A scantily clad, 32-year-old man was found dead early Monday in a pool of blood in an owl cage at the Moscow Zoo. A bird keeper at the zoo found the man, Alexander Luparev at about 10 a.m., lying in the cage, which is home to a Siberina long-tailed tawny owl. Luparev, who fixed gas pipes for a living, was wearing only boxer shorts.
I really don't want to know
Vladimir Zdorenko, deputy prosecutor at the Presnenskaya interdistrict prosecutor's office, said it was not clear what killed the man --‑blood loss from a blow to the head, or freezing to death.
Luparev's clothes were strewn across the concrete base of the cage. Also found were his documents, an undisclosed amount of money, and a half-empty, one-liter bottle of vodka.
CSI Moscow is on the case. Right after they finish the vodka
Sometime after midnight, Luparev climbed the gates of the staff entrance of the zoo, which is on Krasnaya Presnya Ulitsa, opposite the Krasnopresnenskaya metro station, prosecutors believe. Luparev is believed to have been drunk.
He was Russian, of course he was drunk.
He then made his way through the zoo and entered the unlocked owl cage via an unguarded staff entrance. That part of the zoo is not open to visitors. The owl is moved to a display cage during the summer.
At this point, no one quite knows what happened. Luparev apparently hit his head on the ground -- possibly following an altercation with the owl -- and fell unconscious.
The owl, in the cage, with the vodka bottle
He is believed to have died between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. The owl, which flew out of its cage after the incident, was found perched in a tree next door to the zoo Tuesday evening.
Flew the coop, did he?
"The owl is still in a state of shock," zoo spokeswoman Natalya Istratova said Wednesday. She added that the owl was not eating or drinking and that she feared for its life.
"We asked him about Mr.Luparev, but he just keeps saying "Who?""
Istratova declined to name the bird keeper who found Luparev. "She hasn't stopped crying," she said.
She? First one to find the naked man's body, huh? In an area she has free access to, huh? Can't stop crying, huh? Hummmm...
Posted by: Steve ||
03/22/2007 08:01 ||
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A classic whoooooo-dunit mystery.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/22/2007 9:22 Comments ||
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CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - The former astronaut fired by NASA after she was charged with trying to kidnap a romantic rival will develop flight lesson plans as part of her new military assignment. Navy Capt. Lisa Nowak will work on developing curriculum and training programs when she joins the staff of the Chief of Naval Air Training Command in Corpus Christi next month, said a Navy spokesman, Lt. Sean Robertson. She was originally expected to report for work this week, but Robertson said Nowak will start her new job in April. Nowak, a mother of three, could go to trial in late July. Her arraignment was scheduled for Thursday but she is not expected to appear since her attorney already has filed a not guilty plea to the charges of attempted kidnapping, burglary with assault and battery.
#1
Navy Capt. Lisa Nowak will work on developing curriculum and training programs when she joins the staff of the Chief of Naval Air Training Command in Corpus Christi next month, said a Navy spokesman, Lt. Sean Robertson.
Course 101: "Mission Focus"
How to set all extraneous data and considerations aside and focus on the mission at hand
Advanced Preparedness Homework
Test all equipment before each mission. ie Test Run Every Brand Of Diaper Weeks Before Mission. Be sure and do 6, 12, 24, and 48 continuous hour tests. Mandatory test each brand using the same diaper for each series.
#6
Or my job is so crappy that people suffering mental breakdowns get assigned to it.
Posted by: John Frum ||
03/22/2007 6:45 Comments ||
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#7
...Well, they had to do SOMETHING with her - she was still on AD, just assigned to NASA. On top of that, she's an O6 - a full Colonel in any other branch. You can't just leave someone like that sitting home until the wheels of justice finish grinding. On the other hand, I guarantee she'll have a very quiet time of it.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/22/2007 7:11 Comments ||
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#8
"Just sign here, here and here Captain. Well, that's all for this week. Now take your pills and relax, I'll handle everything else."
"Thank you, Chief."
Posted by: Steve ||
03/22/2007 7:32 Comments ||
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#9
Hey, did all you folks hear Brittney's out of rehab?
But I'll bet the bitch is still crazy...
