Twin explosions hit two mosques in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on Friday, killing at least 42 people and wounding hundreds, intensifying the sectarian strife that has spilled over from the civil war in neighboring Syria.
The apparently coordinated blasts - the biggest and deadliest in Tripoli since the end of Lebanon's own civil war - struck as locals were finishing Friday prayers in the largely Sunni Muslim city. Lebanese officials appealed for calm.
Hezbollah says "terrorist explosions" aim to provoke sectarian tensions.
[CNN] A military jury has convicted Army Maj. Nidal Hasan of 13 counts of murder and 32 counts of attempted murder in a November 5, 2009, shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, making it possible for the death penalty to be considered as a possible punishment.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
13:41 ||
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#9
In military courts, the death penalty requires a unanimous vote of the panel. It's conceivable that one or more members will want to refuse to give Hasan what he wants. I hope the prosecution discourages that line of reasoning. Doesn't matter if it's what he wants. Dead men can't gloat. Fucker needs to die.
Of course, I'm dubious that the CAAF will let it happen.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/23/2013 16:03
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#11
The CAAF hasn't allowed a single death penalty to be carried out for decades. I'd place my bets there.
Then again till Timothy McVeigh decided to test the speed of the penalty at the national level, we hadn't seen such a quick conviction to execution in that system in decades either. I guess it depends upon how quickly the Obama administration wants to 'bury' the dirty problem of 'work place violence' vs 'terrorism'.
#12
Workplace violence would be a boss who grabs your ass every time you walk by and tells you not to wear panties, and threatens to destroy your life if you say otherwise.
Am I right Mr. President? Obama? Sir?
This was either terrorism or an action by an enemy soldier on US soil, destroying a platoon and change of US Soldiers. Nah, they want this story gone so bad we didn't even get the standard The Gun Made Him Go Crazy so Ban Guns! treatment.
The gay leaker and the hobbled jihadi in the same cell? I'd watch that show.
#14
Hasan believes he will go to paradise when he is executed. Personally I'm inclined to think his version of paradise doesn't exist, but while I am normally pro-death penalty in this case I want Hasan to live a very long life in military Supermax locked in a cell 23 hours a day. Make him wait 30 or 40 years before he can die and become a martyr and go to his paradise like he believes and wants.
Posted by: Barbara ||
08/23/2013 19:45
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#17
Not even sure if one can call it sarcasm anymore, Raj. But yeah, I forgot to add my sarc off tag at the end. I don't really comment that much so I forget matters of etty-quetty from time to time.
Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery.
Blacks are three times more likely to use a hand gun, and twice more likely to use a knife.
Hispanics commit three times more violent crimes than whites, but the statistics are nebulous because sometimes they are classified as white, so it could be far higher.
The best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percent of the population that is black and Hispanic.
Blacks are 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against whites then vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit a robbery.
Forty-five percent of black crime is against whites, 43 against other blacks, and 10 percent against Hispanic.
#1
Stop and Frisk: I wonder if the NYPD will merely clocked in and clock out and half-hardheartedly police those neighborhood and tell complainants, "Gee, we've filled our quota of arrests in this neighborhood already and I certainly don't want to be labeled a racist for profiling...call Sharpton".
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
08/23/2013 13:18
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#2
What is the ratio of violence in poor neighborhoods vs. middle class? I seem to recall from West Side Story snd reeading about the poor aras of London and the immigrant neighborhoods of New York City that severe amd frequent violence was a common feature of all the denizens.
And how does the violence level of poor blacks compare to that of middle class blacks? Not to mention a similar comparison of whites in both situations?
What kind of leadership do we see today in Black America?
What can be said for an NAACP that was lately demanding a Justice Department investigation of a rodeo clown running around a bull ring in rural Missouri in an Obama mask, but cannot find its voice to address a black-on-white atrocity in Middle America?
When Trayvon Martin was shot to death in a murky incident in Sanford, Fla., Jesse Jackson rushed there to declare: Blacks are under attack. Killing us is big business. Trayvon was shot down in cold blood by a vigilante murdered and martyred.
After Chris Lanes cold-blooded murder, Jesse tweeted: This sort of thing is to be frowned upon.
If I had a son, said President Obama, he would have looked like Trayvon; 35 years ago, I could have been Trayvon. Can the president not find his voice to speak to the parents of Chris Lane?
Since Lyndon Johnson took office, 50 years ago, we have spent trillions on his programs for health care, housing, education, food stamps, welfare and civil rights. Are we living in that Great Society we were promised?
The death of Trayvon was said to be reflective of the real America, a country where black folks live in constant fear of white vigilantes and white racist cops. What nonsense.
In the real America, interracial violence is overwhelmingly black-on-white. Even if the media will not report it, everybody knows it.
[Sydney Morning Herald] When Chris Lane jogged past three boys on Country Club Road in Duncan, southern Oklahoma, the boys did not see a young man, local police chief Danny Ford says, they saw a target. "They saw him go by and they said, 'that's our target' and they followed him and they shot him, that's what he told me," Chief Ford told Fairfax Media of the conversation police had with the oldest suspect, a 17-year-old boy. Targeting [as in assassination] unconfirmed by law enforcement at this point, but getting uglier and uglier.
Note the 03:55 point where Director Mueller responds that the bureau was not actively seeking to recruit Anwar al-Awlaki, but other agencies might have been.
#1
Then the drone zapping of al Awlaki shortly following the Fort Hood massacre, and the more recent prohibition by the Judge, of AQ involvement and contacts in the Nidal Hasan court martial. Dual coincidences no doubt.
Many cash-strapped cities and counties facing the prospect of shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars in new health-care costs under the Affordable Care Act are opting instead to reduce the number of hours their part-time employees work.
The decisions to cut employee hours come 16 months before employers -- including state and local governments -- will be required to offer health care coverage to employees who work at least 30 hours a week. Some local officials said the cuts are happening now either because of labor contracts that must be negotiated in advance, or because the local governments worry that employees who work at least 30 hours in the months leading up to the January 2015 implementation date would need to be included in their health-care plans.
On Tuesday, Middletown Township, New Jersey said it would reduce the hours of 25 part-time workers in order to avoid up to $775,000 in increased annual health-care costs. Earlier this month, Bee County, Tex., said it would limit its part-time workers to 24 hours per week when the new fiscal year starts on Oct. 1. I bet all those affected voted for Bumble.....multiple times....
Last month, department heads in Brevard County, Fla., were told to plan similar cuts in advance of the 2015 deadline. Brevard County Insurance Director Jerry Visco estimated the new mandate would cost the county $10,000 per part-time employee -- or $1.38 million a year if all 138 part-time employees who work more than 30 hours a week are covered, he told Florida Today. The Brevard County libraries have already cut hours for 37 employees.
"It's not something we prefer to do, but the cost of health insurance is significant and would really impact municipal budgets," said Anthony Mercantante, Middletown's township administrator. "It's not something we can take on, particularly when we don't know some of the other ramifications of the Affordable Care Act. There are far more questions than answers right now."
Middletown spends about $9 million a year, out of its $65 million budget, on employee health policies, Mercantante said.
Elsewhere, Lynchburg, Va. administrators have cut hours for 35 to 40 part-time employees. Chesterfield County, just south of Richmond, is likely to cut the hours of "several hundred" employees, the county director of human resources told the Richmond Times-Dispatch earlier this year. Chippewa County, Wisc., will drop 15 part-time positions to avoid up to $163,000 in annual health care costs, the county administrator told Wisconsin Public Radio in April.
In a statement provided to GovBeat, White House Council of Economic Advisors chairman Jason Furman said there is no evidence that the Affordable Care Act is incentivizing employers to add part-time rather than full-time positions.
"Since the ACA became law, nearly 90% of the gain in employment has been in full-time positions. Furthermore, the law is helping make health insurance coverage more affordable which supports job growth," Furman said. "Just yesterday, we learned that the growth in employers' health care premiums has slowed significantly recently, to less than a third of the growth rate in the late '90s and early 2000s."
Other supporters of the law suggested the cuts could actually cost counties and cities more money than if they simply paid for part-time workers' health care costs.
"There are some costs of doing business where it really does cost you more money to have multiple people on the job," said Gary Burtless, a senior fellow of economic studies at the Brookings Institute. "Why would you create more jobs than you need to at 20 hours a week, when if you're really responding to the Affordable Care Act you would assign people to work 29 hours a week?"
"I don't think this is going to be a big direct-cost burden for counties and municipalities," Burtless added.
Mercantante, the Middletown administrator, says it's the uncertainty that's driving his town's actions. "Towns are going to have to start looking at different types of health care packages to offer to people given the new mandates, but I can't tell you what those are going to be or how much they're going to cost us," he said.
#4
Cool. Cut some government employees, preferably the crappy ones who don't pull their weight anyway. My guess is that we could accomplish the same amount of work with fewer, higher quality employees + reasonable eGovernment and not skip a beat. In this 'sequester age', states and local governments have already shown amazing adaptability, doing more with less money and even competing with other jurisdictions over who can do the best job. I wish the Federal government had the same constraints that state and local government did (inability to run/finance deficits) as a way of focusing Washington's fucking greed. It's hard to see what they're doing as anything other than a giant China-financed Ponzi scheme that keeps us lemmings sucking from the teat. Obamacare is just another teat, this time with chocolate *and* strawberries. Mmmm, tasty.
Posted by: Muggsy the Full Bosomed1713 ||
08/23/2013 16:21
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#5
More part time workers = fewer people with healthcare = crisis = more federal intervention = single payer.
You can just see our mighty future OWG + NAU, etc. rolling in $$$, just waiting to hand it out to Member-States + their electoral constituents.
Oh wait ...no one in Amerika has any $$$ because it is our righteous Globie duty to hand over 75-100% of our personal income(s) to the Govt. like the Frenchies wanna do.
GOVT = WASHINGTON, DC = NATIONAL-GOVT-VS-GLOBALIST/NAU-ETC-GOVT???
Give our $$$ to the National Fed, Regional Fed, Trans-Regional Fed, Continental Fed or the OWG/Globalist Fed???
Space Fed???
[WELCOME BACK KOTTER'S VINNY "I'M SOOO CONFUSED" BARBARINO here].
[Huffpo] Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) warned The Champ is "getting perilously close" to the standard for impeachment.
That's nice. Nothing will happen so long as the Democrats control the Senate. And nothing will happen afterward, so long as some of the Senatorial Republicans are Rhinos. So really, this kind of talk is nothing more than playing to the Base, making implicit promises that can't be kept. Something like our beloved president talking about red lines, in fact.
According to Tulsa World, Coburn referred to the president as "a personal friend of mine" before criticizing Champ's "lawless" administration while speaking during a Wednesday town hall meeting at Oklahoma's Muskogee Convention Center.
