Must be "Ancient Weapons in the News" week...
A few weeks late for Valentine's Day, a Burnsville man faces charges he tried to impress a female companion by "playing Rambo" and shooting arrows at neighboring residences in his townhome complex with a powerful bow. Here. Hold Rambo's beer, baby!
On Saturday, Burnsville police found arrows in the siding of more than one townhome along River Woods Lane, according to charges. Another arrow had gone through a patio door, shattering the glass. Ha! I hit the building! I can't be that shitfaced!
Neighbors quickly pointed police to the likely Cupid. Rambo? Up in 3B.
Okay, thanks...
A criminal complaint filed against Kyle Kenneth Fletcher, 30, by the Dakota County Attorney's office alleges that he appeared "extremely intoxicated" when questioned by police, as did his female friend. I knew it!
"She told officers that she and Fletcher had been drinking all night and that Fletcher grabbed his bow and arrow and walked out onto the deck," reads the complaint. "She said she thought Fletcher wanted to 'play Rambo.' " Ooooooh, baby! Ya makin me sooooo hot!
Questioned by police, Fletcher initially denied being the culprit, although police found arrows on his floor and a compound bow on his deck, according to charges. Those yours?
I been framed! You planted them there, ya lousy bastid cops!
He later "admitted that he did so for '(expletive) and giggles.'" ...and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Can I go now?
A compound bow uses pulleys and cables to bend the bow limbs, storing energy before releasing each arrow. From the way the arrows were embedded in the siding, the complaint states "it was obvious that had one of the arrows come into contact with a person, it could have caused serious bodily injury or death." Fletcher was charged Wednesday with first-degree criminal damage to property, a felony. Will ya wait for me, baby?!
Note to self: Do NOT intervene in a sword fight...
A Northwestside fight involving a sword early this morning left three people stabbed, one of them dead and one under arrest for attempted murder.
Christopher O. Rondeau, 39, is being held on preliminary murder charges at the medical holding facility at Wishard Memorial Hospital. He was arrested by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department after a fight at 5259 N. Raceway Rd. Rondeau was in stable condition.
The fight was reported about 1 a.m. today. Rondeau and Adolf Stegbauer, 69, both of Indianapolis, were "actively involved in a sword fight," IMPD spokesman Sgt. Matt Mount said in a statement. One man used what police described as a World War II Japanese officer's sword and another had a thin blade sword, although investigators were not immediately certain which weapon was used by which man. En garde, gramps!
I'll show you, young punk!
Preliminary reports from police said that Franziska Stegbauer, 77, Indianapolis, tried to break up the fight and was fatally stabbed. Police found all three victims inside the residence on Raceway Road when they arrived early this morning. I wonder how many empties they found?
An autopsy performed today has determined that a stab wound from a sword was the cause of death. "Brilliant deduction, Quincy! How do you do it?"
Adolf Stegbauer was taken to surgery at Wishard, and was reported in serious condition this afternoon. Police said Rondeau was Franziska Stegbauer's grandson. Police do not know how the fight started or who stabbed Stegbauer, Mount said. It's a mystery, Muldoon. A mystery...
A Metairie resident is recovering after a stranger bit a chunk of flesh out of his arm and swallowed it Saturday afternoon.
Joseph Lancellotti, 67, told authorities he did not know the suspect, later identified as Mario Vargas, 48, or why he was attacked in his front yard.
Lancellotti was gardening at his home in the 4400 block of Kawanee Avenue about 2 p.m. when he noticed a man walking toward his house, shouting angrily, the report said. Lancellotti said he couldn't understand the man because he was yelling in Spanish. But when the man got within two feet, he slugged Lancellotti in the head, the report said.
Lancellotti said he tried to defend himself with a garden rake. As the men struggled over the rake, the stranger bent over and bit Lancellotti on his right forearm, the report said. Lancellotti's flesh ripped away as he fell to the ground. The man then got on top of Lancellotti and began choking him, the report said.
It was then that neighbor Chantal Lorio, a podiatrist and director of the Wound Center at East Jefferson General Hospital, came out to check on Lancellotti. Lorio said Monday that she first thought Lancellotti was having a heart attack and the other man was trying to help him.
The stranger was still gripping Lancellotti as Lorio noticed her neighbor was lying in a pool of blood. She didn't learn what happened until she began dressing the wound -- with the stranger still clutching her neighbor's shirt.
"He said, 'He bit my arm, chewed the flesh and swallowed it in front of me, ' " Lorio recalled. She said the bite measured almost 3 by 1 1/2 inches, and was less than 1/4-inch deep.
The pair tried to calm the stranger, who never made any attempt to run away. He eventually let go of Lancellotti and walked two blocks to a parking lot, where he hovered near an empty police car, the report said. The suspect was still standing there when deputies arrived and took him into custody.
Vargas, of 724 Camp St., New Orleans, was booked with second-degree battery. He was being held Monday at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna in lieu of $25,000 bail.
Lancellotti's wife, Bonnie, 60, said Monday that her husband was recovering from the bite, physically and mentally. She said his sense of safety in his neighborhood has been shaken.
With all the bacteria involved, Lorio said a bite from a human is worse than an animal bite.
Bonnie Lancellotti also has concerns about the suspect, who apparently had been treated at East Jefferson General Hospital earlier in the day for a finger injury. Vargas was released 45 minutes before the attack, according to the incident report.
