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Syria jets, troops wage offensive on rebels near capital
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
14:59 1 19:36 USN,Ret. [336083]
11:58 4 19:07 tu3031 [336094]
11:45 5 20:53 JosephMendiola [336117]
10:02 5 21:54 Pappy [336139]
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Laura Hollis - Post Mortem
Posted by: Elmeper Whomogum8873 || 01/05/2013 14:59 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336083 views] Top|| File under:

#1  RTWT; its very good. however I disagree w/ point # 11; we have NOT hit rock bottom yet. Oh that my crystal ball was back frm the shop so I could see when that will be, but my spidey sense says we still have about 15-18 months to go....
Posted by: USN,Ret. || 01/05/2013 19:36 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
9-year-old girl gangraped in Pakistan
Lahore, Jan 4 (PTI) A nine-year-old girl was in a critical condition in hospital after being raped by three men in Pakistan's Punjab province, police said.

The girl was taken to a hospital in Bahawalpur after being raped on Wednesday. Doctors treating her said she was in a critical condition because of loss of blood and internal injuries.
No doubt she deserved it because she was making herself available by venturing outside her home, or because a relative had had annoyed someone more powerful, or because she was Christian/Ahmadi/Shiite/Hindu, or because it was Wednesday, which always disorders succeptible male minds.
A medico-legal report confirmed the rape. Police registered a case against seven people for kidnap and rape.
Can we just nuke these savages?
Posted by: Beavis || 01/05/2013 11:58 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336094 views] Top|| File under:

#1  More of that Jew killing Muslim dogma set down in the Sharia.

Quarantine or cauterize.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/05/2013 13:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Nine years old? She was practically an old maid by Shariah reckoning
Posted by: Frank G || 01/05/2013 13:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Forget the Terrorists. This is where it starts, send the freagin Predators after these Abominations.
Posted by: Charles || 01/05/2013 14:02 Comments || Top||

#4  Hey, can't let them Hindoos one up them...
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/05/2013 19:07 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Pair of Breast Implants Left at Hotel Chain
Hotel staff must find any number of strange things left behind in vacated hotel rooms, but this might be the weirdest yet.

Travelodge says staff found a pair of breast implants left behind at the Newcastle Central location in Britain sometime during 2012. Also on its list of odd items left behind are several animals, expensive jewelry and a tanning booth.

One woman staying near Birmingham airport left behind a Persian Chinchilla kitten named Porsha who was due to participate in a cat show. Travelodge said the owner was "in such a dash to get to the show she forgot the cat box containing Porsha."

"En route to the venue she realized as the car journey was very quiet. Luckily Porsha was having a nap and did not realize that her owner had left her behind."

A bucket of live crabs was abandoned in Brighton, a python named Monty was left in Bristol, and Percy the micro pig was also forgotten.

"Our lost and found departments provide plenty of revelations," a Travelodge spokesman told the Daily Mail. "'Our customers' left-behinds demonstrate what a cross section of people stay in our 527 hotels."

"What is becoming evident after speaking to customers is that the pace of life has become so fast and we are so eager to get from A to B that priceless processions are easily being forgotten."

The hotel chain said the most common items left behind are teddy bears, gadget chargers and more than 20,000 books, including more than 7,000 copies of Fifty Shades of Grey. More than 76,000 teddy bears were reunited with their owners in 2012.

Travelodge holds items for three months before donating them to Cancer Research charity shops.
Posted by: Au Auric || 01/05/2013 11:45 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336117 views] Top|| File under:

#1  more than 7,000 copies of Fifty Shades of Grey.

WTF?
Posted by: Shipman || 01/05/2013 17:47 Comments || Top||

#2  7,000 copies of Fifty Shades of Grey.

That's 35% of all books left behind. Usually found in the trash after the guest read the 1st chapter.
Posted by: Frozen Al || 01/05/2013 18:23 Comments || Top||

#3  one word: "handcuffs"
Posted by: Frank G || 01/05/2013 18:54 Comments || Top||

#4  What happens in Travelodge, stays in Travelodge...
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/05/2013 19:06 Comments || Top||

#5  Yokay, I'll say it - EEEEEEWWWWWWWW!

This is one of those thingys where the less we know the better.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/05/2013 20:53 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Construction is complete on behemoth airship; first flight planned
A massive cargo-carrying airship has taken shape inside one of the 17-story wooden blimp hangars at the former military base in Tustin.

According to aircraft maker Worldwide Aeros Corp., construction is complete on a 36,000-pound blimp-like aircraft designed for the military to carry tons of cargo to remote areas around the world.

The Montebello company hopes to have a first flight in the coming months and to demonstrate cargo-carrying capability shortly thereafter.

"This is truly the beginning of a vertical global transportation solution for perhaps the next 100 years,” Chief Executive Igor Pasternak said in a statement.

Worldwide Aeros, a company of about 100 employees, built the prototype under a contract of about $35 million from the Pentagon and NASA.

The Aeroscraft is a zeppelin with a 230-foot rigid skeleton made of aluminum and carbon fiber. It's a new type of hybrid aircraft that combines airplane and airship technologies and doesn't need a long runway to take off or land because it has piston engines that allow it to move vertically and a new high-tech buoyancy control system.

Ultimately, the company wants to be able to carry up to 66 tons.

"This will land in Africa, Afghanistan," Pasternak told The Times in September, "a Wal-Mart parking lot -- wherever."
Posted by: Beavis || 01/05/2013 10:02 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336139 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I don't think I would fly that giant target over Afghanistan.....just sayin'.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/05/2013 14:59 Comments || Top||

#2  and the first new CD/DVD set from Led Zeppelin's 2007 reunion concert is released. Coincidence? I think not
Posted by: Frank G || 01/05/2013 16:30 Comments || Top||

#3  I just like the idea of an airship landing at WalMart. I mean, I'd forego Amazon for a week to see that.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/05/2013 17:51 Comments || Top||

#4  Seems they haven't heard of the Hindenburg, one hole, and she sinks.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/05/2013 20:44 Comments || Top||

#5  Airship designs generally call for several 'bags', or separate air chambers, so that it is still airworthy should there be a "hole".

The Hindenberg burned due to its carrying hydrogen instead of helium.
Posted by: Pappy || 01/05/2013 21:54 Comments || Top||


Olde Tyme Religion
Church allows gay bishops who take a vow of celibacy
[MORNING STAR ONLINE.CO.UK] You can be gay and lead the Church of England so long as you don't have sex with men, according to the Church of England's House of Bishops.
If you're celibate you're not gay, are you? You're celibate.
In a historic yet bizarre reversal of its ban on gay clergy, bishops said today they would allow gay clergy - even those in a civil partnership - to become bishops as long as they also took a vow of celibacy.

The church's ruling on same-sex relationships insisted "the clergy cannot claim the liberty to enter into sexually active homophile relationships."

The distinction stems from church teaching that civil partnerships are "friendships" between people of the same sex rather than a romance.

Meanwhile,
...back at the game, the Babe was wondering why the baseball kept getting bigger and bigger. Finally it hit him...
straight bishops would remain free to consummate relationships with their partners.
That sounds like enough lack of equivalence to be sure it's modified in a few years, kinda like "don't ask, don't tell." That's probably the next step, in fact.
The decision follows a controversial decision by the General Synod in November upholding the church's ban on women bishops.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 09:55 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336115 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Waste of a Vow, they allready Lied once, another can't be all That bad.

"Thou shalt NOT lie with Men".
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/05/2013 20:41 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Patent troll lawyers now going after users of most modern technologies
When Steven Vicinanza got a letter from an entity called Project Paperless LLC in the mail earlier this year informing him that he needed to pay $1,000 per employee for a license to some "distributed computer architecture" patents, he didn't quite believe it at first. The letter seemed to be saying anyone using a modern office scanner to scan documents to e-mail would have to pay--which is to say, just about any business, period.

If he'd paid up, the IT services provider that Vicinanza founded, BlueWave Computing, would have owed $130,000.

The letters, he soon found out, were indeed real and quite serious--he wasn't the only person getting them.

Vicinanza soon got in touch with the attorney representing Project Paperless: Steven Hill, a partner at Hill, Kertscher & Wharton, an Atlanta law firm.

"[Hill] was very cordial and very nice," he told Ars. "He said, if you hook up a scanner and e-mail a PDF document--we have a patent that covers that as a process."

It didn't seem credible that Hill was demanding money for just using basic office equipment exactly the way it was intended to be used. So Vicinanza clarified:

"So you're claiming anyone on a network with a scanner owes you a license?" asked Vicinanza. "He said, 'Yes, that's correct.' And at that point, I just lost it."
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 01/05/2013 09:55 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336088 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Give them an inch... mpaa, riaa
and this is the result.
Posted by: Water Modem || 01/05/2013 13:19 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm reminded of the old lawyer joke about "What is 200 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? Answer, a good start. May these bastards roast in HELL.
Posted by: Past Master of the Obvious || 01/05/2013 13:23 Comments || Top||

#3  Perps heads on a pike would be a good start with photos in prime hallways in our nation's law schools.
Posted by: Water Modem || 01/05/2013 14:12 Comments || Top||

#4  Wonder if they've been stupid enough to send one of those letters to a large law firm?

Hilarity would ensue. :-D
Posted by: Barbara || 01/05/2013 14:14 Comments || Top||

#5  The US Patent Office enabled a lot of this nonsense when they started granting patents on business methods. Before that, you had to have an actual physical machine. Afterwards, you just needed to append "on the Internet" to your lame-ass business plan.

Patenting a scanner is one thing. Trying to patent the idea of sending the scanned file via email should fail the obviousness test and get you tossed down the stairs.
Posted by: SteveS || 01/05/2013 14:29 Comments || Top||

#6  I'd love to see some of our patent and IP attorneys answer that letter they're sending. :-D

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure they'll never send us one ....
Posted by: Barbara || 01/05/2013 16:34 Comments || Top||

#7  Another lawyer joke:

What is a shame?

A busload of lawyers going over a cliff!

What is a crying shame?

Two of the seats are empty!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/05/2013 16:45 Comments || Top||

#8  During the mid-1980s dairy farmers decided there was too much cheap milk at the supermarket. So the government bought and slaughtered 1.6 million cows. How come the government never does anything like this with lawyers?

P.J. O'Rourke
Posted by: Beavis || 01/05/2013 17:01 Comments || Top||

#9  Q: During the mid-1980s dairy farmers decided there was too much cheap milk at the supermarket. So the government bought and slaughtered 1.6 million cows. How come the government never does anything like this with lawyers?

A: Ever see a cheap lawyer (as in the bill?)
Posted by: USN,Ret. || 01/05/2013 19:30 Comments || Top||


Oliver Stone compares Yugo Chavez to The Champ
Bah, that's nothing. We do that all the time at Rantburg...
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 09:38 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336082 views] Top|| File under:

#1  O.K. Could be a fair comparison.
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/05/2013 16:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Stopped clock.
Posted by: Perfesser || 01/05/2013 18:25 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Bodies found in Pakistan wedding dancing case
Police in Pakistan say they have recovered three bodies, after women were shown singing at a wedding attended by men on Pakistani TV.

Reports in June that the women in the video had been killed over their actions were quelled when village elders gave campaigners assurances they were alive.

Police say they now believe relatives of the men may have been killed in a revenge attack by some the women's families.
Posted by: tipper || 01/05/2013 09:08 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336128 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Uh, uh, THE HARD BOYZ STILL HATE WEDDING CAKE + NOW ALSO "THE SUPREMES" = GIRL GROUPS???

gut nuthin.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/05/2013 21:37 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
7.7 quake off of Alaska coast
Posted by: ryuge || 01/05/2013 05:10 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336080 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Way down in southern Alaska, and tsunami warning has been canceled, so our Alaska Paul should be fine. It just loaded up the system for the next one to the north or south.
Posted by: Glenmore || 01/05/2013 8:17 Comments || Top||

#2  so our Alaska Paul should be fine.

relatively speaking, of course :-)
Posted by: Frank G || 01/05/2013 13:55 Comments || Top||

#3  Heh, #2 Frank. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara || 01/05/2013 14:01 Comments || Top||

#4  ***climbing out of the rubble and fallen logs***

I..I...I'm ok..... Must have been another one of Gaia's psychotic episodes....

Hey!!!! The 'Burg's still on. Life is good.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/05/2013 14:51 Comments || Top||

#5  Heh heh, AP.

Thought of you when I first saw the huge headline on (wait for it) the Weather Channel website.

When did earthquakes become weather, fercryin'outloud?
Posted by: Barbara || 01/05/2013 16:37 Comments || Top||

#6  Barbara, when Al Gore determined that they were caused by global warming.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 01/05/2013 17:28 Comments || Top||

#7  AlBore is an IDIOT, Rambler.

But you knew that . . . .
Posted by: Barbara || 01/05/2013 18:51 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Saudi air force sergeant charged with raping boy in Vegas
By our lights, a vicious rat who should be put down without mercy. By his, no big deal, unless the lad has powerful relatives.
Posted by: Penguin || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336105 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Alotaibi is being detained at the Clark County Detention Center in a facility segregated from the general jail population. There are no immediate plans to deport him, an official said.

But he will be returned to KSA and the entire matter forgotten about I assure you.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 3:11 Comments || Top||

#2  From the LVRJ article on this heinous crime:

"Alotaibi told police he was drinking Hennessy all night and was drunk when he met the boy. Police said he first denied allegations but later admitted he "put his penis in his mouth for just a couple of seconds," and his penis "accidentally" went into the boy's rectum.
Posted by: Penguin || 01/05/2013 8:18 Comments || Top||

#3  Alotaibi is being detained at the Clark County Detention Center in a facility segregated from the general jail population..