BuzzFeed reports Coburn said impeachment is "not something you take lightly, and you have to use a historical precedent of what that means," noting that he feels there is a great deal of "incompetence" in the Champ regime.
"I think there's some intended violation of the law in this administration, but I also think there's a ton of incompetence, of people who are making decisions," Coburn said.
"Those are serious things, but we're in a serious time," Coburn continued. "I don't have the legal background to know if that rises to high crimes and misdemeanor, but I think they're getting perilously close."
#2
The election of The Champ was a capstone event in the social imperative of affirmative action. Impeachment of the Champ is about as likely as a national monument to Lee being built on the Mall.
#3
Impeachment of the Champ is about as likely as a national monument to Lee being built on the Mall
At the west end of The Mall is a bridge, the Memorial Bridge, at the end of the journey over that bridge sits a building called the Robert E. Lee Memorial. That memorial is Robert E. Lee's home and surrounding that home is Arlington National Cemetery.
Close but not quite The Mall
So it is possible but highly unlikely both events will take place. Never say Never.
#7
Impeachment? Hope and change I could believe in. However, it won't happen. The Democrats are not going to do it and the Pubs aren't either. I just don't see Boehner initiating this.
#8
With a backdrop of recent urban violence, imagine the firestorm impeachment proceedings might ignite. The appeasement and extortion have gone on far, far too long. The feckless old guard of French Republicans in congress have no appetite for civil uprising. Impeachment is highly unlikely.
#3
The United States is 3rd in Murders throughout the World.
But if you take out Chicago, Detroit, Washington DC, and New Orleans, the United States is 4th from the Bottom for Murders. These 4 Cities also have the toughest Gun Control Laws in the United States .
ALL 4 Cities are controlled by Democrats. It would be absurd to draw any conclusions from this data
#4
I too am against illegal guns, and agree that they should be removed from the hands of criminals.
The problem is that Bloomberg wants to make all guns illegal, and turn all gun owners into criminals.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/23/2013 14:36
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#5
I have an idea as a show of good intention.
There is a database already of gang bangers and mobsters. Go check on them. No? Hokay, then go park your silly bus in a bad neighborhood, go knocking door to door and tell them to surrender their weapons because utopia has arrived. Hand out some FAIL slips.
Go on TV and bash the BATF for arming a battalion of meth dealers, slave traders, and assassins.
Best yet, go home. You can't be trusted with your own lists.
(Reuters) - Mass protests called by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood mostly failed to materialize on Friday as the movement reeled from a bloody army crackdown on followers of ousted President Mohamed Mursi.
Troops and police had taken relatively low-key security measures before the "Friday of Martyrs" processions that were to have begun from 28 mosques in the capital after weekly prayers.
But midday prayers were canceled at some mosques and there were few signs of major demonstrations unfolding in Cairo.
"We are not afraid; it's victory or death," said Mohamed Abdel Azim, a retired oil engineer who was among about 100 people marching slowly from a mosque near Cairo University.
"They intend to strike at Muslims," the grey-bearded Azim said. "We'd rather die in dignity than live in oppression. We'll keep coming out until there's no one left." Kinda like the attack on the death star in Star Wars: "Almost there!... Al-l-lmost there!... A-l-l-l-l-lmost there!...[KABOOM!]"
[SmokingGun] Foreigner entered U.S. yesterday with uranium hidden in luggage
AUGUST 22--A foreigner who agreed to sell undercover Homeland Security agents 1000 tons of yellowcake uranium for shipment to Iran was enjugged Please don't kill me! yesterday when he flew into the United States with uranium samples hidden inside the soles of shoes in his luggage, The Smoking Gun has learned.
A 15-month sting operation concluded Wednesday afternoon with the arrest of Patrick Campbell inside a terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Campbell, 33, traveled to New York from Gay Paree on an Air La Belle France flight. It is unclear where Campbell is being held, or when he will make an appearance in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.
In communications with an undercover agent, Campbell said he was affiliated with a Sierra Leone firm that mined and exported uranium, chromite, gold, and diamonds from the western Africa nation.
The federal probe began in May 2012, when an investigator posted an advertisement on the web site alibaba.com seeking the purchase of yellowcake uranium (which is also known as Uranium 3O8). Alibaba.com is a China-based site that helps small businesses worldwide arrange cross-border transactions.
#2
As a hardware store enthusiast, I used to spend time at the Baumarkt in K-Town when the wife went shopping. Always amazed me how much of their merchandise was made in Germany, Austria, or SZ. Wish we could say the same for Ace, Depot, and Lowes.
A must read (IMO) guess post from "According to Hoyt
...Sarah tells me shes had quite a lot of heat from the left. Im very happy for her. If the enemy isnt screaming, you arent fighting properly. Besides, I know the Huns and Hoydens love their chew toys and get downright rambunctious without them. That includes me, really. So while we have your attention, you teachers pets out of the Frankfurt School, lets have a little chat about the cool kids in your class.
See, its often said that the head of a company defines its culture. The leader is the person people associate with that organization, especially the employees. Whether the leader causes the organization to imitate them, or alternatively, imitates organizational ideals to rise to power, varies. In many ways, this chicken-and-egg problem is not important, because either way, the leader would still be indicative of how the organization is arranged. But it occurs to me that, when you get right down it, political parties are basically large corporations. One wonders naturally, therefore, who are the leaders that pattern your organization, leftists? (And I anticipate naturally that you will object to being associated with a corporation. But its true regardless, so none of that prissy proletarian pap out of you, Democrats, Socialists, and Communists. You, and your big shiny DNC, are the people who put Mr. Billion-Dollar-Campaign in office, remember? Youve got just as many expensive donors George Soros, for one, who is about as grassroots as a bromeliad (and not nearly as pretty). Or how about the laundry list of high-rollers Obama was busy partying with during campaign season the multi-thousand-per-plate dinners, you remember those? You ought to. One of those parties in Las Vegas was more important to Obama than deploying forces already in the area of Benghazi to stop our ambassador from being raped and killed. Ah, but I forget you are compassionate, and so by your own definition no longer need to worry about the mere unnecessary loss of human life. Not if theres money to be fed into your machine on the line. But I digress.)
#1
One would think that if AQ is in decline and on the run that locals, if they had the will, could root them out and destroy them. Maybe the numbers of AQ are greater than those shown on the map? Iraq and Afghanistan should with all our efforts, be able to do the heavy lifting themselves by this time.
So, yesterday, while cruising Instapundit in the five minutes between penguins (I use a penguin timer instead of a tomato for the Pomodoro Technique. Deal.) I came across a thing where fast food workers were threatening to strike.
It's all dishonest. Wages as posted don't include the employers portion of social security, or unemployment and workers comp that the employer has to pay, not counting additional specific local fees and taxes tacked on. It's long beyond time in which all those fees go directly to the workers pay stub, so the worker can see what their labor is actually being paid for and how much the government really eats of it.
What P2K said, and also to pay people to prepare those wages, and then tax man paperwork, nevermind the good minds dinking around with paperwork instead of growing/innovating.
Cost of a new home: $26,600.00
Cost of a new car: $
Median Household Income: $8,734.00
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.06
Cost of a gallon of regular gas: $0.36
Cost of a dozen eggs: $0.62
Cost of a gallon of Milk: 1.15
Cost of a new home: $271,600
Cost of a new car: $30,303
Median Household Income: $52,762
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.46
Cost of a gallon of regular gas: $3.60
Cost of a dozen eggs: $2.68
Cost of a gallon of Milk: $3.43
#9
The problem is that minimum wage is a starting wage because you have no skills yet and no proof you are dendable. Huge risk to hire you. High school kids should be getting it on their part time jobs not people with families who should still be that low on the career ladder.
My guess is anyone in their twenties or more on minimum wage isn't treating the job as a career and their employee responds accordingly, either that or they have something else going on (problems with citizenship papers or addiction).
The great thing is the left forces minimum wage increases in on us and at the same time promotes illegal immigration who work outside of the wage and safety laws so they undercut the people they are trying to help with the minimum wage in the first place. But few are watching the left hand so they get away with it.
Had a friend who bragged about being part of the underground economy, said he made so much more that way - his wages were not taxed, got paid in cash so no paper trail, and filed his paperwork for unemployment so got that too along with all the other bene's.
Your true "pay" isn't what shows up after taxes, or even what show up before taxes, on your W-2. Your true pay is whatever it costs your employer to create and continue your job.
This includes W-2 PLUS all of the mandated benefits PLUS all the mandated training PLUS all the regulatory compliance for the alphabet agencies at federal, state, and local levels.
Factor those, plus the inflation you mention, in, and I can guarantee that the total cost for an employer to maintain that job with today's minimum wage is no less than it was back in 1970. In fact it might be more.
How do I know? I own a business. I know.
And if you really want to get technical, the true minimum wage is whatever welfare recipients get (the amount the government pays you NOT to work). Think about it for a minute and you'll see the truth of it.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
08/23/2013 11:04
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#12
What no mo uro said. But, also, how do you think your employer is gonna pay for your raise? He's gonna raise his prices, that's how. How else would he do it? You think he's gonna take a cut in the business's profits? Nope. He's not running a charity, he's running a business...for profit, for money. And if he can't make a profit, guess what? You'll be unemployed!
But wait. There's more. When you get that extra money you're gonna want to buy more stuff. Now, of course you know what happens when there is more demand for more stuff. Do I have to say it? Maybe I do. Prices go up! IOW, inflation.
#13
Minimum wage depresses startups. That's because it increases the distance between $0 per hour and minumum $ per hour.
When I was a tad you could get a shoeshine for a quarter (my Dad could get one for a dime, if he had a dime). The minimum wage went up to a buck an hour sometime around 1956. If I had gone into business as a shoeshine boy I'd have had to shine four pairs of shoes an hour at .25 to make minimum wage. There aren't any shoeshine boys left because at $7.25 per hour it's physically impossible to shine that many pairs of shoes. (29 pairs per hour, or one pair every two minutes.)
Remember when you could get a haircut for a buck? If you're old enough, you can remember those thrilling days of yesteryear. We went to the Waltz brothers, who had a shop on main street. Ozzie and Walt maintained two barber chairs and made a good living, cutting better than a head of hair apiece every hour for eight hours a day, closed on Monday and, of course, on Sunday. Barber shops have mostly been replaced by Shoppes de Beautè now, and if you can get your hair cut for $5 you can expect to come out looking... interesting.
Think of all the eentsy-weentsy one-man or -woman service industries, all the barely-skilled jobs in business, that have gone the way of the dodo, and blame their loss on the minimum wage and its accompanying regulation and mandatory benefits. The dressmakers are gone. The telephone operators are gone. Certainly the cooks and the maids are gone. And slowly the office boys, the secretaries, and the mail room clerks have gone.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013 11:49
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#14
So what should be the minimum wage ? I say $16.00
I say $0.01 an hour. If that's all you have to offer the employer, too bad, so sad.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/23/2013 11:50
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#15
They're doing that, too. Who makes more? Someone making miniwage or an unpaid intern?
