Watch yer wallets, people!
All airlines using European airports are going to be regulated under the European Emissions Trading System from January 2012. That means even American carriers will eventually have to buy some carbon permits to comply with European Union law. EnviroNazis center of gravity is in Europe.
United States government officials have said in the past that the initiative is probably illegal under the convention governing international civil aviation. The main group representing the worldÂ’s airlines, the International Air Transport Association, has complained bitterly about the cost of the system.
On Wednesday, the European Commission published a list of carriers that may need to buy permits — and they include big United States carriers like American Airlines and United Airlines. Of course, the Deep Pockets People™!
One reason that the Europeans have acted so confidently to cap airline emissions is that both candidates for the American presidency said last year that they would support the establishment of an emissions trading system in the United States similar to the one operating in Europe. Many European Union officials thought that it stood to reason that the United States would extend that system to cover aviation, thus relieving the current trans-Atlantic tension. Be an EnviroDhimmi and the tension goes away, sez the EUniks.
European Union officials said Wednesday that they did not yet have a clear idea whether the Obama administration had taken a position different from the Bush administration on the European system to cap emissions from foreign operators and carriers. Anyone wants to lay odds that the Big O does not do this? Not his money, so no biggie.
Under the European system, each European Union country will be responsible for selling permits to individual airlines that use that countryÂ’s airports most frequently. The idea is to reduce the administrative burden, but it also potentially means big revenues for countries with busy airports.
The list published on Wednesday does not say how much money countries stand to reap, nor how much it would cost airlines. But Britain looks set to benefit most from the system because so many foreign, as well as domestic, carriers use its airports.
Britain would oversee about 780 carriers and operators, including American Airlines, United Airlines, Wal-Mart Stores and Bechtel. Britain also would oversee other large commercial carriers like Qantas Airways of Australia, Emirates of the United Arab Emirates, and Cathay Pacific of China.
Tiny Latvia, by contrast, will oversee five carriers and operators including Air Baltic, a national carrier. Poland will oversee about 45 carriers and operators including Lot, a national carrier.
Under European Union law, airlines will have to buy 15 percent of their quota of permits in 2012 based on past emissions.
At the moment there is no set price for those permits. But European Union officials said on Wednesday that the price would probably be partly set by the European carbon market (where a ton of carbon currently trades at 9.30 euros, or $12) and partly by member states under rules that still need to be finalized.
The list was compiled by the European Commission with the help of Eurocontrol, an organization responsible for air traffic management in Europe, and based on “best available information of flight movements within the E.U.”
A spokeswoman for the European Commission said companies like Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola are included in the list because they operate private flights that meet the criteria for inclusion in the emissions control system, according to the preliminary assessment by Eurocontrol.
The commission said it could publish a revised list in coming months based on feedback from the industry. The list then would be updated annually to take account of new carriers and operators. There are 50 ways to drain your wallet.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/12/2009
17:58 ||
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#1
1. Charge European airliners that land in the US the equivalent amount and refund it to American airlines.
2. Sit back and atch the Euros scream bloody murder.
Posted by: ed ||
02/12/2009 18:47
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#2
Dang, ed, I like the way you think.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/12/2009 20:06
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#3
Any airline from any European country attempting to enter the North American ADIZ should simply be forced down and confiscated. I don't think it will take Europe long to decide their "carbon credits" are worth their airlines. They certainly don't have a military that can do anything about it.
It's well past time we quit putting up with the socialist dictates of the euroweenies and their enviroNazi masters. I believe some serious head-knocking is way past due.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/12/2009 22:32
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Sen. Gregg stated, “I want to thank the President for nominating me to serve in his Cabinet as Secretary of Commerce. This was a great honor, and I had felt that I could bring some views and ideas that would assist him in governing during this difficult time. I especially admire his willingness to reach across the aisle.
“However, it has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me. Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy.
“Obviously the President requires a team that is fully supportive of all his initiatives.
“I greatly admire President Obama and know our country will benefit from his leadership, but at this time I must withdraw my name from consideration for this position.
“As we move forward, I expect there will be many issues and initiatives where I can and will work to assure the success of the President’s proposals. This will certainly be a goal of mine.
“Kathy and I also want to specifically thank Governor Lynch and Bonnie Newman for their friendship and assistance during this period. In addition we wish to thank all the people, especially in New Hampshire, who have been so kind and generous in their supportive comments.
“As a further matter of clarification, nothing about the vetting process played any role in this decision. I will continue to represent the people of New Hampshire in the United States Senate.”
#4
didn't like getting played over the census is the real reason. Judd grew a pair
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2009 17:38
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#5
I'm guessing the Census issue never came up when he talked with Bambi. It was only after he was nominated that the progressive groups started complaining about a Repub being in charge of the census, and Bambi -- I think -- seriously miscalculated.
He could have told the progressives "don't worry, we'll take care of this quietly", but that wouldn't have satisfied them. So he did it publicly and made Gregg look like a fool. To Gregg's credit, he called Bambi on it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2009 18:06
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#6
This is a Constitutional issue with the census. The Constitution the power to clooect a census to the Commerce Department. Obama seems to have overstepped and Gregg doesn't want to be at the center of a Constitutional fight.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/12/2009 19:36
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#7
Didn't want to be the "cover" from Rahm's census grab ("look the Republican Commerce Secretary is OK with it"). Obama tried to play him for a sap.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/12/2009 19:47
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#9
Absolutely. The one spot he pics for a trunk is the one area he needs his ass covered for his extra-constitutional power grab.
Luckily for us, the MSM is all over this aspect of it.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/12/2009 19:50
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#10
From Ed Morrisey at Hot Air:
"Barack Obama will take another big hit to his transition, but the man who really deserves the obloquy this time is Rahm Emanuel. The census ploy was a transparent attempt to hijack the data for political purposes, and pulling that stunt after GreggÂ’s appointment made Gregg look like a political eunuch. It was classic overreach, and itÂ’s classic Emanuel.
Now heÂ’s embarrassed himself, made his boss look impotent, and managed at the same time to damage ObamaÂ’s most critical piece of domestic policy legislation. If Gregg hits the media circuit to criticize Porkulus, his credibility as an Obama appointee will create a lot of heat on other Republicans and even a few Democrats to stop the runaway train of this bill and force it back into debate."
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/12/2009 20:07
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#11
Were Dem's looking ahead to 2010 to win over NH Senate seat by hoping he would accept this offer ??
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
02/12/2009 21:09
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#12
possibly, but they were also looking for "bipartisan" cover for Obama's porkulus package, economic policy, and more particularly, IMNSHO, the Census switch scam
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/12/2009 21:16
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#13
Were Dem's looking ahead to 2010 to win over NH Senate seat by hoping he would accept this offer ??
What amazes me is that NH used to be a solid red state (Manch Vegas was my home town until 1987, when I became a Masshole). Now it's up for grabs on many levels. If I didn't hate that fucking rathole so much, it might be depressing...
President Obama clearly didn't do his homework before ordering the suspension of military tribunals to try terrorist suspects. We have learned that even his own legal counsel admitted that Mr. Obama erred in discussing details about terrorism with families of victims last week, and that the administration was ignorant of a key point that terrorists exploit to their advantage. In his rush to fulfill a campaign promise to his more fervid anti-war supporters, the president's legal oversights risk the disclosure of some highly classified information to terrorists.
Debra Burlingame, sister of Charles Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 that was flown into the Pentagon on 9/11, was present at last Friday's White House meeting of families of terrorism victims. Her impression was that President Obama was saying the right words in general, but when it came to specifics he was uncertain, uninformed, and sometimes just plain mistaken. Ms. Burlingame is an attorney who has followed closely the legal aspects of the terrorism cases, and her detailed, probing questions were met with stammers, stares, and statements that betrayed an understanding of the law that was, she said, "flat out wrong."
Case in point: the president's knowledge of the role of the Classified Information Procedures Act or CIPA. This law governs the way in which classified information is used in trials. The Sixth Amendment guarantees defendants the right to confront their accusers and the evidence against them, but the government has an important interest in cases such as these in keeping sources and methods secret. Under CIPA rules, in cases where classified information is used, the government has the option of sharing the information with the defendant, or not using it.
The Bush administration sought to avoid this potential national security threat by resorting to other procedures in which 6th Amendment issues did not arise. But President Obama believes that the model for terrorism cases is the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. Of course a number of those plotters escaped justice (some were found later hiding in Saddam's Iraq, but that's another story). More important, because of the openness of that process, al Qaeda learned a great deal about how to do a much better job next time - and even the classified information from that trial was in Osama bin Laden's hands within weeks.
The terrorists have learned a great deal about conducting legal guerrilla war, using rules like CIPA to their advantage. Notice that more and more terrorists are dismissing their appointed lawyers and representing themselves. This gives them direct access to the classified documents that will be used in evidence against them. In this way they can learn about U.S. intelligence sources and methods - how they were targeted, what information was collected, and who may have been the traitors in their midst. Even if the names of sources are omitted, for example someone who was present at a key planning meeting, the terrorist defendant will know enough about the circumstances to be able to narrow it down. After all, the terrorist is familiar with every aspect of the events; he knows much more about them than the intelligence community.
The alternative to handing over the secrets is for the government to not use the evidence in question. That creates the incongruous situation in which the defense wants to maximize the amount of evidence that implicates them, and the prosecution wants to minimize it. (Our legal system was not designed to accommodate defendants who welcome being put to death.) According to Ms. Burlingame, Obama's answer to this conundrum was "there is no reason we have to give [the terrorists] everything." Evidently the former editor of the Harvard Law Review seems to think that one of his powers as president is personally to pick and choose which constitutional rights apply to terror defendants and which do not. That's the very thing they were criticizing President Bush for.
White House Counsel Greg Craig, often seen whispering in the president's ear during question periods, admitted later to Ms. Burlingame that the chief executive was getting the facts of the law wrong during the discussion with the families. Craig asked her if CIPA covers a case in which terrorists defend themselves, noting that "this is something we hadn't contemplated." If nothing else, this admission of ignorance is more evidence that the decision to rush ahead with closing Guantanamo and shutting down the military tribunals was ill-conceived, poorly planned, and may ultimately be injurious to our national security. The president may talk a good game about "swift, certain justice," but it is becoming clear that justice will not be swift, is highly uncertain, and in the end may not even be just.
#2
It's never too early to start testing dear-leader-replacement slogans (suitable for bumper stickers, e-mail footers, tattoos, and the like...). Here's my first offering:
#3
When I lived in California last year, I saw a license plate that said "IMPCHW". I am thinking of getting a plate that says "IMPCHO". If anybody asks, I could just say it's a little village in Korea.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/12/2009 20:45
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#4
I had a discussion w/a lib prof a few months ago. I got on his good side by saying (and honestly imho) that as far as public speakers goes, W was one of the worst speakers I'd ever heard. I then pissed him off by saying that BHO was one of the dumbest. Yesterday's clown fest w/the huffington post ringside and the messiah not being able to string two sentences together vindicates that assessment.
AN elderly man, who appeared to have difficulty walking, blew himself up and killed a policeman who was helping him in Afghanistan overnight, a local official said.
The suicide bombing happened outside the offices of the governor of the eastern province of Paktika, a day after 26 people died in multiple Taliban attacks on the capital Kabul.
Police at the entrance to the governor's office were assisting the man, who had trouble walking, when he set off explosives strapped to his body, provincial spokesman Hameedullah Zohak said.
One policeman died and five were wounded, one critically, in the suicide blast, he said.
Mr Zohak blamed the attack on "enemies of Afghanistan", a term used by Afghan authorities to refer to Taliban insurgents who were ousted from power in late 2001 by the US-led invasion.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, which was similar to scores of others in Afghanistan.
Separately, a group claiming to be Taliban said that they fired four rockets overnight at a government compound near the western city of Herat.
There were no casualties, officials said.
The growing pace of insurgent attacks has alarmed Afghanistan and its international backers, particularly the United States, which is reviewing its strategy seven years after the invasion.
The Russian central bank appears to have avoided a currency crisis this week, at least temporarily. Policymakers virtually painted a target on the ruble by announcing in late January that they had established a new floor on the currency in order to stabilize its slide. In fact, the opposite happened. Within days investors pushed the currency's value down against the floor, threatening to cause another large selloff of foreign exchange reserves in its defense.
After losing over a third of the country's reserves since August and having the government's debt rating lowered by Fitch last week, the central bank made a change of course by tightening interest rates, making speculation more costly and easing the pressure to draw down official reserves. The move even caused the ruble yesterday to make its biggest gains against the dollar and euro in the past two years, signaling a temporary stabilization.
While they are not out of the woods yet, the Russians seem to have finally taken a step in the right direction. And at time when everyone is focused on the mounting woes in the world economy, any good news on the economic front is welcome.
Obama, who has campaigned energetically for the legislation, welcomed the agreement, saying it would "save or create more than 3.5 million jobs and get our economy back on track."
The $500-per-worker credit for lower- and middle-income taxpayers that Obama outlined during his presidential campaign was scaled back to $400 during bargaining by the Democratic-controlled Congress and White House. Couples would receive $800 instead of $1,000. Over two years, that move would pump about $25 billion less into the economy than had been previously planned.
Officials estimated it would mean about $13 a week more in people's paychecks this year when withholding tables are adjusted in late spring. Next year, the measure could yield workers about $8 a week. Critics say that's unlikely to do much to boost consumption.
"The most highly touted tax cut in the original proposal now translates into $7.70 a week for middle-class workers," said Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
#3
What kind of latte and cookie? Because it better be my organic, fair-trade, half-caf soy latte along with my non-GMO, low sugar, gluten free cookie in the morning or else.
President Obama had his first prime-time news conference Monday, and 60 million viewers tuned in.
They wanted to hear him and see him in action and hope that things weren't as bad as they were hearing every day from the media and in their hometowns.
He was glib, rambling, a little long-winded and very defensive. But he is a talent and very likeable even when he is being serious. And he had plenty to be serious about.
On numerous occasions, he made sure reporters and the millions tuning in knew that he had inherited a mess, the Republicans weren't helping him at all, and things were tough.
After spending hundreds of millions of dollars and traveling thousands of miles over the past two years running for this office, did he think he was going to get the big plane, the big house, the box at the Kennedy Center and Camp David without the heavy lifting? Well, maybe not this heavy a load.
This is a president who has promised transparency. He promised that we as a nation will know what our government is doing and what we are spending. Just go to the Internet, and it will be there. But not quite yet.
The president gave us a lot of rhetoric on Monday night.
Four million jobs will be created or saved, with 90 percent of them in the private sector. He didn't tell us how. Just trust me, and we will get you out of these tough times.
I know a president needs to be a cheerleader sometimes, but right now, I want a truth-teller.
He said, "at this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life. It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs lead to people spending less money which leads to even more layoffs."
I ask, what resources does the federal government have? We are broke, too!
Real transparency would have been walking to the podium and saying, "Friends: This thing is a lot worse then I thought. Just like many of you, we are way over our budget. Some of you bought houses you couldn't afford. Many of you spent more money than you made and put the stuff you couldn't afford on your credit cards. The banks were irresponsible, and Wall Street was greedy, but I have to admit to you, the guys and gals over in the Congress have been spending at record rates, too. And they still have a bunch of pet projects they want to spend on, too. That's why this bill got bloated.
"And, oh, by the way, the $800 billion that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid want to spend is money we don't have. The U.S. is broke just like you are, and the banks that I have to borrow from are thousands of miles away in China. We are going to spend $1 trillion-plus more than we take in this year in revenue, and next year it will be $2 trillion. That's on top of the $10.8 trillion that we owe in national debt.
"And if you don't think the banks have any money, the Federal Reserve is loaning them trillions."
But he could have closed out that depressing little litany by saying, "Together, we are going to get out of this thing!"
Obviously, our new president is still a stranger to us. We like him. Many trust him. We all hope he will succeed. But we don't know a lot about his management style or the people he picked as his team (except that a few of them didn't pay all their taxes.)
But in the world of politics, you seldom get a second chance to make a good impression.