The National Geographic channel ran a number of Hard Time series episodes on the CCDC. Enjoy the stay. /sarc off
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/05/2013 8:39 Comments || Top||

#4  Islam demands that Women be covered up save for the eyes, so as a consequence any + all eligible males turn to Goats, Camels, Sheep, Gay + Pedophilia, + prob a not-few-holes-in-the-wall or ground, etc. IYKWIMAITYD.

Considering how many generations have passed in the Muslim KSA, its prolly safe to say its now "genetic/natural"???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/05/2013 21:00 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria jets, troops wage offensive on rebels near capital
[Dawn] Syrian regime warplanes and troops on Friday blasted away at rebels close to Damascus
...The capital of Iran's Syrian satrapy...
, the day after a boom-mobile in a mainly Alawite northern district of the capital killed at least 11 people, a watchdog said.

Fighter-bombers were hitting Duma, northeast of Damascus, and army artillery was shelling the southwestern Daraya neighbourhood which the rebels have led against regime assaults for weeks, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.

Troop reinforcements were being sent to Daraya, the British-based group added.

The offensive was being waged a day after a boom-mobile in the north Damascus neighbourhood of Massaken Barzeh, mostly inhabited by members of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Scourge of Qusayr...
's Alawite minority, killed at least 11 people, the Observatory said.

Two children were among the dead in the attack, it said.

The official SANA news agency said the bomb struck a petrol station near a hospital and that it also maimed many civilians.

The Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC) activist network close to the rebels also reported the attack, adding thon the lam numbers of troops deployed in the neighbourhood afterwards.

On Wednesday, the United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
said the overall corpse count from the 21-month conflict had topped 60,000. The fatality rate has multiplied in recent months, as air strikes have stepped up.

Nationwide on Thursday at least 191 people died, including 99 civilians, according to the Observatory, which gathers information from a network of medics and activists. Fighting in Damascus and its outskirts accounted for 87 of the deaths, it said.

Daraya has become one of the bloodiest battlefields in Syria's civil war.

In August, the district was the scene of the worst massacre of the conflict when more than 500 people were reportedly killed.

Al-Watan, a pro-regime newspaper, claimed on Friday that the army had "won the battle against the forces of Evil in Daraya and destroyed their last positions".

It said that several members of the jihadist Al-Nusra Front rebel group had been killed, maimed or surrendered and that Daraya should be fully secured later Friday.

As with many of the claimed victories put out by the regime or the rebels, there was no way of verifying the situation. Many of the supposed triumphs have later turned out to be empty boasts.

Assad's regime routinely describes the snuffies as "terrorists", claiming many are foreign and backed by money and arms from Gulf Arab states and the West.

The rebels acknowledge a minority of imported muscle in their ranks, but say their struggle is one of Syrians for a Syria free of Assad. They reject any negotiations as long as Assad remains in power.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that, of the 51 rebels killed on Thursday, at least five were foreigners -- one Paleostinian, one Turk, one Saudi and two Libyans.

Australia has warned its nationals they face up to 20 years in jail if caught fighting in Syria, in a foreign ministry announcement made after a Melbourne man was reportedly killed in the conflict.

A ministry front man said the Australian government was aware of reports that more than 100 Australians had engaged in the conflict since 2011 but he had "no evidence" of any citizens currently involved.

Leb, meanwhile, said it would keep its border open to receive more refugees from Syria, but called on other Arab states and the international community to make good on financial pledges to help it cope with the influx.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336149 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  Cookie time.
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 01/05/2013 19:57 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Prayer leader's bullet-riddled body found
[Dawn] The perforated carcass of a local mosque's prayer leader was found in the Shahmansoor mountains of Swabi district on Thursday.

A police official said the prayer leader, Naseebullah alias Zarbat Khan, belonged to Orakzai Agency
... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers...
and that he went missing after he offered Asr prayer in his mosque on Wednesday.

The official said it had yet to be ascertained if the prayer leader fell victim to militancy or a family dispute. The body was later handed over to the family.

SUSPECTS HELD: Local police are learnt to have nabbed
You have the right to remain silent...
five suspects over the killing of seven aid workers near the Anbar interchange in Swabi district.

Police sources told Dawn on Thursday that these suspects had been picked up from different parts of the district before being shifted to an unidentified location for interrogation to trace killers.

The sources said more arrests over the killings couldn't be ruled out. They said police and the district administration had been under pressure from different quarters for early arrest of the culpable people. When contacted, local superintendent of police Abdul Rashid confirmed the arrests and said the suspects were being quizzed. He, however, refused to name the arrested men.

"It cannot be disclosed at this crucial phase of investigation who they are, where they hail from and which groups they belong to. Any disclosure in this respect at this point can harm investigation," he said.

Mr Rashid said the killing of aid workers was an act of Islamic fascisti as no one other could be behind the carnage.

He put the number of attackers at two, correcting the earlier police tally of four.

Driver Abdul Majid, who was injured in the attack, has already said two motorcyclists fired gunshots at him and aid workers in the van when they were returning from NGO Support With Working Solution's community centre in Sher Afzal Banda area.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336095 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Better Dead.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/05/2013 16:08 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian killings
[Dawn] BESIDES watching the Syrian drama from the sidelines, the international community has done nothing practical to stop a slaughter that, says the UN, has left 60,000 dead in less than two years. Add to it the number of the injured and displaced, besides public and private buildings being blown to bits, and we get a fuller picture of the human dimensions of the Syrian trauma. The Security Council couldn't pass a single resolution for peace -- thanks to Russian and Chinese vetoes -- while the Organisation of the Islamic Conference remained in its traditional state of torpor. The Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
at least tried to contain the conflagration in the heart of the Arab world but failed, while the two sides fought ferociously, committing horrible human rights
...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
violations. If at all foreign parties got involved in the Syrian conflict, it was for the wrong reasons. Turkey, Qatar and Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face...
-- backed by NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization....
powers -- and Iran made no secret of their sympathies. The result is that the aims behind the Arab Spring have given way to sectarian considerations, with the crisis spilling over to Leb.

The dissidents have now within their ranks forces that seem motivated less by democratic ideals and more by turban philosophies that could create regional problems if Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Trampler of Homs...
falls. Many Saudi-backed factions of the Free Syrian Army subscribe to turban philosophies, and some Al Qaeda loyalists have set up courts and executed 'informers'. On the whole, the FSA has added to its tactical advantage by holding the bases it captured; its previous policy was hit and run. Yet, in spite of these successes, it is unlikely it can defeat the state forces. UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi's plan now calls for a transitional government followed by an election -- whether parliamentary or presidential he didn't make clear. He also said nothing about President Assad's fate. The opposition has already made clear it will not negotiate with him.
This means fighting will continue because the Syrian strongman appears determined not to learn from Muammar Qadaffy
...whose instability was an inspiration to dictators everywhere, but whose end couldn't possibly happen to them...
's fate. Even his supporter, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, says the alternative to a negotiated settlement is "bloody chaos".
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336097 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  stay out of it
Posted by: Frank G || 01/05/2013 14:07 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Vaccination drive: Motorcycles to be banned in Peshawar
[Dawn] Keeping in view the frequent terrorist attacks against workers of anti-polio
...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
teams in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
, the local administration has made a plan for the security of vaccinators engaged for the forthcoming immunisation campaign beginning on Jan 5.

Under the plan, cycle of violence riding will be banned in the 48 high-risk union councils of the placid provincial capital during the four-day immunisation campaign, it is learnt.

The security plan was finalised during a meeting chaired by Deputy Commissioner of Peshawar Mohammad Javaid Marwat at his office on Thursday, where Peshawar SSP (operations) Imran Shahid, Assistant Commissioner Sikandar Zeeshan, Dr Akram Shah of the provincial health department, representatives of World Health Organisation and officials of other relevant departments were in participated.

After thorough discussion on the issues emerged from the recent killing of vaccinators in parts of Peshawar, the participants decided that the next drive would be completed in phases to ensure security of vaccinators.

They said polio drops would be administered to children in Town-4 areas on Jan 5, Town-3 on Jan 6, Town-1 on Jan 7, and Town-2 on Jan 8.

During the meeting, the DC directed the relevant officials to discharge duties diligently. He said another meeting would be held today (Friday) to review preparations for the next polio campaign.

Meanwhile,
...back at the shouting match, the spittle had reached unprecedented levels...
officials of the city's different cop shoppes have demanded additional force for supervision of polio teams, saying the existing manpower would not be able to spare time from the routine patrolling.

"We already have problems of lack of personnel and it is duty of the high-ups to arrange the reinforcement," an official of Khazana cop shoppe told Dawn, saying the area was very vast, while the resources were limited.

He said the local police had to check movement of the suspected elements thoroughly because the areas were linked to Charsadda district bordering Mohmand Agency
... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar...
from where forces of Evil could come to the city anytime for their activities.

"We will apprise the relevant officials of our problems in our Friday meeting with DC and will demand additional force to ensure foolproof security arrangements," the official said.

However,
some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go...
the Mathra police claimed to have sufficient number of coppers and could provide security to polio teams.

"We have presently 130 coppers and at daytime, they can manage to do additional duty," the official said. About the arrest of the killers of a female vaccinator in the city, the official said there was no progress in the investigation so far.

Our Correspondent adds from Charsadda: Lady health workers in Charsadda district have refused to take part in polio campaign starting today (Friday) over security grounds.

The local officials said 267 teams had formed to carry out the campaign in 20 union councils of Charsadda and that majority of these union councils were located in Shabqadar tehsil, which had declared high-risk areas for poliovirus.

They said the administration had deployed additional personnel and banned cycle of violence riding for one day in Shabqadar tehsil to ensure foolproof security of polio teams during the campaign.

The officials said the administration had completed security arrangements for vaccinators by engaging local patwari, union council secretary and local elders.

They said female health workers had refused to participate in the campaign after attacks on polio workers and the growing insecurity.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336106 views] Top|| File under: TTP


-Lurid Crime Tales-
2012 was Detroit's most violent in nearly 20 years
[FREEP] As bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat Detroit,
... ruled by Democrats since 1962...
recorded its highest homicide rate in nearly two decades, city and police officials pledged to try to stem the tide of violence.

Authorities recognized the spiraling problem of gun play and homicide in Detroit during a news conference Thursday -- a recognition that comes as the city kicks off the new year with violence.

Already this week, a mother has been charged with fatally stabbing her 8-year-old daughter,
... which brought joy to Moloch's heart or lack thereof...
and a cab driver was shot to death.

"We've lost respect of each other," Mayor Dave Bing said. "We've lost respect for life."

Detroit officials announced that the city had 386 homicides in 2012, not including 25 killings deemed justifiable. This is the highest number since 2007, when the city logged 392 homicides, according to FBI crime statistics. It's also the highest homicide rate in nearly two decades.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336121 views] Top|| File under:

#1  532 in Chigago in 2012 and we have alredy racked up 8 so far in 2013.
Posted by: Jimp Forkbeard8158 || 01/05/2013 1:20 Comments || Top||

#2  "We've lost respect of each other," Mayor Dave Bing said. "We've lost respect for life."

"Lost" assumes some level of prior ownership. I'm not at all certain this is a valid assumption.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 3:18 Comments || Top||

#3  It would seem that Detroit wins the contest with Chicago when population is factored in. It appears the rate in Detroit is higher than in Chicago. Detroit numbers do not include 25 killings deemed justifiable. In Chicago, no killings are deemed justifiable with a firearm even in self-defence.
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/05/2013 8:55 Comments || Top||

#4  Our local media are still 'bragging' on New Orleans as the murder capital; must be on per capital basis, but is Detroit still over three times the size of New Orleans?
Posted by: Glenmore || 01/05/2013 9:05 Comments || Top||

#5  The bulk of Detroit's killings are the result of gun violence.

Most of the victims were young, black men…

The city's homicide epidemic is tied to drugs…

That area of the city, he said, has more than 2,000 parolees and probationers and was a hotbed for killings in the past year.


The Reverend wants more livable wages. The mayor wants more dialogue with Public Schools. The research associate wants more grant-funded initiatives. The Police Chief wants more help from the 4-P’s. (Press, principals, preachers, parents) And not one mentions of…GANGS. Odd…aint it?
Posted by: DepotGuy || 01/05/2013 11:29 Comments || Top||

#6  not one mentions of...GANGS

The mayor calls that non mention "constituent service."

The reverend calls that non mention "tending to the flock."

The police chief calls that non mention "not muddling the issue."

The research associate calls that non mention "being down with the cool kids."
Posted by: M. Murcek || 01/05/2013 11:48 Comments || Top||

#7  The Detroit Free Press calls that non mention "City Promotion and Public Relations”
Posted by: DepotGuy || 01/05/2013 12:02 Comments || Top||

#8  I wonder how much History is being lost in Detroit? Must be heaven for metal-detectors and scavengers. If they can avoid the bullets.
Posted by: Charles || 01/05/2013 14:07 Comments || Top||

#9  Most of the victims were young, black men...

...who were killed by young, black men. But you bees raciss to point that out.

Still, it's nice to see Detroit returning to its former glory. And yeah, if you can't tell, that is snarkasm.
Posted by: SteveS || 01/05/2013 14:19 Comments || Top||

#10  not one mentions of...GANGS.

I believe gangs are, for adolescent boys, a natural substitute for family, especially family with a father figure. This is purely conjectural on my part and I would appreciate any 'real' support or rejection of the concept, but it certainly does fit observations.
Posted by: Glenmore || 01/05/2013 16:23 Comments || Top||

#11  yes, but also street tribes
Posted by: Frank G || 01/05/2013 16:38 Comments || Top||

#12  Yes to both. And when gangs are sufficiently entrenched in an area, they come to resemble an urban insurgency as well. C.f. Manwaring's 2005 monograph for the Army War College which I've linked here before. Available for free download and worth pondering.
Posted by: lotp || 01/05/2013 19:23 Comments || Top||

#13  Detroit had over 600 murders as late as the early 1990s. However the population, especially the population of teens and black teens, was greater then.



