The Middle East may be a half a world away but events there -- and their impact here -- are being closely monitored by the Los Angeles Police Department.
Over the weekend, the LAPD opened its emergency operations center in the wake of Hamas rocket attacks against Israel and the Jewish state's bombing and invasion of the Gaza Strip. The center will be staffed indefinitely on a round-the-clock basis, said LAPD Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger.
The center "acts as a clearinghouse," says Paysinger, collecting information about the latest news related to the conflict and the reactions in Los Angeles, including "spontaneous protests" such as the one that took place Friday outside the Israeli Consulate on Wilshire Boulevard.
The "Level 1" activation means the department will be in a state of readiness, passing information between command staff, the area stations, city officials and other law enforcement agencies. But the increased footing means police will have an increased focus on critical sites throughout the area, as well as the possibility of clashes resulting from demonstrations. I wonder if there is another reason?
Three IDF soldiers were killed and 20 others were injured, one critically and three seriously on Monday evening, in a friendly fire incident in northern Gaza.
Among the fatalities were two officers and a soldier. Colonel Avi Peled, commander of the Golani Brigade sustained minor injuries in the incident.
The injured were triaged and cared for on site and were later medevaced to the Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, Soroka University Advertisement
Medical Center in Beersheba, Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem and the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva. All of the families have been notified.
According to the IDF Spokesman's Unit, the grave incident occurred when a tank accidentally fired a live round at an abandoned building in Jabalya, in which Golani forces, who were operating in the area, took cover.
According to available information, shortly after 6 pm, a blast took out part of the building, causing some of its walls to collapse and injuring the entire force.
Earlier Monday, the IDF explored the possibility that the building collapsed due to the detonation of explosives in it an option which was ruled out as the details of the incident unfolded.
The extraction of the injured forces was done under IDF artillery fire, meant to provide cover for the rescue teams and with the assistance of IAF helicopters which dropped illuminating bombs in order light their way.
Colonel Peled reportedly refused to leave the scene despite his injuries, opting to see to the rescue and triage of his troops. He sought medical care only after the last of his troops were evacuated.
Peled's conduct and actions, said an IDF source, show courage and "personified the kind of behavior the IDF expects of its commanders in such times."
Peled, a former Egoz Brigade and Battalion 51 head, assumed command of Golani last summer. Prior to his Golani assignment Peled headed the Gaza Division's southern brigade. It was during that time that Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas, but a subsequent military inquiry found no fault in Peled's conduct.
#1
Bwahah... The Israhail-hitler Dick Faggots are too arrogant to admit they'd had an ass-whoopin' by a street gang they'd rather admit they're too fucking stupid they shot their own - 4th strongest army my ass.. first in the north by the ashoora head bangers, and now this.. bunch of fags!
#2
Hard to find a silver lining in this dark cloud, but the snarky side of my brain can't help noting that so far Hamas hasn't even been able to kill this many soldiers.
If the ground offensive currently underway in Gaza becomes a full-fledged occupation with the resultant removal of Hamas from authority, then the arrival of the MV Iran Shahed in the Mediterranean will be something of an anti-climax. Too little, too late.
But while even a small stretch of beach remains under Palestinian control, there is the frightening possibility that Iranian Red Crescent volunteers might attempt a landing.
Shahed means martyr, yes? An unfortunate name for a sea-going vessel in a warzone. I'm beginning to think the concept of irony is missing from the Muslim mind.
The Sri Lankan government says troops have reached the southern outskirts of the strategic Elephant Pass, which is the key link to the Jaffna peninsula. Troops have been pushing north since capturing the Tamil Tigers' de facto capital of Kilinochchi on Friday. There has been no comment yet from the rebels, who have held control of the pass since 2000. Tamil sources said the rebels killed 53 soldiers at the weekend. The army denies such losses. There is no independent confirmation of casualties and both sides regularly overstate the numbers that they inflict.
Military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said troops had gained control of the southern outskirts of Elephant Pass. He said soldiers had overpowered the resistance of the rebels there and that operations were ongoing to "bring the entire area under our control". The website of Sri Lanka's defence ministry says troops have taken control of the village of Kurinchattiv and have entered Thamilamadam, both of which lie just to the south of the causeway. The loss of Elephant Pass would be another major blow to the Tamil Tigers, correspondents say, leaving Mullaitivu as their sole remaining major base.
Capturing Elephant Pass would allow government troops in the peninsula to link up with the mainland along the key A9 road. Further south, soldiers also captured the strategic town of Oddusuddan at the weekend, the army said on Monday. Oddusudan sits at an important crossroads to Mullaitivu. The pro-Tamil website TamilNet says the rebels killed 53 soldiers and injured 80 at the weekend in fighting on the main road towards Mullaitivu. Military officials denied that troops had suffered heavy casualties and said the army had recovered the bodies of 12 Tamil Tigers. Maj Gen Jagath Dias, who led the capture of Kilinochchi, said he was confident of taking the rebels' remaining strongholds in the north and east.
"Day by day, the Tigers' territory is shrinking and their numbers are dwindling," he was quoted by the Associated Press agency as saying. "The objective of finishing this war won't be that long off," said Gen Dias. The BBC's Roland Buerk was among a number of reporters taken by the army to Kilinochchi following its capture. Much of the town was in ruins, he said, with little sign of normal life - just 20 or so of the town's population remained. Troops were gearing up for operations further east. Attack helicopters flew overhead and every few minutes there was an artillery barrage, our correspondent added.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/05/2009
20:19 ||
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Waterford Wedgwood PLC, the maker of classic china and crystal, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday after attempts to restructure the struggling business or find a buyer failed.
Four administrators from business advisory firm Deloitte were appointed to run the company's businesses in Britain and Northern Ireland, while a Deloitte partner in the Irish Republic was appointed as receiver of Waterford Wedgwood PLC, the ultimate parent of the U.K. companies, and other Irish subsidiaries.
The U.K. joint administrators said they intended to continue to run the business as they seek a buyer. Trading in the company's shares was suspended on the Irish Stock Exchange where they languished at just one-tenth of a euro cent and the company's directors _ including Anthony O'Reilly, the Irish publishing magnate who along with his brother-in-law Peter Goulandris owns more than half of all Waterford Wedgwood shares _ handed in their resignations.
#1
This is not really surprising. As someone who used to love the beauty in Wedgewood and Waterford, it just doesn't make sense in today's world. When I can go to C&B or to a discount store and get really cute, cool stuff for about one gazillionth of the price, why would I want to fret about things getting broken? Far more fun to pay $20 for a full set of fun stuff and then throw the dishes into the dishwasher and the glasses into the fireplace when the party is over.
#4
Much of the problem lies with the American Midwestern buffet meal that is the standard American way of eating. Load your plate up and eat as fast as possible is appropriate for a fast-paced industrial society.
Ironically, in its pursuit of luxury and relaxation, Americans still haven't discovered other ways of eating a meal, where efficiency is less important than aesthetic and gastronomical enjoyment.
If you're going to be taking your time and savoring a multi-course meal, the table service becomes much more important.
#6
I will inherit the Waterford, Wedgewood and sliver someday... in the meantime we never even use the Mikasa and polishing silver - no time for that...
Its just too dangerous to wash that stuff.
To be honest I prefer the coffee mugs from the Pharm companies and the cheap plates... I don't care if I break anything...
#9
pretty obviously the Chinette with the different sections for your beans, tater salad, and main food item is the ultimate in fine dining. But don't put em in the dishwasher after, I can tell you that. Just lay gently on the floor for the dog to clean up and they're ready to re-use
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/05/2009 20:21
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#10
Royal Doulton was made by Waterford Wedgwood PLC,
#11
Wedgewood china does fine in a dishwasher, so long as it isn't one of the patterns with silver or gold leaf on it. So does most Waterford. The really thin crystal such as Baccarat doesn't, but Waterford typically does.
The trick with the crystal and with very fine bone china is to not put in pots or dirty casseroles etc. at the same time (since little bits of e.g. hardened browned food can scratch the crystal). Rinse them within an hour or so of clearing the table, slip them into the empty dishwasher and turn it on while people are having dessert & coffee. Use the gentle cycle if your dishwasher has one; otherwise just avoid the really long/hot cycles for pots/pans.
Also, if you have pieces with significantly varying thicknesses (such as crystal vaes or dessert bowls with heavy bases and very thin rims), don't put them in the dishwasher as the heat will cause them to break.
I don't have silver tableware, but Mr. Lotp's departed mother washed her sterling flatware in the dishwasher after holiday meals and then stored it in a drawer with tarnish-resistent cloth covers. It did fine and I don't ever recall needing to polish it for family celebrations.
#12
Anonymoose, this past year for the first time in quite a few years Mr. Lotp and I have revived the habit of hosting occasional dinner parties .... 6-8 other people plus ourselves, sit down dinner, wine etc.
It's such a contrast to our usual busy, overscheduled lives. Makes the effort to plan and offer one worthwhile.
#13
Who actually polished this themselves? It's the sort of thing that you have your kitchen staff do. No kitchen staff? Then why do you need Waterford crystal?
The real villian here is the price of labor in the West is through the roof, which makes whole swathes of the economy untenable. In China, I got my Braun shaver repaired, out-of-warranty, for $4.40, at the authorized repair center. Try that at an authorized repair center in the West - the unreal cost of labor makes getting a replacement more attractive.
#15
gromky, I don't *need* Waterford crystal. I grew up in a family that sometimes missed a meal or two towards the end of the pay period (if Dad wasn't laid off for the winter or the union wasn't on strike), so believe me I don't *need* it in order to enjoy a meal alone or with friends. I'm grateful for food and shelter and my beloved husband ... the rest is extra.
OTOH, it's beautiful, it keeps for decades if treated well, it's a pleasure to hold in the hand, and it adds that beauty and pleasure to special occasions. What's wrong with that?
Our small collection of it was assembled piece by piece as wedding gifts and then as Christmas gifts from older relatives for the first years of our marriage. It (mostly) survived all those moves from military station to military station when Mr. Lotp was active duty.
And now it graces our table from time to time with new friends or with family we see perhaps once a year. Not a bad thing IMO.
#21
Darned engineers, they're everywhere! I speak from personal experience, having married one, who felt as y'all do about moving up from paper plates to Chinet. Nonetheless, after I'd openly applied serious emotional blackmail to get porcelain to go with our stainless steel silverware and $4 wine glasses -- the kind with the blue stems -- he discovered he really enjoys sometimes setting a formal table for a nice dinner. When I was sickest he even initiated it himself a few times, including once cooking spaghetti and meatballs almost completely from scratch to eat upon them. We use the good dishes for holiday dinners, dinner parties, birthday breakfasts, and when it's my turn to host the writing club lunch.
We've got one of the patterns with a gold rim. I knew it couldn't go in the dishwasher like my mother's plain, white Rosenthal, but of the patterns I liked, that was the one Mr. Wife chose. (It was really serious emotional blackmail; I'd let the issue ride the first dozen years of our marriage.) On the other hand, so to speak, I think it important that children learn how to hand-wash dishes so that they can acquit themselves homourably when invited to their in-laws for Thanksgiving dinners. ;-) At other times it gives Mr. Wife and me a quiet moment to discuss the evening after guests have left, one of the true joys of marriage.
As for silver flatware, we've always put in in the dishwasher -- I learnt that from my mother, who had plate for everyday and sterling for special. The dishwasher detergent removes the patina, but if I cared about that I'd live surrounded by antiques and little camel's hair paintbrushes.
I do like my good dishes, as much as I like my simple, everyday Corelle from Kmart. While I'd love to have good crystal, I tend to break such things, and would much rather break $4 glasses than $100 ones. I am very slowly acquiring my sterling pattern (I'm up to a sugar spoon and a lemon fork, but I know where to get the remaining sixteen place settings). There are times to eat off paper plates in front of the television, and times to eat off china in the dining room, and a wise person enjoys both experiences, knowing that one honours one's friends both by including them in family intimacy, and also by sharing one's very best, whatever that might be. And if something breaks, well all life ends in death, even dishes and wine glasses.
Of course it was a good investment, Besoeker. Everything beautiful is, so long as one can afford it.
#24
til you get sterling sporks, you ain't living the Miller Hi-Life, TW
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/05/2009 22:17
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#25
lol! Agree with so much of what is said here. My mom was one to pull it out and use it whenever she could as she felt it was no good in the cupboards collecting dust.
Thanks for the tip about varying thicknesses of glass or crystal. Wish I had known that sooner! Just had a favorite cut crystal bowl break almost clean in half about a month ago.
And here is another good tip - if you put the china and silverware (or good stainless) in the dishwasher - don't use dishwasher soap. It has little grains in it (like sand) that are what pit the dishes and the silverware. It is the pitting that causes the damage. If you use the dishwasher - soak the silverware in soapy bowl to soften and have the dog lick all the little pieces of food off the plates. (As mentioned only let the very best friends see that part:-)
Even though I've since opted for the easy road, I'm sorry to see Waterford/Wedgewood go out of business. We visited the factory many years ago and my mom bought some beautiful water and wine glasses to take home. I can still remember the candle light reflecting pretty colors off them making the warmth of the events even more special.
#26
Sorry to see it happen... Mom collected Waterford crystal. Excellent, heavy cut-glass stuff that you knew was quality as soon as you lifted it in your hand...
#27
It used to be that fine dining meant bringing out the china, crystal and silverware for an elaborate home-cooked meal. These days fine dining means going to a fancy restaurant. The days of paying up for expensive dining accessories were numbered, once dining out for special occasions became a mass phenomenon. If these guys weren't assembling their products in the cheapest possible locale, they ought to have their heads examined. Oneida moved its entire plant to China and is still barely scraping by.
The U.S. Air Force has finally found a commercial (PC based) flight simulator that works for them. That's because the game, X-Plane, provides sufficient editing capabilities for aviation engineers to use classified flight characteristics to create simulated warplanes that are realistic enough to allow military pilots to get useful training while using them. That's a big deal.
Please keep my flight sim addiction at bay, I overcame it years ago and now this comes out. Don't let me go out and by pedls, a stick and throttle, multiple monitors and even a switchpanel and throttle quadrant.
#3
ION CHINA, STRATEGYPAGE > CHINA BUILDS A PAIR [aircraft carriers].
* WORLD MIL FORUM > SINGAPORE MEDIAS: OUT OF ASIA - CHINESE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY AMBITIONS IS REFLECTED IN ITS DESIRE TO BUILD AIRCRAFT CARRIERS.
SAME > RUSSIAN MEDIAS: UNWILLING TO GIVE UP ITS GLOBAL HEGEMONY NOR ABLE TO PAYOFF ITS MASSIVE FOREIGN DEBTS, NEWLY BANKRUPT USA IN 2009 COULD BEGIN USING "MILITARY LEVERS" TO INITIATE NEW ROUND/ERA OF IMPERIALISM.
The Darwin Awards are given to those who improve the gene pool by removing themselves from it. As you might imagine, automobiles figure prominently in this roll call of death by stupidity. To wit: Ivece Plattner of Italy. Plattner was driving a Porsche Cayenne (which is already a bit of a red flag), stuck in traffic on a railroad crossing, waiting for the light to turn green. When the crossing barriers came down, they trapped the Cayenne.
Onlookers said he didn't realize he was stuck until the train was approaching. In desperation he opened the door and jumped out of the car. Instead of getting out of Dodge, Plattner started running up the tracks, in the train's path, waving his arms and screaming. The engineer hit the brakes, but inertia and momentum working the way they do, the train hit the Porschephile and threw him about 100 ft. Plattner was survived by his Porsche Cayenne, which he loved more than life itself. More terminal stupidity at the link....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/05/2009
18:31 ||
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The nation's top selling conservative author has been banned from appearing on NBC, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT.
Banned for life!
"We are just not going to have her on any more, it's over," a top network source explains.
NBC's TODAY show abruptly cut Ann Coulter from its planned Tuesday broadcast, claiming the schedule was overbooked.
Coulter was set to unveil her new book, GUILTY.
But one network insider claims it was the book's theme -- a brutal examination of liberal bias in the new era -- that got executives to dis-invite the controversialist. And in so doing proves the book's claims
"We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now," a TODAY insider reveals. "It's such a downer. It's just not the time, and it's not what our audience wants, either." Yeah! All the criticism gets in the way of our echo chamber.
For the book, Coulter reportedly received the most-lucrative advance ever paid to a conservative author.
The TODAY show eagerly invited the author months ago, for her first network interview on GUILTY. Lets home Fox News picks it up.
The exclusive was to air during the show's 7 AM hour. The cut came Monday afternoon.
Executives at NBC TODAY replaced Coulter with showbiz reporter Perez Hilton, who recently offered $1,000 to anyone who would throw a pie at Ann Coulter. I guess he's more eager to put on the kneepads. How is NBC's market share doing?
#5
They just validated the premise of her book! Awesome! NBC can dish it out but they just can't accept any criticism. Better not let the story get any "oxygen" else people will believe it.
#6
I don't like Coulter, but this is going to earn her a book sale to Yours Truly.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/05/2009 19:14
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#7
##!*!!
Can I get banned from NBC for life, too? I have a book to flog, and the publicity would be HUGE!