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013 11:56
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#16
Nearly all [if not all] gov't involvement in business is a disincentive to free market enterprise and growth.
#17
I was talking to a retired business manager the other day; she said that she made a pittance compared to her workers, because if she paid herself what she was worth, she wouldn't be able to pay the wages for the help.
I had an employee who couldn't do basic math. Checking out was frustrating to watch. Z out took 30 minutes (takes me 5 when on my own). Didn't want to clean, was aweful when she did (had to re-do her work). She was worth about $4 an hour, at best, how she made it through life I have no idea - wait, yes I do, she was public sector beforehand and never learned that her wage began with the customer.
People who work fast food have the easiest part of getting the burger in your tummy. They do not have to be out in the middle of winter to birth the cow, they do not have to do the dirty work to make a steer, do not have to raise the cow healthy, do not have to do the butcher, do not have to load or unload. They take a pre-formed patty put it on a monitored grill and take it off when the timer dings.
But they want a big thank you for not spitting on your food.
When I go to a local place for a burger I expect to pay more for a hand-made patty o'love. If I go to a joint and pay hand made prices for a pre-formed slopped together, I stop going because I can get that or better at the fast food for half the price.
Overpaid wages are a business killer. Double the wages of everyone who touches that patty to the grill and two things happen: prices go up and/or places shut down.
The rise of the food cars is a symptom. Certainly convienence is a factor, but with fewer regulations, taxes, and staff compared to a restaurant the overhead can be better managed. Big lunch boxes may have franchise assistance available, depending upon how the franchise would want to mitigate losses in favor of opportunity, but Joe's Diner has to convince the bank and doesn't get the nifty advertising during the football game or the easy traffic routes.
#18
*Apologies to any readers who take offense to the public sector comment, I know many here do good work. To be specific, school cafeteria worker. She had no opportunity to fail, so she had no opportunity to succeed, and thought her wages grew in Friday envelopes.
In fact, thinking about it, attitudes changed from simply changing payday from Friday to Monday. Same money, actually more because they proved their worth and dedication, just different tides.
#19
Minimum wage tells American workers that they are legally prohibited from competing with workers in other countries. That's why you can't buy a computer that's Made in USA anymore. It's cheaper to make them in China so they are all made in China and the people who used to make them in American are either out of work or had to find other jobs. Maybe they're flipping burgers.
#20
The problem is that minimum wage is a starting wage because you have no skills yet and no proof you are de[pe]ndable
Minimum wage also factors into union salary. Contracts contain an agreement that the 'wage floor' is a multiple of whatever the minimum wage is. It's a nice way of getting an increase without having to renegotiate a contract.
Source Minimum Wage is $1.60 - no I remember $1.35
Cost of a new car: $ 2 grand for a regular car 4.5 for a caddy.
Median Household Income: $8,734.00 depends on locale .. midwest maybe more toward 6-8k
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.06
Cost of a gallon of regular gas: $0.36 NO .....
Regular as low as .25 and real premium (today's racing octane) about .27 to .30 *
#25
But economics is a science, which means its something that studies nature to discover its laws. This means our laws cannot change nature. You cant legislate economics, any more than you can legislate the weather.
2 + 2 = 4 is a scientific fact. You can legislate all you want, you can complain all you want that 2 + 2 should equal 3 or 5, but the reality of life is that 2 + 2 will always equal 4. It is a law of nature beyond our ability change.
In business accounting the left side of the equation must always equal right side of the equation. The total debits must always equal the total credits or something is malignant in the accounting process.
The Obama team from long before Obama was elected POTUS has strived to deceive the American public into believing economics and sociology are the same thing. They are not. The deception is what Sarah A. Hoyt calls ethoeconomics.
Economics is the scientific study of sound business priciples. It is NOT sociology. Economics is not sociology and sociology is not economics. Any attempt to co-mingle the two will invariably result in a malignant outcome from both the human and the business perspective.
As Sarah A. Hoyt points out, the employees receiving minumum wages probably did not take economics in college. And if they did it was likely to have been the chimera of ethoeconomics and not science.
Only one out of seven start-up business in the U.S. survive beyond five years. The vast majority fail due to of lack of positive cash flow within the business. Although they may be financially secure they simply run out of liquid assets to meet their daily expenses. Increasing the minimum wage will be the final straw that puts a great many of them out of business.
Anyone who has ever ran a business knows it is the size of the numbers on bottom row the company's balance sheet and income statement that determines what wages can be. Not the sociological complaints eminating from the backrooms of the business or screamed from the front pages and screens of the left wing dominated media.
In Spokane, Washington, on Wednesday night, according to local reports, World War II veteran and Battle of Okinawa survivor Delbert Belton was beaten by two democrat teenagers described as between the ages of 16 and 19. Belton passed away Thursday morning of head injuries.
Belton, 89, was shot in the leg at Okinawa. He was confronted in the parking lot of the Eagles Lodge, adjacent to the Eagles Ice-A-Rena, when the two suspects jumped him, beat him, and left him to die. One is described as heavy and wearing black clothing, and the other is described as six feet tall and 150 lbs., wearing a silk do-rag. Words fail. The war has apparently begun.
#2
There will come a time soon, when the tables will turn, only instead of wanna be thugs beating people up, alot of people are simply going to die. I can see a certain hot tempered type of person banding up to make forays into these gleaming bastions of Demorat Mecca's and play "Cowboys vs the knockout game"
#4
I'm sure I regret it after the fact,
And maybe I did kinda overreact,
But it's not like a brother can stop and reflect,
And he probably showed me some disrespect.
Did he shake his damn head and look at me funny,
Or was he too slow handing over his money?
Did he make me feel like a bitch-ass Tom
For not avenging the butler's mom?
Did he look down at me to make himself bigger,
Like maybe he asked me to stop saying "n-----?"
Whatever. He shouldn't have got in my business
And it's not like I did it in front of a witness.
And even if he wasn't all up in my face,
This world is chock-full of them haters that hates.
Here lies an old cracker who survived Okinawa
Don't know why I killed him. Black Power! Ungawa!
Thanks, boomers! Thanks, Hollywood! Thanks, Democrats! And that's coming from someone whose personal and cultural landscape looks like the aftermath of an explosion in the earth-tones section of a paint factory. Someone who will never, ever stand with spittle-spewing racists of any stripe. But someone who had seen enough of this shit twenty years ago. If someone like me is posting something like this out in the broad open daytime, the blues probably IS brewing for someone other than the usual old folks and women and smart kids and...
#5
When it turns, I fear it's gonna be real ugly, and doubt there will be any lack of volunteers to help de-scum the gene pool. Maybe that's the plan...?
#10
"Arriving first on the scene, Sharae tried to apply pressure to the wound in order to stop the bleeding. Brittany searched through Davids phone and tried to call a family member, and Taneshia held David Santuccis hand and led them all in prayer."
Who finally called 911?
Posted by: Barbara ||
08/23/2013 19:54
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Good for them, though. A kid shouldn't die alone. But yeah, how pathetic is it that the best we can do for butchered innocents - in the twenty-first century western world - is to hold their dead or dying hands and pray, or chat calmly with their gore-smeared assailants?
[Washington Times] HONOLULU Democrats are urging President Obama to bypass Capitol Hill once again and accomplish by executive order what Congress refused to do for 13 years: grant formal federal tribal recognition to Native Hawaiians. Haole's go home! These are our islands.
#5
They want it, give it to them, we can take a star off or let Northern Colorado take their star on the flag. Cut them loose and make them a foreign country with no aid, no federal interest and nothing to do with America. I promise China will control it inside of 5 years.
#6
Only if we liquidate Hawai'i's statehood (and with it, the two sitting Senators) and give the islands back to the heirs of the previous monarchy. I'm sure Quentin Kawānanakoa would love the chance to go swanning about at Turtle Bay.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
08/23/2013 16:22
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#7
They want something where whites won't have any rights but they can still send Democrat reps to DC.
#8
D *** NG, does China + PLA know - after all, ITS THEIR HAWAII TOO [in time]???
Prolly safe to say ditto for the future sovereign REPUBLIC OF AZTLAN, since its STILL NOT clear at this time which 1/2 of CONUS-NORAM China desires eventual for "living space".
CHINA'S "LONG MARCH" TO FUTURE MEXIMERIKA - OR TWAS IT ISLAMERIKA???
[An Nahar] The United States said Thursday it has yet to "conclusively determine" that chemical weapons were used in an attack in Syria that allegedly killed hundreds of people.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said President Barack Obama I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody... had directed U.S. intelligence to gather information about the reported attack near Damascus.
"At this time right now, we are unable to conclusively determine CW use, but we are focused every minute of every day since these events happened yesterday on doing everything possible within our power to nail down the facts," Psaki said.
The main Syrian opposition group has charged that as many as 1,300 people were killed in a chemical weapons attack Wednesday near Damascus.
Obama has said that chemical weapons use by the Syrian regime would cross a U.S. "red line," but Washington so far has not acted on earlier reports of chemical weapons attacks.
"If these reports are true, it would be an outrageous and flagrant escalation of use of chemical weapons by the regime," Psaki said.
"The president of course has a range of options that we've talked about before that he can certainly consider and of course discuss with his national security team," she said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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#1
Normally, you could write this off as the usual State Department handjob. But in this case, the situation *does* seem uncertain, IMHO. Certainly PencilNeck's side would use chem weps, but you'd expect a military target rather than some random suburb.
The rebels, on the otherhand, are at least as unscrupulous and maybe even more savage then the regime. Did they stage a false flag attack in order to gain international sympathy (and arms)? You can't make an omlette without breaking some eggs, right?
#2
The timing is a bit suspect. The incidents occurred right at the UN Inspection teams came into country.
Been pretty hot over there, and those bodies in some of the fotos don't show much sign of what dead bodies do in that kind of heat. Just say'n. I could be wrong, but that's what the UN Inspection team could sort out.... if permitted.
#5
We would know quite easily, had the intelligence assets been tasked rationally, rather than apparently trying to aid the MB in Egypt, and ignoring the rest of the region.
#8
I too was looking for Green Helmut Man, had a lot of flags being thrown for the few videos I saw - nothing looked outside of what could be staged but yield to those who would know, and also don't have the time to look for all the video.
1300 is a large claim, certainly not an amount which could be immediately recovered and video'd, especially concerning the heat and normal effects. Should be obvious one way or the other.
