clinton had just stayed out of this then it would be over by now. It's only dragging on because they are encouraging it.
#2
I've had an annoyung thought,
It's bugged me that Obama keeps the lie of COUP coing.
And it's bugged me WHY.
I posted "He (Obama) Wants to set a precedent that an elected president can LEGALY alter a Constitution. and finaly it hit me.
He wants to repeal the part where it REQUIRES the president be AN AMERICAN, that would potect him from prosecution after he leaves Office.
Actually I don't think it really would, as he was elected before he could change it, but he's proved not to be overly intlligent, just clever.
And no I have no idea what his REAL IQ is.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/24/2009 13:18 Comments ||
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PS please pardon typos, my left hand is partly paralyzed (Stroke)and doesn't always push the keys hard enough.
I use spell check when I think of it. When I forget, there are annoying errors.
Irritates the hell out of me when I screw up. I know how to spell.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/24/2009 13:24 Comments ||
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Got it, I missed the part where he changes the Constitution so there are no more elections.
Damn, I sound like Rush,
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/24/2009 13:30 Comments ||
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Typing is a good fine motor exercise to improve use of that hand, Redneck Jim. We're glad to be part of your recovery.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya says that he wants face-to-face talks with de facto leader Roberto Micheletti on restoring his presidency.
"That's the goal, to talk personally with him -- not only with him, but also with the political and economic groups in the country," Zelaya told an AFP reporter on Wednesday from the Brazilian Embassy in Honduras.
Micheletti, who succeeded Zelaya after a military coup in June, also expressed willingness to hold talks with the ousted leader, offering a glimmer of hope that the tense three-day-old stand-off that has paralyzed the capital city Tegucigalpa finds a resolution.
The deposed president, along with scores of his supporters, journalists and embassy staff, was sequestered inside the Brazilian Embassy which was running short on supplies after Honduran troops cut electricity, water and telephone lines.
During the day on Wednesday, power was restored and water allowed to flow again inside the embassy, but food supplies had dwindled to next-to-nothing.
Zelaya thanked the world community for its support in his bid to be restored to power, and urged the United Nations not to abandon his troubled Central American nation, as the UN General Assembly got underway in New York.
The Honduran leader returned secretly to the capital Tegucigalpa this week, where he hunkered down for a third day in Brazil's Embassy, and he has been trying, until now, mostly through diplomatic channels, to reclaim the presidency.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2009 00:00 ||
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Zelaya can have the face to face during his treason trial when Micheletti testifies.
Posted by: ed ||
09/24/2009 7:38 Comments ||
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I suppose you can still talk ok while you're hanging by your heels in a dungeon.
Deposed President Manuel Zelaya has been besieged at the Brazilian Embassy in Honduras with dwindling supplies with soldiers firing tear gas at protestors outside.
Zelaya's surprise return on Monday, almost three months after he was ousted in military coup, spun the Central American nation into chaos and threw it into the spotlight, just as world leaders gathered at the UN General Assembly in New York.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon announced the withdrawal of election assistance to the crisis-hit Central American nation, saying conditions were not favorable for the poll set for November.
The deposed president, along with scores of his supporters, journalists and embassy staff, remained sequestered inside the embassy, which was running short on food and hit by cuts in electricity, water and telephone lines.
Throughout the day, power was restored and water allowed to flow again inside the embassy, but food was in short supply.
Outside, thousands of red-clad Zelaya supporters poured onto the streets of the capital Tegucigalpa in one of the largest pro-Zelaya demonstrations since the president's June 28 ouster that was backed by the military.
Heavily-armed riot police and soldiers detained an unknown number of protesters after clashes broke out.
Hundreds more flocked to gas stations and supermarkets to stock up during a brief respite from a nationwide curfew.
Zelaya earlier said that he wants face-to-face talks with de facto leader Roberto Micheletti on restoring his presidency.
Micheletti offered late Tuesday to hold direct talks with Zelaya if he recognized the validity of the November 29 elections, but the ousted leader dismissed that offer .