Bonnie Lancellotti wondered whether hospital staff noticed anything amiss while treating Vargas. "This person's clearly lost his sense, " she said. "I mean, what else can you say, eating people's skin?"
Keith Darcey, spokesman for the hospital, said, "We cannot comment on any individual patient because of privacy laws. But as a matter of general hospital policy, the emergency department has behavioral health nurses available to help diagnose patients who might require mental health assistance." Be sure to check out the readers comments.
#1
Maybe just lock'em up one at a time with Luttrell in a CONEX box for about 10-15 minutes for some wall-to-wall counceling from that SEAL. I suspect they'd get the cure. Just a thought.
#3
I was thinking about this guy last night, I hope the SEALS are organizing a non-lethal harrassment campaign against this guy. Every piece of glass of every car he ever owns ends up shattered, inexplicably, in the dark of night; the power inexplicably goes out wherever he sleeps; his outgoing mail just inexplicably disappears. That sort of thing can really have an effect on people, he might be tempted to turn that gun he's so eager to use on himself.
#4
I'm confused--according to MSNBC's story, Luttrell chased these guys down and 3 of them were arrested on the spot (well, actually about 100 miles from the spot where they shot his dog). Wonder where this apparently fourth idiot figures in?
Posted by: Dar ||
04/09/2009 15:18 Comments ||
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#5
HUNTSVILLE, Texas A highly decorated Navy SEAL who found his beloved yellow Labrador retriever shot dead outside his home helped capture the alleged gunmen following a high-speed chase through three counties.
Marcus Luttrell stayed on the line with a 911 operator April 1 as he tried to catch the fleeing suspects during the 40-mile chase that reached speeds of over 100 mph.
I told them, You need to get somebody out here because if I catch them Im going to kill them, Luttrell said he told the operator, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Police stopped the suspects and charged two men with cruelty to a non-livestock animal. The driver of the vehicle was cited for not having a license.
There are at least five area dog killings in recent months that could be linked to the case, said Texas Ranger Steven Jeter.
Luttrell was awarded the Navy Cross for combat heroism in 2006. He is the lone SEAL team member to survive a June 2005 firefight with the Taliban in Afghanistan and was given a dog to help him heal after he returned from the war.
When I saw she was dead, the only thing that popped into my head was, Ive got to take these guys out, Luttrell said.
#8
No, BP, we are lucky that the cops got them first. I would hate to see the headlines about a Navy Cross winner who was arrested for assault and possibly manslaughter.
Of course, if I were on the jury, not only would Mr Luttrell be acquitted, I would recommend that he be given another medal. Just call it jury nullification.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/09/2009 19:51 Comments ||
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MISSOULA, Mont. Actor R. Lee Ermey is living up to the Marine Corps' mantra: "A Few Good Men."
The former Marine drill instructor and host of The History Channel's "Mail Call" was in Missoula on Monday to film a segment for his upcoming series, "Locked and Loaded," when he said he found some cash. A lot of cash.
Ermey, best known for playing the drill instructor in Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket," said he was driving with crew member Harlan Glenn to a museum when he spotted a black object on the road. Ermey stopped the car and picked up the bag, which contained cash and checks that looked like they were meant for deposit in a Native American fund.
"Just on one deposit slip alone was, like, $3,700, and another one for $2,800," Glenn said. "There was easily $8,000 in cash and the rest in checks."
Ermey told the Missoulian newspaper he thought: "Some poor guy right now is probably getting fired, probably having the worst day of his life. So what we did was we went right down to the Wells Fargo bank and deposited it for him."
Don Luke, a business expert at the Wells Fargo branch, said he was surprised to see "The Gunny" stroll in. "We weren't sure if it wasn't 'Candid Camera,'" Luke said.
This one's for you, Fred.
Ruth "Alouette LeBlanc" Corwin, often called "America's Greatest Tassel Dancer," died recently. Ms. LeBlanc had one of the longest-running burlesque acts on Bourbon Street in the heyday of the entertainment form.
Long before stripper poles cropped up on every corner, Bourbon Street in the 1940s and '50s was a swanky place. Men in dinner jackets and neckties and women in party dresses and white gloves would fill the smoky dens of the 500 Club, the Sho-Bar, the Casino Royale and the Poodle's Patio. Beauties with exotic names -- Wild Cherry, Lilly Christine the Cat Girl, Evangeline the Oyster Girl, Alouette LeBlanc the Tassel Twirler -- several of whom now post on Rantburg
would lure in customers with elaborate acts, popping out of oyster shells or spinning pistols. The shows often included contortionists, magicians and acrobats, all backed up by live jazz bands.
"She could do things with a tassel like no one else could," former club owner Frank Caracci recalled admiringly of Ms. LeBlanc, his star stripper. The reporter inexplicably fails to provide details at this critical juncture.
Burlesque eventually went the way of vaudeville and the brontosaurus, being replaced on Bourbon Street by the T-shirt and eggroll dispensers. There are a few faded holdouts, but the glory days are gone. There probably will be no more stories like the one about the resourceful transvestite revue in which the drag queens went out on strike one night and were replaced by real females -- who nevertheless were represented to the customers as female impersonators. I'm sure there's a joke about the Obama administration in there somewhere.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/09/2009 11:28 ||
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#1
"In a 1991 Times-Picayune story "Recalling the flavor of old Bourbon," ......
#2
There probably will be no more stories like the one about the resourceful transvestite revue in which the drag queens went out on strike one night and were replaced by real females -- who nevertheless were represented to the customers as female impersonators.
