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Taliban sez Blinky not dead
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
In Saudi Arabia, another maid dies falling out of a window. Will they ever find a cure?
Police are investigating the death of an Asian housemaid following a fall from the third floor of a residential building in Alkhobar, Eastern Province.
Or was she pushed?
Her sponsor told police that the maid, who was in her 20s and a newcomer to the Kingdom, had the accident while attempting to run away from the seventh floor apartment through a kitchen window. She managed to slide down the drainage pipe until the third floor, from where she had the fatal fall. The woman died at a hospital.
Oops! An accident! Not another one! Just like when you accidentally break something while cleaning around the house. I'm sure their Saudi employers are understanding about that, as well.
Those foreign maids really are impossible, my dear, but one can't do without them. The local girls think they're one's equal -- that just won't do.
Some of the story comments are gold:

Oh yes, another accidental oppressed and abuse maid fall from a third floor building. I know, she believed that she could fly.She must have been watching too many Batman films. Could you make up a more plausible story? It seems that the opulent saudis are very unfortunate with these maids
Its OKAY to have maid of 20 year old , its OK for family females to be with drivers in complete absence of their male guardians. Its OK that salesmen assist women for buying lingerie and cosmetic products. But Saudi women are not allowed to travel outside alone. welcome to real world, rules which contradict each other.
Posted by: gromky || 05/23/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I understand DSK will be moving to Saudi Arabia if he is somehow acquitted.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 05/23/2011 0:41 Comments || Top||

#2  I am still trying to warp my mind around the phrase "attempting to run away"? Are they slaves? can they not simply quit and leave? Where the heck is HRW? Can they spare a few from Gaza and send them to the the Kingdom?
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 05/23/2011 19:11 Comments || Top||

#3  "Are they slaves?"

Well, duh, CS.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/23/2011 19:16 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Full Evacuation of Joplin MO hospital after direct hit by tornado
Also, Joplin suffers direct hit from tornado; 24 deaths confirmed thus far
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 05/23/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Shit. Accuwether reports 75% of Joplin was destroyed, 89 are dead.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/23/2011 8:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Joplin was the closest large city to Fort (Camp) Crowder, one of the big WWII training and replacement camps, as well as the US Army Signal School.

In popular culture, it is remembered as both the setting for where Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore met, in their sitcom the Dick Van Dyke Show; and also as the model for "Camp Swampy", used by Mort Drucker in his Beetle Bailey comic strip.

Oddly enough, the area is covered with round geode rocks, resulting in many ankle fractures for the soldiers stationed there. This mystified many who wondered why, at any given time, dozens of soldiers would be walking around on crutches with ankle casts.

At one time, Joplin had been the end destination of Texas cattle drives, which, along with lead and later zinc mining, did much to turn it into a rowdy place. Then it spawned the James Gang and much later, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.

Ironically, the city is also 75% undermined by abandoned mines, which results in unpredictable sinkholes and collapses, and the area is dotted with small hills of mine tailings.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 05/23/2011 9:49 Comments || Top||

#3  Hey guys--does anyone know anything about chemtrails and HAARP? So many tornados. Just wondering if there's a connection.
Posted by: ex-lib || 05/23/2011 12:24 Comments || Top||

#4  Thoughts and prayers for the people of Joplin.
Posted by: lotp || 05/23/2011 12:50 Comments || Top||

#5  As it was explained to me, this is a rare but not unheard of weather pattern which has bumped and extended the sever weather pattern likely for another month or more.

Observed, it looks like it has been except with weather lines shifted about 200 miles east of (last 5 years) normal.

I think it is a lot of both. All I know is our air is funny at the moment (I can't explain that to anyone outside of twisty towns) so we have already taken precautions. I am expecting hail, but if the 250 shift is correct *this instance* then MO et al could get some more bad stuff over the next couple days.

Lots of tornados, yes, but not extraordinary, they just seem to be hitting populations daggummit.

Prayers for Joplin.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 05/23/2011 15:22 Comments || Top||

#6  116 now. As population increases expect more deaths and injuries. Contrast this with another tornado.
Minneapolis liquor store looted after tornado
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 05/23/2011 17:35 Comments || Top||

#7  Does not say really what ranking the tornado had (and a path map would help).

One witness says 1 mile across which is plenty wide if even just half that amount (sometimes visually a destruction zone looks larger than it is). The trees are shattered. Picture 14 has what looks like a 2x4 stuck into a car engine, pic 55 has a tree quite literally peeled of its bark.