I'm a small-c conservative, although I am not bottle-blond and slinky (maybe that is my problem...)
Is there a place that I can go to sign up to be banned by the Today Show? Sales are a titch down for "The Adelsverein Trilogy" so I could use a post-holiday season boost!
#11
Dunno if any of you ever heard of Perez Hilton but he is a despicable little degenerate creep. He has a web site that lampoons celebrities. Some people might find it funny but it's really sick, kind of a web version of TMZ. The fact that NBC would give this slime ball air time is even more revealing than the fact that they won't give it to Ann Coulter. It shows they will stoop to any low because Perez Hilton is about as low as it gets.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/05/2009 21:07
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Hey! Can they do that?
The "Cast Lead" counterterrorist campaign has spread to cyberspace and cell phones, leaving Hamas's terrorist army in confusion, unable to issue and receive orders efficiently. Almost of all of Gaza's cell phone system is out of order, television stations have been hit and the Hamas website is down.
The local phone company Paltel said that 90 percent of Gaza's cellular system is out of order. Compounding the problem are the downing of landlines and the inability of technicians to reach work sites. Switchboards and mobile communications equipment have sustained heavy damage in air raids.
Hamas's leaders, who have been forced underground, have been forced to rely on old-fashioned walkie-talkies to maintain communication with terrorists. Most of the upper echelon orders are coming from Hamas headquarters in Damascus, manned by Khaled Mashaal. Fight to the last drop of blood, ya pansies!
Paltel has warned subscribers that they may be completely cut off from the outside world. Electricity blackouts have made it difficult for the population to receive radio and television programs, and television stations that have not been destroyed by aerial strikes often are not able to broadcast. Paltel said three of its technicians have died or have suffered injuries.
The Hamas website is down after several attempts to put in back on the Internet. Israel previously has hacked other Arab-language sites with messages to the public that it is being exploited by Hamas leaders. Hamas issued a statement accusing the "The Americans and Zionists" of trying to silence communications. One website that was hacked issued calls for Jihad, the Arabic term for "holy war" on Israel.
President George W. Bush on Monday authorized the immediate use of US aircrafts to transport supplies to the international peacekeeping force in Darfur, the White House said.
Bush signed a memo saying that aiding the joint United Nations and African Union peacekeeping troops in Darfur through "the airlift of equipment for peacekeeping in Darfur" was "important to the security interests of the United States."
The US president's authorization meant that air support should be provided without delay, given the critical situation in war-torn western Sudan, the White House said.
The struggling AU-UN force, known as UNAMID, was authorized in July 2007 by the Security Council to grow into the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world at an estimated strength of 26,000. However, the United Nations has said only about half of the mission was deployed at the end of 2008, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a report last month that the Darfur force continues to face "enormous challenges."
"Violence and displacement continue, humanitarian operations are at risk (and) clashes between the parties occur with regrettable regularity," Ban said.
The town of Halmstad came up with the idea when trying to curb the amount of smoke emitted from the crematorium.
It was when we were discussing all these environmental issues that we started thinking about the energy that is used in the cremations and realised that instead of all that heat just going up into the air, we could make use of it somehow. It was just rising into the skies for nothing," said Lennart Andersson, the director of the cemetery in the town of Halmstad.
It might sound kind of gross, but if you were suddenly having your house heated for free this winter I don't think you'd complain that much.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/05/2009
17:03 ||
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#1
Carried one step further, I have always felt it is entirely possible to cut noxious gas emmissions from the Gas Chamber in half simply by putting in a 2nd seat... and may I suggest putting Charles Manson in it. Win Win Win
More "Change". Sandy Berger unavailable?
WASHINGTON -- Two Democratic officials say President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to run the CIA.
Panetta was a surprise pick for the post, with no experience in the intelligence world. Oh, perfect... Complements the boss, he does ...
An Obama transition official and another Democrat disclosed his nomination on a condition of anonymity since it was not yet public. Psssst...hey Scoops? Wanna story?
Panetta was director of the Office of Management and Budget and a longtime congressman from California. He served on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel that released a report at the end of 2006 with dozens of recommendations for the reversing course in the Iraq war. Which one was his ? "Cut" or "run"? Just what you want at CIA, someone who was wrong on the surge and won't admit it ...
Panetta currently directs with his wife Sylvia the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy, based at California State University, Monterey Bay a university he helped establish on the site of the former U.S. Army base, Fort Ord. The Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy (and Automotive Repair). Well, it's located at an old army base, so he must be qualified, right?
#1
His Wik bio says "he joined the United States Army as a Second Lieutenant. There he received the Army Commendation Medal, and was discharged in 1966 as a Captain." Appears to be a very brief career as an Army officer, but at least he served.
#6
The pattern of Obama picks is not inexperience, but lengthy service sans accomplishment. It makes sense that a guy whose most notable acheivement is the number of times he voted "present" would pick someone like Panetta.
#7
Does it even matter anymore who heads the CIA? It seems to have been largely disfunctional for some time. Unless they are using the Colombo Peter Falk) model of operation.
#10
The CIA has been getting results in Pakistan, much to their local minders' frustration. As I recall, they are the ones controlling the UAVs on the Pakistan side of the Durand line.
#11
Leon's highest compliment in the Clinton Admin was that he wasn't as much of an asshole as the rest. This nomination is a joke, and tells you how seriously Obambi takes the WOT
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/05/2009 22:21
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#12
Panetta's job will be to protect Obama from the CIA, so that they won't be able to undermine him like they did Bush.
Over the last week, many Americans (and not a few Indians) have asked me why India does not "do a Gaza" on Pakistan, referring, of course, to an emulation of Israel's punitive use of force against Hamas-run Palestine, a territory from which rockets rain down on Israeli soil with reliable frequency (if not reliable destructiveness ... but that is not for want of Hamas intent).
My answer, given with the heavy heart that comes always with a painful grip on reality, is simple: India does not because it cannot.
Here are five reasons why:
1. India is not a military goliath in relation to Pakistan in the way Israel is to the Palestinian territories. India does not have the immunity, the confidence and the military free hand that result from an overwhelming military superiority over an opponent. Israel's foe is a non-sovereign entity that enjoys the most precarious form of self-governance. Pakistan, for all its dysfunction, is a proper country with a proper army, superior by far to the tin-pot Arab forces that Israel has had to combat over time. Pakistan has nukes, to boot. Any assault on Pakistani territory carries with it an apocalyptic risk for India. This is, in fact, Pakistan's trump card. (This explains, also, why Israel is determined to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran.)
2. Even if India could attack Pakistan without fear of nuclear retaliation, the rationale for "doing a Gaza" is, arguably, not fully present: Israel had been attacked consistently by the very force--Hamas--that was in political control of the territory from which the attacks occurred. By contrast, terrorist attacks on India, while originating in Pakistan, are not authored by the Pakistani government. India can-- and does--contend that Pakistan's government should shut down the terrorist training camps on Pakistani soil. (In this insistence, India has unequivocal support from Washington.) Yet only a consistent and demonstrable pattern of dereliction by Pakistani authorities-- which would need to be dereliction verging on complicity with the terrorists--would furnish India with sufficient grounds to hold the Pakistani state culpable.
3. As our columnist, Karlyn Bowman, writes, Israel enjoys impressive support from the American people, in contrast to the Palestinians. No other state--apart, perhaps, from Britain--evokes as much favor in American public opinion as does Israel. This is not merely the result of the much-vaunted "Israel lobby" (to use a label deployed by its detractors), but also because of the very real depth of cultural interpenetration between American and Israeli society. This fraternal feeling buys Israel an enviable immunity in the conduct of its strategic defense. India, by contrast--while considerably more admired and favored in American public opinion than Pakistan--enjoys scarcely a fraction of Israel's "pull" in Washington when it comes to questions of the use of force beyond its borders.
4. Pakistan is strategically significant to the United States; the Palestinians are not. This gives Washington scant incentive to rein in the Israelis, but a major incentive to rein in any Indian impulse to strike at Pakistan. However justified the Indian anger against Pakistan over the recent invasion of Mumbai by Pakistani terrorists, the last thing that the U.S. wants right now is an attack--no matter how surgical--by India against Pakistan-based terror camps. This would almost certainly result in a wholesale shift of Pakistani troops away from their western, Afghan front toward the eastern boundary with India--and would leave the American Afghan campaign in some considerable disarray, at least in the short term. So Washington has asked for, and received, the gift of Indian patience. And although India recognizes that it is not wholly without options to mobilize quickly for punitive, surgical strikes in a "strategic space," it would--right now--settle for a trial of the accused terrorist leaders in U.S. courts. (Seven U.S. citizens were killed in Mumbai: Under U.S. law, those responsible--and this should include Pakistani intelligence masterminds--have to be brought to justice.)
5. My last, and meta-, point: Israel has the privilege of an international pariah to ignore international public opinion in its use of force against the Palestinians. A state with which few others have diplomatic relations can turn the tables on those that would anathematize it by saying, Hang diplomacy. India, by contrast, has no such luxury. It is a prisoner of its own global aspirations--and pretensions.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/05/2009
14:52 ||
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#1
Of these 5 reasons, by far the most important are the first two, especially the second. In fact, India going nuclear, however much it filled their hearts with nationalistic pride, was a major strategic mistake. Pakistan was impelled to match them and this development partially negated India's advantage in conventional war (India had won all previous encounters) by raising the stakes by so much. Reasons 3-5 are more excuses than reasons. (However, there is a reason 6 which the author doesn't mention and which is a real concern for India: long-term response by China.)
#2
FOX NEWS AM > CAVUTO Show - guest Pert SHOULD got into a raucus debate wid Neil over WHETHER AND WHEN ISRAEL's LARGER-SIZED MUSLIM NEIGHBORS WILL PROVE WILLING TO GIVE UP SOME OF THEIR SOVEREIGN LANDS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THEIR FELLOW PALESTINIANS?
Once again, GUEST > T'AINT GONNA HAPPEN. ISRAEL PER SE IS THE ONE AND ONLY ONE THAT HAS TO GIVE UP LAND = ANYTHING!
#3
No other state--apart, perhaps, from Britain--evokes as much favor in American public opinion as does Israel.
Beat up on Pakistan and you can be a close third in my book.
#5
In fact, India going nuclear, however much it filled their hearts with nationalistic pride, was a major strategic mistake.
India going nuclear was a necessary response to China going nuclear. Pakistan needed to go nuclear to allow it to continue sponsoring terror attacks against India without being invaded in response.
TORKHAM, Afghanistan -- U.S and Pakistani military cooperation has increased as the two nations push to eliminate militants destabilizing both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, a marked change from last year's tense relationship.
Senior American military officers say the U.S. is allowing Pakistani officers to view video feeds from unmanned drones flying over Pakistan's ungoverned border regions. The U.S. is also granting access to American intercepts of militant cellular and satellite phone calls inside Pakistan.
Unfortunately a fair bit of this will end up being 'fed' straight to the Talibunnies ...
The Pakistani military is using the U.S. intelligence to carry out strikes against extremists in its Federally Administered Tribal Areas, which are widely thought to harbor senior members of al Qaeda, the Taliban and other armed Islamist groups. U.S. officials believe Afghanistan is deteriorating because of insurgents based in these "safe havens."
The cooperation is a contrast from earlier last year when Islamabad, reacting to public anger over U.S. ground and air strikes inside the country, withheld military cooperation. The once-solid relationship between Washington and Islamabad deteriorated over the summer after an American missile killed 11 Pakistani soldiers.
Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, the top U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan, said the number of insurgents crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan has begun to decrease, reducing a major cause of instability in Afghanistan. Gen. Schloesser said U.S. and Afghan forces, which were hit by up to 20 rockets a day over the summer, are now hit by two or three.
U.S. officials attributed the declines to American missile strikes on insurgent targets inside Pakistan and the coordinated military campaign known as Operation Lionheart, which involves U.S. moves against militants in the Kunar region of Afghanistan and a large Pakistani campaign in the extremist stronghold of Bajaur.
"The operations in Bajaur and the Predator strikes in Waziristan have caused a disruption across the border," Gen. Schloesser said. The general's comments mark one of the first times a senior U.S. official has publicly confirmed the use of U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan.
Pakistan's chief military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said Operation Lionheart had succeeded in pushing many militants out of Bajaur, which had long been the main extremist stronghold in northwestern Pakistan.
U.S. officials credit the turnaround in part to Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the head of Pakistan's armed forces, who has come to believe that militants pose an extreme threat. Gen. Kiyani replaced the head of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence, which has long maintained covert ties to the Taliban and other armed groups, and has devoted significant military resources toward the fight in the border regions.
Pakistan's fragile civilian government has also taken a harder line toward the militants than many U.S. officials expected.
William Wood, the U.S. ambassador in Kabul, said in a recent interview that Pakistan was "unquestionably taking more effective action" against militants. "The only reason I wouldn't refer to it as a bright spot is that the problem is such a big one," he said.
The focal point of the U.S.-Pakistani military cooperation is the small base at Torkham, a strategically vital border town that abuts the Khyber Pass, the main supply route for Western forces in Afghanistan.
The American-built base here opened in the spring, and was meant to house military personnel from the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan. During a trip to Torkham over the summer, the barracks rooms set aside for the Pakistanis sat empty, with the mattresses still covered in plastic.
In late December, by contrast, U.S. troops sat in a large tactical operations room alongside Afghan personnel in dark-green fatigues and Pakistani soldiers in flowing tan uniforms. The video feed from an American drone was being projected onto a large pull-down screen at the front of the room.
The Pakistani personnel at Torkham have secure phone and data connections back to their country. A senior U.S. official said the Pakistanis receive access to American "signals intelligence," mainly intercepts of radio traffic, cellular and satellite phone calls.
Maj. Robert Brown, the top U.S. official at Torkham, said the base is meant to "knit together" the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan. "The point is to make sure everyone knows all the same information, and can act on it," he said in an interview.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/05/2009
14:51 ||
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Senior American military officers say the U.S. is allowing Pakistani officers to view video feeds from unmanned drones flying over Pakistan's ungoverned border regions. The U.S. is also granting access to American intercepts of militant cellular and satellite phone calls inside Pakistan.
So now the ISI knows what US capabilities are? That should prove useful for the jihadis.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/05/2009 14:56
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ANTWERP -- Many Jews in Antwerp are no longer on the streets Wednesday after the demonstrators went to the Arab League against the Unit the war was out of hand. Reports that the site of the Last News.
The demonstrations were the necessary damage. Also in the Diamond Area where many Jews live and work, says the editor of the weekly Jewish News, Michael Freilich. The Jewish community is concerned, according to him the victim of vandalism and violence. A single SMS service of the community warns people to avoid the Diamond Area.
According to Frei Smile everyone afraid the situation might escalate. "We have not seen since 2003. Freilich says that his phone is red hot from worried people who have lost the thread.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2009
14:01 ||
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Just a functioning multicultural society in action.
#3
oh its from Flemish. If it was French I could try to read the original. I can't really respond without a better translation. Is there in fact violence in the diamond district now, or just fear of them? Were there demonstrations anywhere other than at the Arab league?
#5
Jews should be afraid. Collective punishment should cut both ways.. .for every dead Pali child - a Jewish toddler should be murdered... OUTSIDE Israel.
THAT will put an end to the genocide.
A dead little Jew for every dead Palestinian child.
#6
Afraid you're on the losing end of this one Bugs my boy. I know it's something of a national muslim pastime, but I'd strongly recommend you stop talking about killing Jewish children from the safety of a blog, ruck-up and head to Gaza to assist your brothers.
Major clashes between IDF troops and Hamas gunmen were reportedly taking place late Monday evening in the northern Gaza Strip....
Overnight Sunday, the IAF attacked more than 30 Gaza targets, including an underground Hamas bunker, weapons caches and sites from where Grad rockets were fired at Ashkelon.
In related news, the IDF announced on Monday that dozens of Hamas operatives have been taken prisoner since the start of the ground offensive, Israel Radio reported. Details regarding how the gunmen were captured [may not be part of N Gaza Op]
and when were not released.
#5
Is the IDF gonna hold the captured gunnies hostage?
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009 15:46
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hostage as ask for a specific goodie or they get shot? No, course not.
But, they could make clear they will be held till a satisfactory cease fire (the terms for that are mentioned on other threads here) is reached. Meanwhile, while they are held, Hamas lacks the use of them in potential street battles with Fatah. For that purpose it matters not if Israel keeps them in pleasant accommodations - as long as they are deprived to Hamas as internal strategic assets.
#7
from the Muqata blog:
10:45 PM Important Update: Out of respect for the IDF Military Censor, we are unable to print more details about this evenings IDF ground operation in Northern Gaza. We'll provide details as soon as the censor allows...
10:10 PM The massive IAF bombing raids this afternoon and evening on the smuggling tunnels beneath the Philidephi corridor, could be due to the information we posted about Hamas smuggling in Fajr-4 70-kilomter range rockets.
#8
9:57 PM Israeli Intelligence sources say that Hamas succeeded in bringing in Fajr-4 missiles into Gaza. These missiles have a 70 km range and can reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Hamas is trying to get these missiles into Northern Gaza right now. (Rotter)
#10
An interesting intelligence titbit; Israel has at least one blimp in position over Gaza.