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2009 00:00 ||
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'Age of Austerity' is not rising among the institutions keep afloat upon the bonded taxpayers for a couple generations. Don't believe me, watch the bonuses being paid out in organizations that should have gone belly up by the end of last year or early this year without the 'fix' from the Fed. Don't expect any transparency in the good old boy network.
...That's right, an actual doomsday devicea real, functioning version of the ultimate weapon, always presumed to exist only as a fantasy of apocalypse-obsessed science fiction writers and paranoid über-hawks. The thing that historian Lewis Mumford called "the central symbol of this scientifically organized nightmare of mass extermination." Turns out Yarynich, a 30-year veteran of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces and Soviet General Staff, helped build one....
The technical name was Perimeter, but some called it Mertvaya Ruka, or Dead Hand. It was built 25 years ago and remained a closely guarded secret. With the demise of the USSR, word of the system did leak out, but few people seemed to notice. In fact, though Yarynich and a former Minuteman launch officer named Bruce Blair have been writing about Perimeter since 1993 in numerous books and newspaper articles, its existence has not penetrated the public mind or the corridors of power. The Russians still won't discuss it, and Americans at the highest levelsincluding former top officials at the State Department and White Housesay they've never heard of it. When I recently told former CIA director James Woolsey that the USSR had built a doomsday device, his eyes grew cold. "I hope to God the Soviets were more sensible than that." They weren't....
Perimeter ensures the ability to strike back, but it's no hair-trigger device. It was designed to lie semi-dormant until switched on by a high official in a crisis. Then it would begin monitoring a network of seismic, radiation, and air pressure sensors for signs of nuclear explosions. Before launching any retaliatory strike, the system had to check off four if/then propositions: If it was turned on, then it would try to determine that a nuclear weapon had hit Soviet soil. If it seemed that one had, the system would check to see if any communication links to the war room of the Soviet General Staff remained. If they did, and if some amount of timelikely ranging from 15 minutes to an hourpassed without further indications of attack, the machine would assume officials were still living who could order the counterattack and shut down. But if the line to the General Staff went dead, then Perimeter would infer that apocalypse had arrived. It would immediately transfer launch authority to whoever was manning the system at that moment deep inside a protected bunkerbypassing layers and layers of normal command authority. At that point, the ability to destroy the world would fall to whoever was on duty: maybe a high minister sent in during the crisis, maybe a 25-year-old junior officer fresh out of military academy. And if that person decided to press the button ... If/then. If/then. If/then. If/then.
Once initiated, the counterattack would be controlled by so-called command missiles. Hidden in hardened silos designed to withstand the massive blast and electromagnetic pulses of a nuclear explosion, these missiles would launch first and then radio down coded orders to whatever Soviet weapons had survived the first strike. At that point, the machines will have taken over the war. Soaring over the smoldering, radioactive ruins of the motherland, and with all ground communications destroyed, the command missiles would lead the destruction of the US....
Posted by: Mike ||
09/24/2009 14:25 ||
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When Bill Sparkman told retired trooper Gilbert Acciardo that he was going door-to-door collecting census data in rural Kentucky, the former cop drew on years of experience for a warning: "Be careful."
"Even though he was with the Census Bureau, sometimes people can view someone with any government agency as 'the government.' I just was afraid that he might meet the wrong character along the way up there."
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/24/2009 8:10 Comments ||
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Forensics is not going to be easy. They let slip that he had been hanging there for some length of time before he was found.
Typically, in such cases, the body fat tends to leak from the skin pores, forming "icicles". And, of course, the insects...
#3
They still have people in the hills that have never "been off the mountain", rednecks driving around with their shotguns. The wealth is unusually distributed, with shacks and naked barefoot chilluns playing on junked cars next door to a large brick mansion with new pickups. I once read the biggest cash crop is pot and of besides the homebrew, cooking meth quite profitable. It's scary to just drive through the area, minding your own business, as they will escort you into the next state with guns cocked, let alone door knocking.