Why do I suspect the next sentence would be "Hilarity ensues."?
Posted by: Mike ||
04/09/2009 16:27 Comments ||
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If you think you're getting a lot of spam these days, well, that's because you are. In Microsoft's latest biannual report on the state of computer security, the company says that in the second half of 2008, a full 97.3 percent of email traffic was unwanted spam (or malicious email like phishing attacks and outright viruses). Surprisingly though, that's down a bit from the first half of last year, when total spam volume reached a whopping 98.4 percent of all email sent.
The latest report (which covers security through the end of 2008, so Conficker isn't part of the package) is available for download here. (Be warned: The full report is 184 pages long. Consider checking out the smaller highlight report instead.)
The good news: Spam filters are getting better than ever. Microsoft's filter system for Exchange now scrubs out 39 out of every 40 emails sent. Spam also saw that slight decline thanks to the shut down last year of the ISP McColo, a major haven for spammers who suddenly had to go shopping elsewhere.
What are we being spammed about? Pharmacy and other product ads make up the lion's share of spam, accounting for 72.2 percent of all spam sent. Only 10 percent of the total spam share now involves sexually-oriented pharmaceuticals; that's a huge decline from previous studies, as apparently Viagra and Cialis are no longer that hard to come by.
Image-only spam, dating come-ons, financial spam, and fraudulent diplomas round out the remainder of the most common spam subjects.
Alternate statistics show the total spam level at lower -- one source pegs it at a mere 81 percent of mail traffic (a figure which seems awfully low) -- and also notes that even with the taking down of McColo and other spammer ISPs, spam traffic will inevitably rise again to "normal" levels.
In the related world of malware infections, the Microsoft report noted that worldwide, 8.6 machines were suffering from malware for every 1,000 which were clean. That sounds pretty good, but it still translates to about 9 million computers worldwide suffering from malware attacks.
What do you need to watch out for today, attack-wise? The most common attacks at the moment target Microsoft Office and PDF files, and those types of attacks are further on the rise.
The Obama administration is pushing to protect Antarctica's fragile environment by imposing mandatory limits on the size of cruise ships sailing there and the number of passengers they bring ashore.
This is the most pressing issue at the State Department?
At a conference set to begin today in Baltimore, US diplomats will propose amending the 50-year-old Antarctic Treaty. The move would seek to mandate, under international law, the current voluntary restrictions on tourism.
A US document provided to the Associated Press by the State Department says the plan would "minimize the likelihood of marine oil spills" in the Antarctic and "ensure that tourism is conducted in a safe and environmentally responsible manner."
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was to kick off the conference in Washington today by hosting the first joint meeting of Antarctic Treaty signatories and the Arctic Council, which covers the northern polar region. More than 400 officials and observers are expected to attend from the Baltimore meeting, which runs to April 17.
The Baltimore meeting will mark the 50th anniversary of the pact's signing. Many consider it the first modern international arms control treaty because it says Antarctica cannot be used for military purposes and freezes sovereignty claims on its territory.
The treaty says Antarctica can be used only for peaceful purposes and guarantees freedom for scientific investigations. It sets out guidelines under which the continent can be protected. There are 28 member states and 19 observer countries and organizations to the accord.
The new US proposal contains no specific enforcement mechanism or penalties for limiting tourist operations. But it would require signatories to the pact to ensure that Antarctic tour operators bar ships with more than 500 passengers from landing sites, restrict landings to one vessel at a time per site and limit passengers on shore to 100 at a time.
It would mandate a minimum of one guide for every 20 tourists while ashore, according to the documents.
Limiting tourist access to the continent has taken on urgency because of a surge in visits and recent cruise ship accidents, including two groundings in the just-finished 2008-09 season and the highly publicized sinking of a vessel in November 2007.
The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators says visits have risen from 6,700 in the 1992-93 season to 29,500 in the 2006-07 season and 45,213 in 2008-09.
Members of the association first developed the restrictions and adhere to them voluntarily. Members are backing the US proposal for the mandatory limits, which were first adopted by the Antarctic Treaty parties as recommendations in 2007.
"We follow them religiously," said the group's executive director Steve Wellmeier. He acknowledged that without mandated limits, enforcement is "an honor system to a large extent."
#1
"The Obama administration is pushing to protect Antarctica's fragile environment by imposing mandatory limits on the size of cruise ships sailing there and the number of passengers they bring ashore."
Since when does the US control Antarctica?
The new US proposal contains no specific enforcement mechanism or penalties for limiting tourist operations. But it would require signatories to the pact to ensure that Antarctic tour operators bar ships with more than 500 passengers from landing sites, restrict landings to one vessel at a time per site and limit passengers on shore to 100 at a time.
WHAT!!!??? So I can have 1000 "sites" with 10 ships having 500 passengers each lined up ... with 100 ashore at a time at each of the 1000 sites ... how the hell does that "limit" anything?
This is going to get into parsing exactly what a "site" is and how far one "site" has to be from another "site" to be considered a different "site".
#5
Maybe they can get the Sea Shepherds to enforce this. They can throw the smelly acid on the tourists and foul the props of the cruise ships.
Attention Pacific Princess, you are in violation of the sacred Antarctic Treaty, specifically the Obama amendment
Posted by: john frum ||
04/09/2009 9:54 Comments ||
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#6
Heh. Maybe Cuba will start offering cruises to Antarctica, complete with child prostitutes and drugs. Just make sure that when you get to the South Pole you don't get your passport stamped.