Not going to point out injury photos (nothing graphic), but impressed by shirt-off-my-back guy and the makeshift ambulance service. Also, note the clear roads..thats good stuff by emergency ops.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 05/23/2011 17:49 Comments || Top||

#8  That area just had a series of hail-producing storm move through, also tornados in north Oklahoma, and the way the stormline looks to me, better just start planning on possible tornadic activity in the area tonight. Work like it will, pray that it doesn't.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 05/23/2011 17:55 Comments || Top||

#9  try out codeword.org too see vids of the tornado andt the sheer size of it. Prayers go out too all those in Joplin, MO and surrounding areas. Looks and sounds like it was really bad. The devastaion looks like it was carpet bombed.
Posted by: chris || 05/23/2011 20:11 Comments || Top||


New volcano eruption begins in Iceland
[Emirates 24/7] The Grimsvoetn volcano under Iceland's largest glacier began erupting Saturday, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said, reporting a tall plume of smoke rising from the crater.

"An eruption at Grimsvoetn has started and there's an airplane on its way there now to investigate further," Haraldur Eirkisson of the office told AFP.

"There was a cloud rising up from Grimsvoetn around 1900 GMT and at just before 2000 GMT it had reached an altitude of 11 kilometres," he added.

Another meteorologist at the same office, Fridjon Magnusson, told AFP less than two hours later that the column of smoke had swelled to reach an altitude of 20 kilometres.

Grimsvoetn is Iceland's most active volcano, having erupted nine times between 1922 and 2004. It lies beneath the Vatnajoekull glacier in the southeast of the North Atlantic island nation.

The eruption in April last year of Iceland's Eyjafjoell volcano, southwest of Grimsvoetn, shut down large swathes of European airspace for almost a month amid fears the volcanic ash could wreak havoc on aircraft engines.

No two volcanic eruptions are the same, and it remained unclear late Saturday if the new eruption threatened to emit a similar kind of ash -fine, with very sharp particles - like the massive plume that burst from Eyjafjoell.

"The eruption has not yet spread very far, and is still looming over the Vatnajoekull glacier," Magnusson pointed out.

"These are just the first few hours of the eruption. We can't say yet whether this will have an effect on air traffic like Eyjafjoell," he added.

The problem with last year's eruption, which caused the planet's biggest air space shutdown since World War II, was according to the researchers that it happened under a glacier, bursting through 200-300 metres (yards) of ice.

It was the "interaction between the cold water and the hot magma that made the particles really tiny," and therefore especially dangerous to aircraft, Susan Stipp, a professor at the Nano-Science Centre at the University of Copenhagen, told AFP late last month.

"The (ash) particles were small so they went high and far. They were sharp, so they were a danger to airplane windows. It's like sand-blasting the airplane. And they were small and could melt at temperatures common in jet engines ... and could cause failure," she told AFP.

While Saturday's eruption had sent smoke high in the sky, Magnusson pointed out that there so far was only "heavy ash at the bottom of the bloom (that) has not reached high heights."

Bjarni Steinthorsson, a farmer who lives near the Vatnajoekull glacier, meanwhile told the Morgunbladid daily's website small amounts of ash had begun falling in the area and "the snow is getting darker."

He said that he expected more ash to fall overnight, although what happened would depend on the direction of the winds, which were currently almost still at the eruption site.

Iceland's State Road Authority meanwhile announced late Saturday it had temporarily closed a road near the glacier that is part of the national highway system.

Grimsvoetn is also located under a glacier, in an enormous, eight-kilometre (five-mile) diameter caldera - a collapsed volcanic crater - near the centre of the Vatnajoekull icefield.

When it last erupted in November 2004, volcanic ash fell as far away as mainland Europe and caused minor disruptions in flights to and from Iceland.

Geologists had worried late last year the volcano was about to blow when they noticed a large river run caused by rapidly melting glacier ice.

Eruptions at Grimsvoetn traditionally result in massive flooding, although this has little impact since the surrounding areas are uninhabited.
Posted by: Fred || 05/23/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Whoa, so IIUC our wily dastardly Sun = GWCC is dooming us wid both HOT = POSITIVE ENERGY [Sunspots, solar storms], as well as COLD = NEGATIVE ENERGY [inverse = US CDC's "Zombie Apocalypse"].

D ****, I KNEW IT!

Well, clearly its time to kidnap MADONNA + run for the hills.