Rejecting efforts to impose the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on it through the UN Security Council resolution, India has made it clear that it will not sign the pact as a non-weapon state as an atomic arsenal is integral to its security.
India has made it known to the Security Council that it cannot accept the externally prescribed norms or standards on issues that are contrary to its national interests or infringe on its sovereignty.
In a letter to UNSC President Susan E Rice of the US, Indian Permanent Representative to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri, questioned the role of the world body in enforcing treaties like NPT even while he reiterated Indias commitment to no-testing, no-first-use of nuclear weapons and non-discriminatory universal non-proliferation.
India cannot accept calls for universalisation of NPT, he said as the UNSC passed a resolution asking all non-NPT nations to sign the treaty which India considers flawed and discriminatory.
Citing Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs statement in Parliament on July 29, Puri said there is no question of India joining the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state. Nuclear weapons are an integral part of Indias national security and will remain so, pending non-discriminatory and global nuclear disarmament.
Puri said India cannot accept externally prescribed norms or standards on matters within the jurisdiction of its Parliament or which are not consistent with Indias constitutional provisions and procedures or are contrary to Indias national interests or infringe on its sovereignty.
The envoy said India cannot comply with non-proliferation obligations to which it has not given its consent. "We cannot accept any obligations arising from treaties that India has not signed or ratified. This position is consistent with the fundamental principles of international law and the Law of Treaties," Puri said in the letter dated yesterday which was released here today. "The role of the Security Council would arise if those treaties themselves provide for such a role," he said. India, which has been maintaining that NPT is discriminatory and flawed, pointed out that it had in 1992 prescribed norms and standards for national or international conduct which the Security Council itself "must scrupulously accept". "We remain committed to a voluntary, unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. We do not subscribe to any arms race, including a nuclear arms race. We have always tempered the exercise of our strategic autonomy with a sense of global responsibility," Puri said.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/24/2009 17:56 ||
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I'd tell Susan Rice to f*ck off if she asked to verify which horizon the sun came up on. She's a radical Obamanut and a total tool. Good for India!
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/24/2009 19:26 Comments ||
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[Dawn] A missed call lead to mass murder in the Sarobi area of North West Front Province's Karak district.
Six people were killed in an exchange of fire that began as a petty dispute.
According to local police, a group of people went to a neighbouring house to complain that a boy was harassing them by giving them missed calls on their mobile phones.
The dispute lead to a heated verbal exchange until one of the parties opened fire. Six men were killed in the shootout and one woman was injured and was taken to the Karak civil hospital.
The accused from both sides managed to escape.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2009 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Police in Karachi are investigating into the rape of 13-year-old Eric in the city's Korangi area. Three men were arrested on suspicion who later confessed to having committed the crime, police said.
Investigation officer Shahid Mehmood said the accused will be taken to a laboratory on Wednesday to medically confirm that they committed the crime. Police will present the initial investigation reports to the district court once the reports of the suspects' medical examinations have come out.
Mehmood said Eric has already been examined at Jinnah hospital for medical inquiries.
Eric was kidnapped on the first night of Eidul Fitr by three men who were under the influence of alcohol. The men forced him into a room where they sexually assaulted him.
In the meantime, Eric's family searched the entire neighbourhood. He was finally found by his brothers, when his captors released him after raping him. Eric's family has demanded that authorities take firm action against the culprits.
This has been the second incident of child abuse reported from the area.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2009 00:00 ||
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Eric? Western aid workers or Christian family?
Eric's family has demanded that authorities take firm action against the culprits.
Only if the family is western and able to muster up media embarrassment of Pakistan.
Posted by: ed ||
09/24/2009 7:57 Comments ||
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In any case, he is a Christian boy, possibly an expat, possibly a pakistanese Christian (though I have no idea how "Christian-sounding" they choose their first names, Eric being nordic in origin IIRC, over the fact that as dhimmis they simply are not allowed to give muslim names - those are for the Master Religion).