CAIRO - An Egyptian man beat his 17-year-old daughter to death after she received a phone call from her boyfriend, a police official told AFP on Wednesday. The 45-year-old farmer identified as Mursi A. from the Nile Delta province of Kafr el-Sheikh, caught his daughter Nur talking to her boyfriend on the phone and beat her with a large stick before electrocuting her, the official said.
Relations between unmarried men and women are deemed improper in Egyptian conservative society, particularly in rural areas.
The police were alerted to the crime after the girls body was taken to a nearby hospital, the official said, adding that Mursi was later arrested.
Last May, a farmer from the conservative south of Egypt decapitated his daughter after discovering she had a boyfriend.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/09/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Relations between unmarried men and women are deemed improper in Egyptian conservative society, particularly in rural areas.
Sounds like prime fodder for yet another hilarious SNL skit dissing hick conservatives.
Update...
AFP - A fugitive French foreign legionnaire who killed four people in Chad and triggered an international military manhunt, was captured Thursday by Chadian security forces, officials said.
"The soldier was apprehended by Chadian gendarmes about 10 kilometres (six miles) out from Abeche as he was trying to get water from a well," the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
In Paris, a spokesman for the French army chief of staff's office confirmed the arrest and said French military authorities had identified him, but added that he was still being held in Chadian custody. "We confirm that he was arrested in the late morning by Chadian gendarmes in the Abeche region," said Lieutenant Colonel Francois-Marie Gougeon. "He was found exhausted a few kilometres east of Abeche and was given food and water."
Helicopters and troops from European Union and United Nations peacekeeping missions, as well as local police, had been hunting the man since he killed two fellow legionnaires, of Ghanaian and Romanian origin. Before making his escape from the peacekeeping base he killed a Togolese soldier on UN duty, then a Chadian farmer, whose horse he stole.
A French military source warned on Wednesday the man was "dangerous because he is armed and he has a psychological problem," adding that the soldier had been trained in survival techniques for hostile environments.
The killings took place inside a military camp, and the runaway -- who is of French Guyanan origin -- took flight across semi-desert terrain between Abeche and Guereda in north-eastern Chad, towards the border with Sudan.
The Sino-Vietnamese War: A Scar on the Tropic of Cancer
At midnight on February 2, 1979, twenty-two-year-old Zhao Yonggang and his unit received orders to sneak across the Red River from Hekou in rubber rafts and enter Hoang Lien Son Province (now Lao Cai and Yen Bai Provinces).
Zhao's mind was a blank, as if he were dreaming. When he had joined the army two years before, he never imagined that he would go off to war. For him, the army was just a springboard he could use to find work in a factory later on.
But suddenly in the second half of 1978, senior officers of the military region began conducting frequent inspections, and after one such inspection, an officer left them with these words: "I hope that you can do great things for the people." Zhao could sense that "great things" meant that they'd be going to war.
At the end of the year, the order for war against Vietnam was handed down. Soldiers were informed that China and Vietnam were no longer comrades or brothers. Vietnam was an ungrateful country that had become anti-Chinese, invaded Kampuchea, and turned its guns northward to harass the homeland's southern border.
As Zhao was crossing the river, twenty-year-old Nguyen Van Qui, an enlisted soldier in the Vietnamese army stationed in Lao Cai, was still fast asleep. Qui had entered the army in the same year as Zhao. He had not tested into college after high school graduation and, in line with state regulations, had enlisted for a three-year stint in the People's Army.
Qui's high school years had been at a time when friendship was promoted between China and Vietnam. He studied three years of Chinese, the only foreign language taught in Vietnamese high schools at the time. At school, he learned that China had given Vietnam large quantities of generous aid, and he never heard words critical of China.
After he graduated, he noticed that many schools were replacing Chinese with Russian, a change that made him uneasy. Qui was originally set to go to Kampuchea after training, but he ended up staying in Lao Cai.
By 2 am, Zhao and his unit had made a successful crossing and had come upon a Vietnamese army base. He heard a shouted command, and they picked up their guns and fired. Before long, Zhao heard gunfire start up in other areas.
Most of the Vietnamese troops ahead of Zhao were watching Soviet movies inside a tile factory behind the camp and were entirely unprepared for the outbreak of fighting. After easily taking the camp, Zhao discovered that the heavy artillery and anti-personnel machine guns had not even been used, and the traps in outside the base did not even have bamboo spikes installed.
Two hours later, the main assault was launched from Hekou, and troops surged across the Red River. A signal corps operator named Xie Ming (谢明) saw wave after wave of soldiers climbing into rubber rafts around him, shouting "Comrades, to protect the territory of the motherland, charge!" as they pressed on toward the other side. The Vietnamese troops on the opposite bank sent a hail of gunfire in the direction of the shouts.
About an hour later, Chinese artillery troops began to push back the Vietnamese army. Explosions flashed red against the night sky. The Chinese army finally captured the river bank.
By morning, after Xie Ming had crossed over a river stained red by the blood of Chinese soldiers, he discovered that his company had lost quite a number of soldiers. Their spots were quickly filled by unfamiliar faces.
Nguyen Van Qui was just about to get out of bed when he was startled by the earthshaking sound of gunfire from the main Chinese force. Qui and his unit had long been anxious that China might invade on any given day. From that day forward, Qui was aware of nothing besides Chinese bombs and the unceasing advance of the Chinese forces. Qui's fought a retreating battle. Quite long and detailed - click through to read the whole thing.