The president's news conference was the beginning of the selling process. It was a fair performance, and by the end, the stimulus bill designed by Speaker Pelosi and Appropriations Chairman Dave Obey was owned by him.
The new Treasury secretary was the man who was supposed to lay out the plan to rescue the banks the next days. Secretary Tim Geithner's performance Tuesday was a disaster, and his plan was nonexistent. And the market tanked.
The Democrats will get their bill, and the president will sign it quickly. More money will have been committed in a shorter period of time than ever in our history.
It will be declared a great victory for the new team. And we and our kids will be paying for it for a long time. I hope it works, because there is no money to try again! We will quickly learn whether social engineering really works and whether all these Keynesians are right.
Pres. Barack Obama vowed to correct the mistakes of the Bush administration but instead is determined to undo one of the great successes of the Clinton years: welfare reform. Democrats have inserted provisions into the catch-all stimulus bill that will reverse Clinton-era welfare reform, re-establishing the wasteful, incentive-killing system whose transformation was the bipartisan pride of the 1990s.
Prior to reform, the federal government simply gave the states more money for every family they added to the welfare rolls. The predictable result was that the states worked hard to maximize their welfare caseloads in order to maximize the amount of federal funding they could therefore claim. The system had zero incentive to help people make the transition from welfare to work and independence—in fact, the states were financially punished for doing so. The Clinton-Gingrich reforms replaced that bounty-hunter system with a flat rate for each state, based on population and other factors. That gave state-level welfare authorities a better set of incentives, encouraging them to use their resources in the most effective manner and to reserve them for the truly needy.
The results were successful—spectacularly so. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act was followed by reductions in both the number of families on welfare and the rate of poverty. Single women entered the workforce in substantial numbers and the household incomes of former welfare recipients went up. In other words, the incentives to reduce welfare dependence and help people to find work, worked.
Obama, in what is plainly a sop to ACORN and the rest of the “community organizing” gang, is overturning those reforms. Under the provisions in the stimulus bill, states will once again be paid a bounty for expanding their welfare rolls. As reported by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, the federal government will now pay states 80 percent of the cost for each new family they sign up for welfare. That means that states will get $4 for every $1 they spend. This will leave the main welfare program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), with a funding mechanism similar to the one that supports Medicaid. As Brian Blase argues here, Medicaid’s funding ratio, which gives states $1 to $3 for every dollar they spend, has caused state Medicaid spending to skyrocket. If Medicaid’s dollar-for-dollar model has proved ruinous, Obama’s new $4-to-$1 ratio for welfare will prove, in all likelihood, four times so.
What can Republicans do about this? Not much. House Republicans hung tough against the stimulus only to have their position undermined by three of the usual suspects in the Senate: Senators Specter, Collins, and Snowe. Republicans were locked out of the process by which the differences in the House and Senate versions were resolved—their last (forlorn) shot at taming this beast of a bill.
Given that the states will receive $4 from the federal government for every $1 they add to their welfare budgets, even conservative governors will feel pressure to inflate their welfare rolls in order to wring every dollar they can out of Washington. And there are early rumblings about removing the already weak work requirements that rounded out the Clinton-era reforms.
The Democrats are stuffing years’ worth of legislation into their “stimulus” bill. They are operating in the legislative shadows, evading scrutiny and debate, while enacting an expansion of the welfare state that would never survive a more considered process. Obama’s right-hand man, Rahm Emanuel, put it bluntly if cynically: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Obama obviously intends to make the most of this one as he proves that he is, after all, the Second Coming—of Lyndon Baines Johnson.
#2
Why not? Socialism has worked so well in the past. Look at the Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba, and China (before capitalist reforms) - models of paradise.
#5
This claim must be some kind of al Qaeda recruiting tactic. Become a terrorist and have a female FBI agent jump your bones. And then there's the 72 virgins if you die of a heart attack while being serviced tortured.
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan acknowledged for the first time that the Mumbai terrorist attacks were launched from its shores and at least partly plotted on its soil, saying Thursday that it had arrested most of the chief suspects including one described as "the main operator." Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said Pakistan has started criminal proceedings against eight suspects — some of them also named by India as the masterminds of the attacks — but he reiterated that authorities needed more evidence from New Delhi to secure convictions.
The revelations suggest Pakistan is serious about punishing those behind the November attacks, which killed 164 people and stirred fear that the nuclear-armed neighbors could slide toward war and that Pakistan might be distracted from its struggle against the Taliban and al-Qaida.
India and the U.S. have pressed Pakistan hard to dismantle Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned Pakistan-based group fighting Indian rule in the divided Kashmir region that is widely blamed for the Mumbai carnage. Islamabad and New Delhi have fought two out of their three wars since 1947 over the region.
India's Foreign Ministry called Pakistan's announcement "a positive development" and said it would consider Islamabad's request for further information.
Malik said investigators had traced a boat engine used by the attackers to sail from Pakistan to India and busted two hideouts of the suspects near the southern city of Karachi. Other leads pointed to Europe and the United States, and Malik said Pakistan would ask the FBI for help.
"I want to assure the international community, I want to assure all those who have been victims of terrorism that we mean business," Malik said, waving a copy of Pakistan's initial findings at reporters gathered inside his ministry. "We will continue our investigation, but we want tenable evidence from India. We want full cooperation from India so that this kind of ring be smashed."
India says all 10 gunmen — only one of whom was captured alive — were Pakistanis and that their handlers in Pakistan had kept in close touch with them by phone during the three-day assault. New Delhi provided a dossier of evidence to Islamabad, testing Pakistan's insistence that it would do all in its power to punish those responsible — and that it has truly abandoned its past sponsorship of Islamist militants including the Taliban.
In Pakistan's first detailed response, Malik said criminal cases had been opened against eight suspects on charges of "abetting, conspiracy and facilitation" of a terrorist act. He said six of them were in custody, including Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarrar Shah, both Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders named by India as the masterminds of the attack, and a person who sent an e-mail claiming responsibility for the attacks.
Indian media said at the time that they received an e-mail in the name of the previously unknown Deccan Mujahideen — a name which suggested an Indian rather than Pakistani group was behind the attacks and which now appears to have been a decoy.
Malik said the culprits were "non-state actors," a phrase used by Pakistani authorities to counter allegations that its intelligence agencies had a hand in the attacks. He said the assailants used three boats to travel from Pakistan to Mumbai and detectives had traced an engine recovered from one of the vessels to a shop in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi. He said the shopkeeper had provided the phone number of the buyer which led to a bank account in the name of Hammad Amin Sadiq.
Malik said authorities had arrested Sadiq and obtained from him information that led them to bust two "hide-outs of the terrorists," one in Karachi and one about two hours drive away. He described Sadiq, a 37-year-old who had been living in Karachi, as "the main operator" but didn't elaborate.
He said the detainees had told of how the group used a spot on the Pakistani coast to practice their sea-borne attack.
To stiffen its case, Pakistan was sending 30 questions to India about the attacks, Malik said. Among the additional details sought are the DNA of the 10 gunmen and information on intercepted phone conversations between the militants and their handlers. He also asked New Delhi to investigate what contacts — and help — the attackers had inside India. The terrorists also used phones with Indian SIM cards, he noted. Their two suspected handlers are still at large.
India's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the government will consider Islamabad's request. "After that examination, we will share whatever we can with Pakistan," the statement said.
On Thursday, Malik also suggested a wider international dimension to the crime. One suspect, Javed Iqbal, had been "lured" back from Barcelona, Spain, where he had been living, and was now in Pakistani custody. While in Spain, Iqbal had arranged Internet telephone accounts used in the attacks and bills had been paid in Italy, Malik said.
Suspects also used a digital teleconferencing system whose service provider is based in Houston, Texas, while a Thuraya phone was issued in a Middle Eastern country, he said. Other bills were paid by a company in Islamabad and two people have been arrested as a result, Malik said. "It is not only Pakistan, but the system of the other countries has also been used," he said.
I know times are tough, but... BELLEFONTAINE, Ohio -- It was a delicate conversation, to be sure. The principal tried to tell a class of fourth-graders why their teacher was absent, arrested just after lunch and hauled to jail. It's a secret, kids...
She couldn't come right out and tell them that Amber Carter, a 13-year employee of the Bellefontaine City School District, apparently was arrested in a sex sting at the local Super 8 Motel just after noon Tuesday. The Super 8? That's class...
Carter, a 13-year employee of the Bellefontaine City School District, took a half day of sick leave Tuesday, said Superintendent Larry Anderson. Not long after she left the school, sheriff's deputies, following a tip, arrested Carter at 12:05 p.m. in the hotel parking lot. So...doing a little "tutoring" on the side, Ms. Carter?
She was charged with prostitution, a third-degree misdemeanor, and unauthorized use of property, a felony. Anderson said the felony charge stems from the fact that she may have used her school computer to set up inappropriate meetings.
The school district is cooperating in the investigation, he said. Anderson placed Carter on paid administrative leave last night. Carter was processed at the Logan County Jail and then released. Paid administrative leave. Gives her time to turn more tricks. She can clean up...
A substitute assumed her class at Western Intermediate School today, and the guidance counselor and the principal met with the students to answer any questions they might have had. I'll bet they had some real good ones...
"It's just a bad situation," Anderson said. "It's not our place to tell them too much, but we figured the students might have heard rumors and would have some questions." A letter will go home to parents tonight. Dear Epstein's Mother...
Carter has taught in the Logan County district for 13 years and hasn't had a single disciplinary problem, he said. She's been a popular teacher. Oh, no doubt...
#7
"But, Principle Farnsworth you've been teaching us that sex between consenting adults was alright regardless of color, race, creed, or sexual preference. Or is this the act of evil capitalism and exploitation of the workers you've also taught us?"
CARACAS, Venezuela - In November, Antonio Ledezma, a well-known opponent of the Venezuelan government, defeated President Hugo Chavez's handpicked candidate for mayor of greater Caracas. It was a particularly bitter setback for Chavez, not just because city hall is such a prized post but because Ledezma is so reviled by the president and his backers.
But Ledezma, 53, was mistaken if he thought winning office would mean controlling a far-flung city apparatus. Armed supporters of the president, wearing the government's trademark red T-shirts, took over city hall and three other vital government buildings. Incoming municipal officials found offices ransacked, computer equipment pilfered and vehicles missing.
The officials also said they discovered that former mayor Juan Barreto had hired thousands of hard-line Chavez supporters -- not to work in city agencies but to proselytize for the president's so-called Bolivarian revolution, serve as bodyguards to pro-government lawmakers and function as shock troops to intimidate Chavez's foes.
According to a recent article in Global Security Newswire, President Barack Obama might seek an international agreement to limit weapons in space, reversing Bush administration policy. As noted on the White House Web site, the new administration is calling for "a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites." The president's position on this issue is impractical and dangerous.
Proponents of the ban argue that because the U.S. has the most space-based assets to lose in a future space war, it also has the greatest interest in restricting the use of space to peaceful purposes. An international treaty is seen as an effective means of creating a weapon-free zone outside of Earth's atmosphere. Treaty proponents also assert that U.S. restraint in deploying space weapons will forestall an arms race by removing the need for other states to develop countervailing capabilities. However sincere these assertions might be, they are simply not grounded in reality. Consider three arguments against a space weapons treaty:
First and foremost, there is no internationally agreed-upon definition of a space weapon. One proposed definition includes only space-based systems specifically produced to destroy other space objects. But that raises the question of intent, always difficult to prove. This definition also fails to take into account Earth-based systems that could be used to destroy objects in space, like the anti-satellite weapons used by the People's Republic of China in 2007 and the United States in 2008. Nor does it include terrestrial laser systems capable of jamming satellite communications. An alternate definition -- any object in, or passing through, space that has the capability of damaging or destroying another space object -- is equally unfeasible. Theoretically, any object in space could be used to intercept or collide with another object, again raising the issue of determining intent.
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#2
Maybe the information contained in the post, above: Iridium Satellite Destroyed in Crash With Rooskie Junker
will clarify Obamacles' mind...but then again...
#5
Any truth to the rumor that the book beside Obama's night table is "All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten"? Just asking.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
02/12/2009 13:37
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#6
I watched a video of his presser. Not pretty. People whacked Bush for being evasive and not allowing follow-up. Bush looked good compared to Bambi's performance in this one. I can only imagine how he'd do in front of a hostile press, assuming that would ever come to pass ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2009 14:50
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#7
Here comes that CHANGE we axed for. He's off to a great start....
Subject: great first week!
"...Obama's approval rating plunges 15 points from the stratospheric 83% to 68% after the first week in office according to recent Gallup Polls..." (CNN)
-First day in office, Obama scowls and reprimands his VP (Biden) in front of cameras over a little joke about swearing in a second time... (Way to undress your running mate and now second in command on day one!)
-Already preparing nation for broken promises. Quoted saying "I want to be realistic here -- not everything that we talked about during the campaign are we going to be able to do on the pace that we had hoped." Ummm, why weren't you realistic while you were making promises in order to get elected? It was only four months ago when you promised this....was it that different then?
-Obama vowed to immediately start clearing out troops from Iraq (I suppose that was a campaign promise, so no surprise there...)
-Obama, on Thursday, issued an order to shut down Guantanamo Bay without any plan in place to move al-Qaida prisoners or a legal plan for doing so.
-Within in 72 hours of office, he's failed to initiate tax cuts for 95% of working Americans as promised
during his campaign only 3 months ago.
-After bashing Bush for our Trillion dollar deficit created over 8-full years, he's managed to Initiated a bill to double that amount in 1 week. (i.e. "stimulus plan" - LOL) - (includes budget for handing out condoms to our kids and also ...does it get any better? LOL)
-Obama creates ugly scene in the press room because he didn't like the question asked by a reporter.
(After being asked about placing a ban on lobbyists in his administration... [with irritation in his voice] He said; "..See this is what happens? I can't end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I'm going to get grilled every time I come down here." (HELLO!!!!! That is what the press does at press conferences, they grill you Mr. Prez...lighten up, you're the "leader of the free world" - Get used to it! LOL
-President Barack Obama on Friday struck down the Bush administration's ban on giving federal money to perform abortions abroad...
-Obama vows to push the "Anti-hate Crimes" bill previously vetoed by Bush. (Of course Bush wanted such a bill, but there was provisions in the old one making it possible for our pastors to be arrested for preaching that homosexuality is a sin.
-Obama ordered the closure of any remaining secret CIA "black site" prisons abroad and barred CIA interrogators form using harsh techniques already banned for military questioners.
-Obama lifted a ban on federal funding for stem cell research... (Here comes cloning and more killing of human life for the sake of science....)
-And on the fifth day, from the Honorable Patrick Fitzgerald office, subpoenas were served to nearly all of Obama's senior staff - that didn't take long...
-Quote. "...Finally, Obama made his first really dumb political move when he picked a fight with Rush
Limbaugh, telling GOP senators that they shouldn't listen to the talk show host and get on board with his stimulus package. (Quote: "...Obama broke the first rule of political gunslinging: never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel -- or in the case of Rush Limbaugh, someone with 23 million daily listeners and 3 hours every day with which to make you look like an idiot...")
Only 207 more weeks to go! Can't wait to see what week 2 brings
#8
-And on the fifth day, from the Honorable Patrick Fitzgerald office, subpoenas were served to nearly all of Obama's senior staff - that didn't take long...
You'd think this would be big news, but hadn't heard a peep. Like an MSM cone of silence surrounding the American people.
David Axelrod, Obama's "Karl Rove" and the biggest surprise on the list. Obama's team issued a report in December that said his staff had no "inappropriate contact" with Blago, so the inclusion of Axelrod is a bit of a shock.
Valerie Jarrett, Blago's "Senate Candidate 1", a real estate management executive and political hack of the first order. Her ties to failed and fraudulent real estate deals in Chicago were the subject of numerous investigations and should have instantly disqualified her for any public office.
Rahm Emanuel was already deeply involved in the case with some reports describing as many as 21 conversations with Blago's office during the period in question.