Posted by: Ex Astronaut Lisa Nowak ||
03/22/2007 9:30 Comments ||
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#10
can you imagine what a wacko the person Lisa is replacing?...maybe it is Charles Manson.
#11
Burried in a cubicle ding lesson plans. This is a GS 12 job at best. They will bury her there until her retirement papers are finalized and she is quietly sent home in shame. She broke a golden rule, never dishoner your nation or service.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
03/22/2007 12:12 Comments ||
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#12
According to Wikipedia.com, she graduated from Annapolis in 1985, so she has her 20 years in already. She can retire at any time.
#14
Reminds me of a line from the movie "M.A.S.H.".
"If I nail Hotlips and punch out Hawkeye can I go home too?"
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/22/2007 15:38 Comments ||
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This is known as 'being stashed'; a holding-pattern job whilst one's fate is decided. I suspect NATC would just as soon have her stay home and await retirement orders, but she's a ringknocker, and a high-ranking one at that.
#16
Despite everything, she is an exceedingly bright, high energy woman. Much better to have her doing something that makes however slight use of some of her skills (and I'll bet they'll be really good, well thought out training programs) than to let her sit home alone, brooding over the mess she's made.
KUWAIT CITY - Kuwait on Wednesday freed 472 prisoners after Emir Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah pardoned them on the occasion of the emirates national and liberation days, which fell on February 25 and 26. Liberation day on February 26 marked 16 years since a US-led multinational coalition liberated the emirate after seven months of Iraqi occupation.
The pardon, which also marked the emirs first year in power, stipulated reducing the jail terms of 1,333 other prisoners, the interior ministry said. Of those released, 300 were foreigners and the rest Kuwaiti citizens. They included 64 women, most of them expatriates.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/22/2007 00:00 ||
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Of those released, 300 were foreigners
Westerners or "foreign combatants"? This revolving door excrement is tiresome.
#2
In the case of Kuwait, probably Pak petty criminals.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2007 7:33 Comments ||
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In Kuwaiti terms, foreigners are non-citizen guest workers and long-term residents. It's hard for a non-citizen to gain Kuwaiti citizenship, no matter how long he and his family have lived there. In the US, you apply, are accepted in, wait the legally-required period, take the test, and take the oath. There, you don't even bother.
So, neither, Zenster.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
03/22/2007 7:34 Comments ||
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#4
Westerners or "foreign combatants"?
Likely imported labor from Philippines, etc. Note the 64 women are mostly "expatriates". That would be maids and such.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/22/2007 7:37 Comments ||
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#5
So, neither, Zenster.
Thank you, Eric. I just wondered if they were using the Saudi model.
'Gorgeous' George Galloway is to become a dad again at the age of 52, the Advertiser can reveal. His girlfriend, Lebanese beauty Rima Husseni, 36, is now heavily pregnant and due to give birth in May.
The Bethnal Green and Bow MP is said to be 'totally chuffed'. It will be his second child; he has one grown-up daughter, Lucy, 24, from his first marriage to Elaine Fyffe. Lucy gave birth to Mr Galloway's second grandchild last year.
Respect leader Galloway married Ms Fyffe in 1979, but their relationship ended in 1999. A year later, he wed Palestinian-born Dr Amineh Abu-Zayyad, but she filed for divorce a few days before his barnstorming General Election victory in May 2005.
Lebanese beauty Rima was working for the former Labour maverick as an assistant in Bethnal Green and Bow. Our condolences to the child.
Detectives from London's Scotland Yard are going to investigate the death of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer in a Jamaica hotel room. Two detectives from Scotland are expected to reach Jamaica before the end of this week to help in investigating the mysterious death of Woolmer, Australia's The News media group reported. Woolmer held a British passport.
Mark Shields, Jamaica's deputy commissioner of police, who has taken personal charge of the investigation into the case, is also originally from the Scotland Yard. He was a member of the City of London Police Special Branch, of Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch and of the National Criminal Intelligence Service's drug and organised crime unit. He is currently on a three-year contract with the Jamaican government.
Woolmer was found dead in his room at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel on Sunday morning a day after Pakistan's shocking loss to Ireland in a cricket World Cup Group B match, which sent the subcontinental powerhouse crashing out of cricket's showpiece event being held in the West Indies for the first time. He was found in a pool of blood with vomit and faeces in his bathroom in room 375 on the 12th floor of the hotel.