The Pentagon sponsored a first-of-its-kind war game last month focused not on bullets and bombs but on how hostile nations might seek to cripple the U.S. economy, a scenario made all the more real by the global financial crisis.
The two-day event near Ft. Meade, Maryland, had all the earmarks of a regular war game. Participants sat along a V-shaped set of desks beneath an enormous wall of video monitors displaying economic data, according to the accounts of three participants.
It felt a little bit like Dr. Strangelove, one person who was at the previously undisclosed exercise told POLITICO.
But instead of military brass plotting Americas defense, it was hedge-fund managers, professors and executives from at least one investment bank, UBS all invited by the Pentagon to play out global scenarios that could shift the balance of power between the worlds leading economies.
Their efforts were carefully observed and recorded by uniformed military officers and members of the U.S. intelligence community.
In the end, there was sobering news for the United States the savviest economic warrior proved to be China, a growing economic power that strengthened its position the most over the course of the war-game.
The United States remained the worlds largest economy but significantly degraded its standing in a series of financial skirmishes with Russia, participants said.
The war game demonstrated that in post-Sept. 11 world, the Pentagon is thinking about a wide range of threats to Americas position in the world, including some that could come far from the battlefield.
And its hardly science fiction. China recently shook the value of the dollar in global currency markets merely by questioning whether the recession put Chinas $1 trillion in U.S. government bond holdings at risk forcing President Barack Obama to issue a hasty defense of the dollar.
This was an example of the changing nature of conflict, said Paul Bracken, a professor and expert in private equity at the Yale School of Management who attended the sessions. The purpose of the game is not really to predict the future, but to discover the issues you need to be thinking about.
Several participants said the event had been in the planning stages well before the stock market crash of September, but the real-world market calamity was on the minds of many in the room. It loomed large over what everybody was doing, said Bracken.
Why would the military care about global capital flows at all? asked another person who was there. Because as the global financial crisis plays out, there could be real world consequences, including failed states. Weve already seen riots in the United Kingdom and the Balkans.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense hosted the two-day event March 17 and 18 at the Warfare Analysis Laboratory in Laurel, MD. That facility, run by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, typically hosts military officials planning intricate combat scenarios.
A spokesperson for the Applied Physics Laboratory confirmed the event, and said it was the first purely economic war game the facility has hosted. All three participants said they had been told it was the first time the Pentagon hosted a purely economic war game. A Pentagon spokesman would say only that he was not aware of the exercise.
The event was unclassified but has not been made public before. It is regarded as so sensitive that several people who participated declined to discuss the details with POLITICO. Said Steven Halliwell, managing director of a hedge fund called River Capital Management, Im not prepared to talk about this. Im sorry, but I cant talk to you.
Officials at UBS also declined to comment.
Participants described the event as a series of simulated global calamities, including the collapse of North Korea, Russian manipulation of natural gasprices, and increasing tension between China and Taiwan. They wanted to see who makes loans to help out, what does each team do to get the other countries involved, and who decides to simply let the North Koreans collapse, said a participant.
There were five teams: The United States, Russia, China, East Asia and all others. They were overseen by a White Cell group that functioned as referees, who decided the impact of the moves made by each team as they struggled for economic dominance.
At the end of the two days, the Chinese team emerged as the victors of the overall game largely because the Russian and American teams had made so many moves against each other that they damaged their own standing to the benefit of the Chinese.
Bracken says he left the event with two important insights first, that the United States needs an integrated approach to managing financial and what the Pentagon calls kinetic or shooting wars. For example he says, the U.S. Navy is involved in blockading Iran, and the U.S. is also conducting economic war against Iran in the form of sanctions. But he argues there isnt enough coordination between the two efforts.
And second, Bracken says, the event left him questioning one prevailing assumption about economic warfare, that the Chinese would never dump dollars on the global market to attack the US economy because it would harm their own holdings at the same time. Bracken said the Chinese have a middle option between dumping and holding US dollars they could sell dollars in increments, ratcheting up economic uncertainty in the United States without wiping out their own savings. Theres a graduated spectrum of options here, Bracken said.
For those who hadnt been to a Pentagon event before, the sheer technological capacity of the Warfare Analysis Laboratory was impressive. It was surprisingly realistic, said a participant.
Still, the event conjures images of the ultimate Hollywood take on computer strategizing: the 1983 film War Games in which a young computer hacker nearly triggers a nuclear apocalypse.
The film and the reality had one similarity: The characters in the movie used a computer called WOPR, or War Operation Plan Response. The computer system used by the real life war-gamers? It was called WALRUS, or Warfare Analysis Laboratory Registration and User Website.
#1
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/09/2009 10:57 Comments ||
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#2
You mean like withdrawing $550 billion in an hour from US money market accounts to set off the worst banking panic in 75 years to ensure an islamofascist-friendly Marxist is elected president of the United States? Who could do this and who benefits?
Posted by: ed ||
04/09/2009 11:33 Comments ||
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Thinter: put the URL in the source box; do NOT embed in the article. AoS.
WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department is planning to delay the release of any completed bank stress test results until after the first-quarter earnings season to avoid complicating stock market reaction, a source familiar with Treasury's discussions said on Tuesday.
The Treasury is still talking about how results of the regulatory stress tests on the 19 largest U.S. banks will be released, and may disclose them as summary results that are not institution-specific, the source said.
The government is testing how the largest banks would fare under more adverse economic conditions than are expected in an attempt to assess the firms' capital needs. The tests are due to be completed by the end of April, but Treasury has said they may be finished before then.