Tony Rezko, Obama's first advocate, fundraiser and adviser, was convicted last year on numerous charges related to kickbacks, is awaiting sentencing. Rezko is "cooperating with authorities, FBI Agent Daniel Cain said in an affidavit."
Posted by: ed ||
02/12/2009 17:55
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#9
While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75-year-old Texas rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man.
Eventually the topic got around to Obama him being our President. The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Obama is a "post turtle." Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a "post turtle" was.
The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a "post turtle".
The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain. "You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, he doesn't know what to do while he is up there, and you just wonder what kind of a dumb ass put him up there."
February 12, 2009: The U.S. Air Force has released some performance data on the F-22. The stealthiness factor of the F-22 has turned out to be better than predicted. For radar purposes, the F-22 is about the size of a steel marble. The F-35 comes out as a steel golf ball. The AESA radar turned out to have a longer effective range of about 210 kilometers, versus a 200 on the official spec sheet. The AESA radar is also able to detect enemy radars at a considerable distance, meaning that, if an approaching enemy aircraft is using its radar, an F-22 can detect it about 300 kilometers distant. That gives the F-22 more time to get into position for a decisive first shot at the enemy aircraft.
These goodies are being released as the air force makes a pitch to delay some F-35 production in order to build more F-22s. The air force generals point out that the first 500 or so F-35s will cost $200 million each (without taking R&D into account), while F-22s only cost $145 million each (without taking R&D into account). The construction cost of the F-35 will eventually go to about $100 million each as more are produced.
The air force also points out that their simulations (which are classified, so it's difficult for anyone check their accuracy) indicate the an F-22 would destroy 30 Su-27/MiG-29 type aircraft for getting destroyed. But the F-35 would only have a 3:1 ratio, while the F-15 and F-16 would only have a 1:1 ratio (there are a lot of F-15 and F-16 pilots who would dispute this). Thus the need for more F-22s, even if it means fewer F-35s (in the near and long term). That would be because the F-35 is designed for those icky bombing missions instead of being a pure fighter designed to make aces out of God's annointed ones.
The air force also points out that, with a force of 183 F-22s (all Congress will allow them to build at the moment), only about a hundred would be available for combat (the rest would be down for maintenance or used for training.) By building another 60-100 F-22s, and reducing initial F-35 production by that much, American air superiority would be much improved, at no (well, not much) additional expense. Or so goes the pitch.
#1
Let's see if I understand: the F35 is both more expensive and less capable than the F35 and it is getting into production? Anyone sees the rationality? (That is assumming it is not built in Murtha's constituency).
Yes I know about the air to ground role) but, except for the VTOL frames wouldn't it be more rational to develop an air to ground version of th e F22 a la Strike Eagle and shutdown the F35? (Screw the Euros) At least while less capable the F16 was cheaper than the F15.
#2
They are going with the F-22 and F-35 for the same reason they did a F-15 and F-16 mix. High/low cover. The F-22/F-15 are designed to take on aircraft and provide air cover for the other planes. They can provide air-to-ground cover if needed. The F-16/F-35 is the multi-role part of the mix. They get in low, bomb and provide the air-to-mud mix, but they can perform as good air-to-air fighters if needed.
The reason the air force likes the smaller and cheaper aircraft for the low mix is they will have a much higher attrition rate than the high mix aircraft. Bullets flying at you from all directions will do that. Therefore it makes logical sense that the cheaper aircraft are designed for the low mix. The F-35 was supposed to follow the same principle, but with all multi-committee designed projects the costs have spiraled.
Personally, I think it would make more sense to make more F-22s, provide them with ARMM capabilities and then let the F-16s go in and tear up shit. Later we can design, on our own (US) a stealthy replacement to the F-16. The F-35 will be a good aircraft, but now is becoming so damn expensive that most countries will not be able to buy it.
#3
If we need to spend billions of dollars to stimulate the economy why not buy more F-22s and F-35s more quickly?
Posted by: Donald McConnell ||
02/12/2009 14:35
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#4
To add to this, the F-35 comes in both Air Force and Navy/Marine versions. It's also our export fighter of the future, and the Brits, several Euro nations and the Aussies have put serious coin into its development. That was done in part to drive down the unit cost by ensuring sufficient sales. The F-22 was supposed to be USAF only with no export, but the Japanese in particular would love to have some.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2009 14:47
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"The sparkle has gone from his eyes already," an American acquaintance said to me yesterday, referring to Barack Obama. "He doesn't know what to do." Obama's performance at his press conference confirmed that impression, with the rhetoric of the campaign trail, fluent and banal as piped musak, replaced with long hesitations not just between sentences, but between clauses. This was an auto-cue junkie suffering cold turkey.
When a political lightweight is out of his depth, he seeks to compensate by counterfeiting the certainty he is far from feeling. Obama's rantings in defence of his stimulus plan have assumed an apocalyptic intensity. Unless Congress agrees to flush almost $1 trillion of Joe Citizen's hard-earned bucks down the sanitation, "Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse."
So, America had better listen to the man who "screwed up" over Tom Daschle because he alone has the wisdom to extricate the US of A from financial disaster. The instrument of salvation is the biggest barrel of pork that the undeserving needy have ever seen in American history, from sea to shining sea. The financial crisis may seem complex, but the solution - the real solution - depends on one simple premise: tax cuts revive economies, handouts do not.
Trillion-dollar giveaways are like buses: there will be another one along in a moment. Driving the next vehicle is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who thinks it would be a nice gesture to hand another $2 trillion to Gordon Gekko and his pals on Wall Street. Apparently the last handout made no appreciable difference, so better throw some more moolah into the piranha pool - some of those poor SOBs are down to their last executive jet.
Where will the money come from? No problem - we just divert it from Main Street to Wall Street, an increasingly familiar route to those in the White House and on Capitol Hill who specialise in redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. This seems to be in addition to Geithner's $0.5 trillion scheme to stimulate spending in real estate, drawing cash largely from the US Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
So, overall, Barack and Tim are currently disposing of more than $3 trillion of taxpayers' money. The only remotely comparable stimulus scheme proposed for America was a fictitious one: when the James Bond villain Auric Goldfinger planned to detonate a nuclear device in Fort Knox and irradiate the nation's gold reserves. Incinerating $3 trillion in dollar bills could not be more wasteful than the Obama stimulus plan.
It is madness. These lunatics are mugging Main Street of $3 trillion and squandering it on a liberal fantasy. It could be a generation before America recovers - not simply from the loss of these funds, but from the economic mismanagement of which it is a symptom. The fall-out will be very serious for the rest of the world. Hope? Change we need? Vote in haste, repent at leisure.
#1
So at what point could someone bring to trial that these appropriations should be reserved for the annual budget and these packages are outside of the federal budget procedure, making them unlawful?
Second, in the spirit of windfall oil revenue, when can we get our tax break for windfall federal tax expenditure?
Third, P.O. was right when he said he was going to inject the money into the segment of society which will most likely spend it fast - government.
Fourth, if Wall Street wants to be anything other than the slaves of incompetent lawyers they better come clean - even start making noise about the corruption of congress. That would be you shareholders as well.
I believe people who invest/follow stock prices make money and/or know how the economy works. I don't trust any poll that says a politicial has an approval rating of +60% as an indicator of confidence what I do trust is the market. Someone can be both popular and wrong at the same time. Back in high school I had a chemistry class with the big time basketball player - fun guy, everyone liked him, but I sure didn't like getting teamed with him during a lab and was bottom 1/3 in class grades.
Any rate, not going to invest in markets till they get off the gov tit and will have no confidence in the 2nd grade pagent of a congress and the high school pop jock acting president.
Ah, more "victory" preening...
Bethlehem -- Ma'an/Agencies -- Supreme Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared Palestinian "victory" over Israel in the war in Gaza a "miracle" on Wednesday. Youze took a hit for da family. Sacrifices hadda be made... Let's give da boys some sprockets ...
"What really happened in Gaza was truly like a miracle," Khamenei said in a meeting with Palestinian Islamic Jihad chief Ramadan Shallah, who visited Tehran. "The Gaza events were in fact at the hands of God which came true through the faith and firm determination and the jihad of resistance forces and the Gaza people," the leader added, according to the Tehran Times. ...at least it looked like that on Tehran Action News.
"Truly, the people of Gaza took a good test and the officials and managers also emerged successful in this test for their good performance and decisive and united position," he added. Yeah. Prone. Under an armor plated bed. In a deep bunker. In the basement of the hospital.
More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed in Israel's three-week onslaught on the Gaza Strip in December and January. Israel has also declared victory. Leaders of the ruling Hamas movement saw victory merely in withstanding the offensive. Sounds like even Ma'an's maybe not buying the "victory" bullshit anymore...
Islamists reached new heights of audacity in a face-off with pro-Israel demonstrators in Malmö, Sweden on Sunday, firing rockets and throwing pipe bombs at the pro-Israel group in broad daylight and under police's noses. No one was hurt. The incident was videotaped by Swedish blogger Ted Ekeroth.
Between 400 and 500 people gathered in Stortorget Square for a peaceful pro-Israeli protest.
The police sealed off the entire square and only allowed in the protesters, as well as a smaller group of Islamists, and separated the two groups from each other.
Blogger Ekeroth wrote: "It didn't take long until they started attacking us, this time with homemade pipebombs and fireworks. The homemade bombs were pretty powerful, as I stood not too far away when one of them exploded. According to what I heard, the police managed to arrest the ones that threw the bombs. However, they did not disperse the [A]rab crowdÂ…"
In total, Ekeroth reported, the Islamists threw two pipe bombs, fired two rockets and hurled some glass bottles. The bombs did not reach the pro-Israel protesters but the rockets exploded over their heads.
The largest newspaper in the south, Sydsvenskan, chose to "distort and bend the truth," Ekeroth reported. The news item about the confrontation was headlined “Several arrested during Israel demonstration” and, amazingly, reported that "The expected violence did not occur."
#1
He has been detained at Heathrow. Someone suggested as a "hostile alien", he should immediately call for the violent overthrow of the British government, then demand hundreds of thousands of pounds in welfare, for himself and his family.
#3
Epic fail for the UK government - only a few people knew about Wilders before this, and now apparently millions are trying to access his film online.
"If we want to strengthen our friends and weaken our enemies in Pakistan, bombing Pakistani villages with unmanned drones is totally counterproductive," Dr. David Kilcullen tells Danger Room. Is he a real doctor, or does he play one on TV?
U.S. officials say the drones have taken out dozens of militants who were undermining American efforts in the region. Perhaps so, Kilcullen acknowledges. But using drones to attack those militants "increase the number and radicalism of Pakistanis who support extremism, and thus undermine the key strategic program of building a willing and capable partner in Pakistan," he writes in Monday's Small Wars Journal blog. Kilcullen gave much the same message, in testimony last week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Kilcullen doesn't think all UAV attacks are bad. "While ever al Qaida remains active and can threaten the international community from bases within Pakistan, the need to strike terrorist targets on Pakistani territory will remain. But our policy should be to treat this as an absolute, and rarely invoked, last resort," he notes. So he's for them and against them? He's a politician ...
All strikes should be carried out in consultation with Islamabad, in "an area outside of effective Pakistani sovereignty," and a time when "the target is positively identified and clearly distinguishable from surrounding populations, reducing the risk of collateral damage to a level acceptable to elected political leaders." That's good. Should we give Islamabad time to pass the word so the targets can skedaddle?
That last bit may be the toughest part. Before U.S. Air Force drones hit targets in Afghanistan as part of pre-planned operations, lawyers and intelligence officers in the Combined Air and Space Operations Center match it with cell-phone intercepts, informants' tips, and "pattern of life" analyses on the intended targets. Other airmen estimate the likelihood of civilian casualties, with "Raindrop," a classified simulation tool that models local traffic patterns, structural compositions, and bomb blast patterns. It's a process so rigorous that even Human Rights Watch says that the chances of civilian casualties are near nil, when it's followed.(The problems — and the slaying of innocents — come during last-minute, so-called "troops-in-contact" scenarios.)
#1
Sorry, I know this aussie is a Petraeus favorite boy, but his stuff often - too often - strikes me as naieve and ridiculous. The quoted bit about building a partner in Pakistan is as silly as something you'd expect from most Brookings or major media or etc etc.
First, obviously - and without Feinstein's eff-up noted in another post here - the Paks are in very deeply on these strikes, and everyone knows it. Second, if you're killing AQ bigs and Taliban leadership effectively and with impunity, you're winning - Kilcullen's worry about "radicalizing" Paks betrays a way-not-ready-for-prime-time mentality. "Last resort"? Sorry, the guy's a lightweight with silly frameworks generating jejeune unpersuasive bromides.
Looks like Benon will have to keep using the stairs...
UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N.'s highest internal judicial body has ordered the United Nations to pay legal fees to the former chief of its oil-for-food program, who has been accused of accepting money to illegally influence the $64 billion humanitarian program in Iraq.
The program was the biggest humanitarian program in U.N. history, but a U.N.-sanctioned investigation found widespread corruption, involving thousands of parties, that bilked the humanitarian program of $1.8 billion. The program chief, Benon Sevan, has been charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for allegedly accepting $160,000 to illegally influence the program.
The Administrative Tribunal's judgment, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, said the United Nations must pay "all reasonable legal fees" incurred by Sevan until February 2005, subject to an independent audit of the lawyers' invoices. The judgment said Sevan and his lawyers were seeking $880,300, plus interest.
Under the oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, Iraq was allowed to sell oil provided most of the money went to buy humanitarian goods. It was aimed at easing Iraqi suffering under U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait and was a lifeline for 90 percent of the country's population.
But a 18-month U.N.-sanctioned investigation led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker found massive corruption in the program. Its final report in October 2005 accused more than 2,200 companies from some 40 countries of colluding with Saddam Hussein's regime to bilk the humanitarian program of $1.8 billion. In 2004, it accused Sevan of accepting $147,184 in kickbacks for steering oil-for-food contracts to a company of his choice.
At the time, the U.N. agreed to pay Sevan's legal fees. But when the investigation accused then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan of a role in the scandal, Annan reversed the payment decision. You're dead to me, Benon! Dead!
Annan then rejected the ruling when the U.N. Joint Appeals Board upheld Sevan's appeal in February 2006. You took sides against the family, Benon. We can't have that. You're lucky you're not in a 55 gallon drum...
Sevan took his case to the Administrative Tribunal, which ordered the U.N. to pay reasonable legal fees in its judgment dated Nov. 26, 2008. Both the appeals court and the tribunal said it had no evidence that Annan's chief-of-staff ever imposed conditions on the payment agreement. Ummmm...nope. We know that because he told us he didn't.
"We abide by all the decisions of the Administrative Tribunal, which is the highest appeals body within the U.N. system," said U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq. Harrrrumph harrrrumph harrrrumph...
Sevan resigned from the U.N. in 2005 and returned to his native Cyprus. He has not been extradited to the United Nations. Can you be extradited to the United Nations? I dunno, let's ask Carla del Ponte ...
In January 2007, federal and state prosecutors charged Sevan with taking a $160,000 bribe to influence who could buy Iraqi oil under the oil-for-food program. The indictment charged Sevan with bribery and conspiracy to commit fraud. It ain't your night, Benon. We're goin for the price on Wilson...
At the time, his lawyer, Eric Lewis, said Sevan was being made a political scapegoat and that he had accounted for every penny, helping to save "tens of thousands of innocent people from death by disease and starvation." It was "for the children", right, Benny?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid played a little high-stakes chicken with each other at the tail end of WednesdayÂ’s shotgun stimulus talks.
It’s not clear who won – or who blinked.
According to a half dozen Congressional aides and members, Reid went before the cameras Wednesday to announce a stimulus deal before Pelosi had agreed on all the details of school construction financing.
“It’s ruffled feathers, big time,” said a House Democrat speaking on condition of anonymity. “The speaker went through the roof.”
Added one House Democratic aide: “He tried to roll her and she knew it.”