Posted by: lord garth || 01/05/2013 20:23 Comments || Top||

#14  see also The Wire. One of the best-made series I've seen
Posted by: Frank G || 01/05/2013 20:27 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Mali Islamist Group Insists on Sharia, Autonomy for North
[An Nahar] One of the Islamist groups controlling north Mali said in its political program handed to regional mediators that it wants autonomy for the north and the rule of sharia law, according to the document seen Friday.

Ansar Dine, or "Defenders of the Faith", handed the text to Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and may be in the process of being chased out now...
President Blaise Compaore, the top mediator in the Mali crisis, on Tuesday.

It says Ansar Dine has for the moment renounced independence for the north.

But it said that "the strict observance of Islamic law on all the territory of Azawad (northern Mali) is a non-negotiable imperative".

Ansar Dine and another gang in the north, the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA) are both homegrown movements seen as more moderate than their sometime allies in the vast desert north, the jihadist groups the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

A source close to Compaore said Friday that a second round of talks between Ansar Dine, the MNLA and the Mali government would be held in the Burkina capital next Thursday.

The Islamist groups seized northern Mali in the wake of a March coup in the capital Bamako, and have since imposed a brutal form of sharia, or Islamic law.

Their occupation of the Texas-sized territory has raised fears they could use the north as a base to launch attacks on the region and Europe.

Ansar Dine said Thursday that it had revoked a pledge to end hostilities, accusing the government of giving nothing in return.

African nations have 3,300 troops on standby for a mission to reclaim northern Mali.

The U.N. Security Council on December 20 approved the deployment of an international force, but in stages and without a precise timetable.

The council also insisted on the need for dialogue with gangs that reject terrorism and the partition of the country.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336082 views] Top|| File under: Ansar Dine


India-Pakistan
No 'good' or 'bad Taliban': defence minister
[Dawn] Defence Minister Syed Naveed Qamar on Friday said that there is no such thing as "good or bad Taliban", and that all those who are faceless myrmidons should be eliminated.

Speaking to media representatives in an informal conversation outside the Parliament House, Defence minister Syed Naveed Qamar said that Pakistain has so far released 26 Taliban prisoners.

The defence minister said that the Abbottabad
... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden....
commission report was being reviewed, after which it would be decided whether to make the report public or not.

Qamar said that the establishment was not behind Tehriki-Minhajul Koran (TMQ) chief Tahirul Qadri.

He said that it was Qadri's right to protest, however, nobody can be allowed to violate the Constitution.

Qamar said that consultation over the caretaker setup would be held with the opposition on March 17, before which there was no possibility of any such talks.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336119 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  …there is no such thing as "moderate good or extremist bad Muslims Taliban"
Posted by: DepotGuy || 01/05/2013 9:49 Comments || Top||

#2  DEAD Taliban are good
Posted by: Frank G || 01/05/2013 13:49 Comments || Top||

#3  I saw a good Taliban once....
/WT Sherman angry white General
Posted by: Shipman || 01/05/2013 17:13 Comments || Top||

#4  OTOH DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Daily Times.PK] TALIBAN VOW WAR IFF US [US-NATO]STAYS IN AFGHANISTAN AFTER 2014.

and

* SAME > US AIMS TO KEEP 10,000 TROOPS IN AGHANISTAN AFTER 2014: REPORT.

* RELATED TOPIX > US PLANNING/WEIGHS OPTION TO KEEP 9000 TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN AFTER PULLOUT.

Yokay, I'll bite, IIRC "10,000" troops option was the minimum best "safe" option for the US come 2014 - by this scope, "9000" troops is LESS-THAN-MINIMUM AKA "LESS-THAN-SAFE" DESPITE THE 1000-MAN DIFFERENCE???

* FYI DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > NEW CHIEF OF PAK TALIBAN FACTION FOUGHT INDIAN TROOPS IN J & K Jammu + Kashmir].

BHAWAL KHAN, Chief in replacement for alleged new zombie Mullah Nazir.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/05/2013 21:53 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Morocco opposition MP faces corruption charges
[MAGHAREBIA] Moroccan judicial police tossed in the slammer
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
a parliamentarian on corruption charges, Yabilidi reported on Friday (January 4th).

Mohamed Lahssaini, a House of Counsellors representative from opposition party Constitutional Union (UC) and Sidi Yahya El Gharb municipal council chief, was arrested in Kenitra on Wednesday after a local contractor accused him of blackmail.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336081 views] Top|| File under:


Britain
Malala heads home to continue recovery
[TV.MSNBC] When most of the world came to know Malala Yousafzai, she had just been shot by a Taliban gunman on her school bus in Pakistain's Swat
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
Valley. The first time she was seen in the days following the attack, she was unconscious, listless, clinging to life as she was carried around by stretcher.

Multiple hospitals, thousands of miles, and nearly three months later, the 15-year old this week walked out of the Birmingham, England hospital where she has been treated, smiling and waving to the hospital camera, with a long road to recovery ahead but the worst of it, now behind her.

In a statement from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where the teenage education advocate has been treated since October 15th of last year, Medical Director Dr. Dave Rosser said Malala's team of doctors discharged her Thursday, deciding "that she would benefit from being at home with her parents and two brothers."

Malala's father,Ziauddin, her mother, Toorpekai, and two younger brothers, Khushal and Atul, followed her to Birmingham and have been staying in accomodations near the hospital. Sources close to the family say they are enjoying finally being together again, and that Malala and her father remain committed to their cause of education for all. At the moment, however, sources say their priority remains Malala's full recovery.

She had been making short visits to where her family was staying in recent weeks, but will now be treated on an outpatient basis at the hospital, making future visits for check-ups and continuing treatment. According to hospital officials, her final surgery should take place at the end of January or beginning of February. During that cranial reconstruction, doctors will replace the part of her skull that had been removed soon after she was shot to allow her brain to swell without causing Malala further damage. The original skull fragment or a custom-built titanium plate will be used in that process.

Hospital sources have called Malala's recovery "remarkable," particularly considering she was shot in the head at point-blank range, but warn that she has a long physical and psychological recovery ahead. She has been seen in brief video clips and photographs released periodically by the hospital, but has yet to speak publicly since she was attacked.

Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336082 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Southeast Asia
Thai police fill officer quota by deadline
A total of 150 police officers have been recruited to work in Thailand's three southernmost provinces, filling a quota sought by the Royal Thai Police Office. The officers should be deployed by next Thursday.

The Royal Thai Police recently announced plans to recruit 150 investigators to work in the deep South. Out of concerns the required number would not be met, it had introduced a policy of drawing lots to select officers. However, thanks to a surge of volunteers before yesterday's deadline, they did not have to resort to the drawing of lots as much as it expected.

The policy of selecting investigators by drawing lots caused unrest among some officers who called the method unfair. They threatened to go to the Administrative Court over the issue.

Pol Lt Gen Khamronwit said, "The situation isn't as bad as thought. You will need time to adapt. Don't be terrified. If I have a chance, I'd love to go back and serve there."

The officers who lodged a petition against the policy will face a disciplinary investigation.
Posted by: ryuge || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336081 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Cruz Sworn In As Texas' First Hispanic US Senator
[HOUSTON.CBSLOCAL] Tea party darling Ted Cruz has been sworn in as U.S. senator and says his first order of business will be introducing a bill he knows will never pass.

Cruz is a Cuban-American and former state solicitor general. On Thursday, he became the first Hispanic to represent Texas in the Senate.

He has pledged that his first bill would seek to repeal "every syllable of every word" of the B.O. regime's health care reform law.

Now in office, Cruz said he will keep that promise, even though he knows Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama
They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them...
will ensure his bill won't become law.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336082 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Drudge Report: Cruz says shutting down the Federal government due to over spending may be necessary. As they say in Texas, "nutt cuttin' time". Neuter these stallions. That will calm them down.
Posted by: wr || 01/05/2013 9:00 Comments || Top||

#2  For stallions, castration would probably be more appropriate, including Barney even.
Posted by: wr || 01/05/2013 9:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Cruz says we should shut down the government if necessary. The political class doesn't like to hear such talk no matter who is saying it.
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/05/2013 9:48 Comments || Top||

#4  To recover we must be a nation of business. To be a nation of business we must treat our government like a business. Shut it down until the books are in order. And cancel the pay hikes, that is disgusting.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 01/05/2013 10:40 Comments || Top||


Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336094 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Birthday Gam Shot

Kristin Cavallari [Filmography](age 26)



Intelligent Design?

Gorb, Intelligent Design on a MoPed?

Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 01/05/2013 0:11 Comments || Top||

#2  I have socks older than Kristin--but they are not nearly as attractive.
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/05/2013 8:01 Comments || Top||


Europe
Wiesenthal list causes hand-wringing in Germany
The Wiesenthal Center has included a major German publisher on its 2012 list of leading anti-Semites alongside the Muslim Brotherhood and Ahmadinejad. His writings have been ignorant left-wing nonsense highly critical of Israel, but how far is too far?
This hits the writer especially hard because the gentleman in question is, among other things, a Der Spiegel columnist and son of the magazine's founder.
Posted by: ryuge || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336089 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Louis Farrakhan? Shocking (sarc). Farrakhan was (is?) a supporter of Obama. Farrakhan received a lifetime achievement award from Rev. Wright's church Link
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/05/2013 8:41 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Workers making $30,000 will take a bigger hit on their pay than those earning $500,000
[Daily Mail.CO.UK] Middle-class workers will take a bigger hit to their income proportionately than those earning between $200,000 and $500,000 under the new fiscal cliff deal, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Earners in the latter group will pay an average 1.3 percent more - or an additional $2,711 - in taxes this year, while workers making between $30,000 and $200,000 will see their paychecks shrink by as much as 1.7 percent - or up to $1,784 - the D.C.-based think tank reported.

Overall, nearly 80 percent of households will pay more money to the federal government as a result of the fiscal cliff deal.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336102 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Between higher premiums and higher taxes, I've already seen my check shrink by $250/month. Not exactly small change. Other people/families are going to be seriously hurt by this.
Posted by: DarthVader || 01/05/2013 0:52 Comments || Top||

#2  Overall, nearly 80 percent of households will pay more money to the federal government as a result of the fiscal cliff deal.

The Obama-Reid Trickle Down Program for Taxes(c). Prop the 1% up as the target, let the remaining 79% take the hit. Suckers. Watch the flow of redistribution into the Beltway.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/05/2013 8:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Oh its worse than that. Every place they buy things from is going to bump up prices on account of losing dollar value plus insurance hikes. Does a 10% loss of wealth sound optomistic?
Posted by: swksvolFF || 01/05/2013 10:33 Comments || Top||

#4  - was a more effective stimulus than income tax cuts were,

The payroll reduction was sold, written, and approved to be a temporary stimulus. And given the state of the economy, the Keynsian argument suggests that congress should have extended it. The fact that it wasn’t further proves that President Obama believes economic growth is secondary to symbolic gestures and political gain. IOW, he’s full of shit.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 01/05/2013 10:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Economic growth creates freedom and independence, both of which are the enemy of big government control. The juxtaposition of big government dependency and economic growth is madness. The host will eventually succumb. Article 48 of the Weimer constitution gave the President sole power in ‘times of emergency’ – something he took often; something the Champ seeks with a vengeance.


Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 11:01 Comments || Top||

#6  Anyone who whines about when Social Security will go bankrupt should be glad the SSI withdrawal has been returned to normal. That 2% has been coming directly out of the SSI funding. It was easier for the Democratic controlled Congress to do it this way rather than change the tax code.

Of course the young folks are beginning to realize that SSI probably won't be there for them, no matter how much they put in.
Posted by: tipover || 01/05/2013 12:32 Comments || Top||

#7  I just think of all these people who voted for Obama, and get smile when I know they'll be hit hardest. Eat it suckers.
Posted by: Charles || 01/05/2013 14:04 Comments || Top||

#8  "IOW, he's full of shit."

In any words, he's full of shit, DG. >:-(

Also, what Charles said.
Posted by: Barbara || 01/05/2013 14:10 Comments || Top||

#9  Good news! Only the rich will see their taxes go up.

More good news! You are rich!
Posted by: Slusorong Bonaparte9215 || 01/05/2013 15:37 Comments || Top||

#10  My first check after the new year was $55 less for two weeks. On money I made before the new year???
Govt Employees will see frozen pay and a 10-15% increase in health insurance premiums this year, coupled with a larger pension contribution.
It's a start, they can go after the rest of it later.
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 01/05/2013 17:08 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Polio vaccination program resumes in KP amid tight security
[Dawn] Paramilitary and police support was provided for the health workers, as polio
...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
vaccinations were resumed discreetly in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
province after recent attacks on workers, officials said on Friday.

UN agencies suspended work on a nationwide campaign to inoculate children against the highly infectious disease after nine health workers were murdered in a string of attacks in the northwest and Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
in December.

On Tuesday, six women and a man working for a charity involved in polio vaccinations were rubbed out in the northwestern district of Swabi.

A senior government official said that instead of pressing another nationwide campaign, authorities had decided to inoculate children in phases, in a low key manner with adequate security arrangements.

Doctor Janbaz Afridi, head of polio eradication in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, said that to ensure security, campaigns would be carried out in phases and separately in different districts.

"We had to launch a campaign from January 14, but were not given security clearance, so we reviewed the schedule and modified our policy to do it in phases starting from high-risk districts," Afridi told AFP.

"The inoculation teams can now go into selected areas with adequate security at any suitable time instead of a province-wide campaign," he added.

Polio cases in Pakistain have risen sharply in recent years, hitting 198 in 2011 -- the highest figure for more than a decade and the most of any country in the world last year, according to the World Health Organization.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336096 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Security forces kill 21 militants in Khyber's Tirah
[Dawn] Twenty-one Islamic fascisti were killed and 14 others were maimed as security forces attacked krazed killer hideouts in the remote Tirah Valley in the Khyber tribal region's Jamrud tehsil on Friday, official sources claimed.