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The United States and Switzerland will begin negotiations to adjust their income tax treaty for greater openness and accountability, the US Treasury Department said Monday.
The announcement came following Group of 20 promises earlier in April to restrict tax havens and fight tax evasion and as bilateral relations were strained by a tax fraud case against Swiss banking giant UBS.
The negotiations to change the 1996 treaty are expected to begin 28 April in Berne, Switzerland, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
"The two countries intend to revise the tax treaty so the two countries can exchange information for tax purposes to the full extent permitted by Article 26 of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)" model income tax convention, the department said.
"As called for in the G20 meeting in London, we believe that all countries must adhere to international standards for exchange (of) tax information," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said. "We welcome moves by Switzerland to implement international standards by agreeing to revise the US-Switzerland tax treaty for the exchange of information for tax purposes with the US."
Swen, Lars, Bjorn, Ingemar! Ya oughta be ashamed of yourselves!
Four young men appeared in court on Thursday charged with involvement in a series of gang rapes in Södertälje in eastern Sweden. A total of seven young men between the ages of 19 and 23 are being held in custody for the rapes.
The men are believed to belong to a network of several smaller groups who have systematically raped young women and girls in the town.
Six of them have been charged and four of them stood trial in Södertälje district court on Thursday for aggravated rape, among other charges, in one of the four cases.
The girls have said the men took turns raping them while the others held them down, newspaper Länstidningen Södertälje reports.
We have good reason to believe that several more women have been raped and we implore them to contact us, Kia Samrell, information office at the Södertälje police department, told TT.
The case began in February when a young women reported that she had been raped by four men in an apartment in Hovsjö. Due to DNA evidence and information from various witnesses, the attack was linked to three additional unsolved rape cases in Södertälje.
One of the cases involved a woman who at the beginning of February believed she was getting a ride home, but was instead taken to a camping site where she was raped by several men.
In March last year, another young women was forced into a car in Lina and raped by five men. In the fourth case, which occurred in November 2007, a 12-year-old girl was raped by three men in an attic in Ronna.
The individual suspects have not all been involved in each rape.
"The men belong to different overlapping constellations," said Samrell.
The healines to the article's "related links" :
* Security police probe Södertälje fires (26 Feb 09)
* Arson suspected after Södertälje blazes (12 Jan 09)
* Hate crimes plague Södertälje refugees (18 Nov 08)
#1
Nefarous Baptists, one and all, no doubt. The reporter didn't have to tell us. It's obvious by the MO.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
04/09/2009 16:44 Comments ||
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In the past year, Södertälje has gained international recognition for the large number of Iraqi refugees who have settled in the city, resulting in the town being dubbed Little Baghdad.
Hovsjö is known as a multiethnic neighbourhood with a high concentration of residents with non-Swedish backgrounds.
Geneva -- The streets of Geneva are normally awash with a flow of limousines serving the Swiss city's diplomatic community, private banks, foreign celebrities on tax holidays and wealthy Gulf families on a summertime break.
But now local limousine operators are feeling the pinch as the financial crisis bites and a turf war claims a big client, the Saudi royal family -- which normally mobilises limousines by the dozens if not hundreds during trips here.
"The profession in Geneva is devastated," Hassan Azed, head of a local association of limousine operators (AGELLMC), told AFP.
Memories are still redolent of late Saudi King Fahd's stay in his mansion in the plush Geneva suburb of Collonge-Bellerive in 2002, which mobilised several jumbo airliners and 300 limousines, many of them leased directly from Germany to make up for the shortfall.
But a mooted trip by 81-year-old Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, Fahd's son, in late spring is leaving a different flavour.
Geneva's limousine operators are up in arms because "foreign intermediaries" will reportedly be muscling in on local business by bringing along more than 60 cars from Germany for the Saudis, bypassing local firms.
Normally imports are only allowed once the local market is saturated, Azed claimed. "It was done by the rulebook when King Fahd came in 2002," said Azed. "In this instance we're presented with a done thing."
Everytime I hear anything about The Pope of Hope (Deacon Blue)healthcare reform, (gag) it always mentions this need of electronic records. He and Hillary both harp on this, as if it's the answer to ever ailment mankind has had, has or will had.
He's doing a flanking pattern around the end with this move.... he's moving fast. He means to. But he knows, he's moving faster than even some Demos want. He introducing every concept he "visions" early and fast. Somewhere along the line, he got the message, the folks aren't quiet ready yet for this massive healthcare thingy.
So, rather than take this "full" healthcare policy to the Congress, he does this end run, and is starting with the military... ERecords..... as he is now the biggest, bestest, most knowledgable leader we've ever had with anything concerning our military cause "Recounting the hundreds of stories he said he heard from frustrated veterans unable to receive needed treatment, Obama said: "It's time to change all that, it's time to give our veterans a 21st century VA."
President Barack Obama on Thursday said the government would create a national electronic medical records system for the military that will serve as a model for broad reform of U.S. healthcare administration.
The system, organized by the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, would follow military personnel from active duty through retirement, keeping records organized and complete.
Obama said the agencies were moving to create a system for military members "that will contain their administrative and medical information from the day they first enlist to the day that they are laid to rest."
"Currently, there is no comprehensive system in place that allows for a streamlined transition of health records between DOD and the VA," he said.