While Israel and others make a show of Humint, I think it's mostly a blind for Techint. With permanent overhead monitoring, traffic analysis and data mining can produce results close to magic.
Paranoia is the most potent weapon against terror organizations.
#12
Holding them as leverage for a satisfactory cease would be a gigantic mistake. Hamas doesn't care about their gunnies. Certainly not enough to stop killing juice. For Israels sake, they can get some intel and then they'll try to escape or maybe they can get Fatah to take them off their hands.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/05/2009 16:33
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#13
Israel should not be taking prisoners unless they have no choice. They should have video cameras with each squad so surrenders can be recorded and the "Brave" Hamas fighters surrendering can be shown to help discredit them and their "brave" rhetoric.
#14
If Israel wants to capture Hamas fighters they should set up some flaming hoops. You know after all the training they've done jumping through flaming hoops (as shown on Little Green Footballs a number of times) they'd be helpless against the urge to jump.
Faltering slightly at first, a lone voice sang The Star-Spangled Banner as a large American flag was hoisted to mark the opening of the new US Embassy inside Baghdad's green zone today.
Ryan Crocker, the US Ambassador to Iraq, told a ceremony in the grounds of the sprawling compound, the biggest American embassy in the world, that this was the start of a new era in relations between the two countries. The move followed the similarly symbolic handover on New Year's Day of Saddam Hussein's old presidential palace, which had served as the US Embassy since the invasion, to the Iraqi Government.
"Today is about more than raising a flag and dedicating an embassy. It is about new directions and a new future," Mr Crocker told an audience of diplomats, officials and military personnel.
As he spoke, the sound of helicopters buzzed overhead, a reminder of the ongoing US military presence in Iraq despite the shift in power. All US forces in the country came under the authority of the Iraqi Government on January 1 after a UN Security Council resolution authorising their presence expired.
Under a new agreement between Baghdad and Washington, US troops will pull out of towns and cities by mid-2009 and out of the country within three years.
Raffie al-Issawi, one of Iraq's two Deputy Prime Ministers, said that the establishment of a fully-fledged American embassy in a sovereign Iraq "means really a new era of excellent relations".
Speaking to The Times after the ceremony, he added: "I feel that now everything is done an Iraqi way with the assistance of the Americans and others. I hope that it will be a prosperous and excellent future for my country and my people."
The upbeat statements contrast with the violent reality on the ground. Attacks are down significantly from a year ago, but bombings still occur on a near-daily basis.
You didn't expect a Times reporter to be upbeat, did you ...
Four people were killed today and another 19 were injured in four bombs across Baghdad. The attacks came 24 hours after at least 35 people died and scores more were wounded when a female suicide bomber targeted Shia pilgrims at a revered shrine in the northeast of the capital.
Security at the Embassy was typically tight for the ceremony. Also speaking was John Negroponte, Deputy Secretary of State, on a visit from Washington. He served as the first US ambassador to Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
In addition Jalal Talabani, Iraq's Kurdish President, said a few words to the several hundred assembled guests, who included Christopher Prentice, the British Ambassador to Iraq and Lieutenant-General John Cooper, the most senior British military commander in the country. After the speeches, people filed under a large, white marquee for a finger buffet and coffee.
Spread across 104 acres, the embassy compound of orange-y buildings cost more than $700 million to build. Surrounded by high walls of reinforced concrete, some people joke that it looks more like a prison from the outside.
Call this one of the newest and innovative the ways your government has come up with to battle greenhouse gas emissions. I call it just another way to shaft Consumers and Business.
Indirectly it could be considered a cheeseburger tax, but one of the suggestions offered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act is to levy a tax on livestock. The ANPR, released early this year, would give the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gas for not only greenhouse gas from manmade sources like transportation and industry, but also "stationary" sources which would include livestock. Livestock, stationary? They don't get out much, do they?
The New York Farm Bureau assigned a price tag to the cost of greenhouse gas regulation by the EPA in a release last month. "The tax for dairy cows could be $175 per cow, and $87.50 per head of beef cattle. The tax on hogs would upwards of $20 per hog," the release said. "Any operation with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs would have to obtain permits."
Kate Galbraith, correspondent for The New York Times, noted on the Times' "Green Inc." blog that such a "proposal is far from being enacted" and that the "hysteria may be premature." Hysteria over the enactment of such a stupid idea or hysteria over trying to curb CO2?
But Rick Krause, senior director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau, warned it's certainly feasible -- especially based on the rhetoric of President-elect Barack Obama and the use of the EPA to combat global warming. Such action by an Obama administration would take an act of Congress for livestock to be exempt.
"The new president has been on record as saying that he really supports regulating greenhouse gases out of the Clean Air Act," Krause said to the Business & Media Institute. "So, we really have to keep an eye on it. Legislation would really be the only way to exempt it at this point -- the cow tax." Jeebus, Cripes, what's next? The cost of meat products, already high, would be unafordable to low income people. These people have all the sense of a bucket of hair.
Krause said it is difficult to quantify the cost that might be passed directly to the consumer by farmers from the legislation, but predicted it would mean higher costs for dairy production. "It's hard to figure what it would do to consumer prices since farmers, unlike other industries, really can't pass their cost along directly like utilities and things do," "About the only thing we could realistically come up, in terms of any of this stuff -- it would add between 7 and 8 cents per gallon of milk costs to farmers. So it would cost them 7 or 8 cents more to produce a gallon of milk."
Even the Department of Agriculture warned the EPA that smaller farms and ranches would have difficulty with limits as much as 100 tons annually on emissions: "If GHG emissions from agricultural sources are regulated under the CAA, numerous farming operations that currently are not subject to the costly and time-consuming Title V permitting process would, for the first time, become covered entities. Even very small agricultural operations would meet a 100-tons-per-year emissions threshold. For example, dairy facilities with over 25 cows, beef cattle operations of over 50 cattle, swine operations with over 200 hogs, and farms with over 500 acres of corn may need to get a Title V permit. It is neither efficient nor practical to require permitting and reporting of GHG emissions from farms of this size. Excluding only the 200,000 largest commercial farms, our agricultural landscape is comprised of 1.9 million farms with an average value of production of $25,589 on 271 acres. These operations simply could not bear the regulatory compliance costs that would be involved."
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/05/2009
12:26 ||
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The government wants a tax revolt against them, don't they?
The more they tax, the more I want to stock up on guns and ammo.
#4
It's more than that. The animal rights / eco activists have had a huge influence on state and federal agencies. They have discussed this sort of tax in the past as a way to penalize and eventually force livestock raisers out of business.
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
01/05/2009 14:50
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#6
Jeebus, Cripes, what's next? The cost of meat products, already high, would be unafordable to low income people. These people have all the sense of a bucket of hair cow farts.
#15
Just so y'all know, the cattle ranchers out here are taking it seriously and I'd believe them over Green Inc. which would benefit from you all not knowing or caring. The ranchers, however, are only concerned about the short term drop in sales and will recover - you will be the ones paying for the increase.
"Well I don't eat cheeseburgers often so what do I care?" Well its a silly name for a serious pieces of tax legislation which will affect everyone. As far as I know, the biggest consumer of milk is schools. Want a hamburger pizza? Well that is meat and cheese. Jello? You bet its a cattle product. New baseball glove - you can still find made in the USA ballgloves but good luck after this, leather seats, cheese burrito, all cheese, hot dogs, bacon, doggy snacks, bbq ribs, beef broth soups, alfredo sauce, yogurt, so on.
$0.08 per gallon is at the manufacturers site, wait till it shows up at your store or in your meal. 50 Beef Cattle out here is nothin, so then what a larger farm subsidy to save USA's #1 export, more tax money for schools to buy lunch then you get it again. Add that to a proposed gas tax.
This is not Farmer Flyover's problem, this is your problem. Like any industry, tax the producer and the consumer pays for it. It is best to fight stupid acts of legislation before it gets started so it can't be 'premature'.
#23
There are two additional problems not mentioned in these comments: the EPA can impose these rules WITHOUT ANY ADDITIONAL LEGISLATION. They've been given the "authority" to "regulate" greenhouse gasses, any way they want. Secondly, they've ruled that CO2 is a "pollutant", which means that every one of us is a polluter (animals breathe in air, remove oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide). This is stupid, because CO2 is ESSENTIAL for plants to grow, and secondly to replentish the oxygen supply.
The only solution is to restore the Constitution, which would eliminate the EPA - its formation was unconstitutional in the first place. It removed from Congress the regulation of businesses and governments that are the sole responsibility of CONGRESS and gave it to a bureaucracy unaccountable to the American people. There are still a few people in Congress that helped birth this abortion, and they need to hang for it.
As more and more information becomes available that "greenhouse gasses" other than water vapor have little or no control of the environment, the work of the EPA will look more and more stupid. Don't expect anyone to bring it to their attention, especially not from Congress.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/05/2009 20:33
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Let's dump Education and HHS while we're restoring the Constitution, OP.
There is NO authorization for either anywhere in the Constitution.
And for those who don't give a rat's behind about the Constitution, education, health, and welfare in this country have gone downhill since those departments' invention, even as the costs of same have soared through the roof.
Anytime the gummint gets its fingers in a pie, the cost of the pie skyrockets and the quality of the pie plummets. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/05/2009 20:49
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Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/05/2009 21:28
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#28
There better not be a tax on popcorn, or you will have a necktie party on yer hands.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/05/2009 21:36
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#29
Excluding only the 200,000 largest commercial farms, our agricultural landscape is comprised of 1.9 million farms with an average value of production of $25,589 on 271 acres. These operations simply could not bear the regulatory compliance costs that would be involved."
And you can bet that the agribusiness lobby hacks (aka the 'farm' lobby) are licking their chops and doing what they can to support this. Instrumentation and paperwork - right up their alley.
THE armed wing of Hamas said today that it has "thousands" of fighters ready to battle Israel in Gaza, in a second defiant televised address by the Islamists in a day.
"We have prepared thousands of brave fighters who are waiting for you in each corner of the street and will welcome you with fire and iron,'' Abu Obeida, the spokesman for the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a broadcast on Hamas's Al-Aqsa television channel.
"We tell you in all confidence that your defeat in the Gaza Strip is approaching with every hour,'' he said. "As long as the aggression intensifies, your losses will increase and you will sink further into the Gaza quagmire. od willing, we are at the gates of victory and the Zionist Jews will suffer only defeat and humiliation.''
"The Qassams still have many means and have up to now used only a part of their forces,'' he said.
And they'll start fighting the day AFTER Israel leave Gaza....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/05/2009 12:19
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#5
In order to secure the area, IDF needs to clear it of rats and other vermin. It's always helpful if they come out to play. Come on out, Hamas, today is a good day to die.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
01/05/2009 12:50
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#6
And Abu will be right out front leading the charge, won't ya, buddy...
#7
Why assume he's lying? I'd guess there are plenty of Hamas fighters dug in inside schools and hospitals all over Gaza. They don't have to be good fighters, just able to keep the kids from running away.
Posted by: James ||
01/05/2009 13:46
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#8
"thousands" of Black Knights. Imagine a Monty Python movie with thousands of Black Knights (but a flesh wound!) and a few thousand more who taunt the Israelis by running away some more.
#9
The mindless bravado alone should be justification for slaying the entire lot. IDF please spare nothing. Not a goat, donkey, or chicken left standing.
Prof. Steven Plaut, Haifa University (@ National Review's "Media Blog")
The jets bombed the bejeebers out of them. The ground forces invaded. They at long last suppressed the terrorists, who had conducted a long campaign of suicide bombing and planting bombs, and put an end to any notion that the terrorists and their sponsors would be granted their own state.
Many civilians were killed and wounded, yet not a single protest was made against the invasion anywhere. I am of course referring to the conquest by the army of Sri Lanka over the past few days of the last hold-out city of the Tamil independence rebels.
Kilinochchi was the last town held by the Tamil Tiger Rebels, considered to be a terrorist group by the United States. With it fell the last Tamil hope of setting up an independent state or even of getting autonomy inside Sri Lanka. The Tamils have their own state inside India but were not satisfied with that manifestation of self-determination. Kilinochchi, 579 kilometers north of Sri Lankas capital Colombo, was until recent months the center of political power for the rebels.
Meanwhile not a single Solidarity-with-the-Tamil-Tigers protest has been organized on a single Western campus or in a single downtown square. Mobs and academics have not taken to the streets to demand an end to the war of aggression against the Tamils. Leftist web sites have not proclaimed every injury of a Tamil civilian to be a Nazi-like war crime and an act of genocide.
Eurocrats have not pontificated about how the Sri Lankan response to the terror was out of proportion. The International Solidarity Movement has not sent in protesters from the West to try to defend the terrorists. Communists and fellow travelers have not organized flotillas of boats carrying aid to the terrorists. Israeli politicians have not lectured the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka about how the whole problem is that they are insensitive to the needs of the Other.
None have proposed dividing Colombo and handing over half to the Tamils. Virtually no one knows that 65,000 civilians have died in the fighting and the media have no interest in covering the story.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/05/2009
11:57 ||
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There's a good reason for this. Unlike Arabs, Sri Lanka's Tamilian rebels aren't rabidly anti-Western. There's no glamor in sympathetically covering a guerrilla group that isn't anti-Western. Another angle is this - the West has little leverage over Sri Lanka - since the Sinhalese couldn't give a damn what the West thinks. Israel, on the other hand, is hyper-sensitive to Western opinion, because its leaders like vacationing in Europe.
#1
Yup, Ford tough. As Frank G. keeps reminding us, sometimes nothing replaces a truck. And it appears the truck rear bumper took everything in stride. Just for kicks, let's try to rerun this inserting a Toyota Prius in place of the Ford.
People should ignore signs telling them that it is legal to urinate in certain public places in Nottingham, the city council said.
The signs, which were put up by pranksters in and around Nottingham, are designed to look official. They feature a toilet sign and include the words: "Public Urination Permitted After 7.30pm". Flush with embarassment,
Nottingham City Council is now urging the public to ignore the notices as it sets about removing them.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/05/2009
10:34 ||
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They should sell the offending signs to the city of San Francisco. Many citizens there would appreciate the restrictions.
Its the most famous chord in rock 'n' roll, an instantly recognizable twang rolling through the open strings on George Harrisons 12-string Rickenbacker. It evokes a Pavlovian response from music fans as they sing along to the refrain that follows:
"Its been a hard days night
And Ive been working like a dog"
The opening chord to "A Hard Days Night" is also famous because, for 40 years, no one quite knew exactly what chord Harrison was playing. There were theories aplenty and musicians, scholars and amateur guitar players all gave it a try, but it took a Dalhousie mathematician to figure out the exact formula.
Four years ago, inspired by reading news coverage about the songs 40th anniversary, Jason Brown of Dalhousies Department of Mathematics decided to try and see if he could apply a mathematical calculation known as Fourier transform to solve the Beatles riddle. The process allowed him to decompose the sound into its original frequencies using computer software and parse out which notes were on the record.
It worked, to a point: the frequencies he found didnt match the known instrumentation on the song. George played a 12-string Rickenbacker, Lennon had his six string, Paul had his bass none of them quite fit what I found, he explains. Then the solution hit me: it wasnt just those instruments. There was a piano in there as well, and that accounted for the problematic frequencies.
...Dr. Brown deduces that another GeorgeGeorge Martin, the Beatles produceralso played on the chord, adding a piano chord that included an F note impossible to play with the other notes on the guitar. The resulting chord was completely different than anything found in the literature about the song to date, which is one reason why Dr. Browns findings garnered international attention. He laughs that he may be the only mathematician ever to be published in Guitar Player magazine....
Posted by: Mike ||
01/05/2009
10:28 ||
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It's a pretty interesting article, although I don't understand why someone didn't just call up Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr for their opinion.
#2
The lost chord was found by Jimmy Durante on his piano under his baloney sandwich. Used to have the 78 record when I was a little kid.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/05/2009 11:09
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Typical mathematician. He could have just gone down to the mechanical or electrical engineering departments and borrowed an FFT analyzer to save himself a lot of effort.
The Taliban has long exaggerated its military successes, but its figures for 2008 may be the militia's most startling claims yet.
The Taliban claims its forces last year killed 5,220 foreign troops, downed 31 aircraft, destroyed 2,818 NATO and Afghan vehicles and killed 7,552 Afghan soldiers and police. "and we destroyed a submarine and an aircraft carrier - the USS Kerry"
Though third-party observers can rarely confirm casualty claims on the Afghan battlefield from the Taliban, the Afghan government, the U.S. or NATO, the Taliban's 2008 numbers would appear to be far from the truth.
NATO's member countries announce all troop deaths, providing names, ages and hometowns and how the soldiers were killed. According to an Associated Press tally of those announcements, 286 foreign forces died last year in Afghanistan, including 151 American and 51 British troops.
The Taliban's toll is almost 20 times higher.
Despite the inflated toll, the Taliban have had more success recently. Violence in Afghanistan has spiked in the last two years, and Taliban militants now control wide swaths of countryside. In response, the U.S. is planning to pour up to 30,000 more troops into the country this year.