The news has shaken the cricket community across the world with speculations rife that he might have been killed.
Jamaica media quoted high ranking officials in that country as saying that fresh evidence have surfaced suggesting that Woolmer was strangled to death in his hotel room here between Saturday night and Sunday morning. "A bone in the neck, near the glands, was broken, and this suggests that somebody might have put some pressure on it," a high-ranking Jamican police official, who was not named, told the Jamaica Gleaner.
Former Pakistan fast bowler Sarfraz Nawaz has said that Woolmer might have been killed by the betting mafia after Pakistan's shock ouster.
Posted by: John Frum ||
03/22/2007 06:56 ||
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Dawood Ibrahim's hand in Woolmer's suspected murder
Lucknow, March 22: Giving a new turn to Bob Woolmer's death under mysterious circumstances, underworld don Babloo Srivastava has said that D-company head Dawood Ibrahim might have been involved in the suspected murder of Pakistan cricket coach, Sahara Samay sources said.
Talking to Sahara Samay, he said that Dawood is the biggest fixer of international matches. He further said that Dawood might have put on stake huge sum of money ranging between Rs 400 to 500 crore.
The channel's correspondent told from Lucknow that even earlier Babloo had told that all unimportant matches of the world have been fixed.
Babloo also told that this was the biggest reason why Pakistani players played under immense pressure and lost to minnows Ireland.
It is also speculated that Woolmer's book was in the last stage and match-fixers might have got some air that the Pakistani coach may reveal more about the betting blot in the game after Pakistan's shameful defeat at the hands of Ireland.
Posted by: John Frum ||
03/22/2007 12:00 Comments ||
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That's impossible, Ibrahims know they're not supposed to bet.
PARIS - French President Jacques Chirac threw his weight behind his partys presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday, overcoming hostility between the two in a move that could bolster the rights campaign. Chirac said Sarkozys candidature should have the full backing of the ruling UMP party. So it is totally natural that I give him my vote and my support, he said in a televised statement.
Boy howdy, there's a ringing endorsement.
Chirac also said that Sarkozy would leave his post as interior minister on March 26, an announcement that had been expected after he said he would leave the centre-right government ahead of the first round of the election on April 22.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/22/2007 00:00 ||
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SAN DIEGO The son of Rep. Duncan Hunter is expected to run for the East County congressional seat his father is giving up in 2008 to seek the Republican presidential nomination.
Duncan D. Hunter, a Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq, has been helping out in the Alpine Republican's long-shot presidential campaign. He told the Associated Press in Washington that he plans to formally announce his candidacy for Congress next month. "I'm running under my own credentials," said the younger Hunter, 30. "The U.S. Congress needs more military veterans, people who have walked the walk and when they talk the talk aren't accused of being disingenuous."
Rep. Hunter, a 14-term House member and the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, announced in October that this would be his last term. His son is the first major candidate to step forward to run for the 52nd District, a heavily Republican district that stretches from La Mesa to the Imperial County line.
#2
Hunter's campaign for president may be a long shot but I hereby endorse him. He is a real conservative unlike the RINOs who are currently thought of as front runners.
#3
Older Hunter serves on the House Armed Services Committee... Tough on defense and this terrorists' war. Father maybe a possible future Sec of Defense?
George P. Bush, a nephew of President Bush who was a hit on the campaign trail, has been accepted in the Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer and has begun the process of being commissioned for eight years of service.
Bush, 30, said in a telephone interview from his office at a real estate development firm in Fort Worth, Texas, that he was moved to join the service in part when he attended the rainy commissioning in October of the aircraft carrier named for his grandfather -- the USS George H.W. Bush. "My grandfather's my hero, and what really sold me on the ultimate decision was having the chance to see the CVN-77 be commissioned under his name," he said. "That was pretty moving, and I had a chance to meet some Navy admirals, as well. I had a chance to talk to them briefly about the opportunity, and I was won over."