As for the rapists, my guess is that they are muslims, given the date of the assault, since it's when the "fasters" blow off their steam, so to speak, and get into even more self-indulgence as during the ramadan nightly fast breaks; the alcholo intoxication might lead to think they might be Christian as well, but it's been my very strong impression that muslims are VERY hypocritical when it comes to alcohol, they tend to be almost neurotically obsessed with pork, but alcohol is a great source of double standards (as is sex or similar stuff).
Dreams of establishing a manned Moon base could become reality within two decades after Indias first lunar mission found evidence of large quantities of water on its surface.
Data from Chandrayaan-1 also suggests that water is still being formed on the Moon. Scientists said the breakthrough to be announced by Nasa at a press conference today would change the face of lunar exploration.
The discovery is a significant boost for India in its space race against China. Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, the missions project director at the Indian Space Research Organisation in Bangalore, said: Its very satisfying.
The search for water was one of the missions main objectives, but it was a surprise nonetheless, scientists said.The unmanned craft was equipped with Nasas Moon Mineralogy Mapper, designed specifically to search for water by picking up the electromagnetic radiation emitted by minerals. The M3 also made the unexpected discovery that water may still be forming on the surface of the Moon, according to scientists familiar with the mission.
Its very satisfying, said Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, the project director of Chandrayaan-1 at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Bangalore. This was one of the main objectives of Chandrayaan-1, to find evidence of water on the Moon, he told The Times.
Dr Annadurai would not provide any further details before a news conference at Nasa today from Dr Carle Pieters, a planetary geologist of Brown University who oversaw the M3.
Dr Pieters has not spoken about her results so far and was not available for comment last night, according to colleagues at Brown University. But her results are expected to cause a sensation, and to set the agenda for lunar exploration in the next decade.
They will also provide a significant boost for India as it tries to catch up with China in what many see as a 21st-century space race. This will create a considerable stir. It was wholly unexpected, said one scientist also involved in Chandrayaan-1. People thought that Chandrayaan was just lagging behind the rest but the science thats coming out, its going to be agenda-setting.
Scientists have long hoped that astronauts could be based on the Moon and use water found there to drink, extract oxygen to breathe and use hydrogen as fuel.
Several studies havesuggested that there could be ice in the craters around the Moons poles, but scientists have been unable to confirm the suspicions.
The M3, an imaging spectrometer, was designed to search for water by detecting the electromagnetic radiation given off by different minerals on and just below the surface of the Moon. Unlike previous lunar spectrometers, it was sensitive enough to detect the presence of small amounts of water.
M3 was one of two Nasa instruments among 11 pieces of equipment from around the world on Chandrayaan-1, which was launched into orbit around the Moon in October last year. ISRO lost control of Chandrayaan-1 last month, and aborted the mission ahead of schedule, but not before M3 and the other instruments had beamed data back to Earth.
Another lunar scientist familiar with the findings said: This is the most exciting breakthrough in at least a decade. And it will probably change the face of lunar exploration for the next decade.
Scientists are eagerly awaiting the results of two American unmanned lunar missions, which were both launched in June, that could also prove the existence of water on the Moon.
Early results from Nasas Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) recorded temperatures as low as -238C (minus 396.4F) in polar craters on the Moon, according to the journal Nature. That makes them the coldest recorded spots in the solar system, even colder than the surface of Pluto, and could mean that ice has been trapped for billions of years, the journal said. The LRO has also detected an abundance of hydrogen, thought to be a key indicator of ice, at the poles.
The other Nasa mission, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), is due to crash a probe into a polar crater on October 9 in the hope of sending up a plume of ice that can be examined by telescope.
We are on the verge of a renaissance in our thinking about the poles of the Moon, including how water ice gets there, Anthony Colaprete, principal investigator for LCROSS, said in Nature.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/24/2009 07:49 ||
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Water? In a near Vacuum?
Find an underground stream and I'll call it huge, traces aren't usable.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/24/2009 11:42 Comments ||
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India has one of the two coolest little space programs in the world. Japan is the other one.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/24/2009 15:32 Comments ||
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Maybe they happened to sample the exact spot one of the US astronauts took a leak?