The insurgents' exaggerations are designed to boost morale inside the Taliban and to attract financing from donors sympathetic to their cause, a U.S. military official and a Taliban expert said. "They put out this propaganda in order to raise capital to continue their operations," said Col. Jerry O'Hara, a U.S. military spokesman.
Vahid Mojdeh, the author of a book on the Taliban, said the exaggerated claims help the insurgents recruit new fighters. "The Taliban needs volunteers to carry out suicide attacks, so they want to show they are killing a lot of people," Mojdeh said.
Propaganda has long been a key element in war, particularly in conflicts where the sides are fighting to win support from the population. The Taliban exaggerates U.S. or NATO deaths in order to persuade average Afghans that the insurgents are winning, while U.S. and NATO spokesmen frequently highlight construction projects -- roads and schools -- to Afghan journalists in the hopes that average Afghans will associate foreign troops with increased development.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/05/2009
09:50 ||
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At first, the US utterly perplexed the Afghan soldiers by downplaying enemy casualties. The tradition was that everybody lied up the numbers, to brag, and they were puzzled why the Americans didn't want to do that.
But the ever practical Americans had very good reasons. The bad guyz have no idea of the field strength of their forward forces, casualty estimates, and other vital planning information. If anything, they think they are far stronger than they actually are.
#3
"Despite the inflated toll, the Taliban have had more success recently. Violence in Afghanistan has spiked in the last two years, and Taliban militants now control wide swaths of countryside."
Actually, the above is pure crap. Yes, the violence has increased but that is because we have become more aggressive in going at them. We are engaging them more so there are more firefights leading to more casualties. And the amount of countryside they control has actually been shrinking. They held almost an entire province at one point two years ago when the Brits made a deal with them. That has since been taken away from them.
#5
Baghdad Bob has found new employment and relocated to Afghanistan. The Taliban will use the sub-prime commission schedule to compensate Bob. They will substitute Coalition Casualty claims in place of borrower income claims.
#6
They must have hired on Dr. James Hansen to 'massage' the data and show that 1990-2000 2008 was the warmest decade deadliest year in the historical record.
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
01/05/2009 19:41
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:)
Even worse than 1973?
That was a bad one....
FIREBRAND mullah Anjem Choudary has made his most-bonkers rant yet -- demanding Southall be named our capital. He said the west London suburb should be the centre of power "when Islam takes over the UK".
"He sounds completely barmy."
The lawyer, who was once the head of radical Muslim group al-Muhajiroun, made the call at a meeting of his supporters. They cheered his every word as he called for Muslims to "rise up" and seize power in Britain.
But even they fell silent when he called for rundown Southall -- an Asian-dominated area -- to become the nation's capital. Choudary, 41, said: "We will rise up. We will rise up, my dear Muslims. One day we will have the Sharia here. And who knows, maybe even Southall can be the capital of the Islamic state when we conquer it."
Almost 20 per cent of locals in Southall are Muslims, while more than 75 per cent are Asian, compared with around 12 per cent classifying themselves as white. It is also home to the Glassy Junction pub, the first bar in the UK to accept rupees.
But last night locals dismissed Choudary's views. Retired postal worker Jim Allen, 71, said: "I like the place, but I wouldn't make it a capital in a million years." Helen Jamison, 41, added: "He sounds completely barmy."
Choudary has close links to Omar Bakri Mohammed, the 50-year-old preacher banned from the UK.
Like many capitals, Southall does have its claims to fame. Washington DC has the White House while Southall has White Street gasworks tower. Paris has nine restaurants with three Michelin stars but Southall has Britain's first Halal McDonald's.
#3
Still waiting for the "Anjem Choudary Runs With Scissors, Hit By Subway Train" headline. Of course, they could be keeping him around because he makes a helluva informant.
His followers will kill him if they find out he's an informant, and then where would the Brits get intelligence about the traitors in their midst?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/05/2009 11:49
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TW
From Living in West London I know The Hindus/Sikhs of Southall have been fighting the Muslims from Nearby Slough for years(street fights etc) so I think Southall was mentioned to windup the majority Sikh/Hindu population!!!!
#5
Nothing more dangerous than a jilted lover true believer stalker. Fatal Attraction Part II. Let's hope the Secret Service does a better job of intercepting incoming cause even though one of theirs would do it, they'd still blame their usual scapegoats rather than face the facts.
#9
Sheesh! The guys not even in office yet. Give him a chance to finish nationalizing the economy, appease our enemies, and sell out our sovereignty before you complain, lefties.
#10
Anybody starting a pool for how long Obambi lasts? He's going to have to do a lot of juggling to fulfill even a small portion of his campaign promises. He's never had a stressful job in his life, he's a smoker, and he's a fraud. It would be a shame, but I wouldn't be surprised if he had a heart attack in less than three years. Being president is no job for amateurs.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/05/2009 20:59
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#11
I dunno, OP. If his shrew of a wife hasn't given him one by now, it might not be possible.
Are you sure there's even a heart in there? I had the impression that if someone cut him open, they'd find his entire insides (including the head) filled with mush.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/05/2009 22:04
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#2
This morning us DC folk were treated two our local news crews breathlessly reporting the arrival of the Obama girls at their first day of school (Sidwell Friends, the Quaker school also attended by Chelsea). The lady reporter squealed that she had never been so excited for someone else's children going to school.
#6
Notice Bambi's body languags as he deplaned? looked mighty depressed, like maybe he had to sit in the back ( press section) or bring his own pretzels.......(nothing is free in airplanes anymore)
Notice the Balck Widow isn't with him (insert cheap joke here about losing your bag).....
#7
Fox had a clip of him this morning from Andrews I believe. He was getting ready to get in the limo and saw a African American fellow a few yards away, not sure who he was, Secret Service or media. The One turned and walked over to the fellow for an Afroshake and a quick man-hug. A real barbershop moment.
#8
Directly or indirectly, soon-to-be-POTUS PEBO has more National + GEOPOL PROBS [read, NWO "GLOBALIST"] than POTUS Carter could even had imagined, to includ as layed upon his shoulders by fellow Americans.
To wit:
*AFRICAN CRISIS: UK TIMES [Matthew Parris] - OBAMA WILL BE THE FIRST US PRESIDENT TO MANAGE AN EMPIRE IN DECLINE [includ helping/contribut to His own Nation's decline or defeat]!?
Also from AFRICAN CRISIS [old = 08/2005 rehash] > LEADING CCP OFFICIAL ARGUES FOR EXTERMINATION OF US POPULATION/WW3: CCP MoD OFFICIAL- WAR IS NOT FAR FROM US AND IS THE NIDWIFE OF THE CHINESE CENTURY. Mod + CMC Member Chi Haotian argues that Chin Civilization, Culture + Peoples are 000's of years old = ancient, and thus can rightfuly claim world leadership above all other major Nations-Peoples. Ancient Chinese migrated to the Americas and became the AMERS INDIANS, as well as ditto to the PACRIM-OCEANIA. CHIN SHOULD WARN AMERICANS TO PHYSICALLY DEPART CONUS-NORAM AND LEAVE TO CHIN TO RESETTLE, OR IN ALTERN TO GIVE UP AT LEAST 1/2 OF CONUS-NORAM TO CHINA AND NEW CHINESE SETTLEMENT. CHINA SHOULD BE READY AND WILLING TO USE BIOLOGICAL AND EVEN NUCLEAR WAR TO DESTROY LOCAL POPULATIONS IN SUPPOR MASSIVE CHIN MIGRATION + COLONIZATION OF THE USA + OTHER.
Can you believe it? Barack Hussein Obama II hasnt even been inaugurated yet and hes already been interviewed by federal prosecutors in the ongoing Blago mess; hes seen Bill Richardson immolate himself rather than stand the federal grand-jury scrutiny that would have come with his appointment as Commerce Secretary; his boy Rahm Emanuel is both en pointe, having resigned the House seat that was previously warmed by Hot Rod and Dan Rostenkowski, and, apparently, on Patrick Fitzgeralds tapes too; and hes facing the prospect of the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, standing like a homunculus George Wallace in the schoolhouse door, ready to deny entrance to a black man when Roland We Are the Senator Burris tries to take Bambis hardly-even-used seat tomorrow.
And here we Democrats thought the Clinton administration could never be topped!
You people had better get used to it, though, because hijinks and shenanigans like these are going to be the order of the day for at least the next four years. After all, we are the Tammany Party the party of Slavery, Segregation, Sedition, and Surrender so this sort of thing is not exactly new for us. Just look at our track record: . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
01/05/2009
08:12 ||
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#1
Is it too late to invest in Barbara Skolaut's popcorn concession stand here on the 'burg? ;)
#9
Being here in Chicago, I tried to warn all my national friends that "pay to play" in Illinois politics is neither a feature or a bug... its the operating system.
#11
About Richardson's replacement: you know, there's a pretty good governor with lots of experience negotiating large contracts with multinational corporations while keeping negotiations publicly accountable. This governor has more executive experience than Barack Obama. Do any of you think she's be available?
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
01/05/2009 20:56
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#12
I think she's got more sense than to be available, Eric.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/05/2009 20:59
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#13
It's an amusing idea to taunt people with, Barbara.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
01/05/2009 21:27
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From the Terrorism Awareness Project is a video from David Horowitz which gives some background into the 'problem in the middle east' which you won't see from the MSM (and definately not from the history channel).
Interesting stuff you can send to your liberal and history-deficient friends.
Video at link ( sorry - can't be embedded and autoplays )
One police officer was killed and his colleague was wounded early Monday after a brief exchange of gunfire with terrorists presumed insurgents in this southern border province, one day after the fifth anniversary of the resumption violence in the South.
The violence occurred as a police unit headed by Pol. Col. Piyawat Chalermsri, provincial police superintendent, raided a house in Ruso district after being tipped off that insurgents who had earlier killed two soldiers on December 29 might have taken shelter in the house. A hail of gunfire was fired as the police prepared to break into the house, the exchange lasting for about 10 minutes. Sgt-Maj. Thanat died of gunshot wounds. Police reinforcements arrived later to pursue the group of assailants who fled into the nearby mountains.
Forensic experts found more than 60 spent shell casings for M16 and AK47 weapons at the scene, collecting them as evidence for further investigation.
Roland "Tombstone" Burris goes to Washington this week as part of the Illinois political freak show, and many of us back home will watch it and feel like cringing, at least at the beginning.
Who among us could not wince at the prospect of Tombstone standing before news cameras, his head bobbing, smiling amiably, chattering nonsensically as is his way, insisting he feels no shame. All he wants is to become a United States senator, and he kissed a tainted hand to get there.
His fellow Democrats may be ready to bar his entrance to the Senate chambers, and politicians will be ready, even eager, to play the race card again. If this happens, the man who sent Tombstone to Washington, Gov. Rod Blagojevich will glory in his opportunity to speak directly to his future jury pool.
So I wouldn't bet against Gov. Dead Meat holding a news conference Wednesday, standing with a gospel choir, leading them in "We Shall Overcome," a single tear rolling down his cheek, a tear that will be referenced again and again by his lawyer Eddie Genson at Dead Meat's jury selection.
Such high emotions. Such low expectations. Such bad actors.
Soldiers from the IDF's Golani infantry brigade were fighting in the northern part of the Gaza Strip when they entered a house on which they had previous intelligence it was used as a Hamas command center.
Upon entering the house, the soldiers discovered entrances to several tunnels; the Hamas terrorists holed in the house used these to escape underground to neighboring houses and were shooting into the building where the unit entered.
One of the soldiers followed the gunmen into a tunnel and managed to contain several Hamas fighters in a firefight while underground inside the tunnel, before teaming up with his comrades again. Two IAF helicopters were scrambled to support the infantrymen, Israel Radio reported.
The military assesses that the Palestinian terrorists were trying to lure the soldier to go after them alone into the tunnel in an effort to kidnap him.
In related news, the IDF dimissed Hamas claims that the group had succeeded in kidnapping two soldiers. A statement by the IDF spokesperson said the army does not comment on "rumors and mendacious reports" issued by Hamas, and emphasized that if an incident of Hamas kidnapping a soldier would occur, it would break the news to the public in a proper and timely manner.
#1
Why go after them? Run a hose from the tailpipe of the nearest vehicle into the tunnel. Idle said vehicle for several hours. Don SCBA, climb in and remove terrorist gophers. Alterately run a hose from a propane tank ....
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/05/2009 1:02
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#2
Hamas is not happy unless they are burrowing.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/05/2009 1:08
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#3
you can only go so low... then you gotta dig.
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
01/05/2009 1:20
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#10
Why be so nice about perserving the tunnels while destroying the vermin inside? A few well placed explosives will get rid of both. Half the work, twice the fun.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
01/05/2009 9:07
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#11
"Fire in the hole!!!!!!" does have a certain ring to it ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2009 9:43
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#12
Can't they just plug up the holes with cement? Like a whole cement mixer's worth per entrance?
Y'know, to Protect the Children TM, so they don't get hurt playin' in them, and the puppies, kittens and baby ducks don't get hangnails.
#13
Carbon monoxide would probably be interpreted as a poison gas attack by the international media, and we'd never hear the end of it. Propane & a match, on the other hand, would probably fly with everybody except the "oooh! napalm is satanic!" fringe crowd.
No, I'm not saying that's a rational outcome - dead's dead, and burning to death's worse than keeling over quietly from CO poisoning - but I'm pretty sure that's the war crime algebra of the two hypotheses.
Well, that & I'm pretty sure neither would be all that effective in sandy soils.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
01/05/2009 10:40
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#14
Tunnel dwarf getting ready to escape on his getaway camel.
#23
Bangalore torpedos, pushed in as far as they'll go, then ignited. Look for where the smoke comes out. Follow up with the sewage, for proper HAMASS burial.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/05/2009 14:33
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#24
A tunnel crawling bot would be nice would be nice, rigged with a camera and an explosive charge.
Take a look-see what's down there before you blow it.
#25
Wasn't there a report about a Gaza sewage plant with problems just a few weeks ago. Perhaps said sewage could be stored underground in these tunnels.
"Hamas has already proved that it is not a partner [for peace] when it violated the cease-fire," a senior political source said Sunday in Jerusalem.
Israel will instead seek separate agreements with moderate Arab states, with the Palestinian Authority and with the international community. "The international community will initiate the agreements and will impose it on Hamas," the same source said. "The agreements will be with both the PA and Egypt and then if Hamas will not agree it will pay the price, mostly by even greater [diplomatic] isolation."
Israel is seeking three agreements:
On smuggling, a deal with Egypt, with American involvement, which already exists in the form of combat engineers working to uncover tunnels.
On the crossings, Israel would like to bolster a 2005 agreement with the PA, Egypt, and the EU, that will restore use of the Rafah crossing and deployment of PA and EU officials that will oversee its operation.
On a cease-fire, Israel would like to involve the U.S., France and moderate Arab countries, in a Security Council agreement that will grant Israel the right to respond to Hamas violations.
#1
This very much sounds like an Olmert mouthpiece.
"and then if Hamas will not agree it will pay the price, mostly by even greater [diplomatic] isolation."
Oh please
I'd rather hear the Tzipi version
Posted by: European Conservative ||
01/05/2009 0:14
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#2
What is it! Jooooos are so shtupid. Jooos can't live with difference of opinion eh. We need to get rid of Hosni and his Joooos wife and attack Israel from the Egyptian side. Hezbollah, Iran, Syria and Egypt. And a few nukes. Chooose Jew...
#3
You know, I'm going to miss TS6893's wit when the Jooos drain his blood to make matzoh. On the other hand, that's as close TS6893 will ever get to making any contribution to humanity.
Posted by: ed ||
01/05/2009 6:50
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#4
That blood is poison man! Its prolly black.
Filled with venom and ignorance.
#5
The Egypt part seems to be working. Per JPost stories, Hamas slugs are in Cairo today begging Egypt for an open border and Egypt is lecturing Hamas on the need to respect Egypt.
#6
For the PA side of the equation, I noted Abu Mazen immediately flew to Ne York, ostensibly to press his case at the UN. My theory is that he felt an uncomfortably warm spot on his back right between his shoulder blades in Ramallah and decided NYC was safer.
The normative view, as I understand it, is that if the PA were, by EU/UN/Egypt mandate, to take control of Gaza, Hamas would be able to eject them again in 3 months.
#8
Yes mhw, there's a subtext not being reported (surprise, surprise, surprise) to the Israeli pounding of Hamas now, rather than later. Hamas has been insisting that Abu Mazen's term of office as head of the PA officially expires on January 9, and has been rattling sabres and stating that they would bodily remove him from office and install their own guy on that day. The official Fatah position has been that (by calculating from a different date) Abbas still has a full year left in his term.
Israel may be using the pre-inaugural power vacuum to maintain Abbas as head of "government", knowing full well that Hamas was certainly capable of kicking Fatah's skinny butt.
#9
Every whackjob Arab wants to nuke Israel. Of course, that means everybody in Gaza will probably be dead in two weeks from fallout, but with Israel gone, who needs them anymore, right?
#10
Hell, we had ground noise sensors that'd pick up footsteps from 100 yards in 'Nam, used 'em on the Ho Chi Minh trail. Bury some along the border, why dont'ya?