* ION NOT-HERRING, DAILY MAIL.UK > JAPAN SUPER-EARTHQUAKE [Tohoku-Sendai] MOVED OCEAN FLOOR 79 FEET SIDEWAYS, 10 FEET UPWARDS - AND NEW DATA SHOW REGION UNDER IS UNDER [new +] MORE STRAIN.

Arise, LEMURIA = MU?, Arise.

[1960s = 1980's GUAM TAOTAMONAS + MADONNA "CHERISH" VIDEO here].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 05/23/2011 0:36 Comments || Top||

#2  The volcanologists are saying not to worry too much about this, but volcano predictions are on a par with earthquake and climate predictions.
Posted by: phil_b || 05/23/2011 4:43 Comments || Top||

#3  Someone please work out the carbon dioxide released so we can be freed of the UN's bullsh*t manmade global warming scare
Posted by: anon1 || 05/23/2011 7:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Don't be silly, anon 1 - everybody knows natural CO2 does not contribute to man-made global warming!
Posted by: Bobby || 05/23/2011 7:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Certainly not, Bobby.
Posted by: Halliburton - Vulcanism Dept. || 05/23/2011 12:46 Comments || Top||

#6  A friend of mine was ferrying a twin turboprop plane from Europe to the US and stopped in Keflavik. Not a good choice. Now it's stuck in Iceland until the ashfall stops from Grimsvoetn.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 05/23/2011 15:14 Comments || Top||

#7  If they took the time to figure that CO2 release, they would probably take the time to figure a fine for not having a permit.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 05/23/2011 15:26 Comments || Top||

#8  Mount Augustine, our little volcano in Alaska's Cook Inlet, released 500 tons of SO2 per day when steaming. When erupting, it spewed forth 3000 tons of SO2. What say you, UN and EPA?
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 05/23/2011 15:29 Comments || Top||

#9  On the bright side: at least this one's reasonably pronouncable.
Posted by: xbalanke || 05/23/2011 15:50 Comments || Top||

#10  D *** NG IT, HASN'T THE US MARINES + USDOD CONQUERED GREENLAND + ICELAND YET - HOW CAN POTUS BAMMER BUILD HIS NORTH ATLANTIC SURFACE, UNDERWATER MASS TRANPORT/TRANSIT NODE TO EUROPE IFF THEY DON'T???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 05/23/2011 20:25 Comments || Top||

#11  Good coverage here
Posted by: phil_b || 05/23/2011 20:53 Comments || Top||

#12  Now you're just being silly, JosephM!
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/23/2011 23:35 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Saudi Arabia beheads Pakistani over murder
[Emirates 24/7] Soddy Arabia on Sunday beheaded a Pak convicted of killing a fellow citizen in the holy city of Mecca, the official SPA news agency said.
Only one?
"Tareq Gaweid Ghulam, a Pak, has killed Aref Khuda Bakhsh, (another) Pak, using an axe... because of a dispute between them," reported SPA, adding that Ghulam was executed on Sunday.

This brought to 18 the number of executions in the kingdom this year, according to an AFP count.

In 2010, 27 executions were reported, down from 67 in 2009 and 102 in 2008.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under the kingdom's strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.
Posted by: Fred || 05/23/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  More, More, the last one left MAY be reasonable.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 05/23/2011 10:59 Comments || Top||


Britain
The car that thinks it's a tank: Inside Obama's 'Beast' Cadillac
Posted by: tipper || 05/23/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Weight: 8 tons.
Posted by: Snomose Barnsmell9551 || 05/23/2011 0:09 Comments || Top||

#2  Weight: 8 tons.

Carbon footprint?
Posted by: gr(o)mgoru || 05/23/2011 5:29 Comments || Top||

#3  Carbon footprint?

Let's just say we need to be considering a trade in.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 05/23/2011 9:12 Comments || Top||

#4  The Beast didn't want to leave the US Embassy.
Posted by: tipper || 05/23/2011 12:20 Comments || Top||

#5  Chalaque
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 05/23/2011 14:46 Comments || Top||

#6  Should have been in a Bradley, heh. Except the Irish would think that they were invaded by the Brits from the North.