George Prescott Bush, the oldest son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said the death of Pat Tillman, the NFL player and Army Ranger who was killed in Afghanistan in 2004 in what was later determined to be a friendly-fire incident, "was a wake-up call for me." He said he even "looked into active duty" and had somber conversations with his wife about the possibility.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/22/2007 00:13 ||
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Sniff, sniff, runs in the family. GOLF??? I tried "experimenting" wid playing golf - sorry to say just wasn't personally impressed wid the game, although I'm aware many national bigwigs/personages are. Maybe when I'm older.
#6
Don't bother, Joe. I went out shooting golf once. They're really tough and they taste like rubber.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2007 11:12 Comments ||
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#7
I went out to shoot golf but they took away my rifle and gave me a bag full of clubs and a bunch of Golf eggs. What you do is whack one of the Golf eggs with one of the clubs and hope a Golf comes out of it's hole to retrieve the egg. Then you whack it over the head. I think you were eating Golf eggs, Fred. Those eggs are really tough and hard as a rock.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/22/2007 12:11 Comments ||
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#8
0369, Yes. Jebs kids are the little brown ones. Handsome devils too. Dubya is speak good SpangLish, but Jeb is speaker the Castilian and fluent Mexican versions. They are damn good people. They used to live about 3/4 mile away.
On Monday, her daughter Maia sent the e-mail that Cathy Seipps friends and readers have long been dreading. Her mother was in the hospital, her lungs had collapsed, the doctors were trying to make her comfortable, she was passing peacefully. Cathy has been fighting lung cancer, although everyone is quick to point out she wasnt a smoker. It has been almost five years since they opened her up and closed her again, concluding that the cancer was inoperable and sending her off for chemotherapy, although for the first three and a half years, she never wrote about it, because she didnt want to be written off as Lung Cancer Girl.
Thats Cathy. Smart, funny, tough, loving. You couldnt help but think as she encouraged Maia to skip senior year in high school and apply to college early for more than the combination of the Canadian tradition of surpassing the12th grade and Maias own desire for bigger challenges. It was also Cathy sending her off, getting her settled, making the point that she was entitled to her life.
And so Maia went off to the University of California at San Diego last fall, and Cathys friends trouped in from around the world to cook her dinner and take her to chemo. There have been fewer posts lately, and more trips to the hospital, emergencies, bad signs.
Every time the message came in to say there was a new post, I held my breath, hoping it would be Cathy ranting about the friend whose casseroles were too big for the refrigerator, or berating herself for taking issue with Maias messiness (she and I exchanged notes about that one, both being mothers of teenage girls), or of course taking on liberals for their failings of insight and imagination.
Cathy was a conservative by choice, not by upbringing, and she delighted in exposing liberals for their elitism and insensitivity. As all her bios boast, she was from the city where the 405 and the 605 meet, and if you dont know where that is, its because Las Alamitos is not Beverly Hills, and Cathy never forgot where she was from. She just couldnt wait to get away from there. She came after me when I took on the Los Angeles Times for not publishing enough women writers (no preferences for her), but I decided that my mistake, and theirs, was not putting her name at the top of the list of whom they should hire.
Of course, she spent years writing a column in the defunct Buzz magazine on the inside doings at the Times that took no prisoners, so the truth was that the paper wasnt about to hire her either. She wrote for the National Review, and the International Womens Forum, and various other entities I tend to avoid, and she wrote her blog, Cathys World.
In October 2005, when she first wrote in her blog about her cancer, Cathy had this to say:
Im beginning to feel a responsibility to point out that lung cancer, which kills more people annually (about 163,000) than the next four most common cancers (colon, breast, pancreatic and prostate) combined, is terribly underfunded compared to other diseases: $950 in research money per lung cancer death, compared to $8800 for breast cancer and $34,000 for AIDS.
"Thats because the vast majority of lung cancer (about 85 percent) is still caused by smoking, even though the rate for lifelong nonsmoking women like me (and Christopher Reeves widow) has been going up for some mysterious reason, and the general attitude is that smokers deserve whatever they get.
"But half of all lung cancer patients have been nonsmokers by the time of diagnosis, sometimes for decades, like Warren Zevon. If they deserve to get sick, then I suppose so do people who are overweight or dont exercise or who have promiscuous sex with strangers, all of which are contributing factors for various illnesses that get much more sympathy in the form of research dollars. Maybe the amount of attention we pay to a disease should have less to do with how many celebrities, magazine editors and junk bond kings carry its banner, and more with how many people actually die of it.