#11
See MIDDLE EAST ONLINE > US REFUSES TO SET "RED LINES" AFTER SYRIA [chemical] "MASSACRE".
versus
* TOPIX > [Christian Science Monitor] "CORE" US INTERESTS NOW AT STAKE IN SYRIA, OBAMA SAYS - WILL HE TAKE ACTION?
versus
* TOPIX > OBAMA PLAYS DOWN US INTERVENTION IN SYRIA, PCorrectly arguing that the US will not "rush" headlong towards "costly intervention/
interventionism".
versus
* TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > [CBS NEWS] US PREPS FOR POSSIBLE CRUISE MISSLE STRIKE ON SYRIAN GOVT. FORCES.
RELATED SAME > US SENDING SHIPS TO MED TO PREPARE FOR MISSLE STRIKE ON SYRIA.
* BIG NEWS NETWORK > [Fox News] KRAUTHAMMER: OBAMA WON'T GET INVOLVED [evar!? IN SYRIA, no matter his Admin's rhetoric or the number of "red lines" violated???
Obama's deliberate intentions, or lack thereof???
Ouchies.
* SAME > OBAMA SIDESTEPS SYRIAN + EGYPTIAN CRISES.
No UNO = UNSC Mandates [read, Russia + China approval], + no "clear evidence" = NO US MIL INTERVENTION ANYWHERE FOR ANYBODY???
IMO JAPAN + PHILIPPINES + INDIA + PERSIAN GULF, MIDDLE EAST SHOULD JUST SURRENDER NOW TO CHINA + IRAN, + SAVE EVERYBODY THE HASSLE OF A LIMITED [tacical nuclear?]WAR(S).
I say "War(s)" in plural because I have no doubts "post-US" China + PLA will be willing to wage multiple Limited Wars to achieve its desired strategic access in East Asia. Its pretty much similar wid Nuke-, OWG Shia Caliphate-wannabe IRAN, whose Mullahs have made it clear they will never submit to any foreign invasion or occupation, + are willing to detonate Nukes-WMDS on their own soil, + in their own Cities-Towns, etc. to defeat such an invasion or occupation.
* BIG NEWS NETWORK > [Fox News] KRAUTHAMMER: OBAMA WON'T GET INVOLVED [evar!? IN SYRIA, no matter his Admin's rhetoric or the number of "red lines" violated???
Obama's deliberate intentions, or lack thereof???
Ouchies.
* SAME > OBAMA SIDESTEPS SYRIAN + EGYPTIAN CRISES.
No UNO = UNSC Mandates [read, Russia + China approval], + no "clear evidence" = NO US MIL INTERVENTION ANYWHERE FOR ANYBODY???
IMO JAPAN + PHILIPPINES + INDIA + PERSIAN GULF, MIDDLE EAST SHOULD JUST SURRENDER NOW TO CHINA + IRAN, + SAVE EVERYBODY THE HASSLE OF A LIMITED [tacical nuclear?]WAR(S).
I say "War(s)" in plural because I have no doubts "post-US" China + PLA will be willing to wage multiple Limited Wars to achieve its desired strategic access in East Asia. Its pretty much similar wid Nuke-, OWG Shia Caliphate-wannabe IRAN, whose Mullahs have made it clear they will never submit to any foreign invasion or occupation, + are willing to detonate Nukes-WMDS on their own soil, + in their own Cities-Towns, etc. to defeat such an invasion or occupation.
Tunisias ruling Islamists have agreed to an initiative by the countrys main labour union to avert the brewing political crisis by eventually forming a government of technocrats, a top union official said on Thursday.
The assassination of an opposition politician in late July plunged the country into crisis, with the opposition demanding the government and assembly elected in 2011, be dissolved demands backed up by demonstrations and sit-ins. There were even fears that Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, might go the way of Egypt, where dissatisfaction with Islamist rule resulted in a military coup and the bloody suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood, killing more than 1,000 people.
Tunisia, however, has managed to avoid the persistent bloodshed and cycle of unrest that has roiled Egypt after the overthrow of its president just a month after Tunisia deposed theirs on January 14, 2011. Despite a rocky transition, the Islamist-dominated government and the secular opposition parties have always been able to reach a compromise.
Mouldi Jendoubi, the assistant secretary-general of the General Union of Tunisian Workers, known as the UGTT, told the state news agency that the moderate Islamist Ennahda Party had agreed to a government of technocrats to get the country out of its current crisis.
The announcement follows talks between Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi and the powerful union head Houcine Abassi. The union, long a bastion of left-wing politics, has generally sided with the opposition against the government, but in the latest crisis took on a role as a mediator.
A subsequent statement by Ennahda said the party accepted the unions initiative as a starting point for dialogue and the current government would remain until an agreement was reached.
The coalition government will not resign and will continue its duties until national dialogue reaches a consensus agreement that guarantees the completion of the democratic transition and the organisation of free and fair elections, the statement said.
Opposition reaction to the announcement was mixed, with Nejib Chebbi, head of the liberal Jomhouri (Republican) party, welcoming it as a positive step to relaunch the national dialogue as soon as possible and find an end to this crisis.
Other parties, however, stuck by their initial demands for the dissolution of the assembly and the government before any talks.
We are committed to dialogue, but only after the resignation of the government, Ayda Klibi, spokeswoman for the right of centre Nida Tunis (Tunisia Calls) party, told The Associated Press.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/23/2013
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[Ynet] Egypt's state TV reported that Ahmed Aref, the front man for the Moslem Brüderbund, has been placed in durance vile Book 'im, Mahmoud! . The movement's leader Mohamed Badie was arrested earlier this week.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/23/2013
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[Dawn] INITIAL reports about the busting of an illegal telephone exchange in Lahore that was allegedly facilitating Al Qaeda once again highlight the dependence of foreign hard boy networks on local groups. In fact, the bully boyz cannot operate without these franchises and affiliates -- worryingly, present even in urban centres. The official response to the advice to identify these local networks has been lacking in consistency. Crackdowns have been few and restricted to jerky, superficial searches often aimed at stereotypical suspects. Thus the raid on the exchange working under the grand global title of International Technical Hub is an occasion for putting the country's security and intelligence network on the path to a longer, deeper involvement in a task which can only be delayed at great risk to the public.
It is too early to say what the Lahore exchange raid signifies in the context of the war against terrorism. Conclusions are tough to draw since many questions need to be answered first. In Punjab, where the government is accused of showing leniency towards hard boys, could this discovery prove to be a turning point? Or, is it a warning to demonstrate what the intelligence agencies are capable of achieving if Pak bully boyz do not heed the latest government call for dialogue? Just as it has become difficult to separate Punjab from the centre after the establishment of the PML-N governments in both Lahore and Islamabad, many observers are inclined to establish a link between Monday evening's call for negotiations by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... and Tuesday morning's raid on the telephone exchange. It is not so much the evidence that the material -- reportedly, thousands of SIM cards -- seized in the raid may provide but how the government wants to engage with the bully boyz which will decide the future course of any official action.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth ordered the entire 614th quadrant searched. The Green Lensman must be found!... the absence of action by Pak authorities has been used to justify a certain series of Pakistain-related steps by the US -- from drone attacks to the latest incident in which Washington has declared a madressah in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. a terrorist outfit. While no doubt this designation will -- and should -- put pressure on the Pak authorities to investigate closely the madressah's purported links with banned groups, the reasons the US has given for this move are not sufficient. More explanation is required on how the seminary was training groups as different in their approaches and designs as Taliban and Al Qaeda on the one hand and Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... on the other. Clarity is needed on all fronts in the war against terrorism.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
#1
More explanation is required on how the seminary was training groups as different in their approaches and designs as Taliban and Al Qaeda on the one hand and Lashkar-e-Taiba on the other.
So that the model can be applied elsewhere?
Clarity is needed on all fronts in the war against terrorism.
Because that will allow seminaries and other enablers to modify their behavior and methods to avoid detection.
[Dawn] The Mighty Pak Army said that two of its soldiers were killed on Thursday in "unprovoked" Indian fire along the border dividing the disputed territory of Kashmire, in the second such incident within two days.
One soldier was killed and two others injured in the latest firing incident along the Line of Control (LoC) a statement by the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said.
"Indian troops again resorted to unprovoked firing at Hotspring (Tatta Pani) sector in the evening. A Pak soldier has embraced shahadat (martyrdom) while two soldiers are injured," it said.
Earlier on, a Pak soldier had been killed "due to Indian troops unprovoked firing at the LoC on Thursday," according to a statement by the ISPR which added that, "Indian troops resorted to unprovoked firing at the LoC in Rakhchakri sector near Rawlakot at 1150 hours today."
On the other hand an Indian army officer said that Indian troops had responded after receiving gunfire from Pak soldiers, and the exchange lasted three hours.
He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military policy.
The latest development comes a day after Pakistain asked India to stop further ceasefire violations in a message delivered to the Indian deputy high commissioner Gopal Bagley after he was summoned to the Foreign Office to receive a demarche over the latest ceasefire violation in the Shaqma sector, near Skardu, in which a Pakistain Army officer was killed and a soldier critically maimed.
The recent flareup started two weeks back when five Indian soldiers were killed along the Line of Control, which is a UN-monitored de facto border dividing Kashmire between India and Pakistain.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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#1
sounds like the Indians got tired of the Pak infiltration shit and went offensive
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/23/2013 7:41
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[Dawn] Britannia's broadcasting watchdog on Wednesday fined an Islamic television channel £85,000 ($133,000, 99,700 euros) after a presenter said anyone disrespecting the Prophet Mohammed should be killed.
Ofcom ruled that Noor TV, which broadcasts on Sky, had breached broadcasting codes by inciting violence during a program aired on May 3 last year.
The watchdog said the size of the fine reflected the seriousness of the channel's transgression, but stopped short of revoking its licence.
Presenter Allama Muhammad Farooq Nizami was hosting a phone-in when he was asked what the punishment was for anyone showing disrespect for Prophet Mohammed.
"There is no disagreement about this," he replied. "There is absolutely no doubt about it that the punishment for the person who shows disrespect for the Prophet is death."
Ofcom ruled that the channel, which is owned by Al Ehya Digital Television, had transmitted "material likely to encourage or incite the commission of crime" and had failed to "exercise the proper degree of responsibility with respect to the content of programmes which are religious programmes."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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[Al Ahram] Russia said Thursday that a UN weapons inspection team in Syria must get the government's approval to visit the site of an alleged chemical attack near Damascus that the opposition says killed hundreds.
The Russian foreign ministry's official front man said the site of Wednesday's incident was controlled by rebels and that security concerns must also be addressed before any UN inspections are made.
"As far as we are aware, this region is under the control of the rebels," foreign ministry front man Alexander Lukashevich told news hounds.
"We proceed from the premise that the mission must agree on this visit with the Syrian side, as the receiving party," he said.
"It is no accident that [UN Deputy Secretary General Jan] Eliasson said that for a such visit to take place, the least that must happen first is for the military activities to stop."
Eliasson briefed UN Security Council members Wednesday on the incident, in which the Syrian opposition said more than 1,300 people were killed in kabooms with a chemical agent carried out by Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... 's forces.