[/hey, Ima part Irish, too...look at me....]
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 05/23/2011 15:23 Comments || Top||


Economy
Congressional Research Service: US has WORLD'S LARGEST energy resources. Ogabe: Fuhgeddaboutit!
H/T Director Blue
In case anyone missed it, let me repeat something that is of a magnitude of 10 on the scale of news-quakes for Joe Public USA: America's combined energy resources are, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the largest on earth. They eclipse Saudi Arabia (3rd), China (4th) and Canada (6th) combined -- and that's without including America's shale oil deposits and, in the future, the potentially astronomic impact of methane hydrates.
Yes, Ogabe's trying to cripple the US energy industry. Can you say "smoking gun," boys and girls? I knew you could!
The energy facts in the CRS report should be making front page news all over America. Mostly it isn't. Given the devastating news from Japan and New Zealand, it may be right to postpone dancing in the streets. But something else is going on. Even though they are going to dominate global energy supply for decades to come the insidious war on vital fossil fuels continues apace.
Actually, this report has been out since November of last year. Why every Trunk officeholder and candidate in the country, from Boehner on down to Joe Doaks running for sewer commissioner in East Overshoe, Nebraska, hasn't been waving this report in front of every available TV camera is proof of why so many of us think of the GOP as The Stupid Party.
Political pantomime

From over here, the lack of a comprehensive US energy policy and the incoherence of President Obama's political take on energy, reminds me of a pantomime I saw last Christmas, Aladdin. The cave is full of energy riches, but 'Emperor' Obama -- or is it Wishy-Washy? --refuses to allow the words "open sesame" to be spoken.

"The Obama administration has made a conscious policy choice to raise energy prices, accomplished in good measure by restricting access to domestic energy supplies." So says Senator James Inhofe, a Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. He adds forthrightly, "We could help bring affordable energy to consumers, create new jobs, and grow the economy if the Obama administration would simply get out of the way so America can realize its true energy potential."

Meanwhile US energy policy persists in pursuing the myth that renewables are the economically viable future, with fossil fuels already, as the president said in January, "yesterday's energy". With 85 percent of global energy set to come from fossil fuels till at least 2035 no matter what wishful thinkers may prefer, current US energy policy -- much like European -- is pure political pantomime.

And hard to bear to bear for Americans, knowing the Aladdin's Cave of global energy power is right beneath their feet.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) || 05/23/2011 15:08 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This should be an impeachable offense.
But, the MSM will cover it up and it won't see the light of day except in blogs.
Posted by: DarthVader || 05/23/2011 16:20 Comments || Top||

#2  There is an apples and oranges problem here.

The US has done much more exploration than other nations and furthermore classifies reserves differently than other nations. Naturally, these differences make these kind of comparisons a problem. These points are made in the CRS paper but not in the language of the post.
Posted by: Lord Garth || 05/23/2011 21:11 Comments || Top||


Europe
Dutch appeals judges on Monday ordered the continuation of Geert Wilders trial
Posted by: Anonymoose || 05/23/2011 15:14 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:


Opposition wins Cyprus vote, dents presidency
But I think we all saw this coming...
Elections are so much more fun now that they are actual contests.
NICOSIA - The right-wing opposition won parliamentary polls in Cyprus on Sunday, denting the re-election chances of communist President Demetris Christofias who is handling complex reunification talks with Turkish Cypriots.
Since Turkey has no intention of giving up their half of the island, as useful an exercise as negotiating peace with the Palestinians.
Official results placed the opposition Democratic Rally in first place with 34.27 percent of the vote. Communist AKEL, the principal backer of Christofias, came in second place with 32.67 percent.

Cyprus has a presidential system, with general elections not due until February 2013. Analysts however believe gains by the opposition in parliament could put Christofias under greater pressure to play hardball, or retract concessions made to Turkish Cypriots in talks which have nevertheless made little headway since their launch in 2008.

"It could actually go two ways. He could decide to push for a breakthrough now, or decide to go more hardline to win back votes," said political analyst Hubert Faustmann.

Both AKEL and the Rally party made gains on the 2006 elections, though the spotlight was on defections from the junior governing coalition partner, the Democratic Party, suggesting it bore the brunt of its association with AKEL.

Democratic Party officials interpreted the result as discontent with Christofias's tactics in reunification talks. Analysts said their support for Christofias's re-election was not a given.

Christofias is engaged in peace talks with Turkish Cypriot rival Dervis Eroglu on finding a federal settlement to the conflict that is complicating Turkey's bid to join the EU. The United Nations has said it hopes for a deal by mid-2012, with both sides needing to speed up talks by then.

Christofias has been criticised for proposing the island's two communities share a rotating presidency under a weighted voting system. The Democratic Rally, previously seen as moderate, has become slightly more hardline in recent months.