Lung cancer was one of the few subjects we agreed on; I lost my best friend seven years ago, and watched in horror as the money from the tobacco settlements got spent building highways. We also agreed about things like mothering, kids and friendship. As for the rest, we had to agree to disagree. But I was always interested in how Cathy put it, where she came down and how she got there, because I knew shed be as tough on herself as any critic would be. So I checked in every day to see what she was thinking, until the end. Ours was an old-fashioned relationship, the kind people used to have with people they disagree with, the kind that is too often under attack these days.
Its too bad well never meet, Cathy wrote to me not long ago, and my heart skipped a beat, but of course I knew what she meant. We e-mailed. She posted. We lived in a new world, by the old rules. It may be the best of both.
Catherine Seipp, a writer and media critic who became known in the 1990s for her pointed coverage of the Los Angeles Times in Buzz magazine, has died. She was 49. Seipp, a nonsmoker who was diagnosed with lung cancer five years ago, died Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, her family announced.
More recently, the conservative Seipp wrote on controversial topics of the day in a weekly column called "From the Left Coast" for National Review Online and a monthly column for the conservative Independent Women's Forum. She tackled such topics as gay marriage, Hollywood liberalism and a recent favorite healthcare costs.
"Cathy always had something fresh, smart and bold to say always honest and very often disarming," Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of National Review Online, told The Times in an e-mail. "Whether it be about Paris Hilton or the WB or parenting or war, she was always worth reading."
Allan Mayer, who launched Buzz in 1990, said Seipp's work was one of the things people remember about the magazine, which folded in 1998. "She had a distinctive voice and a truly interesting sensibility," he said. "Almost regardless of the subject she was writing journalism, politics, social affairs, trends you could count on her to have a well-thought-out but unpredictable take."
Her column, called "Our Times," became a fixture in Buzz for several years beginning in 1991. Seipp initially wrote the column under the pseudonym Margo Magee, which was the name of a character in the "Apartment 3G" comic strip that ran in The Times.
She would refer to behind-the-scenes furor at "my favorite newspaper" and never seemed to miss an opportunity to use the newspaper as a foil. When a reporter left The Times for Microsoft despite reportedly being offered a hefty raise to stay, Seipp wrote in a 1997 column that colleagues told the reporter "he was wrong to be making so much money."
"That's how it works in the real world which Times staffers are only vaguely familiar with where you don't get the best deal unless you are willing to walk away from it," she said.
Within The Times, her criticism could be seen as "mean-spirited and angry," Seipp said in a lengthy online profile. But she saw it differently: "With American journalism, if you write something blunt, people get shocked."
What made Seipp go after the newspaper, Mayer said, "was her view that The Times often succumbed to a politically correct mentality. It always frustrated her that The Times was never as great as she felt it was capable of being."
Born in 1957 in Winnipeg, Canada, she moved to Los Alamitos when she was 4. At 16, she enrolled at UCLA and earned a bachelor's degree in English. She briefly worked for the Associated Press and the fashion trade paper California Apparel News before spending four years as a fashion writer at the Daily News in Los Angeles in the early 1980s.
After leaving Buzz in the late 1990s, she wrote columns for Mediaweek, UPI and Salon, among others. She also was a regular guest on CNBC's "The Dennis Miller Show."
Instead of flowers, Seipp had requested that people make donations to the Humane Society, http://www.hsus.org.
IWILL sic SAY PUBLICLY what many people are whispering privately in barbershops, soul food restaurants and church parking lots in South Los Angeles. If relations don't improve between African Americans and Latinos in Southern California, we are headed for a major racial conflict. This is an outright threat. Imagine if a white leader threatened anyone with a "major racial conflict".
Sure, this is multicultural Southern California, where coalition politics is supposed to rule. However, anyone paying attention to what is happening here knows the accuracy of this assessment. Why are Latinos committing violent crimes targeted against African Americans especially in one neighborhood in the Harbor Gateway area and why aren't Latino leaders speaking out against them? Why aren't Islamic leaders speaking out against violent crimes?
According to The Times, police statistics show that from 1994 to 2005, there were nearly five times as many homicides, assaults and other violent crimes committed by Latinos against African Americans in Harbor Gateway as by African Americans against Latinos.