"The security forces had targeted Death Eater positions in Koki Khel area of Tirah valley and destroyed five krazed killer hideouts as well," sources in the Frontier Corps told Dawn.com

The Islamic fascisti were affiliated with the outlawed bully boy group Lashkar-e-Islam led by Mangal Bagh
...a former bus driver, now head of the Deobandi bandido group Lashkar-e-Islam and the Terror of Khyber Agency...
, the officials said.

However,
the way to a man's heart remains through his stomach...
the reports could not be verified from independent sources because the Tirah Valley is inaccessible to media personnel. Therefore, the information originating mostly from the Islamic fascisti and the security forces was utilised in this report.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336096 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar-e-Islami


Retraction of abduction charge: Chitrali girl allowed to go with father-in-law
[Dawn] A Chitrali girl, who remained at a centre of a controversy between inhabitants of two neighbouring districts of Chitral and Upper Dir, was allowed by a single-member Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
High Court bench on Thursday to go with her father-in-law after she retracted from her earlier statement of charging her husband with kidnapping her.

Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan asked the girl to go with her father-in-law, Nowsherwan, who was present in the courtroom, and warned her maternal uncles against harming her.

The development came during the hearing into an application filed on behalf of the girl, Zeenat, with a request to the court for transferring the case about her kidnapping from Dir Upper district to Chitral for security reasons.

Husband of the girl, Khursheed Khan, from Dir Upper, has been behind the bars after her was tossed in the slammer
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
on the charges of kidnapping the girl for the purpose of marriage and has been undergoing trial for the said offence before a court in Upper Dir.

When the chief justice heard initial arguments of the counsel for the applicant, he observed that being a woman, it was difficult for her to travel to Upper Dir from Chitral and therefore, it would be appropriate to shift the case to Chitral.

When the chief justice started dictating the order sheet, the girl stood in her seat and said she did not want to go with her uncles
and she might be allowed to return back to the residence of her husband.

She said earlier, she had given statement to the court regarding her kidnapping by her husband under duress as demonstrations were frequently held in Chitral and she feared that those demonstrations might result in law and order situation.

Ms Zeenat said she was never kidnapped by Khursheed and in fact she had entered into wedlock with him with her free will.

She added that in her nikkah certificate, she had also accepted five tolas of gold ornaments as dower offered by her husband. She requested the bench to allow her to go with her father-in-law instead of transferring the case to Chitral.

The bench while allowing her to go with her father-in-law also directed the district police officer of Upper Dir to provide her security whenever she had to go to the court for the trial.

Maternal uncles of the girl expressed reservations about the court's order and told news hounds that they had come to the court for transferring trial to Chitral and instead the girl had gone with the rival group which might result in unrest in the district.

The girl had gone missing in June last year and was recovered after a few days following protest demonstrations staged by residents of Chitral.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336081 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Accused kidnapper, pimp goes free as prosecutors fume
[SEATTLEPI] As police search for his co-defendant, a 28-year-old man charged with kidnapping, robbery and attempted human trafficking was cut loose after his arrest in a move prosecutors in Seattle describe as troubling.

King County prosecutors contend the men planned to take a 22-year-old woman to Las Vegas and force her to work as a prostitute, or kill her if she refused to cooperate. The young woman apparently ended up at a home with one of the men -- both of whom were strangers to her -- after blacking out at a Pioneer Square bar the night before.

The pair's alleged victim suffered a severe head injury after diving from a speeding car to escape them, according to charging documents.

Defendant Randy L. Stevens didn't have to risk anything to get out of jail following his arrest earlier this week. Over strenuous objections from prosecutors, King County Superior Court Judge Theresa Doyle on Wednesday freed Stevens without requiring that he even post bond.
In Chicago, home of Operation Greylord, we'd know exactly what this was all about...
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336085 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Was he the son of a prominant doctor?

Just a tad misunderstood but misses his momma?
Posted by: swksvolFF || 01/05/2013 12:37 Comments || Top||

#2  The way people are chattering online these days the term "Hanging Judge" may take on a whole new meaning.
Posted by: Vortigern Hupoluse1541 || 01/05/2013 15:56 Comments || Top||

#3  Read the article. These two are very likely to look up the victim and attempt to kill her. They have her address. According to the article there was no reason for the Judge to be so lenient. (To be in a work-release program - which hasn't started yet? BS!)
If she does get killed for this the judge really should be charged as an accessory to murder.

While prosecutors asked that Stevens at least be made to put up bond money to ensure his return to court, Doyle ordered him freed without posting bail to participate in work release. Court documents indicate Stevens isn’t expected to show up to work until mid-January, but was released immediately.

It's almost as if the Judge wants the victim to be killed....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/05/2013 17:02 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Tunisia President ex-Aide Gets Heavier Term on Appeal
[An Nahar] A Tunisian military appeals court on Friday handed down a heavier one-year suspended prison term to a former aide of President Moncef Marzouki for defaming the military, his lawyer said.

Ayoub Messoudi, 33, was earlier given a four-month suspended term on charges of "defaming" the army and "undermining bigwigs in the military," lawyer Leila Haddad told AFP.

The court also banned him from carrying a weapon, holding any title or working in the public sector, Haddad said, denouncing the prosecution as a "political trial of a child of the revolution."

Messoudi was indicted after a complaint from the chief of defense staff, Rachid Ammar, and Defense Minister Abdelkarim Zbidi.

On July 15 last year, Messoudi during a television broadcast accused General Ammar and Zbidi of "state treason" for not having informed the president about the extradition to Libya of former Libyan premier Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi.

The extradition was decided by Islamist premier Hamadi Jebali despite opposition from Marzouki, who feared the Libyan my face abuse after being returned to his country.

At Friday's hearing Anas Mnasser, counsel for the plaintiffs, severely criticized Messoudi, an AFP journalist said.

But another defense lawyer, Anwar Basti, said his client was a victim of a "political Dire Revenge™" at "this unfair trial where the military is both the judge and a party," for having expressed his opinion freely.

Messoudi recently complained that he had been forbidden to go to his family in La Belle France, despite a travel ban being lifted, and had also alleged he was under pressure to retract his comments.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336113 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  You fight, You lose.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/05/2013 20:37 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
No Country for Old White Men - Another Mercer heart warmer
A libertarian discovers that the guy she couldn't bring herself to support is a good man and would have made a better choice than what we ended up with. I don't follow the logic, though I agree with the description. If the lesser of two evils is still evil, the greater of two evils is still worse.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336112 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I enjoy reading Mercer, but she's definitely a classic sout piel who somehow can't bring herself to apply for American citizenship.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 3:44 Comments || Top||

#2  A clip from the column.

hide their feelings and are spare with their emotions. When they show their softer side, it actually means something. Each is dutiful and dependable.

Such qualities, once considered desirable in a man, now offend the dominatrixes who run the nation’s newsrooms.
Posted by: Glenmore || 01/05/2013 8:57 Comments || Top||

#3  Money was Mitt’s Mark of Cain. So were his wicked work ethic and whiteness.

Obama tapped into the anger of his constituency and turned it into votes. Every slight, every claim to victimhood, shortcoming, downsizing, job shipped to China, perceived wrong, foreclosure, repossession, layoff was blamed on Romney (and Bush and Pubs). The MSM was complicit in fanning these flames. Obama's voters never saw these things as spin-offs of costly and ever-expanding statism. Still, the election was close.
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/05/2013 9:40 Comments || Top||

#4  Willard would have succeeded in putting people.... "back to work!" That alone was a non-starter.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 9:44 Comments || Top||

#5  Ilana Mercer. Born:? Birthplace: South Africa. Gender: Female Race or Ethnicity: White Sexual orientation: Straight Occupation: Columnist. Nationality: United States

soutpiel

1.(vulgar, army slang) A South African with English/British heritage. So named for having one foot in South Africa, one foot in Britain and his penis dangling in the Atlantic

Strange, her bio did not mention the appendage.
Posted by: Au Auric || 01/05/2013 11:18 Comments || Top||

#6  A non-gender specific attribution. She lives here, but I pretty certain she's not a USCIT.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 11:58 Comments || Top||

#7  Strange how all those vet cemeteries are filled with old white men [and some very 'young' too but never to get older].
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/05/2013 13:03 Comments || Top||

#8  a classic sout piel

Gawd, I love the 'burg. Learn a new thing every day.
Posted by: SteveS || 01/05/2013 16:25 Comments || Top||

#9  I wonder if I'm the only one who is pissed as hell at those who refrained from voting because Romney / the GOP wasn't quite good enough, thereby handing the election to Obama.
Posted by: lotp || 01/05/2013 19:30 Comments || Top||

#10  lotp: no.
Posted by: USN,Ret. || 01/05/2013 19:36 Comments || Top||

#11  What USN said. :-(
Posted by: Barbara || 01/05/2013 21:41 Comments || Top||


Iraq
The Iraq Debacle Continues
Long post by Ted Galen Carpenter in the National Interest. Interesting thesis, the core of which is that Iraq is getting worse and may well come to a head this year. Key quote:

"Iraq has democratic forms, but it does not consistently practice democratic norms."

That's an understatement.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336106 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Democracy like liberty and individualism are more states of mind than of pieces of paper.

All of those are totally antithetical to Islam so they will never have the norms regardless of the forms. The same is true of all Muzzie lands.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/05/2013 8:09 Comments || Top||

#2  Mubarak, Musharaf, Khadaffi, Assad, even Hussein and the KSA royal family - it should be getting clearer why we supported the 'devils we knew' for so long.
Posted by: Glenmore || 01/05/2013 9:02 Comments || Top||

#3  See also DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [WND.com] US-INSTALLED IRAQ GOVERNMENT IN DANGER?, of collapse + civil war as led by Turkey + Saudi Arabia agz Maliki Govt???

and

* RELATED SAME > IRAQI UPRISING 2013.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/05/2013 21:28 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Reports: Pro-Assad Militias in Northern Lebanon Preparing for 'Terrorist Missions'
[An Nahar] Groups close to Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
's regime came to Leb in a mission to perform terrorist activities, LBCI television reported on Friday.

"These groups have resided in a northern area with Christian-majority," LBCI said, adding that the armed clans are coordinating their activities with local political forces in the north.

Security information revealed that the pro-Assad groups will try to make the terrorist incidents look as if they were planned and executed by Islamist bad boys, in order to tarnish the reputation of Syrian refugees.

"These reports should be treated as notifications and must be dealt with seriously by the General Prosecution," security sources informed the TV channel.

LBCI explained that there is difficulty in investigating and in the questioning of Syrians in Leb, because of the absence of coordination with Syria's authorities.

The cabinet on Thursday voted to adopt a three-part plan to tackle the influx of refugees from war-torn Syria. It was revealed that the plan involves the "registration -- which means the counting of refugees -- medical and food aid, and the security and social consequences."
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336085 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Africa North
Egypt Seizes U.S.-Made Missiles Destined for Gaza
[An Nahar] Egyptian security forces have seized U.S.-made anti-tank and surface-to-air missiles destined for Gazoo, where beturbanned goons have said they would acquire more weapons to use against Israel, security officials said on Friday.

The officials said six missiles were found hidden in the Sinai, which borders both the Gazoo Strip and Israel, after security forces were tipped off to the hiding place.

Sinai, a scarcely populated peninsula home to both lucrative tourist resorts in the south and shadowy Islamist beturbanned goons in the north, is a major transit point for arms smuggling to Gazoo.

The Islamist Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, rulers of the Paleostinian enclave had said they would continue to acquire weapons after agreeing an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Israel in November that ended an eight-day conflict.

The beturbanned goons have acknowledged receiving missiles from Israel's arch for Iran, and are thought to have improved their arsenal with smuggled weapons from Libya, which borders Egypt to the west.

Egypt has sought to crack down on smugglers' tunnels to Gazoo, with limited success.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336118 views] Top|| File under: Hamas

#1  Interesting. Wonder what the source was. Is Eric Holder running weapons to the Paleos now?
Posted by: SteveS || 01/05/2013 0:24 Comments || Top||

#2  They might transit from Libya from back when the US and NATO was arming whomever had two hands so that the foreign policy decision to...

ouch, my head.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 01/05/2013 10:12 Comments || Top||

#3  Stevens, Smith, Dougherty and Woods are unavailable for comment, and so is everyone else.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 10:28 Comments || Top||

#4  They could also come from Egyptian stocks.
Posted by: Phaith Grique4599 || 01/05/2013 14:22 Comments || Top||

#5  Could be disinformation to stir up trouble by Egypt. In the past one might say with some certainty what is going on--in present times, all bets are off.
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/05/2013 16:30 Comments || Top||

#6  They might transit from Libya from back when the US and NATO was arming whomever had two hands so that the foreign policy decision to...

Lots of countries (and some movements) got US weapons back during the Cold War.

The other weapons supply route would be through the Red Sea, up through Sudan. It's also possible that the weapons were purchased from black markets in Europe (Rotterdam is one likely place) with weapons from European or South American stocks or black markets in Western Asia supplied from countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan.

I'm leaning toward Egypt-supplied weapons myself.
Posted by: Pappy || 01/05/2013 17:57 Comments || Top||

#7  Sell 'em and grab 'em back. A sweet scam...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 01/05/2013 18:41 Comments || Top||

#8  Forgot -

The other sources would be former US-backed or fallen US-backed governments, like Iraq.
Posted by: Pappy || 01/05/2013 21:37 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Egypt-UAE relations worsen with 'Brotherhood' arrests
[GOOGLE] Mistrustful ties between Islamist-run Egypt and the United Arab Emirates deteriorated further this week with the reported arrest in the UAE of more than 10 Egyptians allegedly spying for Egypt's Moslem Brüderbund.