Council members then announced that they were seeking "clarity" about the situation but failed to agree on a formal statement condemning the attack.
A diplomat in New York said Russia and China -- two permanent UN Security Council members that have backed Assad throughout the conflict -- blocked a statement condemning the incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#2
See also DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Russia Today]VIDEO:RUSSIAN TEAM SEARCHING CHEMICAL ATTACK SITE SAYS REBELS BEHIND SARIN GAS ATTACK.
* RELATED ...
> SAME = TURKEY FINDS SARIN GAS IN HOUSES OF SUSPECTED ISLAMISTS| RT NEWS.
> SAME > SYRIA OPPOSITION PREVENTING [proper = effec] CHEMICAL ATTACK PROBE - RUSSIA.
> SAME > [LiveLeak] VIDEO: TERRORISTS REJECT UN INVESIGATION OF KHAN AL-ASUL, THREATEN UN.
KISMAYO, Somalia -- At least ten Al Shabaab fighters were reportedly killed in heavy clashes between Kenyan security forces and Al Shabaab militants late Wednesday night in a Kenyan vicinity bordering Somalia, Garowe Online reports.
According to Garisa mayor, Harun Rashid Militia suspected to be Al Shabaab fighters attacked Kenyan patrol with grenades, mortars and gun fire and the battle lasted for nearly an hour, residents said.
"The battle occurred in North Eastern Kenya after Al Shabaab tried to raid security forces lying in ambush and Kenyan forces killed 10 Al Shabaab militiamen," said Mr. Rashid.
On their side, Al Shabaab officials declined to comment on the fighting.
Al Qaeda linked Al Shabaab group raided Galmagala police administration post in Fafi district 10 KMs from Somalia border and killed four police officers manning the station last week. Kenyan forces have been continuing security operations since Galmagala incident and Somalia's Al Shabaab group claimed to have seized electronic surveillance equipments and weapons during that raid.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/23/2013
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[Dawn] A roadside kaboom targeting troops killed a civilian and left 16 more people including 11 soldiers maimed on Thursday night in Pakistain's violence-plagued port city of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , police and military officials said.
Television footage showed several cars and cycle of violences were damaged in the blast aimed at a truck carrying soldiers back to camp after they carried out security duties for by-elections in the city.
The army truck was targeted near headquarters of paramilitary Rangers force in Korangi number 5 neighbourhood.
"At least 11 soldiers were maimed in the kaboom on their truck," a military official told AFP. "A civilian was killed and five others were also maimed," he added.
Police officials confirmed the bombing and toll.
Senior police official Irfan Bhutto said another bomb was found near the blast site attached to a pylon and a bomb disposal unit was attempting to defuse it.
Security was put on high alert in the wake of Thursday's by-elections in the metropolis.
Governor Sindh Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan has condemned the apparent terrorist attack and telephoned the DG Rangers to get details of the incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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[Dawn] Chief Justice of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. High Court, Justice Dost Muhammad Khan, by taking suo motu ...a legal term, from the Latin. Roughly translated it means I saw what you did, you bastard... notice of ban on women voting in some constituencies of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... province, has ordered to withhold results and arrest those behind the act on Thursday.
The chief election commissioner, on the directive of the chief justice Peshawar High Court, has withheld the by-polls results in NA-5 Nowshera, NA-27 Lakki Marwat and PK-27 Mardan.
The PHC chief justice has ordered to arrest Tribal Jirga members or individuals involved in barring women form voting in the said constituencies.
The District Police Officers, the CCPO, Home Secretary and the concerned deputy commissioners were summoned by the chief justice and ordered to arrest those found involved in the unlawful act.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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[Ynet] Saeid Moradi sentenced to life, Mohammad Kharzei gets 15 years for botched bombing in Bangkok, February 2012, which injured five, including Moradi
A court in Thailand has convicted two Iranian men for their involvement in a botched bomb plot that officials believe was aimed at Israeli diplomats in Bangkok. The court sentenced 39-year-old Saeid Moradi to life in prison Thursday for attempting to murder a police officer and carrying explosives. It also sentenced 43-year-old Mohammad Kharzei to 15 years in jail for his role in setting off the blasts.
Both had claimed innocence in the case. "Lies! All lies!"
The pair was tossed in the slammer Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! in February 2012, shortly after a cache of homemade explosives accidentally blew apart the Bangkok villa where they were staying.
Five were maimed in the blasts, including Moradi, who later lost both of his legs when he attempted to throw a grenade at coppers.
[An Nahar] Hizbullah accused on Thursday "regional intelligence bodies" of being behind last week's deadly blast in Beirut's southern suburbs.
"This terrorist blast was engineered by intelligence bodies that are benefiting from the policies of incitement adopted by some March 14 factions," the party's Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc said after the MPs' meeting.
The bloc elaborated: "These groups are investing in terrorist Takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... s to execute their plans and are taking advantage of March 14's strategic path that serves the interests of the American-Zionist axis in the region."
The bloc explained that the "catastrophic failure of these Takfiri groups to achieve conspiratorial goals in Syria and on the border with the neighboring country has pushed them to instead seek compensation inside Leb."
"But we took the decision to resist to these groups to preserve Leb, its unity, resistance, diversity and its religious coexistence, regardless of the sacrifices we have to offer."
A huge kaboom rocked Hizbullah's stronghold in the southern suburb of Beirut last Thursday, killing at least 27 people and maimed 325 others.
A previously unknown group, apparently a Syrian rebel cell, said it carried out the attack between Bir al-Abed and Rweiss, districts where Hizbullah security is normally tight.
The group said the kaboom came as a "response to Hizbullah's fighting alongside Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... 's forces in the neighboring country.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wine tasting, Vince was about to start tasting his third quart... Hizbullah chief His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... accused on Friday radical Islamists of responsibility for the bombing.
The Loyalty to Resistance MPs pointed out in their statement that a "national unity cabinet is the political solution that would uncover Death Eaters and the parties obstructing the building of the state."
"We reject a de facto cabinet which is provocative and contradicts with the National Charter," the politicians stressed, remarking that the March 14 coalition "is standing in the way of forming a political council of ministers, hindering the work of the constitutional institutions and the political life in the country."
"Betting on autocratic regimes that promote a reconciliation with the Zionist enemy threatens illusory sovereignty and stability in the country."
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08/23/2013
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[Al Ahram] Egypt's public prosecutor on Thursday ordered the detention of Moslem Brüderbund chief for another 15 days pending an investigation into fresh allegations, judicial sources said.
The new charges against Brotherhood's Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie include inciting murder and torture of protesters at a main Cairo protest camp set up by supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
The preventative detention of the Brotherhood's Supreme Guide would come into effect when he serves two other temporary detention orders on similar charges.
Badie faces an array of charges faces, including instigating murder, attempted murder and torturing anti-Morsi protesters in December 2012. He is also accused of inciting violence, damaging public and private property, and attacks on security and army personnel outside a Cairo barracks. At least 51 were killed when the Egyptian army opened fire on Morsi supporters outside the Republican Guard barracks in northeast Cairo in July.
Badie and his two deputies are due to stand trial on 25 August.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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[Al Ahram] Yemen has asked the United States to supply it with drones, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi said on Thursday, to help it fight an al Qaeda threat that recently forced Western countries to temporarily close diplomatic missions in Sanaa.
State news agency Saba also quoted Hadi as telling police cadets that 40 suspected al Qaeda bully boyz had been killed in recent counter-terrorism operations and vowed to keep fighting the Islamists until they laid down their weapons.
Hadi, who came to power in 2011 after months of turmoil forced his predecessor to step down, irked Yemenis last year by giving unequivocal support for Washington's controversial drone strikes, which have increased under President Barack Obama Jedi mind meld...
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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#1
Probably has a room of Chinese and Russian folks hoping to take a look at it in exchange for some currency.
[Al Ahram] Two Armed Forces soldiers were killed, and another seriously injured along with a major, after a group of masked assailants targeted an army vehicle on the Port-Said Agricultural Road Thursday morning, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported.
Egypt has witnessed numerous incidents of violence, with reports of nearly 900 killed, including at least 100 coppers, in the aftermath of the forced dispersal of two Pro-Morsi protest camps in the squares of Al-Nahda, in Giza, and Rabaa Al-Adawiya, in Nasr City. Egyptian security forces have been targeted across the country at checkpoints, facilities and patrol routes since the ouster of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's Islamist president, on 3 July.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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[Ynet] Syrian activists say Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... 's forces are pressing on with a military offensive in the rebel-held eastern Damascus suburbs where the opposition says a chemical weapons attack killed over 1,000 people.
The Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says it had no word on casualties in Thursday's bombing of eastern Ghouta.
[Dawn] Heraldo Munoz, the lead United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... (UN) investigator in a probe into former prime minister Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... 's liquidation, doubts the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) independently carried out the attack, but does not discount suspicions about involvement of intelligence operatives in her murder and later covering up of evidence.
An adaptation from Mr Munoz's upcoming book, 'Getting away with the murder -- Behind the Investigation of Benazir Bhutto's Assassination', published on Foreign Affairs magazine's website, expresses fears that the murder would remain unsolved because of absence of both capacity and willingness of the government and courts to solve the case.
Mr Munoz, currently UN Assistant Secretary General, had headed the UN Commission of Inquiry into the liquidation appointed by Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... on the government's request in July 2009. The commission submitted its report to the secretary general in March 2010.
The publishing of the article coincided with the indictment of former military ruler retired Gen Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... by an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi in the Benazir liquidation case.
Mr Munoz believes Gen Musharraf may have facilitated the killing by ignoring Ms Bhutto's security needs after their political deal went sour and does not absolve him of moral and political responsibility.
"Suspicions of the ISI's -- or at least of some retired officers or rogue members of the agency -- involvement in the liquidation were not unfounded," he observed in the article after narrating his meetings with army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... and then ISI director general Lt Gen Shuja Pasha.
The UN investigator has recounted that army chief Kayani had doubts about Pak Taliban's involvement in the murder of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
Kayani suspected whether the slain chief of TTP, Baitullah Mehsud had organised the liquidation, as was claimed by an interior ministry front man at a news conference a day after Bhutto's death on December 27, 2007.
Musharraf's government based its claim on Mehsud's telephonic conversation intercepted by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Kayani had called the presser "premature" and that "It should not have been done," Heraldo Munoz wrote in his book.
"One cannot conclude culpability solely on a phone intercept," the army chief was quoted as saying by Munoz, who headed a UN panel that investigated Benazir Bhutto's liquidation.
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[Dawn] Seven people, including a Customs official who was also a member of the Ahmadiyya community, were bumped off in targeted attacks in the city on Wednesday, police said.
They said that two armed motorcyclists targeted Zahoor Ahmed Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... , 46, outside his home in Mujahid Colony in Orangi Town. The attackers also killed his neighbour and friend Noorul Wahid, a non-Ahmadi, when he tried to save him.