The leftist coalition has also been criticised for slow economic growth and rising unemployment. Voting is compulsory in Cyprus, but the abstention rate was at a record high of 21 percent.
Posted by: Steve White || 05/23/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Spanish ruling party loses ground in poll
[Iran Press TV] Spain held its regional elections on Sunday, with opposition Popular Party making significant gains in several regions and key cities.

Support for the Spanish Ruling Socialist Party has waned among its voters; a recent survey had already predicted their defeat, The poll came out when the country is struggling with staggering levels of unemployment-around 45% of Spanish youth are unemployment. 800.000 youngsters have voted for the first time in these elections.

824 deputies for regional governments have been elected today

The socialist party has lost power in a number of autonomous provinces, in Madrid the Popular Party won 46% and the socialists have lost regions such as Catalonia where it has governed for 30 years.
Posted by: Fred || 05/23/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "loses ground"? They were absolutely BLOWN OUT. They lost districts they have held since the days of Franco. They lost in virtually every race.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13496038

Posted by: crosspatch || 05/23/2011 1:20 Comments || Top||

#2  It seems that though the kids want more subsidies, the adults understand the situation requires serious people be put in charge. Good luck, guys.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/23/2011 6:13 Comments || Top||

#3  It's just a flesh wound. /sarc
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/23/2011 8:03 Comments || Top||

#4  What is the 'Popular Party' like? Is it more or less socialist? Significantly so? Or just Hope for Change?
Posted by: Glenmore || 05/23/2011 8:40 Comments || Top||

#5  The Popular Party is significantly more pro-capitalist and pro-US than the Socialists. They sent Spanish troops to fight in Iraq. Also much more pro-GWB.

Zapatero went out of his way to insult the US and George Bush whenever possible (Kind of like Obama only he's Spanish).
Posted by: Frozen Al || 05/23/2011 11:58 Comments || Top||


Merkel's party loses to SPD, Greens in Bremen
[Iran Press TV] German Chancellor Angela Merkel's
...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom...
party has suffered its worst state election results and blames it on the country's economic crisis, as the SPD and the Greens gain the people's votes, preliminary results show.

In the state election in Bremen, The Social Democratic Party (SDP) takes the lead by an overwhelming 38 percent followed by the Greens 23 percent. Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) experienced its worst result in 52 years, as they only received 20 percent from the city-state.

"For the first time in the history of the German Federal Republic, we are ahead of the CDU in a regional election," said one of the Green federal leaders Claudia Roth, as reported by AFP.

The Greens' anti-nuclear stance has recently gained support thanks to Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.

While Bremen has always lacked confidence in the CDU, Merkel and her party, have lost support in four other regional elections this year. The city state has been led by the left-wing SDP since the end of the Second World War.

The results were as expected for the indebted state, as the popularity of the CDU has been falling all over the European nation.

For the first time, voters as young as 16 were able to participate in the state election, thanks to the new law that was enforced last year in Bremen. Despite this, voter turnout had dropped to 54 percent.

There will be two more regional elections in the country this year, one of them in Berlin.
Posted by: Fred || 05/23/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's Bremen. Not a normal German city.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 05/23/2011 19:41 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Cynthia McKinney: 'US lawmakers forced to support Israel'
[Iran Press TV] Former US politician Cynthia McKinney says every candidate for Congress has to sign a pledge to vote for supporting the military superiority of Israel.

"Every candidate for Congress at that time had a pledge. They were given a pledge to sign ... that had Jerusalem as the capital city," McKinney said in an interview with Press TV on Sunday.

"You make a commitment that you would vote to support the military superiority of Israel that the economic assistant that Israel wants that you would vote to provide that," she added.

McKinney said that if a candidate does not sign the pledge or perform accordingly, "then you do not get money to run your campaign."

The former Congresswoman said that after she made the pledge issue public "the tactic changed."

"But this is what is done for 535 members of the United States Congress, 100 senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives have to now write a paragraph which basically says the same thing."

He comments came as US President Barack B.O. Obama vowed to sustain Israel's military superiority over its neighbors at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) annual gathering on Sunday.

"We (the US) will maintain Israel's qualitative military edge"... "We have increased military financing to record levels," Obama said.
Posted by: Fred || 05/23/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sounds like a basic statement supporting the party platform. The Democrats don't openly oppose Israel - yet.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 05/23/2011 0:39 Comments || Top||

#2  Cynbat the Sailor
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 05/23/2011 0:59 Comments || Top||

#3  So they let her out on a pass?

Is she medication compliant?