One example of how out of control race relations have been in Harbor Gateway is the case of the 19-year-old African American man with no known gang affiliation who was killed by a Latino member of the 204th Street gang because the gang member was upset that an African American had defeated a Latino in a boxing match.
Three Los Angeles members of a Latino gang known as the Avenues were convicted and sentenced to life in prison in November for hate crime violations, including killing African Americans in an effort to run them out of predominantly Latino neighborhoods. I went to a party in Avs territory once. With what I know now, I could have choked my friend for bringing me there.
This escalating violence between Latinos and African Americans defies logic in so many ways. The two racial groups have had many similar struggles in Southern California and have coalesced around issues such as affirmative action, livable wages, justice for janitors and police misconduct. Translation: let's forget our differences and kill whitey instead.
Clearly, African Americans are committing violent crimes against Latinos as well, but there is little evidence that those crimes are based on race as much as they are for control of turf. And the notion that Latinos are killing blacks in an effort to "ethnically cleanse" their neighborhoods is extremely troubling. Many African Americans are especially perplexed because they remember that when we had the numerical advantage, African Americans did not target Latinos for murder to rid them from our neighborhoods. It would have been unthinkable.
African Americans throughout South Los Angeles have been asking: When are Latino political leaders going to speak out against these hate crimes? If a political coalition between Latinos and African Americans does exist, now's the time to show some muscle and make something happen. Yes, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa went to Harbor Gateway and encouraged residents to get along, and he offered assistance from the city to help solve some of the socioeconomic problems that plague the area. And City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo proposed tougher penalties for gang members who commit hate crimes. But other Latino political leaders have been silent. Let's get the opinion of some more leaders, like La Raza ("the race"). Oh, yeah, they think the whole area should be ethnically cleansed and annexed to Mexico.
I suspect that if these hate crimes were being committed by the KKK against Latinos or African Americans, both communities would come together and condemn the violence as racist. Why not now?
Let's have House-Senate hearings sponsored by the Congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses, and special legislative hearings in Sacramento on the rise in targeted hate crimes. Let's have community meetings convened by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, like those held about the crisis at the former King/Drew medical center. A few African American officials and some well-intentioned pastors and community activists cannot solve this problem; it also requires some heavy lifting by Latino political leadership. After all, what's the point in having a coalition if you can't coalesce and solve problems that are killing your constituent members?
#1
This escalating violence between Latinos and African Americans defies logic in so many ways.
This article is a classic example of the enormous disconnect that has gripped the multi-culturalists. These self appointed social engineers (and their mouth-pieces) will instinctually emphasize the cultural identity component (in this case it is the lack of racial understanding) as the root cause of most social problems. Perhaps, subconsciously this allows for self-vindication of their perceived solutions. Obviously, here we see Hate Crimes as their cause celeb. However, reality suggests that this is another indication of how those on the lower tier of the socioeconomic ladder will always be in competition with each other. Of course for the multi-culturalists, socioeconomic factors can only be addressed as blanket indicators of overall victim hood for the entire oppressed class. Therefore, the solution must be solved in terms of economic assistance from the establishment.
Specifically this article represents those that fail to admit that an increasing influx of uneducated and unskilled people into areas that already have populations of desperate groups of individuals will have very predictable (negative) consequences. More importantly, this reiterates their refusal to acknowledge that their decades of social(ist) experiments have been an abject failure.
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2007
Islam in America
AlMagrib Institute: Islamic Scholarship Meets Cool and Hip
By Susan Smith
A collage of AlMaghrib Institute textbooks taught in 16 North American cities (Courtesy Almagrib Institute). As for Muhammed Al-Shareef, he once wrote an article, "The Jews and Their Treachery." He is a Wahabi toy. The Maghreb Institute - the Maghreb being North African land that was captured by Arab imperialists - should not exist on US soil.
CONTRARY to conventional wisdom, fundamental Islam and cool are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In fact, since 9/11 the pursuit of Islamic scholarship has grown exponentially, and part and parcel of this revival is a new generation of hip and self-confident young Muslims. While previous generations sought to emulate mainstream American society by shedding their scarves and beards, todays younger Muslim Americans increasingly show up in classrooms wearing traditional Muslim garb with self-esteem.