A few minutes after Reid announced the deal, Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) convened a public meeting of the House-Senate conference committee.
It was supposed to be a glorified photo op. But there were no House Democrats in the room – and Inouye hastily announced the meeting would be scrapped pending a Pelosi “briefing” of members on the details.
The problem, according to people familiar with the situation, was that Pelosi hadnÂ’t completely signed off on the SenateÂ’s approach to restoring some of the $21 billion in school construction funding. House Democrats are pushing to have school-repair funding listed as a recurring expense; Senate Republicans want such an allocation to be a one-time-only deal.
The approach adopted by the Senate still infuriates many members of her caucus, and Pelosi had yet to fully make her case to dissenters, a source told Politico.
The result: Pelosi summoned Reid to her office – her turf – to hash out unspecified modifications to the package prior to a 5:15 re-convening of the conference committee.
People close to Pelosi painted a different picture – one that portrays Reid as the one being rolled. Pelosi, they say, strategically permitted Reid to make his announcement – and then held up her approval to extract a slightly better deal.
Contradicting other sources who said that Pelosi had been blindsided, a House Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Reid had placed a “head’s up” phone call to Pelosi before announcing the deal.
A Senate aide concurred, saying that Pelosi "wasn't blindsided" and "didn't say no" when Reid announced he was going public. The staffer added that Pelosi spent much of the day trying -- unsuccessfully -- to convince the three Senate Republicans to make changes.
Pelosi told reporters late Wednesday that she had some success selling the Senate on unspecified legislative language "that spoke to the purpose of school construction."
Whatever the real story, PelosiÂ’s members were more than a little bewildered and headed into WednesdayÂ’s nightÂ’s negotiation singing their Kumbayas through gritted teeth.
“[Senate Democrats] don’t know everything that’s in the bill,” said a laughing Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Ways and Committee. “So I’m afraid to go to that damned conference.”
Even Senate Democrats seemed a little flummoxed. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), briefing reporters after the Reid presser, stopped short of actually saying he was 100 percent sure a deal had been cut.
"There was general agreement," he said. "It doesn't mean everything is locked in yet. But if we didn't have an agreement, then there wouldn't have been a news conference."
#3
The Weehawken wooded clearing at dawn. Seconds, Wogdon & Bartons with #6 shot at four paces please. Bring plenty of extra shot and powder as neither have any decernable skill. No media or press allowed.
#5
“[Senate Democrats] don’t know everything that’s in the bill,” said a laughing Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Ways and Committee. “So I’m afraid to go to that damned conference.”
Sorry, but I do not think thats f@k'n funny. @shole.
House Republicans are challenging Speaker Nancy Pelosi's claim that the massive stimulus spending bill contains no pet projects after uncovering in the bill more than $30 million for wetlands conservation in her San Francisco Bay area district, including work she previously championed to protect the salt marsh harvest mouse.
"This sounds like spending projects that have been supported by a certain powerful Democrat in the past," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican. "It certainly doesn't sound like it will create or save American jobs," he said. "So can Speaker Pelosi explain exactly how we will improve the American economy by helping the adorable little critter?"
A spokesman for Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, said the claim was "fabricated" by Republicans. "The speaker nor her staff have had any involvement in this initiative. This is yet another contrived partisan attack," Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said. "Restoration is key to economic activity including farming, fisheries, recreation, and clean water."
#10
She's not gonna be carried out in a straight jacket. Dingel's been there for 159 years now. They were just celebrating the fact day before yesterday.
Those bastards will be there until they die of old age because their constituents will keep sending them back every two years.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009 16:00
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#11
Let em duke it out. Maybe they will both self-destruct and melt.
#12
what Fred said. I've been trying to vote out my two D-Sens from MI every time it comes up. Unfortunately the morons in the unions keep cancelling out my vote.
Mr Clooney has embarked on a long-distance relationship with Fatima Bhutto after meeting her at an international conference last year, the National Enquirer has reported. The 26-year-old is an outspoken poet and journalist born into Pakistan's greatest political dynasty who lives with her brother and step-mother in a prosperous suburb of Karachi.
Poet and journalist? Translation: she's a rich, bored parasite waiting her turn as the leader of the PPP.
America's top "supermarket tabloid" has alleged that the 47-year-old actor and political activist is smitten by the "brainy foreign beauty."
It quotes a friend of Mr Clooney's as saying: "George has courted her by phone and email, and arranged to meet her abroad when their schedules allowed.
"Now he wants her to spend time with him in Hollywood. He's still out there with his usual assortment of eye-candy hanging from his arm. But George insists those days could be coming to an end if Fatima wants to take their relationship to the next level."
Stay in Europe, honey, the boy-toys there at least can quote poetry ...
The unnamed friend added that Miss Bhutto is said to be worried about the 21-year age difference between herself and Mr Clooney. The friend said: "Fatima was educated at Columbia University [in New York] and knew of [Mr Clooney's] heart-throb rep.
"But she didn't take his advances seriously because she thought their age difference would make a serious relationship impractical."
Miss Bhutto is reported to be contesting her late aunt's former seat in the Larkana constituency in the next elections. She is also a prominent intellectual who has published a book of poetry, The Whispers of the Desert, and a memoir of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake.
Mr Clooney's father, Nick Clooney, is a famous journalist and politician in the US, and ran as a Democrat in the 2004 election for a seat in the House of Representatives.
#4
"But she didn't take his advances seriously because she thought their age difference would make a serious relationship impractical."
To say nothing about their religious differences - she worships a moon-god and he worships himself. And while he may be 'Looney Clooney' I don't think it qualifies.
#5
To say nothing about their religious differences - she worships a moon-god...
It is highly unlikely that she pays anything more than lip service to Islam. Most of the so-called elites in these countries exhibit an astonishing variability in their piousness.
#9
Mr Clooney's father, Nick Clooney, is a famous journalist and politician in the US
I'm not sure about the politician part, but Mr. Nick Clooney was an news anchor on one of the local Cincinnati television stations. It is his sister, I believe, Mr. George Clooney's aunt, who is the famous singer Rosemary Clooney.
Prince Harry has been ordered by his British army bosses to enrol in an equality course after calling a fellow officer a "Paki".
The 24-year-old is understood to have been formally disciplined by army chiefs for making the offensive remark and told he must realise his behaviour was unacceptable.
Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper reported the prince will have to attend an equality and diversity course, while the name-calling incident will be formally noted in his army record. "Harry has been subjected to normal army discipline procedures," a Clarence House spokeswoman told the newspaper.
The prince personally apologised to his former colleague, Ahmed Raza Khan, in January after a newspaper released a video made by Harry in which he calls Khan a "Paki".
Harry filmed Khan, who is now a senior soldier in Pakistan's army, and other fellow trainee soldiers three years ago while they waited to board a flight to Cyprus. He is heard to say on the video: "Ah, our little Paki friend, Ahmed."
A senior military source told the Daily Mirror that the jibe was not expected to harm Harry's military career. "Although this matter will go on Harry's record it will not go against him," the source said.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said the army had "concluded its considerations in relation to this case".
After the furore his "Paki" comments created last month, it was revealed how Harry and his father Prince Charles called an Indian polo player mate "Sooty".
Harry also found himself in hot water four years ago when he was pictured at a fancy dress party dressed in a Nazi uniform. This week it was claimed Harry told black British comic Stephen K Amos, "You don't sound like a black chap", after meeting him at Prince Charles' 60th birthday party last November.
#2
He is in trouble again. Called one of his mate's a "darkie" or something like that. Runs in the family - Prince Phillip for one.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
02/12/2009 10:07
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#3
Our little Paki friend is bad? Hyphenating a country to describe a person's background is a thing to be chastised for? I could see if he called him a rug merchant or a push starter to get a talking to but Paki seems very innocuous.
#4
This'll probably have about as much effect on him as the Diversity Awareness courses I took had on me.
But it'll make somebody fell better somewhere about something...
A LESBIAN couple who said having two IVF babies instead of one damaged their relationship have won an appeal against their doctor and been awarded $317,000 in compensation.
In the first Australian case of its kind, the Melbourne parents of the twin girls sued Canberra obstetrician Sydney Robert Armellin for implanting two embryos instead of the requested one. During the initial proceedings, the ACT Supreme Court heard that following the twins' birth, the mother had lost her capacity to love.
A little post-partum depression? Happens all the time.
The couple's relationship had also suffered as they became mired in everyday tasks associated with raising two children.
Didn't know that raising the little bundles of joy took time and effort?
The couple, whose combined income is more than $100,000, sought $398,000 from Dr Armellin to cover the costs of raising one of the girls, including fees for a private Steiner school.
Public school isn't good enough [sniff] ...
In July last year, Justice Annabelle Bennett rejected the couple's claim and ordered them to pay Dr Armellin's legal costs. The doctor had not breached his duty of care to the twin girls' birth mother and was therefore not negligent, Justice Bennett said.
But the ACT Court of Appeal has overturned that decision, ABC Television reports.
Can't let a sensible ruling stand ...
The three judges of the appeal court awarded the couple, who can't be named for legal reasons, $317,000 in damages and ordered Dr Armellin to pay their legal costs.
The IVF procedure, carried out in Canberra in November 2003, used sperm from a Danish donor.
#1
Mohammed quoted Zakir as saying Qari's decision to behead Stanczak was sound "as it would create fear amongst the nonbelievers.
Sadly, I fear he is correct. It creates vengeful anger in ME, but I seem to be in a relativly small minority now. If it was up to me, a representative Tali-town would be made to vanish each time something like this happened. That's probably poor strategy, which is why it's best not left up to me.
YUSUFALI: Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly.
PICKTHAL: Make ready for them all thou canst of (armed) force and of horses tethered, that thereby ye may dismay the enemy of Allah and your enemy, and others beside them whom ye know not. Allah knoweth them. Whatsoever ye spend in the way of Allah it will be repaid to you in full, and ye will not be wronged.
SHAKIR: And prepare against them what force you can and horses tied at the frontier, to frighten thereby the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others besides them, whom you do not know (but) Allah knows them; and whatever thing you will spend in Allah's way, it will be paid back to you fully and you shall not be dealt with unjustly.
In what is likely the first of its kind in Canada, a Toronto mosque is offering a "detox" program for young Islamic radicals who are sympathetic to the terrorist group al Qaeda.
Muhammed Robert Heft, a team member of the Specialized De-radicalization Intervention program, says the program is based on the idea that Islamic extremism can be fought by incorporating traditional teachings of the Qur'an into a "12-step Extremist Detox Program."
Among the steps in the program offered at Toronto's Masjid El Noor mosque:
* Finding common ground, "not fighting ground," with other faiths
* In the "Open society of Canada," how to reconcile "dogmatic idealism with pragmatic realism"
* Seeing the whole as one, and take into account "global challenges that affect us all."
* Actively countering extremist ideology through "education, public speaking and writing."
"As Canadians of Muslim faith, it is our ardent desire to become leaders in the championing of anti-terror values," says a document explaining the program.
Heft told CTV Newsnet's Power Play on Wednesday that among the young radical Islamic followers the mosque is hoping to counsel are members of the notorious "Toronto 18." In 2006, a series of counter-terrorism raids in the Greater Toronto Area resulted in the arrest of 18 alleged members of a purported Islamic terrorist cell plotting a variety of attacks against targets in Ontario.
That case, along with that of Ottawa's Momin Khawaja who was convicted for his role in a British terror cell, have raised concerns about home-grown terrorism.
Heft said there are many sects in Islam, and that "99.9" per cent of Islamic leaders across the country agree they must work together to combat extremism.
But he did admit there are a "small number of firebrand preachers" who try to persuade young Muslims to jump onto the extremist bandwagon.
"Unfortunately, a few emotional, Internet-surfing, like-minded individuals who do what I call 'Do-It-Yourself Islam,' find themselves getting caught up in emotion and justify getting caught up in the hate that's inside them," Heft told Power Play host Tom Clark.
"They end up falling prey to people with deviant views of the religion."
But he says if one studies the tradition of Islam, going back to the orthodox scholars, "you realize these are the teachings of Islam."
And by incorporating these teachings into the mosque's program, Heft claims he's had success converting those who formerly held radical, anti-Semitic views into "productive members of society."
He says the program has also helped disenfranchised Muslims get jobs, and to get off welfare.
Posted by: Dave UK ||
02/12/2009 7:55
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#4
We have ways, NOW FINGERPAINT!
"Today we wll be using the fingerpaint! You vill make a painting that shows people of different races and sexual orientations getting along. Figerpaint. Figerpaint! You vill not make any distinction between people of different colors! People with different sexual preferences! You vill accept everyone!"
Astonishing news on the generic ballot question. Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that Democrats are currently ahead of Republicans by only 40 percent to 39 percent. Given that this generic ballot question over the years has tended to understate Republicans' performances in actual elections, one gathers that if the 2010 election for House seats were held today, Republicans would win or come close to winning a majority of seats--which is to say, they would gain about 40 seats. By way of comparison, they gained 52 seats when they won their majority in 1994.
This result may just be a momentary blip, which will pass away as quickly as it appeared, and we are a long, long, long way from the November 2010 elections. But if I were a Democratic member of Congress in even a marginally marginal district, I would be just a little bit worried. And if I were a conservative cheerleader against the Obama/Pelosi stimulus package, I would be concentrating less of my fire against the three Republicans who supported the Senate version and more on Democratic members of the House and (at least those who are up for reelection in 2010) the Senate.
Any Republican in the House who survived 2008 isn't going to be worried about 2010. The Pubs know that Bambi isn't going to get his army of followers mobilized for a mid-term. Even if the economy doesn't tank they should pick up 20 to 30 seats and that puts them in range for 2012. The problem is the Senate, where pick-ups look to be few, if any.
#1
Tipper, as good as this news might be, I don't think the Repubs can draw an easy breath just yet.
How can I say that? It's simple. You'll know when the Obamanauts and Dems in general feel that they are in real trouble in their internal polling when they start accusing every (and I mean EVERY) critic of their policies as being motivated by racism.
That hasn't happened yet. When it does, it'll be time for R'burgers to rejoice, because you'll be certain that they are desperate enough to use the nuke.
The Dems may be dusted up, perhaps worse than they think, but not enough that they are worried.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
02/12/2009 16:11
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#2
Wait till the interest rates begin to climb and The One starts whittling away at Social Security, Medicare, and pensions.
#3
But if I were a Democratic member of Congress in even a marginally marginal district, I would be just a little bit worried.
Hence the ad campaign. Watched big monday you know why the baseball question was asked during the press conference, gave P.O. face time every commercial. The pressure is working don't give up; its how Mizz beat KU in the end (ugh).
#1
will be rewarding their financial advisers with controversial retention payments
Keeping your job is the payoff. Did I miss something that showed with the collapse of so many banks and investment firms their former employees disappeared off the face of the earth? In a capitalistic model of supply and demand, there would seem to be a lot of people with these same skills available to be hired and fewer job openings at other similar businesses. The fact that their corporations had to borrow money to stay afloat certainly indicates these are not the 'best and brightest' [why would you want to stay with a firm on the edge anyway if you were that talented?].
These employees haven't claimed be the best or the brightest but they also aren't government workers, who do claim to be the best and the brightest. It seems reasonable to pay people for performance, which is what this is.
I also see no reason for the government to bail out companies and this is an example of why it should not. Let the fit survive and the weak fail. That's the way of capitalism.
Government should not be in the business fo guaranteeing outcomes, whether to Citibank or Henrietta Hughes. They're both welfare queens as far as I'm concerned. And the donk government likes it that way.
#3
These employees haven't claimed be the best or the brightest but they also aren't government workers,..
When you take money from the Mob government, you work for the Mob government. When other governmental entities have taken federal money for decades, they all knew no matter how small the overall amount was in their operations, they had to comply with the orders from Washington. When businesses take a government contract, they have to comply with all the federal regulations. This is not new. As the courts have pointed out in a number of challenges to this modus operandi, don't take the money if you don't want the consequences.
#4
And to add insult to injury, the banks have used HIB visas to import the "best and brightest" to replace American workers at lower wages, enabling bigger "cash rewards".