#13
check out the Martin Kramer piece in the Jpost. He makes clear that Israeli is looking for an endgame to the current op where Fatah gets back into Gaza under cover of some international presence, possibly Egyptian. Note Egypt is specifiying that the Rafah crossing will be opened up ONLY if the PA/EU monitors go back.
#18
Hamas in gaza is a pain for egypt, and a threat. Both directly as it borders them and hamas has ties with the Egyptian Muslim brotherhoo, and indirecetly, as Hamas interferes with the peace process, the success of which would take away one motive for the street to rise against Mubarak. They DONT want to occupy Gaza themselves, but theyd love Fatah to take it back, and might find a way to help achieve that end.
#19
Read today that Hamas' big brother, Iran, put a bounty on Mubarek's head and the Egyptians are taking it seriously. One suspects Egypt at least is lined up.
#22
JPost says that Mubarak just saw an EU delegation and told them bluntly that Hamas must not be allowed to claim victory. I can imagine the shock to the EU-types.
#23
Ed! I'm gonna miss Rantburg when Israel is going to disappear (nuke?). Judaism is a menace that preaches inequality and needs to be eliminated. Period. I'll feel sorry when Rantburg and its thugs arent around anymore.
#24
Of course, that means everybody in Gaza will probably be dead in two weeks from fallout, but with Israel gone, who needs them anymore, right?
Fallout isn't that big a deal. Yes, some people will get sick and die a little early. But two weeks is way too early. Hiroshima and Nagasaki started rebuilding in months.
An Australian soldier has been killed in Afghanistan by a Taleban rocket attack, the Australian Defence Department says. The soldier, who was not named, was killed instantly when a rocket exploded in a compound in Afghanistan's southern province of Uruzgan. A group of Australian soldiers was stationed at an Afghan base there. The soldier had been in the country only a few weeks.
The casualty was the eighth suffered by Australian forces in Afghanistan since their deployment there in 2001. "Fighting in the war in Afghanistan continues as an important part of the fight against terrorism, the fight against al-Qaeda," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters in Sydney. "It's also part and parcel of our obligation to our allies and friends, given that this war in Afghanistan began following the terrorist attack on September 11 by al Qaida, resulting in the murder of thousands of innocent civilians."
Australia has about 1,000 troops in Afghanistan and Mr Rudd said that the government had no plans to add more.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2009
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#1
The soldier had been in the country only a few weeks.
Shades of Vietnam. The highest casualty rate was usually among the "new guys" that had just arrived "in-country". Survive the first three months, and the chances were pretty good you'd survive the tour.
The Aussies - always in the fight with us for freedom. God Bless 'em all!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/05/2009 13:29
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Captain Spiecher remains in our prayers and in our hearts.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The family of a Navy pilot missing since his plane was shot down during the first Gulf war isn't ready to give up hope that he is alive and say they will oppose any decision to declare him killed in action. The Navy has scheduled a review board hearing for Monday on the status of Capt. Michael "Scott" Speicher, who has been missing since January 1991, when his FA-18 Hornet was shot down in Iraq on the first night of the Persian Gulf War.
The hearing comes several months after the Navy received a fresh intelligence report on Speicher from Iraq.
Speicher's family, which has seen the latest information, believes Navy Secretary Donald Winter is moving toward changing Speicher's status from missing/captured to killed, according to family spokeswoman and attorney Cindy Laquidara. The family - including two college-age children who were toddlers when Speicher went missing - believes the Pentagon should do more to determine definitively what happened, Laquidara said. They see the outcome as setting a standard for future missing-in-action investigations, she said.
"This really is a precedent for every other captive serviceman or woman and it needs to be done right," Laquidara said. "We've looked at the information that's going to be presented to the board and we feel pretty confident that it's not time under the standards that they've set to change the status. There are things that need to be done before one can be certain."
Speicher, who had lived in the area of Jacksonville, Fla., was the first American lost in the war. Some believe Speicher ejected from the plane and was captured by Iraqi forces, and potential clues later emerged that he might have survived: The initials "MSS" were found scrawled on a prison wall in Baghdad, for example, and there were reports of sightings.
The Pentagon has changed Speicher's status several times. He was publicly declared killed in action hours after his plane went down. Ten years later, the Navy changed his status to missing in action, citing an absence of evidence that he had died. In October 2002, the Navy switched his status to "missing/captured," although it has never said what evidence it had that he was ever in captivity.
Another review was done in 2005 with information gleaned after Baghdad fell in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which allowed U.S. officials to search inside Iraq. The review board recommended then that the Pentagon work with the State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the Iraqi government to "increase the level of attention and effort inside Iraq" to resolve the question of Speicher's fate.
The Defense Intelligence Agency, which tracks missing-soldier cases and works with other intelligence agencies, submitted its latest report last fall. "Capt. Speicher's status remains a top priority for the Navy and the U.S. government," Cmdr. Cappy Surette, a Navy spokesman, said recently. "The recent intelligence community assessment reflects exhaustive analysis of information related to Capt. Speicher's case."
The final decision on changing Speicher's status must come from the secretary of the Navy; the review board's decision is only a recommendation, said Lt. Sean Robertson, another Navy spokesman. Robertson said that once the board meets, it has up to 30 days to complete its report. The family would then have up to 30 days to comment on the board's recommendation before it is forwarded to the secretary for decision. The board will be composed of three officers, including one who is experienced in F/A-18 aircraft. The board has a legal adviser assigned and Speicher will also be represented by legal counsel to look after the interests of him and his family, Robertson said.
Laquidara said family members would attend the hearing. "It's really easy to put out a yellow ribbon but not so easy to allocate resources to find a missing serviceman or woman," she said. "If Scott's not alive now, he was for a very long time, and that could happen to somebody else."
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2009
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#1
...Part of the problem here is that CAPT Speicher was shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25 that the USAF and USN AWACS ships on duty that night never saw. Admitting that a Foxbat got past all that radar would be a devastating admission that something as big, dumb, and ugly as a Foxbat actually has a chance in combat against US air.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/05/2009 5:14
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#2
In Kosovo, Mig29s who are far better than Mig 25s were routinely downed by FA/18s without dropping a sweat.
#3
I seem to remember reports of human error due to work overload of the AWACS crew. There were hundreds of plane in the air that night. Both the F-18s and AWACS detected the Foxbat but the F-18s did not receive clearance to fire.
Posted by: ed ||
01/05/2009 6:46
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#4
The Defense Intelligence Agency, which tracks missing-soldier cases and works with other intelligence agencies, submitted its latest report last fall. "Capt. Speicher's status remains a top priority for the Navy and the U.S. government,"
If the public only knew. I wish Ralph Peters would write a book about out government's "missing soldier" and MIA/POW efforts.
#5
I think they really really looked for the guy. He's just not there. I can't remember whether they found his plane. Short of combing the dessert with MAD I don't know how they would. It must be frustrating for the family to have had som many whiffs of seeming information. It is doubtful that credible records still exist after the loot-fest that followed the invasion. I don't think Sadaam's hired the most gifted records keepers either. Finding some Iraqi that will string the family along is another thing alltogether.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/05/2009 7:41
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#6
I think if the guy was alive, we would have seen or heard something by now. It's been 18 years, let the guy rest in peace for christ's sake.
#8
There's a presumption of death at common law if you're gone for seven years without being heard from. A lot of states have shortened that to five years.
Eighteen years . . . I'm sorry, but the odds are seriously against finding him alive.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/05/2009 14:33
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#9
IIRC, bits and pieces of his Hornet were found, but no evidence of his ejection seat or chute were by the wreckage. I agree, please let him Rest in Peace and may his family finally begin to work on healing that wound. False hopes only destroy.
#10
You'd be surprised how thoroughly the US looks for downed or dead pilots. Usually they don't give up unless there's absolutely no hope. I spent dozens of nights in Vietnam looking for lost pilots. We spent several months looking for crewmembers from an SR-71 that vanished elsewhere. We ran almost 30 reconnaissance missions over North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina, looking for an RF-4C that smashed into a mountain in North Carolina. There was still an open case on an RB-45 that disappeared on the Czech border in 1955 when I got to Germany in 1971. I can't remember how many thousands of frames of film I've looked at, trying to find POW/MIA/LOST traces in a dozen different countries. The chances Scott Speicher is still alive or zero. The same is true for the Israeli pilot lost in the first Lebanese War. There comes a time when you simply have to say "there's nothing more we can do", and close the books on these guys, no matter how much you hate it. Rest in peace, Scott.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/05/2009 20:02
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#11
#10
The books aren't exactly closed. Years ago, I spotted what looked like a filler in a newspaper. Wanted the relatives of the following ten guys KIA in WW II to contact DOD. It had been thought their B17 had crashed into the Coral Sea. Instead, it had hit a mountain on New Guinea or New Britain or someplace. They got the guys out. The families agreed that they should be buried as they fought--together--rather than separating them to various family plots. So they were all buried at Arlington. I got some more details about Casualty Branch. Even if the guys are declared dead, everybody comes home. Sooner or later. One way or another. Even if it's, as it was in this case, nearly half a century.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
01/05/2009 21:43
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Two alleged Al-Qaeda kingpins and a third man go on trial in Paris on Monday, accused of plotting the 2002 suicide bombing of a historic synagogue in Tunisia that left 21 dead.
Held at the US Guantanamo prison camp, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be tried in absentia on terrorism charges but German national Christian Ganczarski and Tunisian Walid Nawar, the bomber's brother, will be in court.
Sheikh Mohammad, who has confessed to being the architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks, is said to be Al-Qaeda's military commander responsible for all foreign operations.
The trial before a Paris court specializing in terror offenses will focus much of its attention on Ganczarski, a German of Polish origin who converted to Islam and allegedly played a leading role in Al-Qaeda's network in Europe.
The trio are charged in France with "complicity in attempted murder in relation to a terrorist enterprise" and face a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail if convicted of the April 11, 2002, attack. On that day, suicide bomber Nizar Nawar detonated a fuel tanker rigged with explosives in front of the Ghriba Synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba, killing 14 German tourists, five Tunisians and two French nationals. Nawar is alleged to have contacted Ganczarski and Sheikh Mohammad shortly before the bombing in Tunisia. Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the attack.
French and German investigators also charge that Ganczarski traveled several times between 1999 and 2001 to the Pakistani-Afghan border to meet Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The alleged top operative, who was reportedly in regular contact with Sheikh Mohammad, stands accused of putting his considerable expertise in radio communications and web production at the service of Al-Qaeda and helping recruit members in Europe, according to investigators.
Western intelligence agencies managed to track down Ganczarski after having intercepted a call from the Djerba suicide bomber's cell phone and he was arrested in June 2003 upon his arrival in France from Saudi Arabia. Ganczarski is said to have given Nawar the green light to carry out the attack during the phone call.
Tunisian national Walid Nawar is accused of having helped his brother carry out the Djerba bombing, notably by purchasing in France the cell phone from which he called Ganczarski and Sheikh Mohammad. The bomber's uncle, Belgacem Nawar, was convicted in Tunisia in June 2006 of involvement in the attack and sentenced to 20 years. The uncle was found guilty of helping his nephew build the bomb - a large fuel container and detonator - inside the truck.
The trial in Paris opens one month after Sheikh Mohammad appeared before a US military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to answer charges that he was the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. The Paris trial is scheduled to end on February 6.
Two other suspects in the attack - Jouar Suissi and Tarek Hdia - are to stand trial before a separate Paris court in February on minor charges of violating immigration rules and possession of fake documents.
This article starring:
Christian Ganczarski
Jouar Suissi
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad
Nizar Nawar
Tarek Hdia
Walid Nawar
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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Israel's ground offensive in the Gaza Strip was roundly condemned across the Middle East on Sunday, with Egypt also accusing the U.N. Security Council of failing to act quickly to resolve the crisis.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said Israel's incursion into the impoverished territory on Saturday night came in "brazen defiance" of international calls to end the offensive it began with air strikes on Dec. 27.
"The Security Council's silence and its failure to take a decision to stop Israel's aggression since it began was interpreted by Israel as a green light," he said in a statement as Israeli forces rumbled into Gaza.
"Egypt condemns in the strongest possible terms the beginning of Israel's ground operations in the Gaza Strip and the invasion of the territory by its forces," the statement said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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#1
Huff! Also, puff! And yes, we'll keep shooting the rats that jump the fence!
#4
"Egypt condemns in the strongest possible terms the beginning of Israel's ground operations in the Gaza Strip and the invasion of the territory by its forces," the statement said.
Okay, now those strongest possible terms are:
1) Please don't hurt the little duckies
2) Try not to scratch the paint on your tanks we hate to see our "enemy" looking scruffy.
3) You should be careful not to scare the camels...in Cairo.
Balochistan National Party (BNP) Information Secretary and former senator Sanaullah Baloch has disclosed that the supporters of Taliban have captured land worth Rs 2 billion in the eastern and western parts of Quetta with the covert support of the 'establishment' in order to undermine the Baloch nationalist movement and promote Talibanisation in Balochistan.
In an interview with Daily Times on Sunday, the former senator said the government had failed to establish its writ in Quetta, where the Taliban and their supporters were consolidating their grip. Several parts of the provincial capital have become 'no-go areas' where the Taliban and their supporters have consolidated their position, he said.
Baloch said the government was fully aware of these encroachments but it was deliberately silent because the Taliban enjoy the support of the government and its intelligence agencies who wish to pit the religious elements against the Baloch nationalists.
"We are surprised why the government does not undertake a military operation against these elements who have openly challenged the writ of the government. Military operations were carried out in Dera Bugti and Sui areas by the government on the pretext of establishing the writ of the government, but the state machinery does not move against the Taliban and their supporters who have illegally and forcefully captured large areas of land in Balochistan," he said.
Sanaullah said the government was trying to patronise the Taliban elements in Quetta and its outskirts in order to undermine the power of the actual democratic forces. The Afghan refugees, besides being a burden on the economy of Balochistan, have become the biggest cause of lawlessness and terrorism in the country's largest province, Baloch said.
Billions of rupees were being spent on eliminating the Taliban and their supporters in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the NWFP, he said, asking why the government was ignoring the 'alarmingly dangerous moves' of the Taliban and giving them protection in Quetta.
The BNP leader criticised the government for initiating fresh operations in Dera Bugti and Naseerabad areas, adding that such unprovoked operations were likely to escalate tensions in Balochistan. "The government is making Balochistan a battlefield again," he said.
The operations have made the militant groups end their ceasefire which would further deteriorate the security situation, he said. The Baloch leadership had welcomed the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) government despite the imprisonment of its leadership with the hope that the PPP would learn lessons from the past and pay serious attention to the Baloch issue, he said, adding: "We have deep respect for the PPP and its leaders but we are not going to compromise on the Baloch interests at the cost of our friendship with the PPP leaders. The democratic as well as armed groups in the province are losing faith in the present government."
Reconciliation: Asked if the BNP and other Baloch leaders welcomed the recent statement of PPP leader Babar Awan that "the Baloch would hear good news in March", Sanullah accused the PPP leadership of using 'delaying tactics'. In 1977, the PPP had delayed the resolution of the Baloch issue by hoping that the crisis in Balochistan would gradually fade away, Baloch said, adding that the PPP was showing a lack of interest in Balochistan again by not understanding the urgency needed to permanently resolve the issue.
"In politics you need to reconcile at the right time. Timeliness is a crucial factor in politics which the PPP seems to be missing in Balochistan's context," he commented. Recalling a promise made by late Benazir Bhutto, the former PPP chairperson, who had agreed in the Charter of Democracy to establish federal tribunals to settle the cases of the provinces against the federal government, besides ensuring complete provincial autonomy to the provinces, Baloch said the PPP did not take any initiatives that would brighten the prospects of reconciliation.
Citing the failure of the reconciliatory committees formed by the previous government, Sanaullah Baloch said the Baloch had always agreed to sit on the negotiation table and sort out the problems, but the government had been calling them terrorists and traitors. "We have asked the PPP government to punish the elements who carried out massive human rights violation and remove the unnecessary FC checkposts in Balochistan so that we see some progress made by the government as a confidence-building measure. But our demands have not been met yet."
Mines and minerals: The BNP leader demanded the local Baloch youth be given technical know-how in mining and geological sectors so that they could handle the Saindak and Reko Dik projects.
"We want agreements on the Saindak Gold and Copper project and Reko Dik to be reviewed. The chief minister issued such statements recently but no headway has been made yet in this regard. The Baloch share in the revenue generated at Saindak project is merely 2 percent while the federal government takes 48 percent, and 50 percent goes to China. This is an unjust formula that needs to be revised. We consider this utter exploitation," he said, recommending that bidding should be conducted in the international stock exchanges for the interested mining companies that want to run these projects. "The government of Balochistan should be given the right to choose the company that can best run these projects while keeping in view the fact that the benefits of the projects should go to the people of Balochistan," said the former senator.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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#1
And Biden wants to give Pak Govt 15 billion because???