"That results in extraordinary hardship for an awful lot of veterans, who end up finding their records lost, unable to get their benefits processed in a timely fashion." This from the same man that offered to our Vets, that their "personal" insurance pay for the medical treatment needed while recovering from battlefield injuries.
Obama has stressed the use of electronic medical records and e-prescribing which lets doctors send prescriptions directly to pharmacists via computer as part of his plan to transform the U.S. healthcare system and cut costs. During the late 90's this was a concept that was driving big investor money into the development of software to do this. The software is already being used that lets the prescriptions be sent directly to the drugstore. It just hasn't as yet, been implemented. You see the results when you walk into any medical facility, from a doctor's office to hospital. All your records are there. He's talking about a combining of those records, to follow you, like your "permanent record." (Remember that from your school days?)
He said the new system would transform veteran care. Yes, and as in those days of the late nineties, lots of ethical questions, lots and lots of accountablility questions because of the system of coding everything to a strict coding method that calls for subjective thinking in some case, and just plain old human error, were all called into question. Still, the software developed.... having some involement in this, couple of times, I'm in a medical facility of some type, doc is attempting to touch his screen, type, whatever, and I ended up helping him enter his input about me, even tho I had never seen the particular software he was using.
I only bring this to the Burg, cause all those questions that arose at the beginnings of this ERecord thing still exist.... and even more, this is Obama's drive to cram this socialist healthcare. He's starting with our military.
The once-crashed attack submarine San Francisco left Puget Sound for San Diego on Tuesday morning, more than four years after an accident that killed one crewman and injured 97 of 137 sailors on board.
On Jan. 8, 2005, the ship crashed into an undersea mountain 350 miles south of Guam, crushing the nose. After crossing the Pacific Ocean on the surface it arrived at the naval complex near Kitsap, Wash., in September 2005 and went into the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility for repairs in October 2006, according to Lt. Kyle Raines, spokesman at Submarine Group 9. He said it went into dry dock in December 2006 and was returned to the water in October 2008.
The nose of the decommissioned sub Honolulu replaced the destroyed portions on San Francisco.
San Francisco was formerly homeported in Guam but will now be based in San Diego with Submarine Squadron 11, Raines said, though was not certain when the San Francisco would rejoin the fleet or be ready for deployment again. The Kitsap Sun newspaper reported that the nose replacement repairs cost $134 million. For those who forgot, this is what happens when you hit an undersea mountain...
#1
I'm curious. I know the Navy has a fair number of Los Angeles class boats in storage. Was it cheaper to repair the San Francisco than to bring one of those out?
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/09/2009 17:38 Comments ||
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#2
Yee-ouch. Good picture.
I take it the Captain "retired"....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/09/2009 17:59 Comments ||
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#3
Barbara, according to Wikipedia, he was reassigned to shore duty, and after an investigation, given a nonjudicial letter of reprimand and relieved of command. Six other crew members went to Captain's Mast and were given letters of reprimand. Also, twenty officers of men were given letters of recommendation and medals for their actions after the collision. Apparently the boat was almost lost.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/09/2009 18:10 Comments ||
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#4
The reactor was recently refueled before the collision. Refueling a sub reactor costs a few hundred million $, more than the repair.
Posted by: ed ||
04/09/2009 18:10 Comments ||
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#5
Thanks, Rambler.
I'm a little fuzzy about how they crashed into a sea mount - don't they have radar? Or doesn't it work underwater? The mount must have been awfully close to the surface (unless they were practicing deep dives).
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/09/2009 18:13 Comments ||
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#6
They were in the middle of a highspeed transit run - no sonar, they were blind.
#7
Almost immediately, attention focused on the fact that the mountain was not on the charts, and even some within the submarine community wondered whether the crew should be held responsible.
But the investigation showed that there were at least five notices to mariners, most recently in 2002, about a large patch of muddy water about three miles south of the sea mount that were not incorporated on the charts the San Francisco was using at the time, the sources said.
If the bottom had been as deep as the 1989 chart indicated, that muddy patch would not have appeared.
Even more serious than them breakdown in the chart preparation process, the sources said, were the warning signs that were not heeded, particularly the soundings taken by the ship's fathometer. Just minutes before the crash, the San Francisco came to the surface to check its location on the Global Positioning System.
The submarine is also equipped with the sophisticated Ring Laser Gyro Navigator, so it knew its position with a high degree of certainty.
Yet where the charts showed 1,000 fathoms of water, the sounding showed less than 800 fathoms still a huge safety margin below the keel, but a difference that should have caused the navigation team to recommend proceeding with caution.
In addition, the navigation team had noted for a lengthy period that the water depth was shoaling, or becoming more shallow.
The team apparently believed it was a faulty reading moving through the water at 30 mph, fathometer readings can be inaccurate and the team kept hoping that perhaps the next reading would correlate with the chart.
In retrospect, it's clear that the readings were accurate, the water was shoaling, and the San Francisco was heading for what was nearly an underwater cliff.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/09/2009 19:07 Comments ||
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#8
Uh. uh, instead of bumping into GODZILLA they're gonna make darn sure its RODAN this time!?
Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday reaffirmed the government's opposition to signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, arguing that it unfairly favors the official nuclear-weapon state, the Hindu reported.
Our position is very clear. We are totally in agreement that those who are signatories to the NPT, they must fulfill their treaty obligations. Because of this discriminatory nature, we are not signatories, but with the objectives of nonproliferation, we are with the rest of the world, Mukherjee said in New Delhi.