The report, carried by the UAE newspaper Al-Khaleej, stirred a flurry of diplomacy and other activity as Egypt sought to limit the fall-out, which had the potential to add diplomatic woes to its already dire economic and domestic political problems.

The government of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, who hails from the Moslem Brüderbund, has so far made no public comment confirming or denying the information.

But a front man for the Moslem Brüderbund, Mahmoud Ghozlan, told AFP the accusations in the report had "no basis whatsoever" and were simply part of an "unfair campaign" against Egyptians in the UAE.

One of Morsi's advisors has been dispatched to the UAE for talks with the Gulf country's leaders.

And the Egyptian senate has set up a council to "work towards the release" of those tossed in the clink
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
, newspapers quoted senate president Ahmed Fahmi as saying.

Al-Khaleej, quoting an unidentified source it said was well-informed, reported on Tuesday that UAE security had broken a Brotherhood spy ring that had been collecting secret defence information on the country and illegally sending "large amounts" of money to its parent group in Egypt.

More than 10 people "belonging to the leadership of Egypt's Moslem Brüderbund" had been arrested, the newspaper said, adding that the cell had been recruiting expatriate Egyptians in the UAE.

It reported that the cell had held "secret meetings" across the country with Brotherhood members who instructed it on "the means of changing leadership in Arab countries".

Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336081 views] Top|| File under: Muslim Brotherhood

#1  So, anyone surprised?
Posted by: tipover || 01/05/2013 1:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Pleasantly, tipper.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/05/2013 2:40 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Welfare recipients 'missing'
[BOSTON HERALD] Red-faced state officials admitted last night they are trying to find as many as 19,000 missing welfare recipients -- after the controversial taxpayer-funded voter registration pitches the state mailed to their addresses last summer were sent back marked "Return to sender, address unknown."

The Department of Transitional Assistance contacted 477,000 welfare recipients who were on their books from June 1, 2011, to May 31, 2012, after settling a voter-rights lawsuit brought by Democratic-leaning activist groups that demanded an aggressive voter information effort by the state. That $274,000 push by DTA resulted in 31,000 new voter registrations -- but revealed an alarming number of welfare recipients whose residency in Massachusetts can't be confirmed.

"DTA is in the process of contacting those clients for which a forwarding address was prov­ided to verify their addresses, as a change of address might impact their eligibility," a statement from the agency said.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336085 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...So, the money kept going to people whose addresses can't be confirmed and (as has been noted)probably voted anyways.

I suppose matching the names to the voting records got swatted down right quickly...

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 01/05/2013 8:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Oh, those poor people; not only on welfare but now homeless (or at least address-less) too! We must go find them and make sure they are still getting all their benefits.
Posted by: Glenmore || 01/05/2013 9:12 Comments || Top||

#3  Follow the transactions and you find the culprits. A good chance they are collecting in 2 or more states at the same time. Two Givernment checks are always better than one.
Posted by: airandee || 01/05/2013 11:30 Comments || Top||

#4  So the answer to how many hotel rooms in chief warren's district is: 31,000.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 01/05/2013 13:02 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Bomb kills two in Peshawar electricity tower
[Dawn] A bomb planted at an electricity tower on Friday killed two passers-by in Pakistain's northwestern city of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
, police said.

The explosive attached with a time device went kaboom! when the victims were close to the electricity tower in the Badh Bher area of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
province, which borders Afghanistan.

"Two kilograms of explosives were used for the blast which killed two people," Javed Khan, a local police official told AFP.

The electricity tower was also damaged as a result of the blast.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336084 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Southeast Asia
Drug-Fueled Gunman Kills Seven in Philippines
[An Nahar] A gunman with a semi-automatic pistol killed seven people and maimed 11 others during a drug-fueled rampage in a slum near the Philippine capital on Friday, authorities said.

The ordeal, which ended when police shot the assailant dead, again raised concerns about the country's lax gun controls after the week began with two children dying from bullets fired by revelers to celebrate New Year's Eve.

Two girls, aged three and seven, as well as a pregnant woman, were among the seven confirmed fatalities in Friday's rampage, according to police in Kawit town on the outskirts of Manila where the killings occurred.

"It was random. He would fire at anybody who crossed his path," Kawit police investigating officer Arnulfo Lopez told Agence La Belle France Presse, adding the shooting spree lasted for about half an hour.

Residents of the rundown town hid in their homes and gardens as the man, a former low-level local politician named Ronaldo Bae, roamed through narrow streets and a market firing what police said was a .45 semi-automatic pistol.
When I was a young fellow there were two major groups of pistols: revolvers and automatics. I'm kinda hazy on the definition of a "semi-automatic." Is it to pistols what beefalo are to buffalo? Or jackalopes are to antelopes?
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336097 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Note, the press is quiet.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/05/2013 20:45 Comments || Top||

#2  I have to wonder iff this is possibly a copycat crime given the post-Newtown, CT gun control controversy in the USA???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/05/2013 21:21 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Two more Syrian generals decamp to Turkey
Two more generals of the Syrian Army, 13 colonels, six lieutenant colonels and 68 soldiers defected to Turkey, Anadolu Agency reported on Friday. According to the agency, all servicemen were sent to a military camp Apaydin, located in Turkey.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336094 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Two more generals of the Syrian Army, 13 colonels, six lieutenant colonels and 68 soldiers
Syrian Army looks to have a command structure very similar to Penn Central's in the early 1960s.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/05/2013 5:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Not to split hairs Ship, but the PC didn't come into exsistence until 1968, but yea the management of the PRR looked a lot like this debacle.
Posted by: USN,Ret. || 01/05/2013 11:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Yeah, I had some vague thought about when the merger went down but it didn't focus in my head. After the merger things became eversomuchmoreso.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/05/2013 17:09 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Islamic Jihad vows to fight Jews who return to Egypt
Islamic Jihad has called on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's Essam al-Erian to resign from his role as advisor to President Mohamed Morsi, Egyptian media reported Friday, after calling on Egyptian Jews to leave Israel to pave the way for Palestinian independence.

Islamic Jihad leader Mohamed Abou Samra said, "We shall fight them vigorously if they return, especially the Egyptian-Israeli Jews. Islamic Sharia says they deserve to be killed."

"We will continue fighting the Jews," Abou Samra added, until "the liberation of Palestine or Doomsday."
So much for seducing the Juices to come back, bringing all their portable possessions.
And their bank accounts.
Posted by: ryuge || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336123 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Islamic Sharia says they deserve to be killed.

How do you live with muslims with logic like that?
Posted by: Chunky Snerenter4744 || 01/05/2013 12:11 Comments || Top||

#2  That's not logic, Chunky S. That's dogma. That's the creed of the Muzzies.

It is vile and viral. Quarantine is the only answer to the infection.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/05/2013 12:18 Comments || Top||

#3  Its an exercise in anti-logic, therefore anti-reason. Its the idea that by putting in backwards the batteries of a flashlight it sucks the darkness out of the sky. That the ball bearing on the ship's deck is stable and its the rest of the earth which is moving, except for mecca and the moon. If you don't believe that with all of your forehead then you are a non-believer.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 01/05/2013 12:32 Comments || Top||

#4  #1 Islamic Sharia says they deserve to be killed.
How do you live with muslims with logic like that?


you don't.
Posted by: Frank G || 01/05/2013 13:34 Comments || Top||

#5  Well at least they aren't calling for Coptic-Christians heads. Yet.
Posted by: Charles || 01/05/2013 14:00 Comments || Top||

#6  For all his caterwauling, exactly how many Juices would be STUPID enough to move to present-day Egypt - even those originally from Egypt?
Posted by: Barbara || 01/05/2013 14:07 Comments || Top||

#7  After all that trauma in Ancient Egypt, parting of the Red Sea, mucking about in the desert for 40 years? Who wants to go back?
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/05/2013 14:39 Comments || Top||

#8  I don't know, the Graverobbing is going to be pretty good in the coming years. And the Museum is a huge bullseye. Those Jews just can't resist the bling!

/s
Posted by: Charles || 01/05/2013 17:23 Comments || Top||

#9  Quarantine is the only answer to the infection.

Not so, erradication also works, and better.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/05/2013 20:53 Comments || Top||


Down Under
Thousands stranded by Tasmanian wildfires
Posted by: ryuge || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336084 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Conyers Reintroduces Reparations Effort
[PJMEDIA]
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336120 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hasn't this crook and his wife looted the US Treasury enough already?
Perhaps he's forgotten about the hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers who died freeing his ancestors.
In my view, thats payment enough.

Perhaps he should focus instead on the modern day slavery of blacks by muslims, which continues & runs rampant in the world today.
Posted by: Mike Hunt || 01/05/2013 1:12 Comments || Top||

#2  To the victor the spoils.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/05/2013 1:14 Comments || Top||

#3  Here's what President Ricky bin Ricardo would do - tell this scumbag and the rest of the grifting slimebags in the CBC that I'll sign a "reparations" bill on two conditions:

(1) If a person decides to accept a "reparations" payment, they must sign a statement declaring that they and all their immediate family members (defined as spouse and BOTH minor and adult children) are thereby surrendering and renouncing US citizenship; and

(2) the "reparations" check will arrive in an envelope containing one-way tickets for all aforementioned family members to the sub-Saharan pesthole of their choice.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) || 01/05/2013 2:31 Comments || Top||

#4  Reparations as I understand it, are a one-time payment. Champ's redistribution of wealth, 48 million EBT cards, Section-8 Housing, Earned Income Tax credit programs are perpetual, but I suppose both are the intended goal.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 3:05 Comments || Top||

#5  hell black african's went to war with their other tribes/nations of africa for thousands of years before the portugese even sailed by west africa...and what did they do-- they enslaved the the losers....when the freed american slaves established liberia they enslaved the local black populations to work their plantations...frickin hypocrites

when american blacks accept the wrongs of their ancestors i will consider accepting the wrongs of white Americans that happened during my great-great-great-great grandfathers time...even though my family was from the north and paid in blood to free these lazy moochers

blacks are part of the problem of historical slavery and part of the problem today in their silence of what is happening to black christians in africa at the hands of the religion of peace....bunch of idiots
Posted by: dan || 01/05/2013 7:23 Comments || Top||

#6  We continue to celebrate the "Great Emancipator" and lawyer from Illinois in books and media, yet the states remain divided along a line generally as established in 1862. One of the lofty goals of anti-secessionists of that time was to ensure that these states united, would not end up as Europe. With nearly 700,000 dead by recent estimates, the severe cost in blood to keep power in Washington and limit that of the states cannot be disputed. Indisputable as well is the direction toward Europe we appear to be taking yet today. I must go back and dig out "Dixie Victorious" (an alternative history) for a re-read.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 9:03 Comments || Top||

#7  Meanwhile, Champ has gone about implementing reparations through his policies of re-distribution of income and social justice with the aid of his DOJ. He's done this with the aid of his DOJ. He didn't sit in Rev. Wright's church for 20 years for nothing.
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/05/2013 9:03 Comments || Top||

#8  Domestic wealth redistribution is bad enough. If we are to discover the Champ has been responsible for redistributing our wealth to the Muslim Brotherhood, well, that is certainly a horse of an entirely different color.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 9:21 Comments || Top||

#9  It will never be enough.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 01/05/2013 9:31 Comments || Top||

#10  one-way tickets for all aforementioned family members to the sub-Saharan pesthole of their choice.

You don't hear much about the Back To Africa movement these days. I wonder why that is?, he asked innocently.
Posted by: SteveS || 01/05/2013 11:02 Comments || Top||

#11  Besoeker: "I must go back and dig out "Dixie Victorious" (an alternative history) for a re-read."

Shelby Foote: "The North would just have brought the other hand out from behind its back."
Posted by: Steve White || 01/05/2013 11:02 Comments || Top||

#12  Yes, Foote was adamant that the "South, never really had a chance" and he was entirely correct. However, the Legio X Fretensis is no encamped on the Masada.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 11:14 Comments || Top||

#13  [no longer encamped....] sorry.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 11:15 Comments || Top||

#14  Send the "Blacks" back to Africa(They won;t go) it'l be Justice.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/05/2013 15:20 Comments || Top||

#15  We (America) Badly need a place Like Austrailia, where we can send the Evil and their like.

And PERMANENTLY be rid of them, Perhaps in time, they;ll be respectable, But I don'y count on it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/05/2013 15:56 Comments || Top||

#16  Or send us rednecks to Africa. All of us. With our guns and ammo. And no 'Rules of Engagement.' We'll ship the natives back to you and establish the next world superpower, the United States of Africa.
Posted by: Glenmore || 01/05/2013 16:27 Comments || Top||

#17  Interesting idea, Glenmore.

I'm in, as long as we're guaranteed air conditioning. (Call me a weenie all you want, but I've suffered through more than enough hot, humid Southern summers.)
Posted by: Barbara || 01/05/2013 16:42 Comments || Top||

#18  So a few more generations now, can the non-black community demand reparations for all the pain and suffering caused by the disproportionate criminal activity of Mr. Conyers tribe group?

Yes, its just a small portion of the overall population, but so were slave owners. Yes, it (slavery) was condoned though not supported, but then again, the excuse factory for sociopathic behavior also by rationalization on their part condones the destructive behaviors and consequences as well.

So, go ahead and establish a principle that can/will be pushed back as well.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/05/2013 20:01 Comments || Top||

#19  I am pretty sure none of my ancestors were slaveowners. Does this mean that if I pay reparations that I get to have a slave? No thanks!

Who do we pay reparations to? I am fairly certain Conyers has never been a slave.

Also what about people's who's family members were killed in the Civil War trying to free the slaves? Do they have to may reparations as well as having had made the ultimate sacrifice?