#3
" And Biden wants to give Pak Govt 15 billion because??? "
1) Slow Joe is demented
2) He's been on the A-rab money train for a long while
3) He and Bambi think they can cleverly drop support for Israel and kiss A-rab ass without anyone noticing
Security forces seized explosives and two suicide jackets during a raid on a house in Qambarkhel area of Bara on Sunday, officials told Daily Times. Sources said the troops demolished five houses in Qambarkhel area. A car, two suicide jackets and explosives were seized from another house in the same area, they said. Political administration officials said two people had been taken into custody. However, their identity was not disclosed. Another official said that an explosives laden vehicle, three suicide vests, improvised explosive devices, 29 hand-grenades and 12 rocket-propelled grenades were seized from the houses in Qambarkhel.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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#1
As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Nice crop of purity you've got there, Pakistan!
The IDF is prepared to deepen and escalate its ground operations in the Gaza Strip, defense officials warned on Sunday, as the IDF split the Palestinian territory in half and began surrounding Gaza City. Hamas, the officials said, was encountering difficulties in commanding and delivering orders to its forces.
St.- Sgt. Dvir Emanuelof, 22, from Givat Ze'ev and of the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion, was killed on Sunday from wounds he sustained in a mortar shell attack during clashes with Hamas terrorists near Jabalya.
Another soldier was critically wounded in the attack. Earlier in the morning, 30 soldiers from Battalion 51 of the Golani Brigade were injured in clashes, and on Sunday night four soldiers were shot and wounded by Palestinian sniper fire.
By Sunday afternoon, the IDF had divided the Gaza Strip into two segments, in a move aimed at cutting off the flow of arms, supplies and fighters to the northern part of the Strip, as Palestinians claimed IDF tanks had taken up positions near the former settlement Netzarim and troops began surrounding Gaza City. Some 40 rockets landed in Israel on Sunday, scoring direct hits in Sderot and Ashkelon.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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#1
Don't forget the tunnels everywhere - they have this "we are the dwarfs of yore" fetish.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
01/05/2009 8:52
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#5
Apparently they've now divided Gaza into thirds, with the Khan Younis area cut off from both Gaza City to the north and Rafah to the south. Pretty good "divide and conquer" strategy - I hope it succeeds.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/05/2009 14:48
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NEW DELHI - India on Sunday called for an "immediate" halt to Israel's offensive in Gaza and said the Jewish state was using excessive military force.
"There should be immediate ceasefire and both sides must exercise restraint," Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters in Kolkata. "The retaliation by Israel (to Hamas rocket attacks) was not only disproportionate, but totally unacceptable," he said.
"There should not be any further aggravation as innocent people at Gaza are being killed... There is immense suffering of the people there," the minister said.
India, a Cold War ally of the Palestinians, in recent years has turned into one of the largest buyers of Israeli weapons.
Wonder if he's saying this just to placate the communists in the government ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2009
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#5
What is there about Foreign Ministries that make them so Arabophilic?
Posted by: john frum ||
01/05/2009 14:30
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#6
India just wants Israel to slow down so they can get some observers in there and note how it is done.
Demanding cease-fires is common in international rhetoric. It all depends upon how virulant your demands are. Eventually the demands will get louder and more serious and Israel should have planned ahead of time for that so as to sustain their actions despite the demands or to complete what they need to fast and furiously so they have options when the time comes.
#7
AFRICAN CRISIS > COMMUNIST PARTY, USA CALLS FOR CEASEFIRE IN GAZA, INCLUDING DISARMAMENT OF HAMAS.
OTOH, SAME > seems FRANCE is investigating in-country terror acts by a NEW, OVERTLY MARXIST PRO-SECULAR MILITANT GROUP ["Aghanistan Liberation Front" Grp] IN DOMESTIC SUPPORT OF ISLAMIST CAUSES in South Asia.
Local Taliban have warned women against going to the office of the NADRA and getting identity cards, BBC Urdu reported. Around 200 women from the region had recently submitted forms for computerised identity cards, which they require to benefit from the Benazir Income Support Programme. Women going to NADRA offices or coeducation schools would be punished in line with the sharia, the BBC quoted a pamphlet by the Hafiz Gul Bahar group as saying.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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#1
Every woman needs to get into the habit of carrying a knife and using it. While some would get killed, a bunch of bad boyz would get slashed, which would have a Pavlovian effect on such dogs.
#6
We need 10,000 female Karate experts to deploy to the Tribal areas and instruct the women of the area in those gentle, femenine arts of crushing a larynx, breaking an arm or leg (or neck), and pushing testicles up the nose of the wearer. I'm sure things will get MUCH more peaceful - fast!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/05/2009 13:58
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Gunmen hijacked a vessel belonging to French oil services group Bourbon off Nigeria's Niger Delta on Sunday as it travelled towards a Royal Dutch Shell offshore oilfield, security sources said. The vessel was carrying four expatriates from Cameroon, Ghana and Lebanon when it was attacked near the Bonny Fairway buoy, a major shipping route for the Nigerian oil services industry, one of the sources said.
"It was hijacked by gunmen in about five speedboats. The vessel lost contact with the control room around the Okwori oilfield area near Bonny," the source, a private security contractor working in the oil industry, told Reuters.
A second security contractor confirmed the vessel had been travelling to Shell's Bonga offshore field when it was seized.
Bourbon officials could not immediately be reached for a comment and no group claimed responsibility.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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The Pakistani army said it has discovered a van packed with almost 900 pounds of explosives in the country's northwest. It said militants planned to use the vehicle in a suicide bombing.
The army media center said the van was discovered during a raid Sunday on a house in the Khyber tribal region near the Afghan border. Six suspected militants were arrested in the raid. The army said it found suicide jackets, rockets, assault rifles and improvised bombs in the house.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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#1
In Pakistan "explosive pack" ought to be an option package on all vehicles including bigwheels and baby coaches.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/05/2009 7:31
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Thousands protesting Israel's ground offensive on Gaza converged Sunday in Beirut and the Turkish capital, as the leaders of the only two Mideast Arab nations to sign peace treaties with Israel demanded an end to the attack.
In Yemen, security officials said anti-Israel protesters attacked several Jewish homes in the northern province of Omran, smashing windows and pelting them with rocks. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said at least one Jewish resident was injured among the tiny minority community.
Lebanese police used water hoses to try to push about 250 demonstrators away from the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon's capital. When that failed, they fired tear gas, said Lebanese security officials. A second Beirut protest -- a sit-in outside the U.N. building -- drew thousands of supporters of Hamas and Lebanon's Islamic Group.
In Turkey, more than 5,000 people held an anti-Israel rally in Istanbul, waving Palestinian flags and burning effigies of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President George W. Bush. Also in Istanbul, club-wielding police broke up a small demonstration by protesters who hurled eggs at the Israeli Consulate, the private Dogan news agency reported. There were no reports of arrests or injuries.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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A British journalist and a Spanish photographer kidnapped in Somalia were released yesterday after being held in a series of caves for 40 days. Colin Freeman, 39, a Sunday Telegraph correspondent, and José Cendon, 34, were abducted in the northern Puntland region in November while reporting on piracy for the newspaper group. Speaking before flying out on a special charter to neighbouring Kenya yesterday, Freeman said they were "absolutely fine" and had suffered no injuries during captivity. "We survived on rice, goat meat and Rothmans," Freeman was quoted as saying on the Telegraph website. "I gave up smoking in 1992 and somehow decided now would be a good time to start up again."
The circumstances of their release remain unclear. Puntland's security minister Abdullahi Said Samatar said local elders had secured the pair's freedom and no money had changed hands. But local journalists in the port city of Bossaso, where the men were kidnapped, claimed a large ransom was paid.
A spokeswoman for the Telegraph, which had asked media outlets not to name the pair while they were being held, declined to comment on the claims.
Somalia is one of the world's most dangerous countries for foreign and local journalists. Freeman and Cendon, a freelance photographer based in East Africa, hired gunmen to protect them while they reported on the surge in pirate attacks on ships off the Somali coast. But the bodyguards appear to have betrayed them.
They were seized while travelling to the airport to board a flight home on 26 November and taken to a mountainous area south-west of Bossaso. The kidnappers moved the journalists between different caves to avoid discovery by rival gangs and the Puntland authorities.
The Telegraph yesterday singled out Spain's ambassador to Kenya for praise in helping negotiate the pair's release.
Kidnappers are still holding two freelance journalists, an Australian man and a Canadian woman, who were abducted near the capital Mogadishu in August. Murray Watson, a 69-year-old Briton seized by gunmen in April while working on an aerial survey for the UN, is also unaccounted for.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2009
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Posted by: Abu do you love ||
01/05/2009 1:17
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#3
Yvette Vickers, Playboy Playmate, July 1959.
(google is your friend) Fan bio
Short Cut to Hell (1957)
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)
Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)
Hud (1963)
. Her last film to date is the low-budget horror flick Evil Spirits (1990 resume
Kigali -- Unknown assailants on Sunday made two simultaneous grenade attacks in the city. The attacks injured six people. According to press reports, the attacks occurred at the Kinamba two-junction on the way to the Genocide memorial site at Gisozi.
The second attack was made at a bar around a kilometer away from the first attack. Two suspects were arrested in connection with the two simultaneous grenade attacks.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2009
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Nine days into Operation Cast Lead and less than a day after the IDF launched a massive ground attack, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) director Yuval Diskin said Sunday that Hamas leaders are showing a "willingness" to reach some kind of arrangement with Israel.
In a briefing he gave the cabinet, which met in Tel Aviv, Diskin said there had been a "softening" of Hamas's determination, "and today there is a willingness from Hamas to reach some kind of arrangement."
Cabinet Secretary Ovad Yehezkel, who briefed the press on the ministers' meeting, emphasized that this willingness was apparent among Hamas leaders, implying that the same sentiment was not apparent among the leaders of Islamic Jihad or the other terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip.
While Diskin said it was becoming increasingly difficult for Hamas to govern, the organization's military wing, Izzadin Kassam, had not sufficiently been hit.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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Aswat al-Iraq: Four suspected members of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) were detained by Iraqi army forces in Mosul city on Sunday, a military source said. "Army soldiers today (Jan. 4) arrested four persons suspected of belonging to al-Qaeda network in al-Intissar neighborhood, eastern Mosul," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "The operation was conducted according to intelligence tip-offs," the source said, not giving more details.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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Hamas said it captured two Israeli soldiers during fighting in the Gaza Strip on Sunday and was holding them hostage. The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, also said it has struck two Israeli tanks and a military copter. "Two soldiers were captured," Hamas radio and television said.
The capture of Israeli soldiers by Hamas could have a large impact on public support in Israel for the Gaza offensive. Gaza fighters captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid in June 2006. Negotiations brokered by Egypt to secure Shalit's release have foundered.
The Israeli army responded by saying that it has no knowledge of any of its soldiers being captured during fighting on Sunday with Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip, a senior army official told reporters. "As far as we know, this is not true," the official said of Hamas's claim to have captured two soldiers.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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#1
Lemme guess, they want to trade them for 1.5Million Gazans?
Pakistan's Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani demands the US-led forces in Afghanistan to immediately halt drone strikes inside Pakistani territory. Kayani made the demand during a Tripartite Commission meeting in Kabul, a Press TV correspondent reported.
The commission consists of military representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan and international forces in Afghanistan. The high-ranking officials of the commission, discussed issues including the US supposed war on terror in and around the Pak-Afghan border.
Kayani termed the strikes in the tribal areas of the country as counterproductive in the war against terrorism and extremism. He noted that many innocent people were being killed in the strikes.
More than 450 people --among them suspected militants as well as civilians --have been killed in the attacks. The strikes have increased tensions between Islamabad and Washington and have triggered anti-American sentiments among the Pakistani people.
Both Afghan and US officials have accused Pakistan of not doing enough to prevent cross-border operations by the insurgents against foreign troops.
The tribal regions along the shared border between Pakistan and Afghanistan became safe havens for militants after a US-led invasion in late 2001 toppled Taliban's regime in Afghanistan and sent insurgents to border areas with Pakistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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A French warship captured 19 Somali pirates on Sunday when it came to the rescue of two cargo ships threatened in the Gulf of Aden, the office of President Nicolas Sarkozy said.
The French naval vessel Jean de Vienne was on patrol off the Somali coast as part of a European Union anti-piracy force when it came to the rescue of a Croatian cargo vessel and a Panamanian ship crossing the Gulf of Aden.
The 19 Somali pirates, armed and equipped with equipment to board the vessels, were captured and have been handed over to Somali authorities, the statement said.
The incident came three days after another French vessel captured eight Somali pirates who attacked a Panamanian registered vessel.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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#1
Somalia has functioning "authorities"? Who knew.
#3
Likely the "Somali authorities" are Puntland or maybe Somaliland, both of which have functioning governments but which are regarded as part of Somalia, which has no functioning government. This has something to do with the UN's international point system, the price of prime vetch, and the phase of the moon. Don't ask me.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009 7:50
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#4
Wait, there's more!
Residents: UN Georgia resident fishing license, Trout license, and WMA license. Senior (65+) Lifetime and Honorary License holders do not need a WMA license. Nonresidents: Nonresident Georgia fishing license, nonresident trout license, and nonresident WMA license. Florida residents more than 65 years of age must possess nonresident trout and WMA licenses.
Size limits: 22 inches for brown and rainbow trout and 18 inches for brook trout. It is a violation to possess a trout smaller than these limits while fishing on Waters creek.
Possession limits:
One (1) trout may be possessed daily
No person may take more than three (3) trout per season.
#5
Why don't the French take these guys home and teach them how to torch cars. That'll rehabilitate 'em.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
01/05/2009 8:50
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#6
This is the French navy, which hasn't been acting like your grandaddy's French navy. Perhaps they'd entertain the suggestion to put the pirates into the torchy cars?
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009 9:31
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#7
So, when is the UN going to official reclassify Somalia like the IAU reclassified Pluto? It's all a matter of bureaucracy and paper shuffling, which is why they exist to begin with.
#9
The real shame is that the French didn't take them in tow on a long rope (no boat, life vest, or swim fins) dropped over the stern. A few hundred miles through the Gulf of Aden would attract every shark in the ocean. No recidivism.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/05/2009 13:46
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#10
"Not like your Grandaddy's French Navy" > Ahhhh, finally proof positive that Dubya has been hell on the Brits + Euros - first the RISE OF EURABIA/BRITANISTAN, now the Brits can't even make fun of the Frenchies anymore!
D *** NG IT, LIFE IN THE FUTURE OWG-NWO EUROZONE IS NOT WORTH LIVING WIDOUT THE "I'M TOO PRETTY FOR WAR, WORK, OR PRISON" FRENCH SURRENDERING FIRST - WTFH IS A'GOIN ON IN THIS MAN'S EUROPE!?
#11
The good news for SARKEY's POST-COLD WAR/9-11 GRANDE NAVALE is that His Navy is NOT GERMANY's "TOO SOFT AND TOO LIBERAL" NAVY [alleged], as below:
* AFRICAN CRISIS > THE USELESS AND SOFT GERMAN NAVY AND THE SOMALI PIRATES [Der Kriegsmarine captured a bunch of Somali bad boyz only to have BERLIN = PM MERKEL order them to be RELEASED].
#3
If the Euros start bottling their cow farts, they can prevent global warmingglobal cooling climate change and make progress on energy independence too.
Sri Lanka's army said yesterday it was moving in on the jungle stronghold of the Tamil Tiger rebels, in a final assault aimed at ending the longest-running ethnic war in Asia. Flush with confidence after retaking their main city two days ago, the army vowed to capture rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran as troops pushed deeper into northern territory long under the complete control of the guerrillas.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse said in a New Year's address that 2009 would be the year of "heroic victory" over the Tigers, who have been waging war since 1972 to establish an independent homeland for ethnic Tamils.
Troops captured Kilinochchi, the de facto capital of the rebel state within a state on Friday, and the general leading the assault said his forces were now advancing on Mullaittivu, their last major centre of control.
"We are taking the offensive to the Mullaittivu jungles where Prabhakaran is hiding," Major General Jagath Dias told reporters flown into Kilinochchi for a short and carefully supervised visit to show the city was in army hands. "We will hunt him down."
Journalists found a desolate town in which most of the buildings had been badly damaged or reduced to rubble by months of bombardment. The only remaining residents appeared to be a group of 22 Tamil women, children and older men sheltering at the town's defunct hospital, a AFP reporter said.
"We were ordered by the Tigers to leave but our family did not want to go," a 17-year-old girl named Komalasingham Thurasiha said. "We fled to the jungles and stayed there for a few days before returning today."
Gunfire and artillery barrages could be heard nearby during the press visit, but military officers said it was safe to travel within the town as all Tiger snipers had been driven away.
For nearly two years, Sri Lanka has banned independent reporters from rebel-held areas, including Kilinochchi.
The vastly outnumbered rebels, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), had controlled the town for a decade and have frustrated government hopes of victory many times before. Hours after losing Kilinochchi Friday, a Tiger suicide bomber in the capital Colombo killed two people and wounded 36. Six months after a major strategic loss in 1995, the rebels overran an army base and killed 1,200 soldiers.