We are second to none in propagating nonproliferation but we did not sign the NPT and we do not have any intention of signing the NPT because we disagree with the objective. We disagree with the gross discrimination which these treaties make between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states, he added.
India developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty, as did neighboring rival Pakistan. After a decades-long freeze, New Delhi last year was allowed back into the international nuclear marketplace
Posted by: john frum ||
04/09/2009 10:33 ||
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(CNET) -- The Conficker worm is finally doing something--updating via peer-to-peer between infected computers and dropping a mystery payload on infected computers, Trend Micro said on Wednesday. This piece of computer code told the worm to activate on April 1, researchers found.
Researchers were analyzing the code of the software that is being dropped onto infected computers but suspect that it is a keystroke logger or some other program designed to steal sensitive data off the machine, said David Perry, global director of security education at Trend Micro.
The software appeared to be a .sys component hiding behind a rootkit, which is software that is designed to hide the fact that a computer has been compromised, according to Trend Micro. The software is heavily encrypted, which makes code analysis difficult, the researchers said.
The worm also tries to connect to MySpace.com, MSN.com, eBay.com, CNN.com and AOL.com as a way to test that the computer has Internet connectivity, deletes all traces of itself in the host machine, and is set to shut down on May 3, according to the TrendLabs Malware Blog.
Because infected computers are receiving the new component in a staggered manner rather than all at once there should be no disruption to the Web sites the computers visit, said Paul Ferguson, advanced threats researcher for Trend Micro.
"After May 3, it shuts down and won't do any replication," Perry said. However, infected computers could still be remotely controlled to do something else, he added.
On Tuesday night Trend Micro researchers noticed a new file in the Windows Temp folder and a huge encrypted TCP response from a known Conficker P2P IP node hosted in Korea.
"As expected, the P2P communications of the Downad/Conficker botnet may have just been used to serve an update, and not via HTTP," the blog post says. "The Conficker/Downad P2P communications is now running in full swing!"
In addition to adding the new propagation functionality, Conficker communicates with servers that are associated with the Waledac family of malware and its Storm botnet, according to a separate blog post by Trend Micro security researcher Rik Ferguson.
The worm tries to access a known Waledac domain and download another encrypted file, the researchers said.
Conficker.C failed to make a splash a week ago despite the fact that it was programmed to activate on April 1. It has infected between 3 million and 12 million computers, according to Perry.
Initially, researchers thought they were seeing a new variant of the Conficker worm, but now they believe it is merely a new component of the worm.
The worm spreads via a hole in Windows that Microsoft patched in October, as well as through removable storage devices and network shares with weak passwords.
The worm disables security software and blocks access to security Web sites.
#3
The worm also tries to connect to MySpace.com, MSN.com, eBay.com, CNN.com and AOL.com as a way to test that the computer has Internet connectivity, deletes all traces of itself in the host machine, and is set to shut down on May 3, according to the TrendLabs Malware Blog.
Wow.
Didn't even check for a gateway or nuthin'.
Just started a-pingin' away at known URLs...
Not even checking the output of telnet queries which would not have left much of a footprint.
Impressive check criteria for Internet connectivity.
It's no wonder this "worm" didn't make much of a splash.
April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Indonesia, the worlds third-largest democracy, votes for a new parliament today with pre-election surveys showing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyonos Democrat party likely to win the highest percentage of seats. More than 171 million voters have five hours to cast their ballots to elect legislators at the national and regional levels in polling stations spread across the worlds largest archipelago. Polls opened at 7 a.m. local time and close at noon.
This nation doesnt want to lose momentum in developing its democracy, said Josef Krisnadi, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta. The preparations werent perfect, but itll still be a legitimate election.
This is the third election since the fall of former President Suharto, who was forced out of office in 1998 after ruling the country for 32 years. All 560 seats in the more- important lower house of parliament are up for grabs in todays election, as well as 132 seats in the upper house. Thirty-eight parties are fielding more than 11,000 candidates.
Yudhoyonos Democrat party was favored by 26.6 percent of respondents in an April poll taken by the Indonesian Survey Institute. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, led by former President Megawati Soekarnoputri, was second in the survey with 14.5 percent, while Vice President Jusuf Kallas Golkar party was chosen by 13.7 percent.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/09/2009 00:00 ||
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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.
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.
If you think you're getting a lot of spam these days, well, that's because you are. In Microsoft's latest biannual report on the state of computer security, the company says that in the second half of 2008, a full 97.3 percent of email traffic was unwanted spam (or malicious email like phishing attacks and outright viruses). Surprisingly though, that's down a bit from the first half of last year, when total spam volume reached a whopping 98.4 percent of all email sent. 
The Obama administration is pushing to protect Antarctica's fragile environment by imposing mandatory limits on the size of cruise ships sailing there and the number of passengers they bring ashore.
CAIRO - An Egyptian man beat his 17-year-old daughter to death after she received a phone call from her boyfriend, a police official told AFP on Wednesday. The 45-year-old farmer identified as Mursi A. from the Nile Delta province of Kafr el-Sheikh, caught his daughter Nur talking to her boyfriend on the phone and beat her with a large stick before electrocuting her, the official said.
The United States and Switzerland will begin negotiations to adjust their income tax treaty for greater openness and accountability, the US Treasury Department said Monday.
(CNET) -- The Conficker worm is finally doing something--updating via peer-to-peer between infected computers and dropping a mystery payload on infected computers, Trend Micro said on Wednesday. This piece of computer code told the worm to activate on April 1, researchers found.