Is she still nuttier than a nutmeg crazed squirrel?
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 05/23/2011 1:15 Comments || Top||

#4  One of McKinney's more bizarre conspiracy claims is that several thousand black convicts were massacred in Lousisiana after Hurricane Katrina. Interestingly enough, her tale bears a striking resemblance to an episode in Harry Turtledove's alternate history, The Victorious Opposition. This is set in the 1930s, in a world where the Confederacy won the Civil War and lasted into the 1940s.

The number of victims is the same, about 5000, and they are almost all men. In both cases, the victims are trucked into a swamp and shot, and their bodies left unburied. In both cases, there is a huge cover-up and dark rumblings in the rumor mill. McKinney attributes this to federal authorities, while in Turtledove's story the atrocity is the work of Confederates launching a Holocaust type genocide against blacks. The Victorious Opposition was published in 2003, two years before Katrina and 4 years before McKinney made her claims.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 05/23/2011 1:32 Comments || Top||

#5  WORLD NEWS > [Siasat Daily] US MUSLIMS BATTLE TO BE THE VOICE OF ISLAM.

CAIR need not apply.

* SAME WN > BARACK OBAMA AGREES TO FORM JOINT NATIONAL SECURITY BODY WID UK.

Prelude to future OWG Britusa = Anglo/Amertania
"Regionalism"???

* SAME > LEUREN MORET: FUKUSHIMA [was HAARP] TECTONIC NUCLEAR WARFARE MONITORED BY WORLD PARTNERS.

* SAME > JAPAN WARNS SOUTH KOREANS OVER TOUR OF DISPUTED ISLANDS [South Kuriles].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 05/23/2011 2:24 Comments || Top||

#6  That's why Israel supplies USA with replacement organs that we're harvesting from Palestinian children, Cynthia.
Posted by: gr(o)mgoru || 05/23/2011 5:34 Comments || Top||

#7  Does anyone really still take this flake seriously?

I mean does anyone sane still do?
Posted by: DarthVader || 05/23/2011 10:46 Comments || Top||

#8  Oh, shut up, Cynthia you worthless sack of sh*t.

Why don't you take a long walk on a short pier.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/23/2011 19:20 Comments || Top||

#9  #8 Oh, shut up, Cynthia you worthless sack of sh*t.

Please! No more comparisions to manure. Perhaps we could all be in agreement that it serves an organic, useful purpose.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/23/2011 19:27 Comments || Top||

#10  Atomic Conspiracy, do you honestly think that Cynthia McKinney reads tedious alternate-history potboilers? Hell, I *like* alt-h and I can't get through Turtledove's cookie-cutter "slot stock character A in thinly disguised variant on out-of-period historical event B" books. I think I gave up on that particular series just before the Victorious Opposition, if only because it was getting so that I could have written the outlines ahead of time before even opening the books.
Posted by: Mitch H. || 05/23/2011 20:06 Comments || Top||

#11  Read, no. Read to, yes.
Posted by: Zebulon Thranter9685 || 05/23/2011 20:09 Comments || Top||

#12  You're right as usual, Besoeker.

My apologies to shit everywhere.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/23/2011 22:59 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
TSA Patdowns - At Santa Fe Prom
Video (only) report (at lnk) of TSA Patdown searches at Proms and how some of the students don't like it. There is even mention of a Federal Judge ordering that TSA agents to be present.

What is scary is how 'accepted' the illegal search and seazure is accepted by everyone. Its more than a little creepy (at least to me).

What is the definition of a Police State again?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 05/23/2011 08:23 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Underwire and TSA scanner can not be a good combo.
Posted by: Water Modem || 05/23/2011 9:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Apparently it's not true.
Posted by: Steve White || 05/23/2011 9:29 Comments || Top||

#3  What is the definition of a Police State again?

It started with the whole "War on Drugs" which is now morphed with the "War on Terror". The two combined guarantee we live in a police state and the loss of our freedoms are for our own good.

Hello police state, hello nanny state.
Posted by: DarthVader || 05/23/2011 10:14 Comments || Top||

#4  Who needs the old Japanese internment camps when they turn the whole country into one? We're all guilty and have to prove our innocence. Just observe our Homeland Security in action.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/23/2011 10:41 Comments || Top||

#5  Carrie White was unavailable for comment.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 05/23/2011 10:55 Comments || Top||

#6  Better add War on Poverty to that list. Forced Health Insurance, NLRB, taxes increased by amount to pay for social programs, nationalization of charity, grant monies used as leverage or government evangelicalism, so forth.