Both victims sustained multiple bullet wounds and were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where doctors pronounced them dead.
Mominabad SHO Ahmed Butt suspected personal enmity behind the murder. Mr Kayani was an employee of the Customs and father of seven, he said.
However, some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them... a spokesperson for the Anjuman-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistain (AAP) said in a statement that Mr Kayani was a member of the party and had become a victim of 'religious hatred'. His friend was killed because he tried to resist the assailants, he added.
The AAP members were being targeted in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... but the government had failed to curb such killings, although it was the state's responsibility to provide protection to all its citizens irrespective of their faith, he said.
Two killed in Sohrab Goth attack
A shopkeeper and a boy were killed when gunnies fired indiscriminately in a Sohrab Goth market on Wednesday in what police described as an extortion-related attack.
The police said that gunnies resorted to firing in the Super Market near the terminal of 4-L bus and, as a result, shopkeeper Mohammed Yousuf, 40, was struck down in his prime while Atta Rehman, 12, died during treatment at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.
Sohrab Goth SHO Mohammed Naeem said that two other boys, identified as Irshad, 12, and Sajjad, 10, also sustained bullet wounds. Irshad was admitted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), while the whereabouts of Sajjad were not known, he added.
"The incident might be extortion related," said Sohrab Goth DSP Mohammed Khalid.
Besides, he said two groups of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain were also fighting with each other to establish their control in the area and the infighting had intensified following the killing of Sher Khan Mehsud in Manghopir a few days ago.
Man rubbed out in Korangi
The owner of a poultry shop was rubbed out in Korangi Industrial Area on Wednesday.
Police said Rana Mohammed Arshad, 30, was standing outside his shop in P&T Colony when two armed motorcyclists targeted him and rode away. He was taken to the JPMC where doctors declared him dead. He's dead, Jim! The victim originally hailed from Mandi Bahauddin.
The family told the police that they would get an FIR lodged after burial there.
Teenager found rubbed out
A teenage boy was found rubbed out near Pakhtunkhwa Chowk in Korangi Industrial Area's Sector-8-A.
Police said the body of Umar Ali, 17, was found on late Tuesday night.
The victim's mother told the police that he left home at 11pm to see a friend, Shoaib Bengali.
The family lodged an FIR in which they expressed their suspicions about the possible involvement of Shoaib in the killing.
The police said Shoaib had criminal record and they suspected that the victim was also involved in some criminal activity.
They said that in the same area, four gunnies shot and maimed a shopkeeper, Dilawar Khan, and the spent bullet casings found from both spots had matched.
Robbers kill man
A young man was rubbed out when he resisted a robbery bid in Saeedabad on Wednesday, police said.
They said that the man, identified as Malang Abbas, 40, suffered bullet wounds near 100 Quarters Road in Yusuf Goth. He was taken to the Civil Hospital Karachi where he died.
Saeedabad SHO Zafar Iqbal said the victim was a 'commission agent'.
Young man rubbed out
A young man was rubbed out in a Gulistan-e-Jauhar locality, police said.
SSP-East Imran Shaukat said that Ashraf Musharraf, 21, had a scuffle with someone near Pehlwan Goth who fired at him. He sustained multiple bullet wounds and was taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where doctors pronounced him dead He's dead, Jim! He sold kebabs on a pushcart.
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08/23/2013
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[Dawn] Sheikh Aminullah, who triggered the US economic sanctions on a small seminary in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. on Tuesday, has been frequently travelling abroad despite having been declared a terrorist by the US government and the United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... in 2009.
"Sheikh Aminullah travelled to Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... in last Ramazan for performing Umra and then came back to Rawalpindi where he was teaching the Holy Koran at a mosque in Raja Bazaar," said one source affiliated with Jamia Taleemul Koran wal Sunnah, which was declared a terrorist outfit by the US government.
He said he knew that Amanullah, who had taught here from 20 years, had been declared terrorist by the UN and the US.
Sheikh Aminullah has no longer any association with the seminary associated in the congested old part of Peshawar city.
Administration of the seminary said Aminullah had left the religious school eight months ago and that they were not aware of his whereabouts.
"If he (Aminullah) was wanted to America or UN, then he can be tossed in the slammer Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! in Saudi Arabia or in Islamabad. Why declare a seminary a terrorist outfit," he asked, declaring the US charges rubbish and baseless.
"This seminary is open to everyone. We also invite Americans to inspect this compound," he offered, saying that this place had been under observations since the US government put name of Sheikh Aminullah on the list.
The US State Department said the seminary was being abused by terrorist organizations and today's action appeared to be the first time, a seminary had been declared a terrorist outfit in Pakistain.
Haji Alam Sher, 85, owner of the seminary, said Sheikh Aminullah had left the seminary on his own will about eight months ago and he did not know his whereabouts.
"I don't know the reason as to why he left seminary, but I did not ask him to leave this job," said Sher who donated about one kanal land where seminary stands.
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08/23/2013
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[An Nahar] A Congolese general wanted in connection with the 1999 disappearance of 350 refugees was locked away Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! in La Belle France on Thursday and charged with crimes against humanity, a court source said.
Norbert Dabira, 64, was accused of torture and kidnapping on a massive scale by examining magistrates in a Gay Paree court after being arrested in the town of Torcy near Gay Paree.
The refugees had gone to neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... , fleeing from civil war in their home country, but disappeared after they returned to the port of Brazzaville.
La Belle France originally opened an investigation into the case in 2002, citing the principle of universal jurisdiction.
Dabira is the former inspector-general of the Congolese army, and since October 2012 has been a high commissioner for the re-integration of former soldiers. He holds the rank of minister.
The 64-year-old was arrested on Thursday in Torcy, and presented before magistrates for "crimes against humanity" at a court in the French capital.
When contacted by Agence La Belle France Presse, the general said he was "totally innocent" and would not leave La Belle France during the investigation.
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#1
What about Rwanda charging some still in activity French politicians for their support to the genociders and for rearming them after their defeat?
[An Nahar] The army on Thursday evening announced seizing a truck carrying gas masks and related equipment in the town of al-Kfeir in the Hasbaya District as al-Jadeed television said it was "bound for the Syrian opposition."
"The pick up truck driver was nabbed Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! and the foundings were confiscated," a communique issued by the Army Command said.
It remarked that "the competent court has opened an investigation in the incident."
Meanwhile, ...back at the shouting match, the spittle had reached unprecedented levels... al-Jadeed noted that the truck was bound for the Syrian opposition.
"The truck was bound for Syria's opposition via (the Israeli-occupied) Mount Hermon," it remarked.
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[Al Ahram] Top Moslem Brüderbund member and former MP Ahmed Abu Baraka was enjugged Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! by Egyptian security forces Thursday in an apartment in the Sayeda Zeinab district in central Cairo.
Abu Baraka is the latest in a string of arrests including the Brotherhood's top leadership in addition to a wave of detentions of its members that included hundreds of members this week.
Abu Baraka is a member of the Brotherhood's Guidance Bureau who's lead member, Supreme Guide Mohamed Badei, was arrested on Tuesday also in Cairo.
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[Dawn] Women voters were absent from the polling stations in some parts of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... , as in the May 2013 elections, because they were barred from polling either as a result of a ban imposed or an understanding between the contesting candidates that women voters should not be allowed to come out for voting on the pretext of social or cultural norms.
The reports of women being barred from the polling process were received from various polling stations in Nowshera, Lakki Marwat.
Meanwhile similar reports were also received from Punjab's Mianwali and Mandi Bahauddin areas where by-polls were underway for NA-71 and PP-188 constituencies respectively.
During a visit to various polling stations in Nowshera's NA-5, not even a single woman voter had turned out to cast her vote till the filing of this report and some locals suspected that there might have been an agreement between the contestants to bar female voters from casting their votes.
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Another Iranian filmmaker, Esmail Heydari, has been killed in Syria, Fars news agency reported. Heydari is the second Iranian filmmaker that has been assassinated in Syria this week.
Prior, Adi Bagbani was killed by "Takfiri militants", as Iranian authorities call them. "Takfiri" is a religious minority that hardly stands against Shia beliefs.
They're part of the Sunni-led rebellion, I think...
Fars news agency reported earlier that a 3-member group went to Syria to make a documentary film about the violations there. The group reportedly included the both Heydari and Bagbani. The film group, according to Fars, was scheduled to work in Syria for 10 days.
Since 2011 a lot of Iranian filmmakers have gone to Syria, and about 22 documentary films have been shot in the country since then.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
Esmail Heydari, the Iranian Leni Riefenstahl....
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/23/2013 7:44
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Two terrorist militant groups that broke away from Al Qaeda's North African wing and fought in Mali have merged, pledging to attack French interests, according to a statement published on Thursday.
The move unites terrorist fighters led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the alleged mastermind of an attack on an Algerian gas plant in January, with MUJWA, an Islamist group that was scattered by a French offensive on Al Qaeda-linked rebels in Mali this year. The two terrorist groups had already jointly claimed responsibility for raids in May that killed dozens at a barracks and damaged a uranium mine operated by France's Areva in Niger.
The new name for the group was given as Al Mourabitoun. It was not immediately clear who had been named its leader.
"It is the birth of a group that includes Mujahideen and even Muslims in North Africa from the country of the Nile and the Atlantic," Mauritania's Nouakchott Information Agency, ANI, quoted Belmokhtar as saying in a statement it received.
It was not possible to independently verify the report but North African militants frequently use ANI to publish their statements.
The new name for the group was given as Al Mourabitoun. It was not immediately clear who had been named its leader.
Belmokhtar is quoted as saying the group aimed to create an Islamic state and recent events in Egypt had shown how the "Zionist and Crusader" forces wanted to destroy Islam.
In the statement sent to ANI, Belmokhtar said the group would concentrate on attacking French interests.
"We say to France and its allies in the region ... the Mujahideen have met and agreed to defeat your armies and destroy your plans and projects," he said.
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Veteran leader Robert Mugabe was sworn in as Zimbabwe's president for another five-year term on Thursday before a stadium packed with tens of thousands of jubilant supporters. Mugabe, 89, pledged "to observe, uphold and defend the constitution of Zimbabwe" in an oath administered by Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, extending his 33-year rule.
There's always a first time...
Supporters clad in clothes emblazoned with the image of the man who has lead their nation since independence in 1980 filled the 60,000-seater venue, a show of force after elections many say were rigged.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai insists the July 31 vote was stolen and his party boycotted the inauguration. Tsvangirai's spokesman said the opposition leader "can't attend a robber's party."
Former colonial power Britain has called for an 'independent investigation' into the conduct of the election, which Mugabe officially won by a landslide.
Unlike previous low-key investitures, the event was replete with banners, flags and chants carried strong echoes of Mugabe's inauguration as prime minister of a newly independent Zimbabwe in 1980.