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01/05/2009
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Harvard educator Samuel Huntington, the most controversial political scientist of the past two decades, breathed his last on 28 December 2008, aged 81. A prophetic genius to some and an evil war-mongering ideologue to others, it is an opportune time to revisit the controversial works of Huntington.
With Marxist-Communist regimes collapsed ending the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama argued in his influential thesis, The End of History, in 1989 that liberal democracy may signal the end-point of humankind's ideological evolution and the final form of governance, which would eventually be adopted globally. Fukuyama's thesis had two seminal assumptions: a) Triumph of civilized liberal democracy globally, and b) Emergence of a nonconflictual world civilization.
Huntington's Civilizational Clash theory (1993) challenged both assumptions of Fukuyama. Regarding Fukuyama's presumed triumph of civilized liberal democracy globally, Huntington emphasized that "Law and order", "the first prerequisite of Civilization", were evaporating or under threat everywhere--China, Japan and the United States included. Globally, "Civilization seems in many respects to be yielding to barbarism... a global Dark Age possibly descending on humanity," he wrote.
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Reminds me of BRAD PITT as ACHILLES to KING AGAMENON IN "TROY" > BE CAREFUL, KING, TO WIN AN EMPIRE YOU MUST WIN FIRST! Good thing ole ACHILLES had a sexy slinky Perso-Iranian Temple CaptiveSlave-Babe/Lover to show him + Greeks the light.
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich doesn't have many friends these days, particularly among the lawmakers who will decide whether to throw him out of office.
No one knows him, no one will have coffee with him, no one will return his calls. He's got the dreaded 'feditis' and there's no cure short of an acquittal.
The vote to begin impeachment proceedings was unanimous. Former allies have fallen silent since his Dec. 9 arrest on federal corruption charges. Members of a special impeachment committee are uniformly negative in their comments and questions.
"Isn't anyone here going to stand up for the governor?" Blagojevich attorney Ed Genson asked the committee last week.
The response was silence.
Blagojevich even has trouble finding support closer to home. His circle of aides and informal advisers has fallen apart due to arrests, resignations and the pressure of a federal investigation that dates back six years. His chief legislative ally is retiring next month.
There have been few details about what Blagojevich is doing behind closed doors at his Chicago office, other than signing a few bills and attempting to maintain an air of "business as usual." His spokesman has said the governor is meeting with aides and staff about Illinois' $2 billion-plus budget gap, but no one has provided details or stepped forward to confirm Blagojevich is even talking with anyone.
He spends the rest of time at home, save for a few visits to Genson's office.
Blagojevich's woeful situation leaves him immensely vulnerable to impeachment in the House and then conviction in the Senate. Lawmakers can vote against him for any reason they want. They don't have to follow rules of evidence or consider reasonable doubt. They could vote to throw him out of office simply because they don't consider him fit to be governor. That's an easier vote to make if no one will stand up and defend him.
His closest ally in the House, state Rep. Jay Hoffman, a fellow Democrat from Collinsville, said nothing to support Blagojevich when the House voted to establish an impeachment committee. Instead, Hoffman said at a news conference that he would resign if he were in Blagojevich's position.
One of the few people with kind words for the governor, state Rep. Ken Dunkin, said the two-term Democrat faces payback for years of feuding with the Legislature. "There are a lot of political vendettas that are being played out right now," said Dunkin, D-Chicago. "It appears to be headed toward a political witch hunt, because there's not an indictment and there's definitely not a conviction."
Still, Dunkin voted along with everyone else to begin impeachment proceedings.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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#1
You would think that a shake-down artist would be better at extortion.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/05/2009 7:14
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#2
I do believe the list of those Blago will take down with him will be long and distinguished. Can't wait for his tell all book from the Witness Protection Program.
Posted by: ed ||
01/05/2009 7:22
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#3
If you want a friend in D.C. Springfield, buy a dog.
#4
Outside of a Dog, a Book is Man's Best Friend. Inside of a Dog it's too dark to read.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/05/2009 12:16
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#5
I wonder what the Dummos think they are hiding. Blago's mouth works whether he's Da Gov or not. Burris is the appointee to the Senate whether Blago is taken down or not. I keep hearing airheads gush about Quinn making another appointment. Sorry, the position is filled. All aspects legally conforming. What's done is not simply erased. This scharade is merely another theatrical demonstration of Donkey stupidity. And, they refuse to let it die.
The United States late Saturday blocked approval of a Security Council statement calling for an immediate Israeli-Hamas cease-fire in Gaza and southern Israel and expressing serious concern at the escalation of violence.
US Deputy Ambassador to the UN Alejandro Wolff said the US saw no prospect of Hamas abiding by last week's council call for an immediate end to the violence. Therefore, he said, a new statement at this time "would not be adhered to and would have no underpinning for success, would not do credit to the council."
France's UN Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, the current council president, announced that there was no agreement on a statement, though he said there were "strong convergences" among the 15 members to express serious concern about the deteriorating situation in Gaza and the need for "an immediate, permanent and fully respected cease-fire."
However, while France condemned Israel's military ground operation in Gaza, Jiri Potuznik, the Czech EU presidency spokesman in Prague, expressed support for Israel, saying that the Jewish state appeared to be acting defensively, Reuters reported. "At the moment, from the perspective of the last days, we understand this step as a defensive, not offensive, action," he said.
Arab nations demanded that the council adopt a presidential statement calling for an immediate cease-fire following Israel's launch of a ground offensive in Gaza earlier Saturday, a view echoed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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Ate least ONE opf the countries at teh un behaves like an adult and not a lemming. Why doesn't the un ever vote on a resolution about rockets fired from gaza?
United States vice-president-elect Joseph Biden will arrive in Pakistan on a two-day visit this week to defuse the tension between Pakistan and India after the Mumbai terror attacks, a private TV channel reported on Sunday. "Say hello to ChiaVeep!"
The channel quoted diplomatic sources as saying that a high-level congressional delegation would also accompany Biden.
The delegation would meet President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to discuss the war on terror in Pakistan, Pak-India relations and a $15 billion aid package for Islamabad.
The sources said the US delegation is likely to arrive in Pakistan on January 9.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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#1
and a $15 billion aid package for Islamabad.
That's a joke, right!
That Joe is a funny guy, but enough of the comedy acts, some people might think he's serious.
#8
If Biden (God forbid) should have an "accident" while in pakland who would Barry pick to replace him? BTW doesn't Hillary remind you a lot of Angela Landberry in the manchurian candidate?
#10
$15b? Not entirely surprising, though. This is the same Joe who wanted to hand $200m to Iran after 9/11. My guess is that Republicans will be able to make political hay over this. If they're smart, that is.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/05/2009 11:57
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3 Biden has been involved in Pakistan stuff in his role in the US Senate. We only have one VP, but Delaware has two Senators. The aid package to Pakistan has been under discussion for some time.
Abu Ali vows that once the war in Gaza ends he will quickly repair his tunnel under the frontier with Egypt, one of the many underground links used by Palestinian smugglers that have been blasted by Israeli warplanes. "Life cannot go on in Gaza if the tunnels are destroyed - they're our only opening to the outside world," he said, speaking inside the Palestinian enclave that has been blockaded by the Jewish state for more than two years.
Hundreds of tunnels have been carved out beneath the Gaza-Egypt frontier, providing a vital conduit to bring basic needs into the territory, which has suffered an increasing stranglehold at the hands of Israel. Foodstuffs, building materials, electric equipment and medicines are all brought from Egypt through the passages - as well as weapons and ammunition.
Such contraband provides smugglers with a profitable business. It is also a source of income for Hamas. The movement levies taxes on the smugglers' income from the tunnels which are linked to the territory's electricity grid with the blessing of Hamas.
Conscious that the goods flowing under the border are vital to Palestinians living in Gaza, Israel has bombed dozens of tunnels since Israel began its offensive on the Gaza Strip on December 27.
Abu Ali vows he will fix the bomb-damaged tunnel he shares with four partners, including a chief of Hamas' military wing. But for the moment, he dare not approach the area because "Israeli planes are attacking anyone approaching the frontiers."
Since the attacks on the smugglers' network began, Abu Ali, his wife and their daughter no longer sleep in the family home in Rafah for fear that he may also have been singled out for assassination by Israeli forces.
Another contraband operator, Ayman, operates two tunnels - one for goods and the second for fuel.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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If you read the whole article, further down you find the following gem:
"Egypt does not want the people of Gaza to die of starvation, not forgetting that the tunnels bring Egyptian traders on the other side up to $45 million a month," he said, pointing out that Cairo is being constantly pressed by Israel to deal ruthlessly with the underground corridors on its side.
$45M/month? Where is this kind of $$$ coming from? As if we don't know. And do you suppose the donors are aware that this $$$ is being funneled directly into Egypt's economy? Probably at exhorbitant premiums? No wonder Egypt has turned a blind eye towards the tunnels. I wonder why they are even willing to allow the tunnels to be shut down, unless they are being paid directly somehow or otherwise compensated, or the $$$ isn't worth it for some reason.
#4
Follow the money, literally and figuratively. It sounds like Egypt turns a blind eye to the tunnel trade, as many Egyptians must be on the take.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/05/2009 1:11
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Shalet and Tenille1168, theoretically, no. If Gazooks were normal people.
But if you go back in history, 500 years, 1000 years, etc. and find references about Gaza, they have nothing positive to say. I's been a hellhole, it is a hellhole, and likely will be a hellhole in the future.
#7
I think gods traffic has been limited to food and humanitarian supplies through both Israeli and Egyptian border crossings since the Hamas coup.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/05/2009 7:08
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Gazans lose last lifeline as warplanes blast tunnels
I hate this BS. Israel has routinely let food and medicine cross into Gaza. Plus Gaza produces olives, citrus, vegetables, beef, and dairy products. And Gaza's tunnels are violations of sovereignty on the other ends.
Conscious that the goods rockets flowing under the border are vital to Palestinians living in Gaza
In yesterday's article the smuggler was concerned about his tins of jam. Yes, tins of jam -- vital.
#10
Israel withdrew from Gaza, basically giving them their own country. But instead of building a home they elected Hamas and ratcheted up the rhetoric about annihilating Israel. So they have built nothing, produced nothing, and cannot live without a welfare check every month.
#15
Juice have blockaded all seaport entry into GAza unless Sean Penn is on the manifest.... exceptions... different rules for different people. It has ever been the way.
- An Iranian military commander called on Islamic countries to cut oil exports to Israel's supporters in response to the Jewish state's offensive in Gaza, the official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday.
That's been tried before ...
IRNA said commander Bagherzadeh described oil as "one of the powerful elements of pressure" on the Jewish state's Western backers in the "unequal war" faced by Palestinians in the coastal strip. "Pointing at Westerners' dependence on the Islamic countries' oil and energy resources, he (Bagherzadeh) called for cutting the export of crude oil to the Zionist regime's supporters the world over," IRNA said, referring to Israel.
IRNA gave only the commander's last name but it may have been referring to Mirfeysal Bagherzadeh, a brigadier-general of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards. There was no immediate comment from other Iranian officials.
Iran, which often rails against the United States and Israel, is the world's fourth-largest oil producer and a leading member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Top exporter Saudi Arabia is a U.S. ally.
In 1973, Arab countries directed an oil embargo at Israel's supporters in the Arab-Israeli war, causing the first oil shock. Primarily the United States but also Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal and South Africa were affected. The price of oil quadrupled to almost $12 a barrel and inflation infected the economies of other industrialised countries.
Crude is now trading at about $46 after plunging by some $100 since July on the global financial crisis and a weakening world economy.
IRNA, which did not provide direct supporting quotes, said Bagherzadeh was speaking about the measures Islamic countries could take in response to Israel's attacks on Gaza. "Among the tactics the world of Islam can use to help the innocent Palestinian people, Bagherzadeh called oil one of the powerful elements of pressure on the Zionists' European and American supporters in the unequal war," IRNA said.
Bagherzadeh is the director of Iran's Foundation for the Preservation of Works and Publications of Sacred Defence Values, IRNA said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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Iran and Bahrain officials call for oil as weapon The Iranian comments come days after members of Bahrain's lower house of parliament condemned Israeli attacks on Gaza and told the tiny kingdom's foreign minister that "all retaliation options" should remain open to Arab governments. Lawmakers said Arab states should use economic weapons such as oil and the region's vast investment funds to put pressure on the West to help bring an end to the fighting.
Benchmark light, sweet crude for February delivery rose $1.36 to $47.70 a barrel early Monday, after earlier jumping to as high as $48.68, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Can someone remind me where the 5th Fleet is headquartered and from whom we are protecting the natives?
Posted by: ed ||
01/05/2009 7:17
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#3 Iran is desperately trying to figure out a way to inject themselves into this conflict.
Posted by: bigjim-ky
only if without consequences. If Iran's big bad mullahs and IRGC blowhards want, they could declare war on Israel and duke it out. They won't, because they know how that would turn out
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/05/2009 10:08
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Iran is asking KSA, etc to cut exports. They will fight to the last Palestinian, and they will sanction the US until Saudi Arabia has no more revenue. Brave, brave, Iranians.
Five people were killed when an IAF aircraft struck a mosque in the northern Gaza Strip Sunday afternoon, Palestinian sources said. The reports did not state whether the casualties were military or civilian.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Were they taken out by the initial blast or the secondaries?
And finally, an on-the-record response to the Chicago Sun-Times story (see below) from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who accuses Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich of "distorting" their conversation in leaks to the media.
What, he told the truth?
"Gov. Blagojevich appears to be trying to distract attention from his daunting legal problems and damaged credibility by distorting information about private phone calls between himself and other public officials," Reid said in the statement. "It is regrettable and reprehensible.
"Gov. Blagojevich's efforts to try to tarnish others while the cloud of suspicion continues to grow over him are shameful, as are his efforts to further betray the public trust and sow seeds of division. As each day passes it becomes increasingly clear that Gov. Blagojevich is not fit to lead, and he should resign.
"I will not allow his corruption charges or his antics to distract me from leading the Senate, to drive a wedge in our party or to obscure the facts."
Posted by: Fred ||
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Geez, Harry, is there no honor among thieves anymore?
BNP lawmaker-elect Salauddin Quader Chowdhury yesterday claimed that there are no war criminals in his party. "If the new government finds any war criminals among us it can try them...we have no objection to the trial of war criminals," said Salauddin, also parliamentary affairs adviser to former premier Khaleda Zia, talking to reporters at his Mohakhali office.
Replying to a query from the reporters, he said, "Those who had handed over 93,000 Pakistani soldiers to the Pakistan authorities can answer the question at ease about war criminals." Does that statement make any sense? Or is it just me?
Salauddin also said they regretted their disgraceful defeat in the election and therefore want to reorganize the party hierarchy. "BNP is ready cooperate with the Awami League-led government both in and outside the parliament without putting aside its 'nationalist ideals and Islamic values," said Salauddin. "We cannot compromise with the Islamic values, Bismillah and Islam, the state religion of our country," he added.
He lambasted Awami League's idea of forging a South Asian taskforce to combat terrorist activities in the region saying that his party does not support such idea.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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The ministers of defence of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) on Monday met in the western border town of Gisenyi in an effort to eliminate negative forces from the DR Congo.
General Marcel Gasintzi the defence minister represented Rwanda while Charles Mwando Simba represented the DR Congo. The meeting was also attended by high level security delegations from both countries including their two army chiefs. They discussed the implementation of their earlier reported joint military operation plan.
This is the latest in the many meetings that have been held by officials from both countries in efforts to find lasting peace in the region. Several bi-lateral meetings have been held to try and find a lasting solution to the security situation especially dealing with the genocidaire Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/05/2009
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The death toll of Palestinians killed in Israel's nine-day assault on the Gaza Strip hit 500 with thousands injured as Israeli troops advanced in their ground invasion supported by military helicopters that sporadically dropped bombs and caused mass panic as frantic families fled by car or on foot.
Since the ground invasion began at least 40 Palestinians have been killed and one Israeli soldier killed with some 35 injured, according to both Palestinian and Israeli officials.
Israel's assault worsened as world outrage continued, the U.N. Security Council failed to agree on a solution, the Islamist group Hamas called for national dialogue and Israel's President Shimon Perez rejected calls for a ceasefire.
Israel launched a ground invasion late on Saturday, pouring tanks and troops into the Hamas-controlled territory after a week of air strikes, prompting many residents to flee their homes.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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#1
Gaza toll hits 500 as Israeli assault worsens improves.
#2
I wonder whether the plan is to go all the way through house to house like Fallujah or Najaf. I don't see much benefit in filling he prisons with deadbeats. That will only lead to incessant hostage taking and release demands.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/05/2009 7:23
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"Subjects" who fire rockets and do suicide bombings against civilians should be tolerated, eh Shiwayit? Your people would have cut off Hamas heads if they were your subjects.
#12
Sure gettin' a lot of trolls today. Fred needs to issue some more troll licenses. Huntin' trolls without a license could get ya sink-trapped.
It's nice to know that a few Ayrabs have the intellect to actually make it to Fred's place. too bad they don't have enough intellect to detect the presence of their betters here.
SK - my money's on Israel. You might want to begin thinking of an alternate strategy as Hamass gets theirs kicked.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/05/2009 14:41
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"Any nation that has behaved towards a subject people, as Israhell has to Paleos, is worthy only of utter contempt."