Not all blacks were slaves - some came to the U.S. after and some came to the north and some were actually slave OWNERS. Do we have a way to identify true slave descendants? Will it be like the Pigford settlement where anyone could make a claim?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/05/2013 23:17 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Two held for trying to abduct woman legislator
[Dawn] Two persons were tossed in the clink
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
for their alleged involvement in an attempt to kidnap a woman politician from the Red Zone of Islamabad, police said on Thursday.

Qaiser Abbas, the station house officer (SHO) of Secretariat, told Dawn that one of the accused was the owner of an Azad Kashmire-based newspaper and son of a former law secretary of Pakistain. He said efforts were underway to arrest an accomplice of the two men.

The incident took place on December 29 but the police started the paperwork but haven't done much else after four days because the accused had earlier introduced themselves as bigwigs of the ISI, he said. The case was registered after the police verification showed that the accused were impersonators.

The accused were produced before the court of law which sent them to Adiala Jail on a 14-day judicial remand.

The police said the MNA, elected on a reserved seat for women from Punjab, was coming to the parliament house from Bhara Kahu when his driver ran into a tussle with three people riding a double cabin over honking and overtaking near Serena Hotel.

The occupants of the double cabin tried to intercept the politician's vehicle but its driver sped away. Her car was chased and again intercepted in front of the Foreign Office where the three men disembarked from their vehicle and tried to pull the MNA and her driver out.

They sought identification of the MNA, but when she asked them to first identify themselves, the three men said they were senior officers of the ISI, the police said. After this, the MNA's driver sped away the car which was again intercepted near a police picket in front of Radio Pakistain.

As they engaged in an argument there, police officials deployed at the picket approached both the vehicles. When the MNA sought help from the coppers, the riders of the double cabin again introduced themselves as ISI officers and asked the police officials to stay away. As the coppers moved back to their picket, the double cabin also left the scene.

The coppers, however, passed on the registration number of the vehicle to the Secretariat cop shoppe which after verification declared its riders as civilians. Later, the police started the paperwork but haven't done much else against the accused in response to the complaint lodged by the MNA on the day of the incident.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336097 views] Top|| File under:


Southeast Asia
Bomb attack in Mindanao foiled
Philippine security forces foiled a bomb attack in Mindanao which was blamed on a breakaway Moro rebel group.

Colonel Prudencio Asto, the regional military spokesman, said soldiers recovered and defused two powerful improvised bombs planted in front of the main gate to the town hall of Sharif Aguak in Maguindanao province. He said the bombs were made from two 81-millimeter mortar shells attached to each of which were mobile phones to act as triggering devices.

Asto said, “We suspect the targets were our troops conducting foot patrol in the area,” adding the home-made bombs may have been planted by members of the breakaway rebel group known as the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement (BIFM).

However, he said another possibility being investigated is the alleged involvement of a notorious criminal syndicate known as Al Khobar believed responsible for a series of extortion and kidnap-for-ransom cases in Mindanao.
Posted by: ryuge || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336100 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Mauritanian President welcomes Islamic moderates
[MAGHAREBIA] Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz met with the leaders of Jamaat Dawa wa Attabligh ("Society for Call and Spreading Faith") last Sunday (December 30th).

The meeting comes as part of Ould Abdel Aziz's support of what he describes as "moderate Islam", Mauritanian journalist Moulaye Ould Baheide said.

The consistency of Mauritania's strategic goals in supporting moderate Islam, which calls for peace, security, countering extremism and terrorism, is a factor serving the policies of the government, which is waging a fierce war against terrorist groups in northern Mali, the analyst added.

He said that Jamaat Dawa wa Attabligh was more attractive for young Mohammedans after it refused to engage in confrontation with political or religious groups.

Instead, it chose to focus its dawa (preaching) efforts on matters of faith for its young supporters and to urge them to renounce extremism and avoid the kind of jihad that exists in the region.

"The group's relations with the authorities are relations of participation and construction, and the president's meeting with the leaders of dawa and holy mans serves the Mauritanian strategy for holding dialogue with moderate Islam and at the same time fighting against extremism and terrorism," Islamic groups expert Zain Al-Abidin Ould Mohamed said.

"At this particular juncture, it is important for Mauritania, which is facing the largest concentration of Salafist gunnies on its eastern border, to unify its internal front to send a clear message that the state doesn't fight Islam but extremism and crime," he added.

For his part, rights activist and journalist Abeid Ould Imijen said the Mauritanian regime reviewed the conditions and activities of Jamaat Dawa wa Attabligh in an attempt to control its movements and prevent its young members from joining the terrorist groups' strongholds in northern Mali.

Mauritanian blogger Mohamed Abdou agrees with Ould Imijen and adds that it is also to prepare the Mauritanian political scene for a decision to take part in the war on terrorist groups in northern Mali.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336084 views] Top|| File under: Tablighi Jamaat


Africa Subsaharan
DR Congo's M23 Rebels Arrive for Peace Talks
[An Nahar] The Democratic Republic of the Congo
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo or Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principal industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
's M23 rebels arrived in the Ugandan capital Friday to resume peace talks with the Congolese government, officials said.

"The delegation has now arrived in Kampala," said M23 delegation front man Bertrand Bisimwa. "We are ready and are waiting for the program for the negotiation from the mediator."

A Congolese government delegation had already arrived in Uganda, although there was no clear indication of when talks would resume.

The rebels, army mutineers largely from the ethnic Tutsi community, staged a lightning advance in November through DR Congo's mineral-rich and chronically unstable east, raising fears of a widespread conflict and humanitarian emergency.

Although they were persuaded to withdraw from the key eastern city of Goma after a 12-day occupation, they still control large stretches of territory.

Almost two weeks of talks in December ended without even an agreement on the agenda for the negotiations, with the rebels issuing a raft of demands, including a call for major political reform for the war-weary region.

Uganda is hosting the talks, despite accusations that it -- alongside Rwanda -- have backed the fighters, claims that both countries have strongly denied
No, no! Certainly not!
Ugandan defense ministry front man Paddy Ankunda confirmed the government delegation had arrived, and said it was possible talks could start on Saturday.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336079 views] Top|| File under:


Central Africa Peace Hopes Hit as Rebels Say Unaware of Talks
[An Nahar] Hopes that the conflict in the Central African Republic might be resolved through negotiation took a hit Friday when rebels said they were not informed about peace talks supposed to be taking place next week.

The rebels also repeated that any peace deal must include the departure of President Francois Bozize -- a demand flatly rejected by the office of the president, who came to power in the desperately poor, landlocked nation after a coup.

Regional grouping the Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC) is hoping to host peace talks involving the rebels and Bozize's government in Gabon from Tuesday.

But Eric Massi, a front man for the rebels, said from Gay Paree that they had not been informed about the initiative.

"I'm not aware of that. This is the first I've heard of it. It's incredible," Massi told AFP.

His comments contradicted claims by CEEAC officials that the rebels had agreed to the talks in Libreville.

A CEEAC source earlier told AFP that a delegation from the Seleka coalition of three rebel groups -- supposedly including Massi -- would arrive in Libreville on Sunday ahead of the planned meeting with representatives of the Central African Republic (CAR) government.

The official said General Guy-Pierre Garcia, the deputy secretary general of the CEEAC, had been in contact with the rebels.

"Their leader Michel Djotodia made the decision," he said.

Massi rejected that claim: "I spoke to Michel (Djotodia) this morning by telephone and he did not speak to me about that.

"I can't see what we are going to negotiate in Libreville if it is not Bozize's departure."
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336079 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Standard ploy,"We haven't heard of it",
Yeah sure.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/05/2013 9:13 Comments || Top||


Africa North
AQIM cell suspects appear in Rabat court
[MAGHAREBIA] A Rabat court on Thursday (January 3rd) arraigned 12 alleged members of a terror recruitment cell dismantled a week ago, MAP reported.

The cell's aim was to "enrol and recruit young Moroccans who have embraced jihadist ideas, in order to send them to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) camps", the interior ministry said at the time of the arrests.

The suspects include a "former prisoner tossed in the slammer
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
under the anti-terrorism law" after his extradition from Algeria in 2005, the ministry said.

This was the second Morocco AQIM cell to be discovered within the past two months. Another group broken up in November allegedly sent more than 20 young Moroccans to join al-Qaeda and the Movement for Tawhid and Jihad (MUJAO) in northern Mali.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336092 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa


India-Pakistan
Mobile phones are weapon of terrorism, says Malik
[Dawn] Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik
Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship.
Friday said that mobile phones were now a weapon of terrorism as all improvised bombings were conducted through them.

Speaking in the Senate and later outside the Parliament House, he said elections will not be delayed and will be held on time as per the constitutional provisions.

The minister said that mobile phone services were suspended in different cities on Chehlum of Imam Hussain after taking all the provinces into confidence.

"Mobile phones are now a weapon of terrorism as all improvised bombings were conducted through them." He said that suspension of mobile phone services helped avoiding blasts.

The minister suggested that legislation should be done to ban illegal mobile phone SIMs sell as it has become a weapon of committing terror, adding the Pakistain Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has been written a letter in this regard.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336087 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Kohistan video scam claims three lives
[Dawn] A tribal feud, which had started after the Kohistan
...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns....
video scam in June 2012, on January 4 claimed three lives while five women have been injured as rivals attacked the relatives of , the main player in the scam, who allegedly had distributed the video of rival tribes women showing them dancing and clapping with boys.

District Police Officer Kohistan Akbar Ahmed Khan confirmed that the clash has claimed three lives while one inured person has been shifted to the Ayub Medical Complex Abbottabad
... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden....

The Supreme Court had taken suo motu
...a legal term, from the Latin. Roughly translated it means I saw what you did, you bastard...
notice of the alleged killing of the case and women rights activists led by Farzana Bari were sent to Kohistan to verify if the girls appearing in the video were alive or not.

The SC later withdrew the suo moto after the commission confirmed that they had met the girls appearing in the video.

The clash which took place at Palas village of Kohistan had left Afzal Khohistani three brothers Shah Faisal, Sher Wali Rafiuddin while his cousin Bin Yamin has been injured and shifted to the AMC for treatment.

Afzal Kohistani speaking to Dawn.Com alleged that the Azad Khel Tribe had attacked their tribe's houses and besides killing his three brothers and a cousin, had also injured five women including his sisters, sister-in-law and mother.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336084 views] Top|| File under:


Southeast Asia
Indonesian Police Shoot Dead Two Islamic Militants
[An Nahar] Indonesian counter-terrorism police rubbed out two suspected Islamic gun-hung tough guys outside a university mosque on Sulawesi island Friday, linking them to a terror training camp and several police killings.

The men were allegedly part of a network that killed six officers last year in the island's restive Poso district, national police front man Boy Rafli Amar said.

The two -- Syamsuddin alias Aswah alias Abu Uswah, 34, and Ahmad Kholil alias Hasan, 35 -- were carrying a handgun and grenades when they were shot at the Hasanuddin University campus in the South Sulawesi capital Makassar.

They had "tried to pull out their gun", Amar told news hounds.

"In the process of arresting the men, the police were forced to shoot to immobilize them," he said.

Amar said the men were linked to the country's most wanted terror suspect, Santoso, who police believe leads the thug group and set up a paramilitary training camp in the Poso mountains.

The two men had been police targets since November when members of the group were tossed in the calaboose
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
for throwing a pipe bomb at the South Sulawesi provincial governor while he was giving a speech, Amar said.

Police have said Santoso's group is believed to have trained scores of young gun-hung tough guys to assemble rifles and launch guerrilla attacks against coppers.

Police have beefed up security in the area since late last year after two coppers investigating the camp were found dead and buried in a hole with their throats slit, and several small bomb plots were subsequently foiled.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336102 views] Top|| File under: Jemaah Islamiyah


Home Front: Culture Wars
Federal judge rules EPA overstepped authority trying to regulate water as pollutant in Virginia
[FOXNEWS] Virginia officials scored a key victory Thursday in their battle with the Environmental Protection Agency over what EPA critics describe as a land takeover.

U.S. District Judge Liam O'Grady in Alexandria ruled late Thursday that the EPA exceeded its authority by attempting to regulate stormwater runoff into a Fairfax County creek as a pollutant. O'Grady sided with the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, which challenged EPA's stormwater restrictions

"Stormwater runoff is not a pollutant, so EPA is not authorized to regulate it," O'Grady said.

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says the ruling could ultimately save Virginia taxpayers more than $300 million.

An EPA spokesman could not be reached for comment after business hours.

The EPA, citing an abundance of stormwater runoff, had proposed a plan that Virginia officials said could cost homeowners and businesses their private property.

The EPA contended that water itself can be regulated as a pollutant if there's too much of it. The agency says heavy runoff is having a negative impact on Accotink Creek and that it has the regulatory authority to remedy the situation.

Cuccinelli, a Republican, argued what the EPA has proposed is "illegal," and he's not alone in the fight. He was joined in the lawsuit against the federal agency by the Democratic-controlled Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336084 views] Top|| File under:

#1  CO2 has been ruled a pollutant so why shouldn't water be too?
Posted by: Glenmore || 01/05/2013 9:07 Comments || Top||

#2  Had the EPA won, they would have had no restraints.
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/05/2013 9:52 Comments || Top||

#3  They'll keep trying, JQC. Experience teaches they eventually win.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/05/2013 10:09 Comments || Top||

#4  EPA employees exhale CO2, not counting the methane from the other orifice. So, the EPA should be shut down as a polluter or the appropriate orifices capped to prevent further degradation of the environment.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/05/2013 10:59 Comments || Top||

#5  So does this mean I will not be assessed a $73.00 annual "Storm Run-off Control Fee" on my Virginia Property tax bill ?

--- Likey not, once money is demanded and surrendered to the State, it will continue to be demanded by the State, just under a different name.

Care to suggest a new name anyone ?
Posted by: Au Auric || 01/05/2013 11:02 Comments || Top||

#6  Howz about Fair Share?