#3
Besoeker; I concur. There has to be a real story leading to this. They weren't packing to knock over a store clerk, AR-15 clone w/ 30 rd mag, gloves, masks. The homeowner had overlapping high quality security cameras and his own firearm readily available and ready for use. This was not "accidental".
#1
I clicked through, and as far as I can tell he's bashing LGF for how LGF covered the Geert Wilders matter.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Posted by: Mike ||
02/12/2009 7:16
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Mike, there appears to be a war amongst the right wing bloggers, at this stage it appears to be Charles Johnson V's the rest. See this post on LGF as an example
#4
Scooter, everyone rejects any association with Fascists, neo or otherwise, but methinks Charles is showing signs of mental disorder, witness his obsession with evolutionary theory and creationist. Personally when I find people carrying on about issues like that in a monomaniacal manner, I just sigh and think how sad, another cost to the mental health care system coming up.
#5
I also agree with Charles and applaud his principled stand. We do indeed all reject any association with fascists: they're just the other side of the coin from the communists and progressives. Nationalism and progressivism are dead-end ideologies.
Charles sees the creationist nonsense as just another type of fascist nonsense. He might be right or wrong, but here again, I agree with his stand: intelligent design is nonsense if considered as science.
I might also note that Charles, with all his other skills, is very shrewd in the building and marketing of his blog. He's figured out how to bang a drum loudly on a few key subjects and he's very good at it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2009 10:02
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#6
I'm not sure that I agree with the people siding with Charles on this one.
It seems to me that calling Wilders a fascist is over the top and smacks of Bush fascist. Nationalists are not necessarily fascist and many of those currently tagged with the F word aren't. The tag was put on by the LLLs and I think it would behoove us to be careful lest we fall for the left wing "conventional wisdom".
In the particular case of Wilders what are his fascist positions? Is he a fascist because he wants to cut down/out Muslim immigration? because he wants to ban the Koran? If the latter, does that make those who have banned Mein Kampf fascist too?
#7
FWIW, Charles lost me when he insisted he knew more about European politics, based on a tour or two there as a musician, than people like Bat Y'eor, more about Islam than Robert Spencer etc.
He's a blow hard whose ego expands every time he's proven wrong or ill-informed. This particular dead horse started when Europeans began meeting to try to figure out a political solution to the rapid suppression of all but pro-Islamicist opinions on the Continent. He was a) not invited and b) annoyed that they had the audacity to take the advice of speakers with PhDs in recent European history, those who grew up under Islam, etc. rather than his own, obviously more enlightened, insights.
Pfeh.
And no, I'm not exactly in the Adam-and-Eve-played-with-dinosaurs camp either. But Johnson has just gone way beyond his expertise on most of these issues, while growing more and more strident and hostile to critics.
#8
LGF is still the best. I'll tell you why Charles refers to Wilders as fascist. It's Wilders desire to see both the Koran and Islam banned. That is fascism plain and simple.
As for the creationist/intelligent design crap, I'm with him 100%. If that crap ever got put in a school my kids were in I'd sue. I believe in God and I believe he created the universe, but if you are a young earther or other assorted looney you can respectfully keep that crap out of the class room thank you very much. Most of his heat on that issue is fundamentalist Christian nitwads thinking he's bashing Christianity when in reality it is very specific, backwards strain that he's against. God gave us gifts and you truly have turn away from the gifts God gave us to believe any of that creationist horseshit.
#9
Wilders does not want Islam or the Koran banned if the coercive verses are excised from the Koran or declared abrogated. Likewise he feels Islam can stay if it isn't coercive.
If we substitute the words "National Socialism" and "Mein Kaumf", you can see the issue more clearly.
#10
What do Charles Johnson and Al Gore have in common? I'll tell you at the end of this post.
I find it hard to understand how Charles Johnson, as someone who understands computer programming, can not understand why Darwin's principles and creationism are not mutually exclusive. Does he not think that most computer programs today can not be traced back to their roots in basic and Fortran? Is that not intelligent design and evolution working together? Does not the Roomba "genetically evolve" as each new model comes out? Do the programmers not fix what was wrong with the previous models or adapt the newer models to differing purposes such as the scooba? Each computer program and each robot can trace its beginnings back to the beginning of computer programming...ie: intelligent design and evolution.
It just seems to me that a computer programer should be able to grasp the concept that intelligent design and evolution are logical and natural.
Those of you who scoff at the idea of creationism as if you have some sort of superior understanding, I would say, Oh really? How do you explain the big bang theory? That there was nothing and then suddenly a spark in a pure vacuum created something? It's laughable on its face. No matter how overeducated you are to THINK you understand it, the fact is that you can't understand what is not comprehensible. So quite pretending that you are somehow more enlightened because you believe in an unprovable theory. It simply is not provable because it is beyond human ability (at least at this point in human history) to understand how nothing became something. To say you understand it is folly.
Yes, some of the creationist/intelligent design people may be attempting to get religion in a back door. But that isn't the point, is it? The point is that one side, the Darwin anti-creationist people are attempting, like the Muslims and liberals often do, to silence any discussion of alternative points of view from their own beliefs. It's never good to silence discussion. Why can't the creationists have their ideas discussed in a textbook too? What happened to allowing free speech and open discussion and the pros and cons of those ideas?
To me, thos who refuse to allow discussion are the ones crushing scientific discovery. And please don't tell me that some fanatics have some crazy ideas. Sure they do. But why is it that creationism and intelligent design, beliefs held by the majority of people in the world (most people do believe in a higher power) are simply off limits of even DISCUSSION because a number of little science Nazi's have decided that the debate is over and everyone agrees?
Is that not exactly the same as the global warming debate? "It's been decided and the debate is over and I can point to a number of scientists who agree with me". That is what Al Gore and Charles Johnson have in common. Their belief that debate is simply over and if you don't agree with them, you are crazy, bad and worthy of contempt.
What I don't understand is how Charles Johnson can see this in Al Gore, but not see this in himself. Get a mirror, Charles.
#11
Charles Johnson is a disgusting piece of trash. For one simple reason. If anyone who has a user id and password allowing that individual to post, and that person posts an opposing comment to his positions on creationism, etc., and that individual is posting strong and effective information to support their position, he immediately bans that individual. To which many, many commenters have been banned that have posted strong arguments countering his positions on these issues.
That makes Charles Johnson the very type of FACIST he claims to be against....
#14
Guys, you are forgetting one basic thing. The site belongs to Charles and he can do pretty much whatever he wants with it without checking with any of us first. Fred could do the same with Rantburg if he felt like it.
I could care less about the whole creationist thing he's gone off on lately. But it is still his blog, not mine. No one is forcing us to read it. Your life will not come to an end if he bans you. I doubt you will get fired, your significant other will leave you, or your mortgage rate will get hiked if you get banned.
A Stockholm woman has reported an adult education college in Spånga to the Equality Ombudsman (DO) after being told that she could not wear an Islamic headscarf in class.
The woman was told on January 15th that she was no longer welcome at Västerort Vuxengymnasium, an adult education college in Spånga, if she persisted in wearing her niqab. The niqab is part of a hijab headress and covers the entire face except for the eyes. The woman has now reported the matter to the Equality Ombudsman (DO) alleging discrimination.
In her report to DO dated January 20th, the woman alleges that she was told that she could not wear her niqab in class or in contact with the school's staff. The woman explains that the school justified its decision by referring to a recent decision by the National Agency for Education (Skolverket) which banned the wearing of some Muslim headscarves in class. "But this is just a ruling, it is not a law and the ruling concerns those who wear a burqa, covering the whole face. I have a niqab which shows the area around the eyes," the woman argued.
The woman writes that she finds it "offensive" to be expelled for her "personal style" and argues that the ruling is confusing as some schools permit the niqab. But the college's rector, Britt-Marie Johansson, has defended the school's right to exclude the student from classes, referring to the education agency's ruling.
"At Västerorts vux it is not allowed in the classroom to cover one's face, with a veil or similar. This rule also applies in contact with staff. This means that neither a niqab nor a burqa can be worn." According to Johansson, the choice facing students is thus clear. "Accept the rules stated above or discontinue your studies."
But the student is keen to continue her studies and claims that she has offered the school a compromise. "I have said that I can sit at the front of the class, and remove the niqab during classes and to identify myself. I have even spoken to the men in the class...and they have said that it doesn't bother them." The student argues that freedom of religion is enshrined in law in Sweden and this should take precedence over the education agency ruling.
Three policemen, including a district deputy chief, were killed and another was seriously injured when terrorists suspected insurgents detonated a roadside bomb in the restive southern Thai province of Pattani Thursday morning.
An army spokesman said the incident happened around 8.40am when the police team was returning to the Nong Chik police station after escorting teachers to school. He said that while passing the Ban Prang village, located about 20km from the Pattani town, the bullet-proof pick-up carrying the policemen was hit by the bomb, believed to have been detonated using wires by insurgents hiding in nearby padi field. Nong Chik deputy police chief Pol. Col. Yuthakarn Plianpho and two of his subordinates were killed while another was rushed to the Pattani Hospital with serious injury.
"We believe the terrorists insurgents had been monitoring the escort team's movement for a few days as they used the same road while escorting the teachers," he said when contacted.
Also in Pattani, a 40-year-old Muslim deputy village chief was gunned down in a drive-by attack late on Wednesday, shortly after two other men, aged 29 and 45, were shot dead in front of a school nearby.
Aswat al-Iraq: An Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) leader on Wednesday was killed by unknown gunmen in western Mosul, according to a local police source. "On Wednesday evening, unidentified gunmen assassinated Ahmed Fathi al-Jabouri, an IIP leader, in al-Islah al-Ziraie area, western Mosul," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "Jabouri was shot down while leaving al-Abadi mosque after performing the al-Maghrib (sunset) prayers. The gunmen shot him in the head before fleeing the scene," the source added.
Posted by: Fred ||
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A functioning commercial satellite owned by a U.S. company was destroyed in what is believed to be the first ever in-orbit collision with another satellite, according to industry officials familiar with the details.
The crash, which happened Tuesday in low-earth orbit, involved one of the satellites owned by closely held Iridium Satellite LLC and a defunct Russian spy satellite. The Russian craft was spinning out of control, industry officials said, and was being monitored by Pentagon organizations that keep track of space debris and prevent in-orbit collisions from damaging or destroying both commercial and government satellites.
Iridium, Bethesda, Md., which provides voice and data services for more than 300,000 subscribers globally, said one of its spacecraft suffered a collision with a "non-operational Russian satellite," and was lost. The company said the event "has minimal impact on Iridium's service" and its remaining constellation "is healthy." The company's more than 60 satellites include backup capacity in orbit designed to withstand the loss of a single satellite.
While Pentagon brass, satellite industry executives and NASA leaders for years have publicly expressed concern about the dangers of orbital debris, there has been less concern about potential collisions between satellites. That's because the ground-based and space-based reconnaissance tools available to the Pentagon generally were considered adequate to keep close track of larger objects.
When satellites reach the end of their useful lives, they often are parked in remote orbits where they are unlikely to endanger working satellites, and sometimes they are pulled out of orbit and sent to burn up while re-entering the atmosphere. But if a satellite's onboard computers or other systems fail, or it runs out of battery power, it can be difficult for ground operators to maintain control. Without such orders from the ground, satellites can act unpredictably and move around erratically.
Iridium is analyzing whether the debris may impact its remaining fleet.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2009
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#3
Russia incurs liability for its junk? anyone know the legal recourse of one nations junk interrupting another nations/enterprises working systems....seems like russia would be liable for current and future loss of income. iridium spokesperson should take a different tact than the reply given.
Exchange of fire between security forces and militants continues in separate parts of Swat Valley, sources said on Wednesday. According to sources, militants lodged rocket attacks on security forcesÂ' camps located in various parts of valley, which followed intensive exchange of fire between forces and militants. Clashes were also reported in various other parts of valley including Syedo Sharif Airport, Matta Police Station, Kanjo Police Checkpoint and Takna Agriculture Research Farm. A militant was killed amid skirmishes with security forces in Takna Agriculture Research Farm, sources added.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Two criminals were killed in a gunfight between army men and criminals in a remote hilly area in Ruma upazila yesterday evening.
Local sources said on Tuesday night members of armed forces splitting into several groups cordoned Paindu Khal area and started combing operation to hunt the criminals following abduction of an indigenous youth.
While yesterday's operation was going on, the criminals opened fire on one of the army groups who retaliated it that ensued a gunfight in the hilly area, about 2.5-km off Munnam village, in the evening, sources at the security forces said.
Two unidentified criminals were killed and an army man received bullet wounds during the firing, the sources confirmed.
After the gunfight, army men recovered some arms and ammunition include one AK-47 rifle, one G-3 rifle and some ammunition.
An indigenous man told The Daily Star that they heard sounds of several round of gunshots at about 6:00 pm yesterday.
Body of one criminal was recovered but another yet to be recovered because of darkness at night, said the army source adding army men were cordoning the area.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Aswat al-Iraq: An assistant director of a local department in Ninewa's Mosul city was detained on charges of financing armed groups, an army source said on Wednesday. "A force from the third Brigade of the Quick Intervention Corps (QIC) arrested the assistant director of the Social Care Department in Ninewa, alongside his son, in al-Sukar neighborhood, northern Mosul," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "Investigations are currently underway," the source added.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
I bet they wish they had been picked up by the Americans.
#2
No, Tip, if the Americans had them, the FBI might be torturing them by making them watch pron with naked female agents (and since Janet Reno's not head of Justice anymore, so it wouldn't be her, or it would be ok.)
Aswat al-Iraq: Three policemen were killed when gunmen attacked their patrol in eastern Mosul, a source from Ninewa police said on Wednesday. "The armed men opened fire on the policemen's patrol in al-Dargazliya neighborhood, eastern Mosul," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "The gunmen were walking when they opened fire on the stationed police patrol, killing three of the patrol's personnel," he said. The source pointed out that the armed men were able to escape after launching the attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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Five attackers who targeted the Afghan Justice Ministry building amid a wave of coordinated suicide attacks on Wednesday had contacted Pakistan shortly before being shot dead, the Afghan intelligence chief said. Mobile phones found at the scene showed the attackers had "sent three messages to Pakistan calling for the blessings of their mastermind" as they entered the building, Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh said. All five attackers were shot dead, the Defence Ministry said. The five attackers were aged between 20 to 25, Saleh said, praising the security forces for thwarting an attack that may have lasted "several hours, several days".
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
placed calls to their bosses at the ISI did they?
#3
CO, yeah, but with praying mantises, it's the female who kills the male.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/12/2009 18:33
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#4
Spiders, too. Again the female eating the male. In some species being eaten is necessary for fertilization to take place, I believe. And the extra protein gives the mother more strength to lay eggs or something.
Russia could offer its military aircraft to help supply NATO-led soldiers fighting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said.
The Kremlin views Afghanistan as an area where Russian interests coincide with those of the United States, despite fierce disagreements on other issues.
When asked about ways to improve ties with the United States under new President Barack Obama, Lavrov said Russia was ready for close and wide cooperation on Afghanistan.
"Nonmilitary transit has already been granted as part of our agreements with NATO and the United States very recently received our agreement...for delivery of their cargoes for the needs of the international forces," Lavrov said.
"Additional steps are also possible," Lavrov said at a news briefing with European Union foreign policy chiefs in Moscow. "I would remind you that in April and May of last year we discussed with our NATO colleagues an agreement on the use of Russian military transport aviation for the needs of the international forces. There could be other agreements too."
"As President [Dmitry] Medvedev confirmed again recently, we are ready for the very closest and very widest cooperation on Afghanistan," Lavrov said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#2
Raj,
At least if a Russian aircraft is forced down there are plenty of (burned and weathered) spare parts scattered around the mountains to try to make repairs with.
BNP Secretary General Khandaker Delwar Hossain yesterday said the proposed anti-terrorism South Asian taskforce to prevent militancy and terrorism in the region is 'unnecessary' and warned that it would be 'suicidal' for the country.