Any people who are utterly enslaved by Paleo propaganda, as SK is, are worthy only of utter contempt.
It is frankly laughable that you would post such a pronouncement in the apparent belief that it would persuade anyone of anything other than your submissive gullibility and brutality.
Five people, including police personnel, were killed in separate incidents of violence in Swat on Sunday, as traders and shopkeepers closed their businesses for the day for fear of violence. Two slaughtered bodies were found in parts of Mingora while unidentified armed men killed three people in Matta tehsil. The bodies found in Mingora were identified as Frontier Constabulary personnel Mahi Khan and a police official Azizur Rehman. According to a private TV channel, a note was found near the bodies saying that they were killed to avenge the killing of Taliban in the valley.
Posted by: Fred ||
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WHEN US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in India this week, all the talk was about "non-state actors" and the challenge they throw up to the international system. The assumption was that the Pakistan-based terrorists responsible for the murders of about 175 people in Mumbai, and the injuries to hundreds more, were non-state actors.
Yet it may be that since the 9/11 attacks in New York, the world has completely misconceived the age of terror.
The radical increase in the lethality, range, political consequence and strategic influence of terrorists comes not from their being non-state actors at all. Instead it comes from their being sponsored by states.
The radical increase in the lethality, range, political consequence and strategic influence of terrorists comes not from their being non-state actors at all. Instead it comes from their being sponsored by states. Sometimes they are the instruments of states and at other times they make strategic alliances with states.
A terrorist group operating without any state sponsorship is an infinitely less dangerous outfit than a terrorist group operating with the co-operation of even the most ramshackle state.
However, states not only co-operate with terrorists, in many cases they direct and even found the terrorists.
Consider the prime example, al-Qa'ida. For a long time al-Qa'ida was the very image of decentralised, non-state globalisation. Men in caves, it was said, could bring death and destruction in New York. Yet that image, powerful and pervasive as it was, does not really capture the truth about al-Qa'ida. Al-Qa'ida began life in its campaign against the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan, with the support of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
The US, too, was supporting the mujaheddin in Afghanistan, though it certainly didnot support transnational terrorism. After Osama bin Laden fell out with the ruling family in Saudi Arabia, he moved the centre of his operations to Sudan. Al-Qa'ida and its leadership would not have been able to keep going, much less consolidate as a global, revolutionary terrorist movement, without the safe haven and other facilities that the Sudanese provided for at least the first half of the 1990s.
Then, from 1996 onwards, al-Qa'ida headquartered itself in Afghanistan, where its ideological soul mates, the Taliban, were running the country. The infrastructure the Taliban provided to al-Qa'ida was crucial. Tens of thousands of jihadists went through terrorist training camps that al-Qa'ida ran on Afghan soil.
Even after the 9/11 attacks, the US did not move immediately to attack Afghanistan and depose the Taliban. Rather it gave the Taliban a choice: they could avoid US military action if they handed over bin Laden and the other al-Qa'ida leadership.
What saved al-Qa'ida was the refusal of its state sponsor in Kabul to give it up. When the Taliban leadership escaped from Afghanistan, the al-Qai'ida leadership escaped with it. Nonetheless, al-Qa'ida at least has an independent existence apart from its succeeding state sponsors.
In the case of Iran, this is not so clear. Iran sponsored Hezbollah as its representative force in Lebanon. Increasingly, Tehran has taken direct control of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah undoubtedly commands some genuine popular support in Lebanon, but increasingly it is run as a unit of the Iranian state. That is one of the reasons it has been relatively quiet in the past 12 months. Iran plays these games with a lot of precision.
Hezbollah is a particular type of terrorist organisation. It is certainly capable of suicide terrorism, but it has become in effect a standing terrorist army, with its most important investment being in medium and even hi-tech missiles that it can launch at Israel whenever Iran gives the order.
Thus Hezbollah is less a non-state actor, as the popular jargon has it, and more an instrument of state power that nonetheless provides its state sponsor with political distance or a level of plausible deniability.
When Hezbollah struck Israel, Israel struck back against Lebanon, including Beirut, but the real return address on the Hezbollah rockets was Tehran. If Israel had attacked Iran it would have been accused of starting a Middle East war, but Hezbollah's rockets have the capacity to paralyse the northern half of Israel.
Similarly, Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood organisation. But its primary capacity is a conventional military capacity, especially the rockets it is now acquiring. It receives support from one big state, Iran, but it also constitutes on its own a kind of state power in Gaza.
Terrorists have to operate from somewhere. There are three alternatives. They can operate in what is truly ungoverned space, such as much of contemporary Somalia. Or they can operate clandestinely, against the wishes of a governing authority, as say the terrorist groups that have gathered in London. But of necessity such operations tend to be small and furtive. It is the third option that allows terrorists to grow to their full potential: where they are operating as either allies or agents of a sympathetic government.
Which brings us to Mumbai.
Pakistan has for many years been a significant state sponsor of terrorism. Its military intelligence agency, ISI, founded the Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist group, initially to harass India in Kashmir. The ISI also founded the Taliban to ensure a pro-Pakistan government in Kabul.
Even when Pakistan allegedly turned against terror and rounded up a few al-Qa'ida leaders, it never captured a Taliban leader. Nor did it ever really try to.
Now US intelligence has determined that former leaders of the ISI and other former Pakistani military figures trained the terrorists who perpetrated the Mumbai massacres.
Even if the impotent Pakistani civilian Government was not directly involved in the Mumbai massacres, it makes sense to see the long campaign of terror against India as sponsored by at least part of the Pakistani state. Given the Pakistani state also pioneered the idea of the Islamic nuclear bomb, this should sound the gravest alerts.
Thus it may be that modern terrorism is not so much the emergence of non-state actors on to the strategic field but, rather, the latest refinement of state power, giving the option of state military and terrorist action with plausible, or at least politically useful, deniability. If anything, therefore, we have tended to underestimate the strategic importance of terrorism.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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#2
Thank goodness we have reached the end of Rice's blabbering. She and her numbskull ideas have been very destructive. What a pack Bushie assembled. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Greenspan. Granted Greenie was at arm's length, but he was certainly getting the wink and nod to keep the good times rolling. A pox on all their shacks.
#3
I hate to say it, but if there is to be a silver lining to the Obama administration, it must surely be Rice's departure. Unfortunately her tenture was preceeded by another total waste. Just my opinion, nothing more.
A woman hiding among Iranian pilgrims with a bomb strapped under her black robe killed more than three dozen people on Sunday outside a Baghdad mosque during ceremonies commemorating the death of one of Shiite Islam's most revered saints. The suicide attack, the most recent in a series that has killed more than 60 people in less that a week, was the latest to mar the transfer of many security responsibilities from the U.S. military to Iraqi forces.
Iraqi security forces have deployed thousands of troops in Baghdad and in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, just south of the capital, to safeguard against attacks during the ceremonies. Attacks by al-Qaida in Iraq, Sunni insurgents and even a Shiite cult have killed hundreds of people in recent years.
The attack in Baghdad's northern Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah, which also and wounded at least 72 people, comes two days after a suicide bomber slipped into a luncheon at a tribal leader's home south of Baghdad and killed at least 23 people. More than a dozen other people have died in other attacks since New Year's Day.
The Iraqi military held parades to mark the anniversary of its founding 88 years ago and to celebrate a security agreement with the United States that went into effect on Jan. 1. The agreement replaced a U.N. mandate that allowed the U.S. and other foreign troops to operate in Iraq.
Under the new agreement, U.S. troops in Iraq will no longer conduct unilateral operations and will act only in concert with Iraqi forces. The must also leave major Iraqi cities by June and withdraw all troops by the end of 2011.
In another sign of the transition in authority, the U.S. military on Sunday handed over control in Diyala Province of about 9,000 Sons of Iraq, a predominantly Sunni group of former insurgents and tribesmen whose revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq gave a significant boost to security in the turbulent province and helped turned the tide in the war against the terror group.
The United States paid the group's estimated 90,000 members countrywide about $300 a month. Eventually, the members are to be either integrated into the Iraqi military and police, or provided civilian jobs and vocational training.
Under the phased handover, which began last year in Baghdad, Iraqi authorities will continue that pay and education strategy.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabanbi told Iraqi army troops during a parade marking Army Day that "the Iraqi army has gained the trust of government and Iraqi people as the army of all Iraqis."
At a military parade that included recently purchased U.S. military equipment and armored vehicles, he told the troops that "the signing of the withdrawal of foreign troop's agreement and the end of the U.N. mandate on Iraq" on Dec. 31 that gave U.S. and other forces the legal standing to occupy Iraq.
Just as the parade took place around noon, hundreds of worshippers had gathered in Kazimiyah just a few miles to the north, home to the shrine of Imam Mousa al-Kazim, one of the holiest men in Shiite Islam.
The woman was among a group of Iranian pilgrims and she blew herself up just outside the gates of the mosque, a large building graced by four minarets. The office of Iraqi army spokesman Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi confirmed a woman wearing an explosives vest was responsible.
Iraqi army and police put the deaths at 38, although the Prime Minister's National Operations Center said it was 36. Conflicting reports on the number of dead and wounded are common in Iraq in the chaotic aftermath of attacks.
At least one report from the Health Ministry said the dead included 17 Iranian pilgrims, seven of which were women. There were also seven Iraqi women killed by the blast, which sent shrapnel hurtling across the crowded square.
"I saw many dead pilgrims on the ground after the explosion all covered in blood, some of them Iranians," one unidentified witness told Associated Press Television News.
Thousands of pilgrims from predominantly Shiite Iran visit during Ashura, celebrated on Jan. 7 this year. The evening before the explosion, thousands of men marched through the streets of Kazimiyah rhythmically beating their chests with bare hands and slashing their shoulders with iron chains, part of ceremonies leading up to the anniversary of 7th-century death of Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein.
He was killed in a battle on the plains of Karbala near the Euphrates River. The battle, which was part of the dispute over the religion's leadership that began after Muhammad's death, was a key event in Islam's split into the majority Sunni and minority Shiite branches.
The Iraqi police and army have deployed thousands of forces to safeguard worshippers, mostly those heading to Karbala south of Baghdad. The city is home to the golden-domed mosques of Imam Hussein and his half-brother Imam Abbas. Hundreds of thousands are expected to pour into the city Tuesday and Wednesday night for the pinnacle of the pilgrimage.
Maj. Gen. Othman Ali Farhood al-Ghanimy, the Iraqi army commander in Karbala, said last week that thousands of foreign pilgrims had arrived.
Sunday's suicide attack bore all the hallmarks of the Sunni terror group al-Qaida in Iraq, which has killed hundreds of people in bombings against Ashura pilgrims in recent years. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. general in Iraq, blamed the group for the attack as well as a Friday suicide bombing that killed at least 23.
"These horrific attacks, along with the December 11 suicide bombing in Kirkuk, demonstrate that despite the great progress we have made, al-Qaida in Iraq remains a lethal and dangerous threat to innocent men, women and children of all faiths and groups," Odierno and Crocker said in a joint statement. The bombing in the northern city of Kirkuk killed 55.
Other Islamic extremist groups also have used Ashura to stage bloody attacks against Shiites.
Among the bloodiest attacks during Ashura were a series of mortar attacks and bombings in Baghdad and Karbala that year 2004 which killed nearly 200 pilgrims and wounded more than 500 others.
Last week, police in the southern city of Basra arrested a leading figure in a messianic Shiite cult, known as the "Soldiers of Heaven," that has battled with Iraqi and U.S. forces during the holiday.
At least 72 people died--mostly cult members--in ferocious battles with police in 2008.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2009
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#1
Is it Ashura season already...where does the time go?
A suicide bomber was killed while two people received injuries near a checkpost in Officers' Colony in Bannu on Sunday. The suicide bomber blew himself up in an attempt to target a checkpost but could not succeed as the bomb went off before he could reach his target. Meanwhile, three people were arrested for interrupting the proceedings of a jirga and hurling stones at the vehicle of the tehsildar of Parang Aar tehsil on Sunday.The jirga was being held to discuss a land dispute involving two groups of the Malik Deeni Khail tribe. The groups exchanged fire and started hurling stones at the tehsildar's vehicle.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Five policemen and two civilians were killed yesterday in a suspected suicide blast in the northwestern Pakistani town of Dera Ismail Khan, a local government official said. The explosion, which also wounded 28 people, took place on a busy road in the centre of town, district coordination officer Syed Mohsin Shah told AFP.
Police said they believed it could have been a suicide blast, and that the police were the intended target. Bomb disposal experts were combing the scene for evidence.
Shah said the police had come to the scene to investigate a tiny explosion, when their vehicle was hit in a second blast.
Dera Ismail Khan is on the edge of Pakistan's lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, where hundreds of extremists fled after the Taliban regime was ousted from power in Kabul in a US-led invasion in late 2001. The town has in the past been the scene of sectarian violence between Pakistan's majority Sunnis and minority Shiites.
Muslims are currently observing the mourning month of Muharram, but the official said there had not been any Shiite processions taking place near the scene of the blast.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Carl Bildt harshly condemned Israel's deadly assault on Gaza late Saturday, insisting the invasion would seriously hamper diplomatic attempts to find a solution to the conflict.
"The possibility that diplomatic efforts over the next couple of days will lead to progress has now diminished dramatically," said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who along with his French and Czech counterparts was travelling to the Middle East on Sunday to try to help bring about a Gaza ceasefire.
The Israeli ground offensive is "basically an admission that (Tel Aviv's) air attacks over the past week have failed to achieve what they had hoped for," Bildt said in a statement late Saturday.
"Instead of seeking a possible political solution after this failure they have now chosen to dramatically escalate the conflict with a ground offensive. It is obvious that this will make it harder to find a solution to this serious conflict," he added.
In a separate statement Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Störe joined his Swedish colleague in condemning the attacks. Gahr said his country "vehemently distances itself from acts of war that lead to massive civilian suffering and requests that the (Israeli) troops are withdrawn immediately."
"Continued bombing of the densely populated Gaza Strip has now become a full-blown military ground operation that is afflicting a civilian population that cannot defend itself and cannot flee," he lamented.
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01/05/2009
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Any excuse will do for posting a picture of the princess!
Zimbabwean rights campaigner Jestina Mukoko, who is to appear in court on Monday on charges of plotting to overthrow President Robert Mugabe, is being poisoned and tortured in custody, the Sunday Independent reported.
According to the paper, Mukoko, who is in solitary confinement at the notorious Chikurubi Maximum Security prison, is being force fed drugs by prison personnel. It said her lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa has called for a toxicology report to support the allegations.
"Mukoko is psychologically traumatised, it is not certain that she has told the full story because, every time she speaks to a doctor or a lawyer, a state official is present," said Mtetwa.
Mukoko was seized from her home on December 3 by armed men who identified themselves as police. Last week she made a first court appearance after being detained at an unknown location for weeks. A high court on Friday refused an application by her lawyers that she be taken to hospital for treatment after alleged torture.
She is accused together with 28 members of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party of recruiting or goading other people to undergo military training in neighbouring Botswana aimed at toppling Mugabe's government.
Mukoko's detention raised particular alarm among international rights groups and western nations, which have accused Mugabe's government of intimidation and harassment.
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01/05/2009
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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.
The Darwin Awards are given to those who improve the gene pool by removing themselves from it. As you might imagine, automobiles figure prominently in this roll call of death by stupidity. To wit: Ivece Plattner of Italy. Plattner was driving a Porsche Cayenne (which is already a bit of a red flag), stuck in traffic on a railroad crossing, waiting for the light to turn green. When the crossing barriers came down, they trapped the Cayenne.
THE armed wing of Hamas said today that it has "thousands" of fighters ready to battle Israel in Gaza, in a second defiant televised address by the Islamists in a day.
People should ignore signs telling them that it is legal to urinate in certain public places in Nottingham, the city council said.
The Taliban has long exaggerated its military successes, but its figures for 2008 may be the militia's most startling claims yet. 
One police officer was killed and his colleague was wounded early Monday after a brief exchange of gunfire with 
Soldiers from the IDF's Golani infantry brigade were fighting in the northern part of the Gaza Strip when they entered a house on which they had previous intelligence it was used as a Hamas command center.
A French warship captured 19 Somali pirates on Sunday when it came to the rescue of two cargo ships threatened in the Gulf of Aden, the office of President Nicolas Sarkozy said.
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich doesn't have many friends these days, particularly among the lawmakers who will decide whether to throw him out of office.
And finally, an on-the-record response to the Chicago Sun-Times story (see below) from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who accuses Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich of "distorting" their conversation in leaks to the media.
A woman hiding among Iranian pilgrims with a bomb strapped under her black robe killed more than three dozen people on Sunday outside a Baghdad mosque during ceremonies commemorating the death of one of Shiite Islam's most revered saints. The suicide attack, the most recent in a series that has killed more than 60 people in less that a week, was the latest to mar the transfer of many security responsibilities from the U.S. military to Iraqi forces. 
Carl Bildt harshly condemned Israel's deadly assault on Gaza late Saturday, insisting the invasion would seriously hamper diplomatic attempts to find a solution to the conflict.