But don't worry. If you and your family get taxed and regulated into the lower class Auntie Sugar will be there to give you food stamps and gov housing.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 05/23/2011 20:38 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Seminary teacher held for 'assaulting' child
[Dawn] Police jugged a seminary teacher in Kakshal area on the charges of sexually assaulting his three-year-old pupil late on Friday.

An official of the Yakatoot cop shoppe told this correspondent on Saturday that the teacher identified as Qari Mohammad Zaman of Orakzai Agency
... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers...
was jugged on the complaint of one Shahbaz Khan, father of the child, and an FIR had been registered against him under Section 377/12 of Pakistain Penal Code.

"On his return from the seminary to home my son was crying in pain. He could not fully express his feelings, but disclosed that the teacher had subjected him to sexual assault," the official quoted the complainant as saying.

The official said that the accused had been taken to a hospital for obtaining his medico-legal report and he would probably be produced in a special court on Sunday (today) to get his custody for further investigations.

Initially, the official claimed, the accused had confessed to his crime and said that he had married a year ago and presently residing at the seminary at Kakshal in Qureshabad locality of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar.

The medico-legal report, he said, could be obtained till Monday. Mr Shahbaz said that he works as carpenter and wanted his child to learn Koran, but he did not know that the Qari (teacher) would hurt his confidence.

"As the child was screaming in pain I took him to a local doctor, who also confirmed that he had been sexually abused," he said and demanded exemplary punishment to the accused.

The police official confided to this correspondent that two other people sitting with the teacher at the seminary had also been jugged, but they were later released.

The official said that caretaker of the seminary had avoided contacting police, however a few friends of the accused visited and cursed him in the lockup.

The local people, he said, had also demanded harsh punishment to the accused.
Posted by: Fred || 05/23/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Culture Wars
Supreme Court orders California to release tens of thousands of prison inmates
The Supreme Court ordered California on Monday to release tens of thousands of its prisoners to relieve overcrowding, saying that "needless suffering and death" had resulted from putting too many inmates into facilities that cannot hold them in decent conditions.

It is one of the largest prison release orders in the nation's history, and it sharply split the high court.
Justices upheld an order from a three-judge panel in California that called for releasing 38,000 to 46,000 prisoners. Since then, the state has transferred about 9,000 state inmates to county jails. As a result, the total prison population is now about 32,000 more than the capacity limit set by the panel.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, speaking for the majority, said California's prisons had "fallen short of minimum constitutional requirements" because of overcrowding. As many as 200 prisoners may live in gymnasium, he said, and as many as 54 prisoners share a single toilet.

Kennedy insisted that the state had no choice but to release more prisoners. The justices, however, agreed that California officials should be given more time to make the needed reductions.

In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia called the ruling "staggering" and "absurd."

He said the high court had repeatedly overruled the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for ordering the release of individual prisoners. Now, he said, the majority were ordering the release of "46,000 happy-go-lucky felons." He added that "terrible things are sure to happen as a consequence of this outrageous order." Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with him.
Posted by: tipper || 05/23/2011 13:18 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "It's the economy stupid". What are these people going to do to earn a living. With a record not much. The only option many will have is crime. Recidivism rates for worst offenders I believe is 70%. So they will release the least likely to repeat offenses. Where?, I wouldn't want to live near a prison right now. I wonder how's that rehab been going. They should have been put to work from the start. That way earnings could offset costs to warehouse. Then a skill could have been learned and transferred to whatever(oh I forgot that will take jobs away from illegals).
Government employment incentives for employers, Gad not more government or state jobs!. Then register them as democrats that would pass I'm certain.
Posted by: Dale || 05/23/2011 13:49 Comments || Top||

#2  California could quickly, easily and cheaply put all overflow prisoners in Joe Arpaio style tent jails.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 05/23/2011 15:21 Comments || Top||

#3  CA seems headed for a societal "Perfect Storm"
Posted by: Mercutio || 05/23/2011 15:42 Comments || Top||

#4  I'll bet a few thousand are dime-store mooks swept up for pot possession in the War on Drugs. Let them out first and see how crowded the prisons are after that.
Posted by: Steve White || 05/23/2011 16:03 Comments || Top||

#5  Review the records for the most dangerous, incorrigible, and the greatest threat to society. Then execute them to make room for the bottom feeders, since that was how they handled it not that long ago and avoided prison overpopulation. In fact prisons were a humane alternative to the standard practice of executions.