Something more official:
Free Water Undocumented Emigration Services.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 01/05/2013 11:37 Comments || Top||

#7  I would like to strangle this particular agency with their own entrails, personally.
Posted by: newc || 01/05/2013 13:15 Comments || Top||

#8  I recall that Urine is "Polluted Water" now do the EPA workers Pee?

If so they're polluting the waters every day.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/05/2013 15:16 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Violence claims twelve lives in Karachi
[Dawn] Twelve people bit the dust while several sustained injuries in different incidents of firing and violence in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
on Friday, DawnNews reported.

Unidentified gunnies, riding two cycle of violences, opened fire on a car near Essa Nagri locality killing Akhtar Hussain and Naveedul Haq and injuring Ashfaq. The victims were reported to be transporters.

A dead-body was recovered in a gunny bag on M. A. Jinnah Road near Radio Pakistain office. The body was later identified of a young man who was kidnapped earlier.

A man was killed by unknown myrmidons near Samama Shopping Centre on University Road while a man, identified as Sajid, was killed by gunnies who opened fire on his shop in Rizvia Society.

Earlier, a man was bumped off in Korangi while special branch's police inspector Abdul Rasheed was killed in Gulbahar.

Two people were killed in separate incidents of firing in Maripur Road and Baldia Town areas while three dead-bodies wrapped in gunny bags were recovered from Baldia Town, Netty Jetty Brigde and Sher Shah neighbourhoods.

Meanwhile,
...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth had turned a paler shade of blue. Star-A-Star had struck again...
the CID police tossed in the slammer
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
three suspects, wanted for murders and kidnappings for ransom, and recovered weapons from possession when they carried out raids in Surjani Town and New Bloody Karachi areas.

Moreover, a Bloody Karachi district education officer was also kidnapped along with his car in the metropolis.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336102 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Patriot Missile Troops in Turkey
[An Nahar] U.S. troops began arriving in Turkey on Friday to man Patriot missile batteries against threats from neighboring Syria, where the 21-month conflict between the regime and rebels has escalated.

Syrian air and ground forces were pounding gun-hung tough guys dug in outside Damascus
...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat...
in a ferocious offensive being waged a day after a boom-mobile in the north of the capital killed at least 11 people, according to the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The arrival of the U.S. personnel specialized in the six Patriot systems to be deployed on the Turkey-Syria border in the coming weeks under a NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
agreement highlighted fears that Syria's civil war could suck in other nations in the region.

Cross-border fire has already erupted on several occasions in recent months from combatants in Syria into Turkey, Leb and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The United States last month also expressed concern
...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended...
s that there were signs Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Horror of Homs...
could be preparing to use chemical agents in missiles or aerial bombs as a last-ditch measure against the bully boys.

The U.S. military's European Command (EUCOM) said on Friday that the troops being sent to Turkey's Incirlik air base would swell to 400 within days to support the two U.S. Patriot batteries being supplied by America.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336098 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Illinois Police Lift Ban on Denny's
[RADIO.FOX NEWS]
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336084 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hell what's not to like about armed coppers in an all night eatery?
Posted by: Shipman || 01/05/2013 5:56 Comments || Top||

#2  The manager's action is like posting a big sign to the miscreants that the Denny's ATM was open for service. I wouldn't want to be an officer sitting unarmed in a place that the armed criminal element, knowing I was unarmed, could get free shots off. Maybe Corporate is more than a little nervous for good reason.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/05/2013 8:29 Comments || Top||

#3  And Denny's quite unexpectedly added ‘Buy one Bear Claw get one Free’ to their monthly special.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 01/05/2013 9:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Crime stats for 'Waffle House' are quite low. Perhaps there is a reason.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/05/2013 9:30 Comments || Top||

#5  Generally, owners like police on the premises. "When seconds count, the police are minutes away already there."
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/05/2013 9:44 Comments || Top||

#6  Never did hear what the official chain/specific restaurant policy was. If they had a sign which said no weapons, then no weapons.

I've been to that restaurant at that time where everyone is so fubar'd police would be a distraction to business.

If its store policy its store policy, police should not be above the law. If the manager was being an ass, fire the ass.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 01/05/2013 12:11 Comments || Top||

#7  ...in the text of the posting -

On Thursday a Denny’s official met with the police department and offered an apology for the actions taken by the local restaurant’s management. Denny’s reiterated their corporate policy allows all law enforcement officers to carry their weapons while inside their restaurants.

If you click on the second link on my first comment, you'll see corporate is facing a civil lawsuit for not providing adequate security in another situation. I suspect that a jury in such a case being told that corporate took the position of the manager would find its profits hit with something more than a little speed bump.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/05/2013 13:01 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Barney Begs to Be Senator Frank
[WEEKLY STANDARD] Barney Frank admitted this morning on MSNBC that he has asked Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick to pick him to replace John Kerry in the Senate.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336111 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sit up! Roll over! Beg!

Now play dead!
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 01/05/2013 5:26 Comments || Top||

#2  ...Kinda makes you wonder if Bwawney didn't run again last year due to some inside knowledge....

Mike

Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 01/05/2013 8:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Barney wants to enjoy the Senate page perk.
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/05/2013 9:53 Comments || Top||

#4  EEEeeeewwwww!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/05/2013 10:04 Comments || Top||

#5  Barnie really drinks deeply from the trough of the Democrat Party, using his own drinking vessel with hinged lid; Frank and Stein.

If he gets Deval's nod, the soon to be 73 year old, will be greeted back in Congress with a choirs of "Its Alive, its Alive!"

Please Massachusetts " ... In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst."
Posted by: Au Auric || 01/05/2013 10:49 Comments || Top||

#6  Last chance for Barney's gigantic ego to be sated. Also, I think senators get an extra buck off on top of the senior discount on the Fire Island Ferry...
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/05/2013 10:58 Comments || Top||

#7  How about "Citizen Frank".
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/05/2013 15:22 Comments || Top||

#8  He's one of the architects of the financial meltdown.

In a sane world he'd be politically toxic, not on a new career path.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 01/05/2013 16:10 Comments || Top||

#9  F*ck off, Frank
Posted by: Frank G || 01/05/2013 16:32 Comments || Top||

#10  Gotta ask, if he gets this job, will he do well in it, or will he still suck just as much?
Posted by: USN,Ret. || 01/05/2013 19:38 Comments || Top||

#11  Just as Much.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/05/2013 20:30 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Bail pleas rejected in explosives case
[Dawn] The Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
High Court on Thursday dismissed bail petitions of two suspects charged by the local police with possessing huge quantity of detonators and chemicals used in manufacturing of explosives.

A single-bench of Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan observed that the suspects, including Asif Islam and Toti Khan, did not deserve to be freed on bail keeping in view the evidence on record.

The suspects were locked away
Please don't kill me!
by police on Dec 5, 2012 after a raid on a warehouse in Chamkani area. The police alleged that during the raid they had recovered 267 sacks of potassium chloride, which could be used in explosives, 10 packets each of detonators and remote controls and 96 bundles of safety fuses.

Counsel for the petitioners stated that Asif Islam was owner of the warehouse and Toti Khan its watchman. He said that Asif had rented out his property to two persons named Qari Faizur Rehman and Naqibullah and they had been using it as a junkyard. He stated that the petitioners had nothing to do with the items stored therein.

He contended that a third suspect in the case was arrested by the police, but he was not mentioned in the record.

The state counsel argued that the petitioners could not produce any rent deed to prove that the warehouse was rented out.

During arguments, the chief justice observed that Afghan refugees had been bringing sophisticated weapons, explosives, etc to this province in the guise of exporting scrap. He observed that the government had not been taking any action in this regard which had resulted in increase in acts of sabotage.

Meanwhile,
...back at the buffalo wallow, Tex and his new-found Indian friend were preparing a little surprise for the bandidos...
the bench ordered the Frontier Corps (FC) to vacate within three days residence of a family allegedly occupied by it since November last year. The bench also sought explanation from the inspector general of FC and the home department as to why the said residence was occupied.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by one Haji Amal Khan, stating that his extended family comprising 42 persons had been living at the residence spread over 35 kanals here on Bara Road.

His counsel contended that in November last year the FC personnel occupied their house on the pretext of construction of a road in the area and the petitioner's family had now been living in tents.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336098 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Africa North
AQIM members seek to renounce terrorism
[MAGHAREBIA] Recent defections indicate that al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is becoming more fragile due to the disintegration of its internal structure over the last few months.

Terrorism analyst Abdul Hamid al-Ansari explained to Magharebia that the breakdown of AQIM is not happening the way of other organizations.

"Since AQIM took so long to take its current shape, its disintegration will follow the same path," al-Ansari said. "This is in case things continue naturally, that is without being subject to a sweeping attack against its core. They are expected to become within the coming years and months, simply regular people, hunted deep in the desert."

Abdelkader Rouim, former emir of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), told El Khabar on December 16th, "About 100 gunnies in Mali and other areas are ready to give up their arms and return to their homelands, if they benefit from an amnesty without being prosecuted, or obtain serious assurances towards this goal."

Rouim was the right arm man of Mokhtar Belmokhtar, aka Laaouar, before he benefited from Algeria's provisions of the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation.

"The acquitting recently by the court of Ouergla in Algeria of six members who repented after being active in the past in the Moulathamin Brigade led by the terrorist Laaouar, has encouraged many Death Eaters in northern Mali to explore the option of renouncing violence in order to take advantage of the provisions of national reconciliation," Rouim added.

He added that tens of gunnies in northern Mali, Niger and "some other areas deep in the Sahara, including some leaders of the Moulathamin Brigade have the necessary courage to dispense with arms permanently, as well as the desire to repent, but they are afraid of punishment."

He expressed the hope to see the process continue.

Besides the voluntarily disarmament of beturbanned goons, killings and arrests are further weakening the terrorist group.

"In fact, we are learning every week that some bad boyz were potted in festivities with Algerian troops, and have also learned about the dismantling of a sleeper cell in Morocco and the arrest of others in Mauritania, Mali and Niger," al-Ansari stated.

According to El Khabar, last month "the Joint Security Forces operating on the Algerian-Malian border managed to arrest six beturbanned goons deep in the desert 30 kilometres from the area of Borj Badji Mokhtar. These arrests came after a military aircraft spotted their movements when entering Algerian territory in the vicinity of Mauritania and on their way to northern Mali."
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336094 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa


Caribbean-Latin America
Chavez about to punch out?
Lots of slurpy tongue-love by the Guardian in this piece, just as you'd expect...
Ick. Some things are best kept behind closed doors. One would think the broadsheet of former public schoolkids with their university sheepskins would understand such things.
The change of mood in Plaza Bolivar could hardly be more dramatic. Less than three months ago, jubilant crowds filled the main square in Caracas to celebrate another election triumph for Hugo Chavez with chants of "Oo, ah, Chavez no se va" -- Chavez won't go. Now, however, supporters wait anxiously for any scrap of news from Havana, Cuba, where their president is fighting for his life after emergency cancer surgery.

"We are all very confused. We have no idea what to expect. I pray for his recovery but I am expecting the worst," said Joaquín Cavarcas, as he scanned the Ciudad CCS newspaper for the latest update.
He's got an incurable cancer, wide-spread metastases, internal bleeding, pneumonia and (likely) sepsis -- yup, you're quite reasonable here to expect the worst...
Next Thursday, Chavez is supposed to be inaugurated for a further six-year term of office at a ceremony at the National Assembly. But the usually gregarious, publicity-loving president
Which is Guardian-speak for dictatorial thug...
has not been seen or heard since his operation on 11 December, prompting speculation that he will not recover ever in time.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336099 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I have been asked to say something at this time. The first thing came into my mind was the last verse to the Eagles song, "Hotel California."

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
"Relax, " said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave! "

Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/05/2013 2:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Article is doubled.

Always good to see a nice case of sepsis at just the right time.
Posted by: gromky || 01/05/2013 4:22 Comments || Top||

#3  National Assembly President is picked today.
No clue as to how this is going to play out, but in due course Godgiven Hair is going to snag the job, I figure sometime after the massive devaluation that's gotta happen. Then there's Adan.... the mean Chavez...
Posted by: Shipman || 01/05/2013 5:50 Comments || Top||

#4  If Hugo is such a saviour to Venezuela, why don't they have better health care in-country? Does Venezuela by any chance have something like ObamaCare?
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/05/2013 8:09 Comments || Top||

#5  With Hugo gone his replacement looks to be far worse.More of the same business but accelerated.
More like a Castro in his early years.
Posted by: Dale || 01/05/2013 8:18 Comments || Top||

#6  Gone is good, better than if he recovered.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/05/2013 9:19 Comments || Top||

#7  Dale, I'm to the point where these 3rd world thugocracies should get as bad as they can as fast as they can. The worse the better. They buy it, they pay for it.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/05/2013 11:25 Comments || Top||

#8  they should freeze his head - in case science comes up with a cure in some future date. Do it now. Don't wait for his death
Posted by: Frank G || 01/05/2013 13:48 Comments || Top||

#9  All these years of wishing the worst on him and asking God for it. And it happens. Next we'll find out he had aids and ruptured testicles.
Posted by: Charles || 01/05/2013 13:59 Comments || Top||

#10  Agree with the Commodore, the head must be taken to insure the revolution!

Down with the Oligarch!
Down with the CIA
Fatherland Socialism or Death...
but wait a bit please.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/05/2013 17:12 Comments || Top||

#11  HUGO + Beret have been fighting his affliction since the late 1970's + early 1980's - I do NOT believe he will just quietly accept the inevitable.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/05/2013 21:31 Comments || Top||


On Rantburg's Sunday Morning Coffee Pot: President Pena's 1st 30 days


Thirty days into his presidency, Enrique Pena Nieto has moved swiftly on his promises to transform Mexico's national security strategy, first by covering his left flank politically with his Pacto por Mexico, then by folding the 12 year old Policia Federal into the interior ministry.