"Any bilateral system in the name of forming South Asian task force may create a new crisis. Even the growing terrorist activities of other countries may be extended to our country which couldn't be accepted," he said at a press briefing at party chairperson's Gulshan office.
He believes that law enforcing agencies, including armed forces, are enough to free the country from terrorism and militancy.
Delwar urged the countrymen to be aware of the issue and take preparation for resisting the move from forming the task force. He said it is a logical apprehension made by some political scientists and economists that Bangladesh might be turned into 'Gaza Valley' due to the proposed task force.
When asked whether they (BNP) know about the taskforce or not, he said, "I don't know any concrete information relating to the taskforce and that is why we have demanded disclosure of all the facts in this regard."
Replying to a query, Delwar criticized Foreign Minister Dipu Moni for keeping her mum when an Indian journalist termed Bangladesh as a 'buffer state' during joint press conference with Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
"We had said before that 1/11 was a conspiracy to establish a puppet government in the country and as a minister of a puppet government, how can she [foreign minister] understand the meaning of this question by which the Indian journalist defamed our country," he raised a counter question.
During the briefing, the BNP leader congratulated newly elected President Zillur Rahman and said, "We hope that the new president will conduct his activities as per the constitution, law and justice what he promised to the nation."
Party's Joint Secretary General Nazrul Islam Khan, former lawmaker Shamsuzzaman Dudu, Ilyas Ali, Khairul Kabir Khokon and Shiril Sultana and party office secretary Rizvi Ahmed, among others, were present.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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"This shows that the Zionist voters clearly start choosing the one who is most extreme in his speech, the one who wants war with the Palestinians," Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas official, told Al-Jazeera.
"This troika, this trio of terrorism of Lieberman, Livni and Netanyahu chose the dramatic development in Israeli society towards terror."
Speaking from Beirut, Osama Hamdan, another senior Hamas official, said "both sides are working against Hamas, against the Palestinians", but Netanyahu and the right-wing was doing it in a way "that cannot be defended."
He said that Livni was doing it in a "very soft way so it can be defended by the West and the United States".
A right-wing Israeli government could dampen prospects for Egyptian-led attempts to broker a truce between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers after Israel's devastating offensive in Gaza last month.
It is also likely to delay the possibility of a lasting settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
President Mahmoud Abbas said that however far-right the Israeli government were to go, pragmatism would trump ideology.
"The ascent of the Israeli right does not worry us," he told Italy's La Repubblica newspaper. "In whatever form, the government, once in power, will ultimately end up with responsibility, pragmatism prevailing."
Saeb Erekat, a top negotiator for the PA, told Al-Jazeera that there was little chance of a peace deal with a government comprising the parties elected on Tuesday.
"Any form of government as a result of these elections will not accept the two state solution, they will not accept the agreements signed, they will continue with the settlements activities and the incursions and the attacks," Erekat said.
"I think we will conside them an un-partner," he said.
It is up to President Shimon Peres to decide whether Livni or Netanyahu should have the first shot at forming a government. Peres will meet with party leaders to hear their recommendations, and then has a week to make up his mind.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
Let us hope that Hamas is right about this.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
02/12/2009 10:29
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#2
Arafat Ali: Would you say they have a troika of terrorism?
Mushid: A what?
Arafat Ali: A *troika*.
Mushid: Oh yes, they have a troika.
Arafat Ali: Jefe, what is a troika?
Mushid: Why, Arafat Ali?
Arafat Ali: Well, you told me they have a troika of terrorism. And I just would like to know if you know what a troika is. I would not like to think that a person would tell someone that the juice (sic) have a troika of terrorism, and then find out that that person has *no idea* what it means to have a troika of terrorism.
Mushid: Forgive me, Arafat Ali. I know that I, Mushid, do not have your superior burrowing or goat selection abilities. But could it be that once again, you are angry at something else, and are looking to take it out on me?
Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has taken security measures against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels in northern Iraq.
The government has imposed a security blockade around the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq to control PKK rebels' activities in the region, said Qubad Talabani, KRG's representative to the United States who is also the son of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
"To implement measures, we have created a security belt around the Qandil Mountains," he told a panel at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Relations between the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq and Ankara soured over PKK activities, as Turkish officials blamed the KRG for providing a safe haven for the militants.
PKK militants who have been blacklisted as a terrorist organization by the international community are holed up in mountainous areas inside Iraq, using the region as a launch pad for mounting attacks against Turkish troops.
The activities of the outlawed group have prompted Turkish authorities to launch cross-border operations against the PKK.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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China will continue to buy US Treasury bonds even though it knows the dollar will depreciate because such investments remain its “only option” in a perilous world, a senior Chinese banking regulator said on Wednesday. China has used the dollars it accumulates selling manufactured goods to US consumers to accumulate the world’s largest holding of Treasuries. However, the increasing US budget deficit and its potential impact on the dollar have raised questions about the future Chinese appetite for US debt.
Luo Ping, a director-general at the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said after a speech in New York on Wednesday that China would continue to buy Treasuries in spite of its misgivings about US finances. “Except for US Treasuries, what can you hold?” he asked. “Gold? You don’t hold Japanese government bonds or UK bonds. US Treasuries are the safe haven. For everyone, including China, it is the only option.”
Mr Luo, whose English tends toward the colloquial, added: “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion [$1,000bn-$2,000bn] . . .we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do.”
However, Mr Luo said Chinese officials would encourage its banks to finance domestic mergers and acquisitions rather than provide rescue finance to distressed financial companies in other countries: “There will be no bottom-fishing of financial institutions, particularly in the US, because there is a lot of uncertainty about the quality of the books.”
Mr Luo said China intends to maintain its separation of investment and commercial banking based on its observations of the US after repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that enforced a similar division of banking activities.
“To some extent, Glass-Steagall has fuelled the crisis,” Mr Luo said. “The separation of commercial and investment banking is likely to stay longer [in China] than before.” Like senior financial officials in other developing nations – such as Mohammad Al Jasser, vice-governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency – Mr Luo also spoke out against what he called America’s laissez-faire capitalism.
“Government ownership was viewed as something negative but the pendulum is swinging the other way. Perhaps banking is [no different from] public utilities where government participation is necessary,” he said. “Deregulation in the US has gone a little bit too far. The market can’t be omnipotent.”
No, what went too far was the crooked politicians in our country feeding off the housing market, the crooked raters who called mortgage tranches 'AAA' when they were crap, the crooked bond salesmen who sold them, and the crooked insurance people who insured against default. Had the politicians been honest, the market the necessary information and had investors used their heads this wouldn't have happened.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2009
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#1
Must we learn economics from a nation that uses slave labor, or does it really matter since we appear to be..... "too big to fail?"
#2
..does it really matter since we appear to be..... "too big to fail?"
For now. However, what ever you think of the Chinese, they do appear to be fast learners who are not hobbled by over regulation and lawyers [or the dire need to bring pork back home to the district]. Darwin's thesis is that successful 'adaptation' to environment is the key to long term survival of an entity. The Chinese do appear to be both pragmatic enough and in possession of long term vision to alter that state 'for now' in a number of generations. It's their own internal structural issues that they need to address to allow it to happen.
#3
If they don't buy them demand drops considerably, the price drops, the value of the ones they already hold drop, no? They don't really have a choice do they?
#4
It doesn't matter if they continue to buy them. All else being equal, they would need to more than double the *rate* at which they buy them, *and* other bond holders, especially Japan, would have to not continue to sell their bonds as well.
At this point, the Chinese are reinforcing defeat, hoping not to lose what they have already invested. They're too late.
#5
They don't buy them, we don't buy what their factories make. Their problem. Borrow $5,000 you've got a creditor. Borrow a trillion, you've got a partner.
#6
Hellish, "If they don't buy them demand drops considerably, the price drops, "
As I understand it, the current rate on bonds is virtually 0%. Given that, why is there any demand at all?
The best I can come up with is that T-bills are the mattress under which the Chinese are hiding their cash. It's not going to earn a thing, but, they figure that they can always get the principle back.
That must mean that they figure every other investment is worse, no?
#7
So, like it or not, we and the Chicoms are in this together. I think that with the out of control debt that Congress made, we are both trying to muddle through. This is not good policy for the world's largest economy.
We have 2 years before we have a slim chance of turning this whole economic mess around with the Congressional elections in 2010. The question is: how close to the tipping point are we?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/12/2009 11:19
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Moose is right. China will take a hammering on it's US treasury holdings. Buying more would be like a gambler doubling up in order to get out of the hole.
2009, the year countries went bust.
As a practical matter, you are bust when no one will lend you more money.
#9
$2 trillion in US bonds is a damn good reason for the Chinese to not let the Yuan float. However, there is no way they can soak up a likely $2 trillion 2009 US gov deficit, so the dollar will have to (free?) fall against floating currencies.
And so goes the Yuan. Import costs will dramatically rise while exports will fall in this economy, leading to Chinese (and even larger US) trade deficits and more wealth being sucked out of both economies. So the Chinese can take their medicine now or take a larger dose later.
Posted by: ed ||
02/12/2009 17:20
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#2
I usually am quite content and happy w/the fine choices of female form you lads pick to grace the cover of the RDS&TP. Sadly, I'm just not feeling this one.
Here is a link to the page with the picture of the dreaded Mutant Rantburg. He's trying to pluck her feathers!
The caption reads:
Es asà como en Alemania protagoniza la pelÃcula Pandoras´s Box (1928), en la cual su imagen se inmortaliza en el mundo del celuloide. En esta cinta Lousie interpreta a Lulú, una vampiresa sexual que acaba siendo asesinada por Jack el Destripador, sin antes arrastrar con sus encantos a todos sus amantes a la “perdición”.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/12/2009 13:01
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#10
Redneck:
In Germany she stars in the film Pandoras Box (1928), in which this image is immortalized in the world of celluloid. In this tape Lousie plays Lulu, a sexual vamp who turns out to be murdered by Jack the Ripper, without dragging, its charms all their fans to hell.
#11
Thanks for the translation Golf Bravo, I appreciate it.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/12/2009 15:33
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#12
Redneck:
The next paragraph translates to:
The film was not free of controversy, because it shows sexuality never before played on the screen and suggests for the first time that l3sbianism in those years was still shocking. No doubt the film would not been strange today, where the diversity of sexual orientation are the main "hook" of film and other consumer products.
Lulu admitted to l3sbian dalliances including a one night stand with Greta Garbo.
Six more people, including five suspected militants and a soldier, were killed and several others were injured in clashes and bombing by the Pakistan Air Force fighter planes in Bajaur on Wednesday. Also, militants threatened to target educational institutions occupied by security forces.
The military sources said the warplanes pounded positions of militants in Inayat Killay, Bhai Cheena and Mamond subdivision, a stronghold of the tribal militants led by TTP deputy chief Maulvi Faqir Muhammad.
The sources said the troops had also cleared major parts of Inayat Killay and Bhai Cheena towns of militants, where the terrorists had established posts and were offering a tough resistance to security forces.
Independent sources reported fierce fighting between the militants and security forces around Inayat Killay in which officials said five militants and a soldier were killed.
Militant positions in the Mamond Tehsil were also targeted with artillery and mortar guns from Bajaur's regional headquarters, Khar. Suspected militants reportedly fired rockets at Khar Tehsil, where a mortar fell in a residential area, killing a woman and a child.
Meanwhile, the authorities announced relaxation in curfew from 8 am to 4 pm today (Thursday) from Khar to Faja, Yousafabad and Shandaymor. The curfew has caused great hardships to tribesmen and also created shortage of food and other edible items in the militancy-hit Bajaur agency.
On the other hand, TTP spokesman Maulvi Omar called The News and threatened to launch attacks on educational institutions which security forces had been using as base camps. He gave a three-day deadline to the troops to vacate the schools or the militants of Bajaur, like their fellow militants in Swat, would start attacks on schools being occupied by the armed forces. Omar also threatened to target government installations and security forces if the military operation was not stopped in the agency.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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The chief of the banned outfit Ansarul Islam (AI), Qazi Mehboobul Haq, Wednesday claimed to have taken the complete control of Bar Qambar Khel after burning several houses of the opponents at remote Tirah Valley in Khyber Agency.
Addressing on his private FM radio, he said the flag of AI was hoisting on Tortoot of Bara tehsil adjacent to Satho area of Kurram Agency, as the area of Qambarkhel came under the control of his group. Mehboob said a cache of sophisticated arms and ammunition left by the opponents at Toray seminary was seized. He said the houses of the people who voluntarily migrated from Tirah Qambarkhel would not be demolished.
This article starring:
Ansarul Islam
Qazi Mehboobul Haq
Ansarul Islam
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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Top|| File under: Lashkar-e-Islami
#1
Why does Pakistan Army/Govt want the Western frontiers full of Jihadis?
Are they scared the US/India might attack from Afganistan?
Aswat al-Iraq: Casualties from the car bomb blast that occurred earlier today in southwestern Baghdad have reached 42, according to an official source. "The toll has reached 10 dead and 32 wounded," an official spokesperson for Baghdad's Operations Command (BOC), Qassem Ata, told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. Earlier today, a source from the Iraqi Ministry of Interior said that a parked car bomb detonated near a parking lot in al-Biyaa, southwestern Baghdad, killing three civilians and wounding 20 others, according to an initial count.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on Wednesday named Kim Yong Chun, vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, to new minister of the People's Armed Forces, the country's official media reported. The Korean Central News Agency also said the leader also appointed Korean People's Army Gen. Ri Yong Ho to new chief of the KPA General Staff. The old guys "retired" did they? Maybe he was invited to dinner ...
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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One police official was killed while three others were left injured in Darra Pezu area in Lakki Marwat as unknown gunmen opened fire on police mobile van on Wednesday, police sources reported.
According to police sources, gunmen opened fire, on mobile van as police were conducting routine patrol near Indus Highway post office, killing one and leaving three wounded.
Deceased police constable, Muhammad Qadir, succumbed to his bullet injuries and died on the spot while injured, ISI Muhammad Ali, police constable Muhammad Iqbal and Hayat Ullah, were shifted to hospital for medical care, sources added.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate approved William Lynn, a former Raytheon Co lobbyist, to be deputy secretary of defense after he received a special White House waiver from strict new rules meant to close a "revolving door" between government and big business. Lynn, the Pentagon's chief financial officer from November 1997 to January 2001 under former President Bill Clinton, was confirmed by a vote of 93 to 4 on Wednesday.
At Raytheon, the world's biggest missile-maker and the Pentagon's No. 6 supplier by sales, he was registered as the company's top lobbyist to the Defense Department from July 2002 until last year.
President Barack Obama's new ethics rules bar lobbyists for two years from working as appointees on matters they had lobbied about. The White House Office of Management and Budget gave Lynn a waiver to further "the public interest."
Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican noted for holding federal officials to account, deplored Lynn's nomination in a floor speech before the vote. "I think the Office of Government Ethics will have to set up a full-time department just to handle Mr. Lynn's conflicts-of-interest Raytheon waivers," said Grassley, who voted against confirmation.
Lynn has said he will steer clear for a year of decisions involving six big arms programs on which he lobbied on behalf of Raytheon. They are the DDG-1000 multi-mission combat ship, Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air missile, F-15 airborne radar, Patriot missile "Pure Fleet" modernization, the National Reconnaissance Office's Future Imagery Architecture, and the Missile Defense Agency's Multiple Kill Vehicle.
How much can he do then?
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2009
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#1
Within the beltway, saying you are a "former lobbyist" is like saying you are former consumer of oxygen. Neeeeeext!
Sudan must work with the International Criminal Court whatever it decides regarding a possible arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir over Darfur, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday.
"He should fully cooperate with whatever decisions the ICC makes," Ban told reporters at a news conference.
Last year chief ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo asked the court's judges to indict Bashir for orchestrating what he described as a campaign of genocide in Sudan's western Darfur region that killed 35,000 people in 2003 and at least another 100,000 through starvation and disease.