Hundreds of Druze residents of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights headed to Syria on a pilgrimage on Thursday, crossing the demarcation line with the help of the international Red Cross. In a rare move, 43 women were to join the almost 500 men, all religious elders, who planned to spend several days attending the annual event, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
By mid-morning, about half the men had crossed the demarcation line at Quneitra, said ICRC spokeswoman Nadia Dibsy. The Quneitra crossing opens infrequently, notably for the annual pilgrimage and for weddings between Druze from opposite sides of the armistice line.
More than 18,000 Syrians, mostly Druze, are left from the Golan's original population of 150,000. The vast majority of the Druze in the Golan have refused to take Israeli citizenship. Followers of a breakaway sect of Islam concentrated in Israel, Syria, and Lebanon, the Druze are not considered Muslims by most of the Islamic world.
#1
From Wiki:
The Druze faith began as a movement in Ismailism that was mainly influenced by Greek philosophy and gnosticism and opposed certain religious and philosophical ideologies that were present during that epoch.
The faith was founded by Hamza ibn Alî ibn Ahmad, a Persian Ismaili mystic and scholar. He came to Egypt in 1014 and assembled a group of scholars and leaders from across the Islamic world to form a new Unitarian movement. The order's meetings were held in the Raydan Mosque, near the Al-Hakim Mosque.[19]...Al-Hakim became a central figure in the Druze faith even though his own religious position was disputed among scholars. John Esposito states that al-Hakim believed that "he was not only the divinely appointed religio-political leader but also the cosmic intellect linking God with creation."[21], while others like Nissim Dana and Mordechai Nisan state that he is perceived as the manifestation and the reincarnation of God or presumably the image of God...Al-Hakim disappeared one night while out on his evening ride - presumably assassinated, perhaps at the behest of his formidable elder sister Sitt al-Mulk. The Druze believe he went into Occultation with Hamza ibn Ali and three other prominent preachers, leaving the care of the "Unitarian missionary movement" to a new leader, Bahâ'u d-Dîn.
Never was concerned much about the Druze but this sounds a lot like Dinnerjacket's Hidden Imam beliefs.
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.
STOCKHOLM Swedish police faced stinging criticism Thursday for failing to stop helicopter-borne gunmen from pulling off a Hollywood-style heist against a cash depot while blocking an air pursuit with a fake bomb.
A Florida man admitted to reporters that he killed his wife and five "innocent" children, adding that he wants to be executed "right away" so he can be buried with them on Saturday.
(JTA) -- Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi insinuated that Israel was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Honduras' fallen leader told The Miami Herald he is being subjected to mind-altering gas and radiation -- and that `Israeli mercenaries' are planning to assassinate him.
Diplomats and activists streamed out of the increasingly isolated Brazilian Embassy in Honduras where ousted President Manuel Zelaya holed up with a shrinking core of supporters and relatives, prompting Brazil to urge the U.N. Security Council to guarantee the compound's safety.
The technical name was Perimeter, but some called it Mertvaya Ruka, or Dead Hand. It was built 25 years ago and remained a closely guarded secret. With the demise of the USSR, word of the system did leak out, but few people seemed to notice. In fact, though Yarynich and a former Minuteman launch officer named Bruce Blair have been writing about Perimeter since 1993 in numerous books and newspaper articles, its existence has not penetrated the public mind or the corridors of power. The Russians still won't discuss it, and Americans at the highest levelsincluding former top officials at the State Department and White Housesay they've never heard of it. When I recently told former CIA director James Woolsey that the USSR had built a doomsday device, his eyes grew cold. "I hope to God the Soviets were more sensible than that." They weren't....
[Dawn] A missed call lead to mass murder in the Sarobi area of North West Front Province's Karak district.
Hundreds of Druze residents of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights headed to Syria on a pilgrimage on Thursday, crossing the demarcation line with the help of the international Red Cross. In a rare move, 43 women were to join the almost 500 men, all religious elders, who planned to spend several days attending the annual event, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. 