Much of this phenomenon is in response to the microscope put on Muslims since 9/11. The intense scrutiny and resulting introspection have caused Muslims to defend, protect and relish their faith and identity. As a result, North America is witnessing a burgeoning of organizations promoting Islamic education and awareness. Foremost among these is AlMaghrib Institute, which offers university-level double-weekend seminars to a growing student body of 7,000 in the United States and Canada.
Perhaps the AlMaghrib phenomenon is the result of its state-of-the-art advertising, graphics and 21st century vernacular. Or maybe its the way reverent material is delivered with a touch of, well, irreverence.
The AlMaghrib Institutes Internet homepage reads: Even to a seasoned Arabic ear, the name AlMaghrib carries with it a collage of connotations and images. To some, it may remind them of a landancient Andalus or the Northwest lands of Muslim Africa. To others, the name may offer a feeling of heritage, a heritage of advanced Islamic Scholarship and discipline. And yet someperhaps this is what you picturedenvision the sun embracing the ocean announcing the beginning of a new Islamic day......youre like, Umm...no, actually I was thinking Maghrib prayer.
Muhammad Alshareef, the 31-year-old founder and director of AlMaghrib Institute, admits that he gets mixed reviews for his avant-garde styleeven though he is scrupulous not to deviate from basic Islamic teachings rooted in the Quran and Sunnah (practices and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad).
Students respect Alshareefs credentials (including memorization of the Quran, and an Islamic Law degree from the University of Medina, Saudi Arabia) and are drawn by his hip approach to boosting their Ilm (knowledge) and Eman (faith in God). They can visit his EmanRush Audio Web site to buy CDs which accelerate faith and bring a rush of blood to the mind and heart, causing tears, warm whispers of repentance, hair to stand and an overwhelming urge to prostrate to Allah; sweet. Or, they sign up for personal Islamic coaching by clicking Dude, Im in! at his DiscoverU Web site.
Some of the more traditional ulama (Islamic scholars) give Alshareef a hard time, however. They dont think its fitting for an Islamic organization to make jest of itself, he explains, but this attracts students. Students who want to learn about Islam dont need to suffer through serious, strict lectures sitting on a hard floor. We smile, laugh and have a good time.
Thus Alshareef imports 21 Teaching Methods of the Prophet into the 21st century to impart scholarly material in a manner consistent with Islamic tradition, while underscoring brief, relevant, and practical applications of Islamic knowledge to daily life.
Despite the criticism by some of their elders, young Muslims love Alshareef, and today AlMaghrib Institute is offered in 16 cities, from Houston to Toronto, and from New York to Los Angeles. Particularly when many in the West view Islam as a pariah religion (with even the pope bashing its teachings as evil and inhuman), AlMaghrib gives a shot in the arm to those who feel misunderstood, battered and beleaguered by the pressand, worse, blamed for 9/11...
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.
A scantily clad, 32-year-old man was found dead early Monday in a pool of blood in an owl cage at the Moscow Zoo. A bird keeper at the zoo found the man, Alexander Luparev at about 10 a.m., lying in the cage, which is home to a Siberina long-tailed tawny owl. Luparev, who fixed gas pipes for a living, was wearing only boxer shorts. 
Detectives from London's Scotland Yard are going to investigate the death of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer in a Jamaica hotel room. Two detectives from Scotland are expected to reach Jamaica before the end of this week to help in investigating the mysterious death of Woolmer, Australia's The News media group reported. Woolmer held a British passport.
PARIS - French President Jacques Chirac threw his weight behind his partys presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday, overcoming hostility between the two in a move that could bolster the rights campaign. Chirac said Sarkozys candidature should have the full backing of the ruling UMP party. So it is totally natural that I give him my vote and my support, he said in a televised statement.
CONTRARY to conventional wisdom, fundamental Islam and cool are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In fact, since 9/11 the pursuit of Islamic scholarship has grown exponentially, and part and parcel of this revival is a new generation of hip and self-confident young Muslims. While previous generations sought to emulate mainstream American society by shedding their scarves and beards, todays younger Muslim Americans increasingly show up in classrooms wearing traditional Muslim garb with self-esteem. 