The absence of many neighbouring leaders, including President Jacob Zuma of regional power-broker South Africa, did little to dampen enthusiasm. Tanzania's Jakaya Kikwete, Namibia's Hifikepunye Pohamba and the Democratic Republic of Congo's Joseph Kabila were among those leaders who attended.
Mugabe was greeted in the stadium by thunderous cheers and whistling when he arrived with his wife on board a military truck.
Gates to the Chinese-built stadium, the venue of Mugabe's inauguration as president in 1987, opened shortly after dawn. The day was declared a public holiday, helping boost attendance.
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08/23/2013
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#1
Former colonial power Britain has called for an 'independent investigation' into the conduct of the election, which Mugabe officially won by a landslide.
Difficult to imagine such dire outcomes 40 years ago eh #10 ?
Erma's Bordello
Discounts for hotel residents.
Bookings available at reception,
Closed for religious services on Sunday.
- Notice above Reception desk,
Hilltop Pension, Arenas de Mar
#3
Manning in my book can live his/her life however he/she wants, just behind bars.
Manning'll get a presidential pardon with Obama at the helm.
Quite the message.
Posted by: Jan ||
08/23/2013 3:50
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#4
Interesting. The website is blocked at work because the site is "religion". And, yes, I will begin working before 7.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/23/2013 6:40
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#5
Manning probably will get a Pardon from Obama. They are just keeping it in their pocket until a SQUIRREL! is needed to distract the media.
#6
Trustees can get jobs outside the walls. One of the nice aspects about Fort Leavenworth for few enlisted stationed there is that there aren't many 'details' as the non-MOS work is done by trustees. They've operated green houses, landscaping, furniture upholstery, laundry, and barbershops. Maybe they can make accommodation to shift one of the barber chairs to hair salon status.
#7
If given trustee status, hope he/she stays clear of Weston and vicinity. Bill Carson's barber shop clients might invite him out into the street for a thrashin.
ADDIS ABABA -- IGAD brokered talks between Federal Government of Somalia and Somalia's Jubaland administration are continuing for the third day in Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, Garowe Online reports.
The two sides, Mogadishu-based Federal Government and Jubaland delegations which were led by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and President Ahmed Mohamed Islam (Madobe) respectively, initially took a sit-down dinner on Wednesday evening in Addis Ababa.
Sources close to the bilateral discussions told Garowe Online that both sides agreed on three points of agreements which were likely to be signed last Wednesday night with International community members present before President Hassan showed extreme reluctance to accept the points.
Among the three points disagreed; The federal Government to recognize the outcomes of Jubaland convention including the constitution, state flag and Jubaland administration structures, also to recognize the three regions of Jubaland which consists of Lower Jubba, Middle Jubba and Gedo regions, and Federal Government of Somalia and Jubaland to work together in line with the legitimate Provisional Federal Constitution (PFC) of Somalia which was signed by road map signatories, on June 22, 2012 with UN present as a guarantor.
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08/23/2013
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from Walid Shoebat, former MB member and now 'peace activist'. Take it for what it's worth.
Egyptian government and mainstream media has reported a major development regarding the role of Barack Obama's brother (presumably, his half-brother Malik Obama) with the Muslim Brotherhood. As we have reported before, Malik is a member of the Islamic Da'wa Organization (IDO), an arm of the Sudanese government, which is led by President Omar al-Bashir, who is himself a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
These facts would lend credibility to the following claims from Egypt.
The former Chancellor of the Constitutional Court of Egypt and current adviser, Tahani Al-Jebali stated that the reason the United States cannot fight the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood is because the brother of U.S. President Barack Obama is the architect of the investments for the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Jebali stated she would like...
"...to inform the American people that their president's brother Obama is one of the architects of the major investments of the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood."
She added...
"We will carry out the law and the Americans will not stop us. We need to open the files and begin court sessions. The Obama administration cannot stop us; they know that they supported terrorism. We will open the files so these nations are exposed, to show how they collaborated with them [the terrorists]. It is for this reason why the American administration fights us."
More quotes and video at the link. It's not clear to me that this pans out but it's a potential explanation why Champ has been so fixated on helping the Brüderbünd gain and hold power. Again, much salt required at this point.
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#1
Malik or Malia whomever,...probably no connection.
[An Nahar] An bomb was found on Thursday evening in the town of Maarakeh in the southern Tyre District.
"The device was found in Shdaghrouss neighborhood in Maarakeh," the state-run National News Agency said.
But an army statement said the bomb was found in Maarakeh's outskirts.
"At 4:30 p.m., an army patrol found an bomb composed of 500 grams of TNT in the outskirts of the southern town of Maarakeh. A military expert arrived on the scene and defused it as a probe was launched under the supervision of the relevant judicial authorities to arrest the perpetrators," it said.
Earlier, NNA said the bomb was composed of "two dynamite sticks, an electric device and kaboom."
The discovery comes hours after four rockets were fired earlier on Thursday from Tyre towards northern Israel.
The NNA revealed that the army found wooden launch pads from which the rockets were fired between Hawsh and al-Rashidiyeh in the South, denying reports of retaliatory Israeli shelling against southern Leb.
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08/23/2013
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[Al Ahram] The Salafist's Nour party leader, Younis Makhion states it would be stupid to consider excluding the Islamist political current in Egypt.
"You cannot exclude the Islamist current and if anyone thinks about exclusion, it will be extremely stupid," said Makhionin an interview with Rooters.
After Egypt's army deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi on 3 July they engaged in what could be the fiercest crackdown against the Islamists in decades and Makhion says his party "feels that it is getting closer to the crisis."
Some members Nour Party members were harassed just for growing a beard as an expression of their religious commitment, says Makhion, worried about the state of emergency in Egypt.
"Thugs are now setting up checkpoints where they attack bearded men and sometimes beat and then hand them over the cop shoppes where cases are being set up for them and then they are sent to the prosecution," said Younis Makhion,accusing the state of mobilising "the thugs."
Warning of an arbitrary campaign against Islamists, Makhion also stated that this campaign may force the Islamists to work underground. "This is a dangerous path and will make many reject democracy and use others methods," the leader of the second-largest Islamist party in Egypt (after the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party) warned.
"The Moslem Brüderbund activists involved in violence should stand trial, but the mass arrest of Moslem Brüderbund members is extremely wrong" said Makhion.
Hundreds of Brotherhood members have been tossed in the clink ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... in the past two weeks, not just in Cairo, but across several governorates in Egypt following the dispersal of the pro-Morsi sit-ins.
The leader of the Salafist party also warned of violence and counter-violence in Egypt, especially that weapons are flooding into Egypt from Libya since the Libyan revolution two years ago.
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[Dawn] Every child should know about the actual purpose and spirit of jihad as it couldn't be separated from the faith of Moslems, said Provincial Minister for Information Shah Farman.
"Jihad is part of our faith. Jihad shouldn't be held responsible for the act of someone, who misuses it for other purposes," he told a presser here on Wednesday.
Like other basic principles of Islam, he said, children should have knowledge of jihad.
To a question about reinsertion of Koranic verses regarding jihad in the textbook of Islamic studies for grade 9 and 10, the minister said that a review committee was formed to look into the matter. "No one can dictate the Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... -led provincial government to change the curricula," he said, adding that he had not taken dollars from America.
Mr Farman said that after the passage of 18th Amendment making curricula was a responsibility of the province so it would be developed according to the teachings of Islam and Pakhtun culture. He said that curricula would not be changed to please some elements to help them remain in power.
"According to our oath, we will defend Pakistain and Islamic ideology at all forums. No matter if someone is happy or angry," he added.
Why it was not said in 1980s that Afghan war was not jihad and why the Afghan nation was not declared fundamentalist, the minister questioned.
He criticised the previous governments of Muthahidda Majlis-e-Amal and Awami National Party, saying they changed the curricula of schools on dictation from abroad.
The minister showed some errors in the textbook of history for grade 6 wherein Kashmire was shown a part of India in one of the maps. He also shared some of the co-curricula reading material for primary schools in which a girl wearing skirt was chatting with another girl. The minister termed it against the Pakhtun culture.
Mr Farman alleged that the then education minister in Muthahidda Majlis-e-Amal government Maulana Fazl Ali during his visit to Germany had agreed to introduce changes in the curricula of educational institutions in the province after that several lessons related to Islam were replaced with the other topics.
Citing examples of the changes in curricula of educational institutions in the province the information minister said that an essay the 'Voice of God' was replaced with 'I Saw a Man Who Was Giant' in the English book for grade 9.
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08/23/2013
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This is from August 4 so just a brief reminder here: trial and festivities start Sunday.
An Egyptian court on Sunday set an August 25 trial date for the Muslim Brotherhoods supreme leader, Mohammed Badie, and five other members of the Islamist movement, over their alleged involvement in the deaths of protesters.
Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie, who is currently in hiding, and his two deputies Khairat al-Shater and Rashad Bayoumi who are being held in Cairo's Tora prison, are accused of inciting violence against protesters outside the Islamist group's headquarters on June 30. They will face trial on August 25 together with three Brotherhood members who are accused of killing protesters.
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[Ynet] The Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram's website reported that a cell suspected of the execution of 25 coppers on the road between el-Arish and Rafah on Monday has been captured.
The members of the cell aren't feeling so good right now, I bet...
The newspaper reported that additional details on the arrest will be released in the coming hours. Meanwhile, ...back at the chili cook-off, Chuck reached for the green sauce... Arab media outlets reported that the Egyptian army nabbed 15 gunnies wanted for attacks in Sinai, among them seven Paleostinians.
Ah, the Paleos, once again spreading good will throughout the region...
#8
US Intel leans toward concluding poison gas was fired
DEBKAfile August 23, 2013, 9:04 PM (GMT+02:00)
Administration officials said Friday that US intelligence detected activity at known Syrian chemical weapons sites before Wednesday's possible chemical weapons attack that killed at least 1,000 people, according to CBS News. It is now seen as possible preparation for the attack. US intelligence agencies now lean to the conclusion that Syria did use chemical weapons. DEBKAfile's military sources add: The gas shells were fired by the Syrian armys elite 155th Brigade. They came from stores near Damascus controlled by the Syrian Air Force intelligence service which answers directly to President Bashar Assad.
#9
I saw the videos on the news about the supposed "proof of chemical weapons use", but it looks a lot like the Paliwood videos to me. I don't know, but I'm skeptical.
[Dawn] Former military ruler General (retd) Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... was indicted on three counts Tuesday in Rawalpindi's anti-terrorism court (ATC) over the 2007 murder of ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... Musharraf was also produced in the ATC amidst tight security during today's hearing of the case headed by ATC judge Habibur Rehman.
A challan ... list of charges ... was read out against the former president and seven others nominated in Benazir's murder during the hearing.