Sudan rejects the term genocide and says 10,000 people died in the conflict. U.N. officials say at least 2.5 million were left homeless and put the death toll as high as 300,000.
U.N. diplomats say the judges will likely decide in favor of indictment and announce their decision this month.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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#1
The men in blue and their invisible army insist on it. Why they might even go so far as to think about lodging a protest.
President Robert Mugabe swore in his longtime rival as prime minister Wednesday, cracking his nearly three-decade stranglehold on power and conceding they must work together to rescue Zimbabwe from economic and humanitarian disaster.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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#1
I suggest strongly
1 a bulletproof vest
2 a very loyal bodyguard, (Two would be better, to watch each other)
3 A huge life insurance policy(Such as "When my heart stops beating , so does yours kind)
4 a very fast helicopter on instant standby, (Either for Ambulance runs, or as an Escape vehicle.)
5 Good luck, you're gonna need it.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/12/2009 12:08
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#2
Does that mean he still doesn't get a beat'n?
Posted by: Grolush Darling of the Hatfields3195 ||
02/12/2009 12:47
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US Special Representative on Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke met military and civilian leaders on Wednesday to discuss operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the Tribal Areas, and pledged 'all out US assistance' to help Pakistan maintain law and order in NWFP. He was also flown over Bajaur Agency, Darra Adam Khel and Khyber Agency for an aerial view of the areas, said officials. Holbrooke separately called on Peshawar Corps Commander Lt Gen Muhammad Masood Aslam and NWFP Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani to discuss the situation in the Tribal Areas, the officials told Daily Times. His assurance to help Pakistan rein in the Taliban came at his meeting with Ghani. US embassy spokesman Lou Fintor declined to give details of Holbrooke's meetings. The envoy also visited Landikotal, and later flew to Lahore.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and hawkish ex-premier Benjamin Netanyahu were locked in a battle for power on Wednesday after a photo-finish election that could send peace talks into limbo.
Livni's centrist Kadima party won 28 seats in the 120-member parliament, just one ahead of Netanyahu's Likud party, leaving the country facing perhaps weeks of political uncertainty. Avigdor Lieberman's ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party came in third with 15 seats -- it's best-ever showing -- and the centre-left Labor party fell to 13, its worst performance in any Israeli election. The ultra-Orthodox Shas party came in fifth with 11 seats.
Analysts said the country was as split as the Palestinians and the prospects of the two making peace were dimmer than ever.
Centrist Tzipi Livni's Kadima party won the most votes but had little chance of building enough support for a coalition. Right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu can get the support, but analysts said the likely coalition would prove dysfunctional.
"I won," read the headline of the country's biggest newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, over photos of both leaders.
President Shimon Peres must now decide whether to call on Livni or Netanyahu, who then has 42 days to form a government. He is expected to begin talks next week.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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#1
ION FREEREPUBLIC > SYRIA IS ARMING TERRORISTS AGZ THE US SIXTH FLEET.
Aswat al-Iraq: Army forces have arrested two leaders from the self-styled "Islamic State of Iraq" in eastern Mosul, an army source said on Wednesday. "On Wednesday, a force from the third Brigade of the Quick Intervention Corps (QIC) arrested two leaders from the so-called 'Islamic State of Iraq' in Mosul's eastern neighborhood of al-Zahraa," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "Intelligence reports have led to their whereabouts," the source noted, adding that the leaders were arrested in two separate houses in the same area.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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#1
no divine intervention from Allan on this one huh? If there was a head-to-head stupidity contest I'm not sure if 57% of the American electorate or the Brave Lions of Islamy thingy would win.
#1
I looked at the trailer and read some of the background and the website. I don't see how a 6'2" man who served in the military can keep a dry eye during this movie. I had a hard enough time just trying to read the information
Posted by: Art ||
02/12/2009 10:03
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#2
I'm suspicious about this movie because I just can't believe that Hollywood is capable of doing justice to the memory of a true hero. I'm going to wait until others see it first and give a review. I'm afraid that ultimately this will just be another sermon on the futility of war. Nothing would be worse than allowing Hollywood swine to profit off a good man's death for their own cynical purpose.
#3
I briefly served with LtCol. Strobel back in the late 80's/early 90's. He's an honorable man and evertything you'd think a Marine should be. I've done some reading on this film and Mike and the family were very adamant that the film stay true to the real story and the memory of Chance.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
02/12/2009 17:00
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Oil prices have fallen for the second day after new government data showed surging crude stockpiles and low demand in the US.
On Wednesday, New York's light sweet crude for March delivery shed 1.61 dollars from its closing price on Tuesday to 35.94 dollars per barrel. Brent North Sea crude for delivery in March fell 33 cents to 44.28 dollars a barrel in London.
The US Department of Energy (DoE) said in a report on Wednesday that American crude stockpiles soared by 4.7 million barrels in the week ending February 6. That was higher than market expectations of a 3.0-million-barrel gain.
Oil prices remain at weak levels after posting record highs above 147 dollars last year following fears of supply disruptions.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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#1
yet the price of refined gasoline continues to rise and my local pump prices jumped almost fifteen cents in the last 48 hours.
#2
You can thank Congress for some of that : "special blends" for anti-smog worries, and the fact that certain refineries have been running flat out and are now shutdown for maintenance. Believe me, you WANT refineries to have their maintenance -- otherwise, all sort of nasty and even catastrophic accidents start happening.
#3
Friend and I were having a discussion about this last night. Thesis was that as people drive less the price of gas goes up so that companies can make payroll/maintenance expenses. Already see it with less traffic on turnpikes equaling increased fares. The commuters (middle class?) takes this hit.
Second was that if *snap* everyone is 5% more energy efficient in buildings the electicity rate would increase so they could make payroll/maintenance.
You hit the nail on the head. When we went on water rationing a few years ago, the same thing happened, they raised the rates to cover costs. When we went off rationing the rates stayed up. Now we are on rationing again a I expect another raise in rates any day.
BAGHDAD - Iraq will reopen later this month its renowned national museum, home to priceless artefacts plundered in the unchecked chaos following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, an Iraqi minister said. The long-awaited reopening marks a milestone in the governmentÂ’s efforts to retrieve and preserve artefacts and archaeological sites from IraqÂ’s history after almost six years of theft, destruction and violence.
The country is said to be the site of the ‘cradle of civilisation’, the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and the looting of relics—some thousands of years old—was seen as a tragedy for Iraq and for the world.
Qahtan al-Jibouri, IraqÂ’s minister of state for tourism and antiquities, said the government had been renovating the museum in central Baghdad for several months and planned to open its doors to the public before the end of February.
The museum and other archaeological sites will be protected by a newly formed Interior Ministry force called the “relics protection force,” Jibouri said in an interview. The force will aim to prevent a repeat of the devastation of April 2003 when looters robbed the museum of some 15,000 priceless artefacts as part of a wave of theft from public buildings after Saddam Hussein’s regime fell. Officials have since struggled to rebuild the museum’s collection, recouping about a third of what was looted.
Even as violence across Iraq dropped sharply, officials put off reopening the museum until its security could be assured. Now, with violence at its lowest point since the war began, the museum—and Iraq—has been deemed ready.
Jibouri said Iraq was trying to encourage the return and repatriation of other stolen artefacts, offering a reward and promising not to file charges for ill-gotten goods. “A good number of relics are being returned,” he said. The amount of the reward depends on officials’ assessment of the piece’s worth along with its authenticity. Even under Saddam, poorly guarded archaeological sites were widely plundered.
The museum is a central plank in the strategy of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government to bolster tourism in Iraq and protect valuable historical sites. “The ministry is serious about carrying out its plans, but our funding is extremely limited,” he said.
Washington provided $13 million to help restore the museum and $700,000 to repair ruins at the ancient city of Babylon, which have been damaged by U.S. and coalition soldiers.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2009
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#1
home to priceless artefacts plundered..
By its own employees as it turned out. Something MSM skipped over in its hype.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate Intelligence Committee voted unanimously Wednesday to send the nomination of Leon Panetta as CIA director to the full Senate for confirmation. If approved, Panetta, 70, would become the oldest person to head the spy agency.
Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-California, said Panetta would mark a "new beginning" for the CIA. "He has the integrity, the drive and the judgment to ensure that the CIA fulfills its mission of producing information critical to our national security, without sacrificing our national values," she said.
Sen. Kit Bond, the ranking Republican on the committee, said he supported Panetta after receiving assurances from him that he will "use all appropriate and lawful means" to keep the nation safe.
Whatever that means ...
During his confirmation hearing last week, Panetta was peppered with questions about the Bush administration's interrogation, detention and rendition program and President Obama's efforts to change the policy. He called waterboarding -- the interrogation technique that simulates drowning -- torture, but he said the intelligence officers who carried it out should not be prosecuted.
Obama has signed an executive order limiting interrogation techniques to the 19 outlined in the Army Field Manual, but Panetta conceded those might not be enough. He said he would not hesitate to go to the president and ask for additional authority if there was "a ticking bomb situation."
And Bambi will ponder it for a good long while ...
Panetta vowed not to send suspected terrorists to other countries where they could be tortured. But he insisted such renditions are an "appropriate tool" if the United States got assurances from the receiving country that the individuals would not be treated inhumanely.
Looks like we're hosting the Uighers ...
Regarding Obama's plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, he said the task is a very difficult one. Although some prisoners will be tried and others transferred to other countries, he acknowledged there may be a group of prisoners who will have to be detained without trial for a long time.
Panetta said he did not see the need for any wholesale changes at the agency. The CIA has the tools to deal with the threats, he said, but it needs to stress the training, language capabilities and diversity that will produce better intelligence.
How about keeping rogue agents under control and not have them interfering with domestic politics?
Panetta's nomination initially created a stir among both Democrats and Republicans who questioned the advisability of appointing someone with his lack of experience in the intelligence community at a time when the United States is fighting two wars and battling terrorists. But his lack of experience barely got mentioned at his confirmation hearing.
Since the power is in some unnamed office at the White House anyways ...
Senators seemed satisfied that he has the confidence of the president, would have a good working relationship with Congress and would retain the top leadership at the CIA.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2009
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If approved, Panetta, 70, would become the oldest and least qualified person to head the spy agency.
(AKI) - Two car bomb blasts at a bus station in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Wednesday have killed at least 16 people and injured 45 others.
The simultaneous explosions took place at a bus station in the mainly Shia area of al-Biyaa in southwestern Baghdad. The booby-trapped cars exploded as they were parked at the terminal. The force of the attack -which occurred during rush hour - damaged nearby cars and buses.
The blasts takes place the same day Shia Muslims celebrate the festival of Arbain (40 in Arabic), which happens 40 days after the holy day of Ashura, which commemorates the martyrdom of the grandson of Islam's Prophet Mohammed.
Other unrelated attacks also took place on Wednesday in northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, and in Iskandria, south of Baghdad. One soldier and two policemen died in the attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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Israel is weaker than ever and its criminal nature is obvious for the world's public opinion, a senior Iranian official says.
The remarks were made during a meeting between the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalili, and the Leader of the Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad Ramadan Abdullah in Tehran on Wednesday.
Jalili termed the victory of Hamas in its war against Israel as a great victory, which had its roots in "God's assistance and resistance on the part of the Palestinian people and groups."
Ramadan Abdullah for his part, hailed Iran's support for the Palestinians during the Gaza war.
He said Israel's attack on Gaza has shifted public opinion against the Israeli regime.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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#1
ISRAEL MIL FORUM/OTHER > SYRIA POISED TO TRANSFER SA-8 MOBILE AAMS/ADS TO LEBANESE HEZBOLLAH [Syria crossing a "red line/ Line in the sand" vee Israel], + REPORT: SLAIN ASSAD AIDE SUPPLIED ANTI-AIRCRAFT MISSLES TO HEZBOLLAH.
Also, TOPIX > IRAN-SYRIA RELATIONS WEAKENED OVER GAZA CRISIS [fighting over how to handle Israel], + ISRAEL WARNS SYRIA OVER SA-8 AIR DEFENSE MISSLES HANDOVER TO HIZBOLLAH.
ISRAEL = SYRIAN OR IRANIAN, DON'T BE AROUND WHEN THE ISRAELI AIR FORCE BOMBS YOU, BECUZ YOUR NATIONAL UNIFORM WON'T STOP US.
#2
I'll have to give it to her, she certainly took the welfare mom thing to an entirely new level. It is quite amazing what you can learn from the locals. I heard her say yesterday on the telly that this is her last litter.
#3
Whaddya think, Ahhhnold? Kalifornia could use the money...
Soon, the Ontario government intervened. The custody of the five babies was withdrawn from their parents by the Ontario government of Mitchell Hepburn in 1935, originally for a guardianship of two years. Although Oliva Dionne remained part of the guardianship, they were put under the guidance of Dr. Dafoe and two other guardians. The stated reason for removing the quintuplets from their parents' legal custody to ensure their survival into healthy toddlers. The massive interest in Cecile, Annette, Marie, Yvonne, and Emilie, and proceeded to engender a tourist industry around them. The girls were made the wards of the provincial crown until they reached the age of 18. Across the road from their birthplace, the Dafoe Hospital and Nursery was built for only the five girls and their caregivers to live in. The observation gallery, where thousands of people watched from meshed screens as the children played twice a day, became part of "Quintland," a theme-park like atmosphere showcasing and selling Quintuplet merchandise.
Approximately 6,000 people per day visited the observation gallery to view the Dionne sisters. Close to three million people walked through the gallery between 1936 and 1943[1]. In 1934, the quintuplets brought in about $1 million, and they attracted in total about $51 million of tourist revenue to Ontario. Quintland became Ontario's biggest tourist attraction of the era, at the time surpassing Niagara Falls.
#5
Just an aside: the handling of the Dionne quintuplets was a tragedy and a farce. It was done for human spectacle and all ended up with miserable lives. I wouldn't do to the current batch of 14 Sulemans what was done to the Dionnes, but I don't think Mom is playing with a full deck.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2009 9:48
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I agree. But her version of the above would be the desperately desired reality TV show.
MIANWALI: Two terrorists have blown up a newly-built police checkpost of Kundal at Chashma-Essa Khail Road about 7kms away from Essa Khail city at 1 am Tuesday, but no loss of life was reported.
The terrorists in a double cabin pick up planted explosive devices in the building after breaking the locks and blew up the building. The terrorists have exchanged fire with Darra Tang police as they entered NWFP province but managed to escape.
It is a third incidents in few days, on February 3 at about 03 am the terrorists fired two rockets at Darra Tang checkpost and partially damaged the building but no loss of life was reported.
In the second incident of February 07 terrorists hit a double story police checkpost of Qudaratabad (Mianwali) by killing all 8 security men. It is noted that the check post had to be inaugurated in the new few days and the staff has not been appointed yet in the check post.
DCO Wasim Ajmal Chaudhry and DPO Akbar Nasir Khan rushed to the spot. MNA Hmair Hayat Khan Rokh has categorically termed it the inefficiency of police. The repeated attacks on police check created insecurity among the people of the district.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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The U.S. state and defense secretaries on Tuesday warned North Korea against a missile test for which the Stalinist country seems to be preparing. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters if North Korea is preparing to test-fire a ballistic missile with the continental United States considered a potential target, then the U.S. could shoot it down. But Gates added, "Since the first time that they launched the missile (in 2006) it flew for a few minutes before crashing, the range of the Taepodong-2 remains to be seen. So far, it's very short."
In a separate press conference, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "North Korea has to understand that all of the countries in East Asia have made it clear that its behavior is viewed as unacceptable."
CNN on Tuesday said a U.S. spy satellite snapped an image of North Korea assembling telemetry equipment at its missile launch site in Musudan-ri on the east coast. Citing an anonymous high-ranking U.S. official, CNN reported the same events took place during North Korea's last Taepodong missile launch in October 2006.
An anonymous senior Pentagon official Tuesday that U.S. Pacific Command decided to move battleships to locations capable of monitoring North Korea's activities. The official added the U.S. government was monitoring the latest movements using all military assets.