More change in Mexico's federal government with regard to national security is on the horizon, but as one Durango radio journalist, Ruben Cardenas, has pointed out, his administration has already seen 1,500 drug related deaths nationwide in President Pena's first 30 days, on track to exceed Felipe Calderon's totals.

Rantburg and Borderland Beat correspondent Chris Covert examines the latest moves by the newly elected government of Enrique Pena Nieto to deal with the widespread violence from Mexico's pervasive organized crime problem.
Posted by: badanov || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336088 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I slept through Saturday? Oh no!
Posted by: Glenmore || 01/05/2013 8:58 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Final assault on Lal Masjid: Top clerics were not there
[Dawn] The big shotship of the Lal Masjid and several key functionaries of Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Faridia, the two seminaries attached to it, were either not present in the mosque or had left it before the military launched its final assault on July 10, 2007.

This has emerged from the testimonies of 50 of the 294 witnesses recorded in the past four days by the one-man judicial commission inquiring into the July 3-11, 2007 bloody operation that killed 103 people, including family members of Maulana Abdul Aziz, head holy man of the mosque, teachers and students of the seminaries and 10 security personnel.

Asiya Hameed, a teacher of Jamia Hafsa and custodian of the record of the girls seminary, was among the 16 witnesses who recorded their statements with the commission on Thursday.

"Since I was not in the madrassa during the operation, I don't know the exact details," she said when asked by the head of the commission Justice Shehzado Sheikh of the Federal Shariat Court, whether she had the record of the girls who were on rolls, or went missing during the operation.

She said her uncle had taken her away from the mosque complex, where the girls seminary operated, on July 3, 2007, the day the operation began.

When she rejoined Jamia Hafsa, she said, she did not find the record, which security agencies might have taken away.

Maulana Aziz, who also acted as principal of Jamia Faridia located in Sector E-7, had similarly told the commission in his testimony on December 31 that he could not compile the record of the students killed or went missing in the operation as he was nabbed
Please don't kill me!
when he came out of the mosque on July 4, 2007, the day after the army laid siege to the mosque.

Reports at that time said Maulana Aziz slipped out in a 'burqa' in the company of his daughters and girl students leaving the mosque in response to appeals made by the administration in the days before the Special Services Group launched the final assault on July 10, 2007.

Nazim of Jamia Hafsa, Afzal Khan, deposing the day after Maulana Aziz did, told the commission that he and some 500 girl students had left the mosque on July 6, 2007 during a break in the curfew imposed in the mosque area.

Umme Hassan, Maulana Aziz's spouse and principal of Jamia Hafsa, was arrested from inside the mosque complex on July 10, 2007 but says she did not witness the last stages of the final assault.

She told Dawn that she had struggled for the enforcement of Sharia in the country and lost many members of her family in the quest, including her only son Hassan.

"I sacrificed my son for a cause. There was nothing more precious to me than him," she said.

Her husband, Maulana Aziz, had recounted to the commission other members the family lost -- his mother Sahiba Khatoon, younger brother Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi and two cousins.

Many teachers, students of Jamia Faridia and their administrator Tariq Saeed, escaped the misfortune as they were enjugged
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
inside the seminary located far away from the mosque, according to a teacher of Lal Masjid, Maulana Abdul Qadir.

Sajjad Ahmed, a Murree-based journalist, told the commission that his elder brother Khalid Ameen, inspired by sermons of holy mans, reached Lal Masjid on July 3, 2007 morning to defend it and went missing in the aftermath.

"I received his last call on July 6 (2007) and then silence fell, without a trace of him," he said. Despite his best efforts, Khalid Ameen's body was not found.

Sajjad told Dawn that his brother was not religious-minded and seldom offered prayer in Lal Masjid. "But because he was an emotional man, he decided to stand with the Lal Masjid people till the end," he said, adding that "the role of holy mans was not very encouraging in this episode".

"My family lives in a never-ending uncertainty over Ameen's fate."
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336084 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Africa North
Kidnapped Algerian diplomats in new terror tape
[MAGHAREBIA] Three Algerian diplomats kidnapped by hard boyz in Gao last April appeared in a new video posted online Tuesday (January 1st) by Mauritania's al-Akhbar.

The hostages are shown sitting on the ground surrounded by their armed captors from al-Qaeda splinter group Movement for Tawhid and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO).

"We call on the President of the Republic, Mr Abdelaziz Bouteflika
... 10th president of Algeria. He was elected in 1999 and is currently on his third term, which is probably why Algerians are ready to dump him...
, to find a solution to our situation by accepting the terms of the group so that we can come back to our families," one captive said.

The hostage added: "We had the opportunity to leave the city of Gao before we were kidnapped, but on the orders of the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we stayed to offer services to the diaspora."

Another of the Algerian diplomats pleaded, "Get us out of this crisis and enable us to come back to our families."

As far as the Algerian government is concerned, discretion remains the watchword. On Wednesday, it said that contact with the kidnappers was being maintained through various intermediaries.

Algerian foreign ministry front man Amar Belani refused to comment on the video of the hostages but said that authorities were "endeavouring to secure the release of the Algerian nationals".

Soon after the Algerians were kidnapped in Gao, they appeared in a video aired by Al Jizz, in which the MUJAO grabbed credit for the kidnapping. The video showed the Algerian diplomats in a vehicle with blank expressions, but apparently in good health.

One month later, the MUJAO issued a ransom demand. They wanted Algeria to release prisoners, as well as a 15m euro ransom.

Three of the hostages were freed in July.

On August 26th, another video released by MUJAO showed one of the remaining hostages asking the Algerian authorities to save his life. But the terror group later executed the diplomat, identified as Taher Touati.

The wife of hostage Mourad Guessas has appealed to the hard boyz to free the diplomats. She said that they were merely "innocent, ordinary civil servants" and urged President Bouteflika to work to free them, adding they were kidnapped while in the "service of the Algerian state".

Algeria has staunchly opposed the terrorists' ransom demands, with Algerian Maghreb and African Affairs Minister Abdelkader Messahel saying last October that there would be "no negotiations with terrorists".
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336091 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria Slams 'Biased' U.N. Report
[An Nahar] Syria has slammed as "biased" a United Nations
...the Oyster Bay money pit...
report that called the conflict in the country overtly sectarian, state media said on Friday.

The foreign ministry accused the U.N. of a "lack of professionalism" in producing its report, and said that any sectarian dimensions to the conflict were because of foreign support for "gangs," state news agency SANA said.

The U.N.'s Commission of Inquiry on Syria, established in August 2011, has yet to gain access to the country, despite the foreign ministry stressing a "willingness" to work with the outside Sherlocks.

"Unfortunately, the Commission missed all these opportunities (for mutual cooperation)," the ministry said in a statement.

In response to a U.N. finding that "entire communities" were at risk from the civil war, the ministry pointed to the historic coexistence of Syria's various ethnicities and religions, saying the regime was battling "terrorist groups financed from abroad."

It expressed shock that "the Commission does not seek to investigate fatwas (decrees) issued by foreign bad turbans" calling for the targeting of various communities in Syria.

Officials in Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Lord of the Baath...
's regime and state media have long categorized activists and armed snuffies alike as enemies or "terrorists" funded by Gulf rivals Qatar and Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face...
, former ally Turkey and the West.

The U.N. report did warn, however, that increasingly strong Islamist armed opposition groups were operating independently of the main rebel force, the Free Syrian Army.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336085 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  The U.N. report did warn, however, that increasingly strong Islamist armed opposition groups were operating independently of the main rebel force, the Free Syrian Army.

Ummmm…No. No they’re not. Just ‘cause US State designated al-Nusra a Terror org. doesn’t mean they’re outcasts. As we speak, in and around Aleppo al-Nusra is fighting hand in glove with “The Opposition”. And you can bet they’re not just sharing chow at prayer time.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 01/05/2013 10:00 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Maliki's Private Army
Another interesting post in the National Interest, from Robert Tollast. This one describes how the Iraqi Special Operations Forces, left in pretty reasonable shape by the Green Berets when we pulled out, is now increasingly politicized and thus losing its legitimacy.

"Blame here can only go to Maliki, who has created ... "a culture of direct control" over state institutions. Maliki controls ISOF through the Counterterrorism Bureau, which has proved a useful tool for crushing dissent ... Such "coup proofing" strategies often result in military disaster. "

That is what happens when a national leader is a thug and not a steward.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336089 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Let's not give SEIU or TSA special ops training, ok?
Posted by: Glenmore || 01/05/2013 9:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Theyz pawns, better in bulk. How about Department of Education, or Health Human Services? Komissar Sebilius is quite aware of the added insurance costs of high capacity assault bullets fire cancer freddy of doom inventory binders. For the chilpuppies.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 01/05/2013 12:20 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security - A Profile
An unclassified report prepared by the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress under an Interagency Agreement with the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office's Irregular Warfare Support Program, December 2012
Posted by: Crerenter Hupomoque2884 || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336078 views] Top|| File under:


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Photo shows unruly air passenger tied down
A passenger on an Icelandair flight was tied down by his fellow passengers after going on a rampage Thursday.

According to reports, the passenger began acting up two hours before the flight was set to land. He reportedly had been drinking heavily, and allegedly began ranting, spitting and threatening the crew before he was restrained.

Andy Ellwood, a contributor with Forbes, was aboard the flight and posted a photo to his Tumblr account which quickly went viral.

The passenger was escorted off the flight when it landed at JFK.
Posted by: ryuge || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336102 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Southwest Air passengers were less kind in a similar situation - sat on the guy and he died.
Posted by: Glenmore || 01/05/2013 8:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Any irony points of a raving drunk landing at Kennedy airport?
Posted by: swksvolFF || 01/05/2013 10:18 Comments || Top||

#3  I do not tolerate that kind of behavior on my plane..................
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/05/2013 14:45 Comments || Top||

#4  And unlike most airlines, the pilot on AP Airlines is very well armed and able to enforce order.
Posted by: Glenmore || 01/05/2013 16:16 Comments || Top||

#5  And fond of impomtu aerobatics?
Posted by: Shipman || 01/05/2013 17:45 Comments || Top||

#6  Any irony points of a raving drunk landing at Kennedy airport?

La Guardia has had better success with 'water landings'.
Posted by: Pappy || 01/05/2013 18:06 Comments || Top||

#7  Was a little saddened when I saw the Tumblr photo.

They probably would never let me take my personal (and very special) duct tape stash on-board here.

Even if I bagged it separately.

Wonder what the housing costs are in Reykjavik.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 01/05/2013 21:04 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Vaccinators targeted
[Dawn] RECENTLY we read with great pain that forces of Evil in Pakistain killed several women who were active in administering anti-polio
...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
drops to children.

Many feel that one of the reasons behind the attacks was that the forces of Evil think an international conspiracy is afoot to reduce the population of Mohammedans in the world, and the anti-polio drops make a person impotent.

Some Mohammedans and mosque imams in India too thought likewise and in their Friday sermons asked Mohammedans not to allow social workers to administer anti-polio drops to their children.

But in India it was just an appeal. No one was physically harmed, much less killed. In Pakistain the forces of Evil believe in a culture of violence. For them the only solution to their orders being defied is to shoot people dead. For example, Malala Yousufzai was shot -- but thankfully survived -- because she did not obey the Taliban's call to stop advocating education for girls.

Those who kill others in the name of Islam can hardly be called Mohammedan, let alone pious Mohammedans. In order to be a pious Mohammedan one has to be just. The Koran says that "...Do justice, it is closest to piety...." (5:8)

How can one claim to observe the norms of justice by killing others? Justice is something most difficult to do. Even for murder we require at least two pious and honest witnesses and to prove rape or fornication we need four such witnesses. One has to make sure, according to Sharia, that before accepting their testimony, the witnesses are honest and pious. Testimony cannot be accepted from just anyone.

To kill someone without justification is a great sin. The Koran says that "...Whoever kills a person unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he has killed [the] whole humanity. And whoever saves a life, it is as if he has saved the whole humanity...." (5:32). This is a very important statement of the Holy Book.
Life is sacred. It is not so cheap that anyone can kill any other person just like that. If life could be taken by anyone at any time, entire humanity would be wiped out in the course of time.
Posted by: Fred || 01/05/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336082 views] Top|| File under: TTP



Who's in the News
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4TTP
3al-Qaeda in North Africa
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1Lashkar-e-Islami

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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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
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Two weeks of WOT
Sat 2013-01-05
  Syria jets, troops wage offensive on rebels near capital
Fri 2013-01-04
  New U.S. Drone Strike Kills Three Qaida Suspects in Yemen
Thu 2013-01-03
  Iran to Citizens: Flee Isfahan
Wed 2013-01-02
  Fourteen Killed as Nigerian Troops Clash with Islamists
Tue 2013-01-01
  Pakistan: Six charity workers shot dead
Mon 2012-12-31
  Qaeda in Yemen offers bounty for killing US ambassador, troops
Sun 2012-12-30
  Pakistan reports 21 tribal policemen kidnapped, found dead
Sat 2012-12-29
  At Least 15 Killed in Sect Attack in North Nigeria
Fri 2012-12-28
  Militants kill two, kidnap 22 Pakistani soldiers
Thu 2012-12-27
  Somalia sets 100 days for Al Shabab militants to surrender
Wed 2012-12-26
  6 Killed in Attack on Nigerian Church
Tue 2012-12-25
  Drone Strikes Kill Six Qaida Suspects in Yemen
Mon 2012-12-24
  Tunisia arrests 16 al-Qaeda suspects
Sun 2012-12-23
  Egypt vice-president resigns on final day of referendum
Sat 2012-12-22
  Scuds pummel Syrian rebel positions

Better than the average link...



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