Of course now the executions will occur in our streets, our businesses, our neighborhoods care of the ruling judicial class, without any due process or appeal.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/23/2011 16:06 Comments || Top||

#6  Review the records for the most dangerous, incorrigible, and the greatest threat to society.

Won't happen - those people are members of the Legislatures (Assemblymen in CA?), the Governor(s), and Advocate Judges (including Federal and the 9th Circus).
Posted by: CrazyFool || 05/23/2011 16:30 Comments || Top||

#7  California could quickly, easily and cheaply put all overflow prisoners in Joe Arpaio style tent jails.

Yeah, but Moonbeam wants an excuse to raise taxes.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 05/23/2011 17:57 Comments || Top||

#8  I'd prefer we keep the "needless suffering and death" inside the walls rather than put it back out on the street.
Posted by: tu3031 || 05/23/2011 18:06 Comments || Top||

#9  i agree with steve, let the ppl charged with possesion of drugs under a certain amount out and see just how many that is. Not too mention parole violators who may have violated ona technicality or simple imfraction that violated them. Do some of you ppl really think that everyone in prison or jail are the monsters that the goverment has you believe they are? Of course the6y are gonna make you think that because they are the ones who put them there when they couldn't pay the fines or wouldn't pay them. Come too GA where probably over 50% of the ppl have been or are currently on probation including me. Yeah that's right a criminal on rantburg!
Posted by: chris || 05/23/2011 18:46 Comments || Top||

#10  I think it's a great idea.

Bus the "tens of thousands of prisoners" to the neighborhoods where the judges live and let them go THERE. At 9 p.m.

Pass the popcorn.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 05/23/2011 19:10 Comments || Top||

#11  Following the example of Sarpoza prison in Kandahar. The unltimate "inside job." Nicely done.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/23/2011 19:13 Comments || Top||

#12  several simple steps to ease over crowding:

1) Execute all those on death row.
2) Put all murders in one prison and pass out knives.
3) release all non-violent NON-American criminals back to country of origin; but at furthest point from US
4) release enough non-violent women prisoners to close an entire prison
Posted by: airandee || 05/23/2011 19:18 Comments || Top||

#13  why realease non viloent women instead of men? Women do as much shit now as men do but get a leaner sentence because they are women. What happened too we are equal?
Posted by: chris || 05/23/2011 20:09 Comments || Top||

#14  Women have a much lower Recividism rate than men. 50% versus 65% for men.
Posted by: Airandee || 05/23/2011 21:23 Comments || Top||

#15  Women have a much lower Recividism rate than men. 50% versus 65% for men.
Posted by: Airandee || 05/23/2011 21:23 Comments || Top||

#16  Women do get allot of chances so those who are locket up tend to be real baddies. Airandee I didn't know that figure on women. Something has got to give. I still think work programs would help in transition. Being productive perhaps even sending money home or repaying damages on a sliding scale.
Those in isolation or high security got there for a reason and may never see freedom.
Posted by: Dale || 05/23/2011 22:30 Comments || Top||

#17  The answer to this problem is very simple. It can be summed up in two words.


"Organ banks"
Posted by: Silentbrick - Lost Drill Bit Division - Halliburton || 05/23/2011 23:39 Comments || Top||



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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.
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Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2011-05-23
  Taliban sez Blinky not dead
Sun 2011-05-22
  Militants attack Karachi naval air base
Sat 2011-05-21
  Over thirty killed in Syria, tanks in front of every mosque
Fri 2011-05-20
  NATO sez sinks eight Libyan warships in.... NO SAILING ZONE
Thu 2011-05-19
  Afghan company: Militants kill at least 35 workers
Wed 2011-05-18
  Over 70 militants attack Pakistani security post, 17 dead
Tue 2011-05-17
  Frontier Shootout between Pak Army & NATO Helicopter
Mon 2011-05-16
  29 Murdered In Northern Guatemala, Most Decapitated
Sun 2011-05-15
  Pakistan's parliament condemns US bin Laden raid
Sat 2011-05-14
  US charges six with aiding Pakistani Taliban
Fri 2011-05-13
  Dronezap kills several in Pakistan
Thu 2011-05-12
  ISI Confirms Mullah Omar in Pakistain
Wed 2011-05-11
  Qadaffy forces tossed from Misrata. Again.
Tue 2011-05-10
  U.N. Team Blocked from Syria's Daraa as Regime Arrests 'Thousands' in Banias
Mon 2011-05-09
  Syrian troops, tanks enter Homs, Tafas


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