Battleships? I think they mean, AEGIS-equipped ships.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2009
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Obambi will send the ugliest secretary of state since meddling halfbright to try and talk the missile dowm...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/12/2009 0:27
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#4
The Norks have been playing with rockets for quite a long time. I suspect the "shoot down" message was actually an oblique shot at our administration's new friends in Tehran.
#5
Those who sponsor the Norks want to see how our missile defense things work. Bush showed them some leg with a satellite shoot down. Now they want us to show it all.
I expect that if the Norks launch, their missile will fail again, and we can keep our modesty intact.
#8
Is this another one of those * that Obama put on the no weapons in space Executive Order? Cause to intercept you really need to hit it before it gets into that final dive on reentry, unless you are going to ripple fire, which has not been demonstrated in systems so far developed.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman on Wednesday denied reports that a ship detained off Cyprus was carrying Iranian weapons destined for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said that Cypriot authorities have
inquired about the ship's cargo, but insisted that accusations of weapons on board werebaseless.
Cypriot Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou said Tuesday that the ship has breached a United Nations ban on Iranian arms exportsm. Cyprus inspected the Monchegorsk twice after it arrived Jan. 29. The U.S. military stopped the ship last month in the Red Sea and said it found artillery shells and other arms on board. But it could not legally detain the ship.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
The U.N. responds with the "Pants on fire." taunt, replied to by Iran with "neener, neener, neener."
The U.N. then, unwilling to respond to an implied "Triple Dog Dare," declares the Iranian shipment as Okey-Dokey....
KHAR, Pakistan - The Pakistani Taliban on Wednesday threatened to destroy all the schools in a region of northwest Pakistan if government troops did not leave the area within three days.
The militants gave Pakistan an ultimatum to end military operations in the tribal area of Bajaur or face a ‘massive attack’ on the main town of Khar, Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) spokesman Maulvi Omar told AFP. ‘After three days we will spare no school in Bajaur and attacks on schools will be launched in other tribal districts in the next phase,’ Omar said by telephone.
A separate announcement would be made shortly about targeting government buildings, power lines and even hospitals, he added.
Islamic militants in PakistanÂ’s northwestern Swat valley have blown up more than 170 schools in the past two years as part of a violent campaign to enforce their repressive brand of Islamic Sharia law.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2009
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#1
Ignorance and illiteracy are just different cultural values. It'll all work out just fine...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/12/2009 0:19
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#2
And to paraphrase an old chestnut that's catching on once again, I'd rather make a coherent philosophy of three randomly picked Penthouse Forum letters than any page of the kooran...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/12/2009 0:21
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#3
There's probably a fair amount of similarity between 3 random PF letters and the Krayon.
Three soldiers were killed and several others were injured in fierce clashes between security forces and militants in Charbagh area of the troubled Swat Valley on Wednesday.
Also, thousands of protesters set a three-day deadline to the government to implement the Shariah or they would march towards Islamabad. Sources said the militants besieged and attacked security forces' camp established in Darul Uloom Charbagh with heavy weaponry. The attack triggered a fierce gunbattle between the Army and militants, which continued till the filing of this report.
Militants claimed that three security forces personnel were killed and several others sustained injuries in the fight while the camp building was also damaged. It was learnt that surrounding houses and shops were also damaged in the attack. The militants' sources claimed that they had inflicted heavy losses on security forces in Charbagh, but the Swat-based spokesman for the military rebutted the claim.
When contacted by this correspondent to get official version about the losses, the spokesperson lost temper and said they knew about the sources dishing out the information, adding they would be eliminated soon.
Meanwhile, Swat-based Taliban leader and FM radio presenter Maulana Muhammad Alam alias Khalil claimed during the address that Taliban had the addresses and names of children of the security forces personnel engaged in fighting with Taliban in Swat.
He read out some of the names of officials, their addresses and names of their children and the educational institutes in which they were studying. Separately, militants kidnapped the provincial chief of the International Committee of the Red Cross along with others but freed them after investigation.
The sources said the militants picked up the ICRC provincial chief, Daniel Romali, along with his teammates, during checking in Qambar area. However, they were later freed after questioning.
Daniel Romali belongs to Switzerland while his other associates were Pakistanis. Also, the militants kidnapped the driver of Swat district and sessions judge, Sher Zaman, and shifted him to an undisclosed location. His vehicle was also seized by the militants.
Meanwhile, thousands of residents staged a rally in favour of the Shariah implementation in Barikot. The protesters, who had come from surrounding villages and gathered in the Barikot Square, warned that if the Shariah law was not enforced within three days, they would march towards Islamabad on foot.
The rally, led by Sharif Khan, Azizullah, Syed Ali Bacha and others, demanded immediate implementation of the Shariah, end to the military operation and lifting of curfew in the district. On the occasion, Barikot Union Council member Irfan Wadood resigned in protest against the military operation.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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#1
When contacted by this correspondent to get official version about the losses, the spokesperson lost temper and said they knew about the sources dishing out the information, adding they would be eliminated soon.
#2
Okay, maybe WE can't napalm the he$$ out of these retarded goat-lovers, but I can't see why Pakistan puts up with them. A few burned-out villages would go a long way toward stoppng the idiocy there, especially taliban-occupied villages. I'm sure the locals know who's where.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/12/2009 20:50
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Three mortar shells fired from the northern Gaza Strip have hit open areas in the Israeli town of Eshkol. The attack, which happened on Wednesday, caused no injuries or damages, The Jerusalem Post reported.
Earlier on Tuesday, another rocket hit an open area between the Sha'ar Hanegev and Sdot Negev regions.
The attacks come as Israel has been left in a political limbo over the uncertain results of the elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Stephen Bosworth, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, is expected to be named as the U.S. envoy to six-party talks on curbing North Korea's nuclear ambitions, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The sources spoke on condition they not be identified, noting that the selection of the envoy was a sensitive matter ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China next week.
Bosworth, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, declined comment on whether he would be tapped to lead the U.S. delegation to the six-party talks, which also include the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2009
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Islamic Jihad prominent leader, Sheikh Nafez Azzam has said that Israeli election results proves that Israeli society is moving towards a more extremist path. "Militancy will undoubtedly prevail in Israeli policy towards Palestinians," he said.
He called for Palestinians to review their positions towards Israel and adopt a coherent policy in the face of the changing Israeli politic. Azzam said Palestinians, now more than ever, need to seek a united stance in the face of threats and challenges, especially in light of the devastating war on Gaza.
The Islamic Jihad leader said that the Israel poll results will not change much in regards to Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands regardless of the winner. "Competition is always at the expense of Palestinian blood," he said.
The spokesman of the Islamic Jihad, Dawod Shihab, said that the Palestinians must stop all forms of negotiations with Israel because Israel does not want peace.
This article starring:
Dawod Shihab
Islamic Jihad
Sheikh Nafez Azzam
Islamic Jihad
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed hope Tuesday that North Korea's recent provocative moves will not lead to any instability in the region. ''We are hopeful that some of the behavior that we have seen coming from North Korea in the last few weeks is, you know, not a precursor of any action that would up the ante, or threaten the stability and peace and security of the neighbors in the region,'' she told reporters.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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#1
"Hope" is not a strategy. I hope she & Zero have one that goes beyond handwringing...
#2
Hussein is a bumbling incompetent who managed to win the election, but has NO qualifications for Leader of the Free World. I expect NOTHING from him, and so will not be disappointed as he stumbles from one disaster to another. It will not please but neither will it surprise me.
#3
So...this "smart power" that she and Obambi have been touting consists of groveling and hoping that our enemies won't do what they've been saying they will do.
#8
"WE" did NOT, keep your all inclusive guilt trips away from me.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/12/2009 11:46
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#9
I "HOPE" President Zero, either grasps the facts, or is replace by someone who does.
Probability, Zero I'd say, he thinks all he has to do is open his mouth and magically all enemies are friends ( After all he IS GOD, Y'all proved it by electing him World Dictator.)
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/12/2009 11:55
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#10
What's this we sh!t kemosabe? ;)
I hope my rig doesn't break down fighting fire, but it's much better to inspect/maintain the vehicle before going out.
And yes, even the 'smart' ones are incompentent. The saying is, "DC is hollywood for ugly people," not "DC is hollywood for smart people."
#11
i hope that old korean men would stop spreading manure in cabbage fields, but the likelihood of that happening is equal to the likelihood of north korea turning into a sweetheart of a country. god, i thought hillary was less gullible than this, now i see why bill got away with so much.
Norway's government will reexamine its week-old decision to allow Muslim women police officers to wear the Islamic head scarf following massive criticism of the ruling, Justice Minister Knut Storberget said. "In light of the debate that has surfaced ... especially the reactions from (the main police union) Politiets Fellesforbund, I think it is necessary to start over again," Storberget said during a televised debate on Norway's TV2 late Tuesday.
Storberget's comment came a week after Norway's centre-left government approved a police decision to allow female officers to wear the Islamic headscarf, or hijab, in a bid to improve recruitment of Muslim officers.
"We think it's necessary to recruit widely and to develop a police force which reflects all classes in society, regardless of beliefs and ethnicity, which is more important than demanding a neutral uniform," police chief Ingelin Killengreenv said.
The decision was made after months of debate but sparked an outcry, especially from the main opposition populist right Progress Party, which decried the "gradual Islamisation" of the Scandinavian country. The police union, which has demanded that force uniforms remain "neutral," also objected.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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#1
How bout make anyone carrying 21st century tech (radio, pistol) dress like a denizen of the 21st century? It's just a thought...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/12/2009 0:30
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#2
MM like your idea. Anyone dressing like the 7th century only gets to use 7th century tech. Anyone caught breaking this is an apostate.
#4
Not surprising...28 students in one "life" drawing class-(fyi-nude model) 1 Muslim student, no Hijab, yet the life model, was requested to replace clothes so as not to offend 1 musli!!!....at $659.00 a credit..you'd think the university would do the math, nope..! grrrr...
Aswat al-Iraq: Iraq's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has risen by 10.9 percent at constant prices and 44.2 percent at current prices in 2008, compared to the previous year. "The rise in the GDP is attributed to the increase in crude oil activity, which jumped by 50.4 percent at current prices and 18 percent at constant prices in 2008, compared to 2007," according to a statement released by the Central Agency for Statistics in the Iraqi Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation. "The amount of oil produced has increased from 742.079 million barrels in 2007 to 850.239 million barrels in 2008," the statement revealed.
The statement has also indicated a 13.3 percent increase in the amount of crude oil exported in 2008.
Posted by: Fred ||
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They really don't want this as front page new, or second, or third...
Someone might be able to connect those who made it work with maybe being able to do the same here, but that would mean the 'wrong' people would get the authority and power.
Relatives of a provincial council deputy who was gunned down recently in eastern Afghanistan say they have stoned one of the accused killers to death. A second suspect in the same shooting incident was reportedly killed soon after the February 7 slaying of Qazi Khan Malik Baba, a member of the Nangarhar Province Council.
The stoning appears to be the first such execution in Afghanistan since the overthrow of the fundamentalist Taliban regime in 2001. Afghan officials told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that they are investigating the incident.
The suspect was apparently stoned to death in the Dara-e Noor district after his capture by Malik Baba's relatives.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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#1
Note to protesters - 'Stone to death'.
The difference between a rock and a bullet is mass and velocity. Both kill. When you hurl rock, don't whine when you catch lead [or whatever environmentally sensitive substitute is employed].
TEHRAN - Iran dismissed on Wednesday a British newspaper report that the Islamic Republic was running short of raw uranium for a nuclear programme the West fears has military aims.
"Lies! All lies!"
The Times said last month Western powers believed Iran was facing a shortfall of raw uranium and were urging producer nations not to sell it to Tehran.
"No, no, certainly not!"
"Such news has been raised by the media with no scientific basis," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi told a news conference when asked about the report. "The news has been the product of a few analyses and guesswork and articles."
"Pshaw, we say!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/12/2009
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You mean you actually listen to these liars?
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/12/2009 12:00
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(AKI) - A local politician from the Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party was among nine people injured by a bomb that exploded in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, police sources told Pakistan's Geo News.
The remote-controlled bomb exploded in North West Frontier Province's capital, Peshawar, wounding NWFP assembly member Alam Zeb Khan and eight others. The bomb had been planted in a motorbike in the area of Momin town. Six people are reportedly in a critical condition. The bomb also damaged Zeb Khan's car and nearby buildings.
Bomb disposal squads reportedly arrived at the scene soon after the attack and collected the remains of explosives.
Khan is out of danger, Geo quoted ANP secretary general Zahid Khan as saying.
The blast occurred shortly after the arrival in Peshawar of US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke.
It is not the first time that the ANP has been targeted by militants in NWFP. ANP politician Asfandyar Wali Khan narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in a suicide attack in Wali Bagh last October. The same month, militants also fired a rocket against the home of ANP member Amir Haider Khan Hoti in the nearby town of Mardan.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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The Egyptian government sent mixed signals to Gaza activists Wednesday as it seized 30 trucks of goods destined for Gaza, handed down a stiff sentence to a party activist who entered Gaza illegally and released an Egyptian-German activist whose detention sparked a worldwide campaign to free him.
Egypt's crackdown on Gaza activists comes amid effort to clamp down on the smuggling of goods across the Rafah border, the only crossing that bypasses Israel.
A security official told AFP that over the past two days police had seized 30 trucks laden with food, consumer goods and home appliances they say were destined to be smuggled into the Gaza Strip and arrested the drivers.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/12/2009
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Obama, who has campaigned energetically for the legislation, welcomed the agreement, saying it would "save or create more than 3.5 million jobs and get our economy back on track." 
He was glib, rambling, a little long-winded and very defensive. But he is a talent and very likeable even when he is being serious. And he had plenty to be serious about.
BELLEFONTAINE, Ohio -- It was a delicate conversation, to be sure. The principal tried to tell a class of fourth-graders why their teacher was absent, arrested just after lunch and hauled to jail.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid played a little high-stakes chicken with each other at the tail end of WednesdayÂ’s shotgun stimulus talks. 
A Stockholm woman has reported an adult education college in Spånga to the Equality Ombudsman (DO) after being told that she could not wear an Islamic headscarf in class.
Three civilians gunned down as well
The chief of the banned outfit 
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on Wednesday named Kim Yong Chun, vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, to new minister of the People's Armed Forces, the country's official media reported. The Korean Central News Agency also said the leader also appointed Korean People's Army Gen. Ri Yong Ho to new chief of the KPA General Staff.
Aswat al-Iraq: Army forces have arrested two leaders from the self-styled "Islamic State of Iraq" in eastern Mosul, an army source said on Wednesday. "On Wednesday, a force from the third Brigade of the Quick Intervention Corps (QIC) arrested two leaders from the so-called 'Islamic State of Iraq' in Mosul's eastern neighborhood of al-Zahraa," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "Intelligence reports have led to their whereabouts," the source noted, adding that the leaders were arrested in two separate houses in the same area.
The U.S. state and defense secretaries on Tuesday warned North Korea against a missile test for which the Stalinist country seems to be preparing. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters if North Korea is preparing to test-fire a ballistic missile with the continental United States considered a potential target, then the U.S. could shoot it down. But Gates added, "Since the first time that they launched the missile (in 2006) it flew for a few minutes before crashing, the range of the Taepodong-2 remains to be seen. So far, it's very short."
Islamic Jihad prominent leader, 
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed hope Tuesday that North Korea's recent provocative moves will not lead to any instability in the region. ''We are hopeful that some of the behavior that we have seen coming from North Korea in the last few weeks is, you know, not a precursor of any action that would up the ante, or threaten the stability and peace and security of the neighbors in the region,'' she told reporters.
Relatives of a provincial council deputy who was gunned down recently in eastern Afghanistan say they have stoned one of the accused killers to death. A second suspect in the same shooting incident was reportedly killed soon after the February 7 slaying of Qazi Khan Malik Baba, a member of the Nangarhar Province Council. 