"He was charged with murder, criminal conspiracy for murder and facilitation for murder," public prosecutor Chaudhry Azhar told AFP at the ATC in Rawalpindi hearing the case.
The seven accused persons include former City Police Officer (CPO) of Rawalpindi Saud Aziz, the then SP Khurram Shahzad, Hasnain Gul, Rafaqat Hussain, Sher Zaman, Abdul Rasheed and Aitzaaz Shah respectively.
Musharraf and the accused men denied the charges.
The court ordered the authorities to produce all the defendants in a hearing fixed for August 27 as it subsequently adjourned the matter to the said date for evidence to be brought.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
Mushie, you're a f'ing IDIOT to go back there once you had escaped.
Posted by: Barbara ||
08/23/2013 19:43
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[Al Ahram] Latest opinion poll by the Egyptian Centre for Public Opinion Research (Baseera) indicated that 67 percent of Egyptians are "content" with the police's dispersal operation of two pro-Morsi sit-ins on 14 August.
The same poll showed that 24 percent of respondents aren't content and 9 percent are undecided.
According to Magued Osman, head of the Centre, the poll also showed that only 17 percent of the respondents believe the sit-in was unarmed. Sixty-seven percent believe it contained weapons, and only 16 percent say they don't know.
Twenty-four percent of Egyptians who participated in the survey say it would have been better to give more time for negotiations. Meanwhile, ...back at the cheese factory, there was only one thought in the mouse's mind: I can do this! I can do this! Then the trap sprung... 70 percent view the time period the Moslem Brüderbund had to end their protests was sufficient and they should not be given more chances.
Regarding the use of force to disperse the pro-Morsi sit-ins, 23 percent say the dispersal used excessive force, while 65 percent believe it wasn't too violent. However, ars longa, vita brevis... 56 percent of respondents consider the corpse count from the dispersal to be too high. Thirty-four percent didn't think it was. Sixty-two percent say the reason for the high number is due to the protesters and only 13 percent say the police are responsible, and 25 percent aren't sure.
On international reactions, 78 percent of respondents believe countries who object to the security forces' move don't have the right to do so, while 8 percent say it is the right reaction, and 15 percent aren't sure.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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Top|| File under: Arab Spring
#3
Goldie Jeanne Hawn (born November 21, 1945) is an American actress, film director, producer, and occasional singer. Hawn is known for her roles in television's Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and films like Private Benjamin, Foul Play, Shampoo, Overboard, Bird on a Wire, Death Becomes Her, The First Wives Club, and Cactus Flower, for which she won the 1969 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is the mother of actors Oliver and Kate Hudson. Hawn has maintained a relationship with actor Kurt Russell since 1983.
Hawn was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Laura (née Steinhoff; November 27, 1913 November 27, 1993), a jewelry shop/dance school owner, and Edward Rutledge Hawn (September 28, 1908 June 7, 1982), a band musician who played at major events in Washington. She was named after her mother's aunt.[1] She has a sister, Patricia; her brother, Edward, died as an infant before Goldie's birth.
Through her father, Hawn is a direct descendant of Edward Rutledge, the youngest signatory of the Declaration of Independence. Hawn was raised in Takoma Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C., and attended Montgomery Blair High School in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland. Her father was Presbyterian and her mother was Jewish, the daughter of immigrants from Hungary; Hawn had a Jewish upbringing.
Hawn founded and funds The Hawn Foundation, which teaches the Buddhist technique of mindfulness training; where kindergarten through seventh-graders are instructed in mindful awareness techniques and positive thinking skills, then tested for changes in behavior, social and emotional competence, and moral development.
[Al Ahram] Egypt's roadmap to democracy is still on course and the overthrow of elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi was based on a popular rather than a parliamentary mandate, a presidential advisor said on Wednesday.
In his first television interview on Wednesday, Mostafa Hegazy criticised "armed" protests by supporters of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi for "terrorising people."
Egypt has witnessed a period of deadly violence as police forcibly cleared two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo last week, leaving hundreds dead, sparking days of bloody clashes, and pitting Islamists against security forces. Around 900 people have been killed across the country over the past week, although exact figures have yet to be confirmed by official sources.
"The Brotherhood's disaffected young rank and file has been mobilised through blackmail exercised by their leaders to coax them into taking to the streets in order to allegedly defend Islam," Hegazy said.
He claimed the interim government had liaised with members of the Muslim Brotherhood in attempts to reach a peaceful solution to the standoff between protesters and security forces, but that attempts failed due to the reluctance of the Brotherhood.
Condemning all forms of bloodshed, Hegazy described the pro-Morsi protest camps as a "national security threat" and said that they had been dispersed by police "gradually" and in accordance with regulations.
Egypt's roadmap to democracy is still on course and the overthrow of elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi was based on a popular rather than a parliamentary mandate, a presidential advisor said on Wednesday.
In his first television interview on Wednesday, Mostafa Hegazy criticised "armed" protests by supporters of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi for "terrorising people."
Egypt has witnessed a period of deadly violence as police forcibly cleared two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo last week, leaving hundreds dead, sparking days of bloody clashes, and pitting Islamists against security forces. Around 900 people have been killed across the country over the past week, although exact figures have yet to be confirmed by official sources.
"The Brotherhood's disaffected young rank and file has been mobilised through blackmail exercised by their leaders to coax them into taking to the streets in order to allegedly defend Islam," Hegazy said.
He claimed the interim government had liaised with members of the Muslim Brotherhood in attempts to reach a peaceful solution to the standoff between protesters and security forces, but that attempts failed due to the reluctance of the Brotherhood.
Condemning all forms of bloodshed, Hegazy described the pro-Morsi protest camps as a "national security threat" and said that they had been dispersed by police "gradually" and in accordance with regulations.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[Dawn] A senior commander of the Punjabi Taliban capo has welcomed the government's recent offer to hold peace talks.
Asmatullah Muawiya, a principal ally of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) and leader of the so-called Punjabi Taliban, said in a statement Thursday that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... demonstrated political maturity by reiterating his offer to hold peace negotiations in a speech over the weekend.
In a his first nationally televised speech to the nation after coming to power in the May 11 general eledctions, Prime Minister Sharif had offered dialogue to "those elements which unfortunately have taken the course of extremism".
Muawiya said faceless myrmidons in Pakistain should respond positively if the government is serious about resolving the conflict.
Muawiya is believed to be the head of the Taliban's faction of fighters from Punjab province.
It's not entirely certain whether the TTP top leadership shares his sentiments. But they have backed previous statements made by Muawiya, saying he should be seen as having their support.
The TTP withdrew a previous offer to hold peace talks in May after the group's deputy commander, Waliur Rehman, was killed in a US drone strike.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
[LVGuardianExpress] On Wednesday, health officials confirmed that bats in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... were the source of the coronavirus in the Middle East, which can cause MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. MERS has thus far sickened 96 people in the Middle East. 47 of those ultimately died.
The recent MERS outbreak has been going on for 15 months. Most of the victims have fallen ill in Saudi Arabia. Some grew sick after having traveled to the Middle East.
The bat is a Taphozous perforatus, or Egyptian tomb bat. Typically, the creature roosts in abandoned buildings. The virus was found in a fecal sample inside one of these buildings.
Dr. Jonathan H. Epstein, a veterinarian with the EcoHealth Alliance who helped trap the bats, has suggested that victims, like shepherds who might seek shelter in the buildings, picked it up by breathing in dried bat guano. If so, it would be very similar to the way that Americans have been infected with hantavirus while sweeping up dried mouse droppings.
Another possibility is that some other animal came into contact with the feces from an infected bat, and that animal then spread the coronavirus. It is also possible that an animal picked it up that way and then infected a human.
[Dawn] A Pak Taliban capo believed to be harbouring foreign hard boyz was killed along with four others in a roadside kaboomkaboom in South Wazoo tribal agency, officials said Thursday.
Ghulam Jan, believed to be a key commander of the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP), was killed along with four accomplices when the improvised bomb targeted his vehicle on Wednesday evening in Birmal tehsil, located about 27 kilometres from Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.
Assistant Political Agent Shahid Ali Khan confirmed that five people were killed in the blast which completely destroyed the vehicle.
Local officials confirmed the incident took place around 7 pm on Wednesday, but access to the area is limited and reports from the semi-autonomous tribal region, infested with Taliban and al Qaeda bad turbans, are difficult to verify.
Jan, who had a reputation for supporting and harbouring Uzebk, Tajik and Central Asian bad turbans, was earlier believed to have been ousted from the area by the pro-government Mullah Nazir group.
"He was anti-government and well known for his support to foreigners," a official said on condition of anonymity.
The Mullah Nazir group had flushed out Uzbek fighters and anti-state hard boyz from Wazir areas in 2008 and 2009.
Other people who had died in Wednesday's blast were identified as Jan's uncle, Juma Khan, and his close aides Mir Gul, Asmatullah and Kharote.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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Top|| File under: TTP
WASHINGTON With a warning that the money is gone, military leaders driven by falling defense spending are moving to cut top brass positions and slash headquarters spending.
The Navy announced late Tuesday that Navy Secretary Ray Mabus had approved a plan to reduce, eliminate or consolidate a net of 35 Navy flag officer positions at the one-, two- and three-star ranks. The Navy said it also plans to eliminate 6 more top officer positions in the 2015 budget.
And last week, a memo from Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno and Army Secretary John McHugh declared that a plan to cut Army headquarters at the two-star level and above by 25 percent was priority No. 1 for headquarters staff.
Apparently this is to be done by attrition as opposed to pink slips or firing squad...
The Navy said flag officer end strength is being reduced using a phased approach and will be complete by 2017, resulting in 151 Navy-specific billets and 61 flag officers to fill joint billets.
We had to make tough choices but it was the right thing to do -- the plan is in line with Congressional mandates, OSD guidance and our changing fiscal environment, said Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mark E. Ferguson.
The announcements follow an order from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last month to reduce spending on military headquarters by 20 percent over five years, with corresponding staff cuts. The Pentagon endured a $37 billion cut in its budget this year because of sequestration, and faces a $52 billion reduction next year if elected officials dont find a way to stop the automatic budget cuts required by federal law. Hagel, however, said the headquarters cuts would proceed even if sequestration is avoided.
The Navy released a detailed list of positions to be reduced or eliminated, with most being reduced by one pay grade. For instance, the director of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities in the office of the Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon will be a captain in the future, rather than a one-star admiral.
Other positions will be merged, such as two jobs in the CNOs office director of the total force programming and manpower management division, and director of military personnel plans and policy division that will now be done by one rear admiral. Likewise, the Naval Surface Warfare Center and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, located in Washington, will be commanded by a single one-star.
A few positions will be eliminated, including commander of Submarine Group 2 in Groton, Conn.
The Army memo, dated Aug. 14 and first reported by Defense News, lacks the specificity on cuts that the Navy announcement has. But in terse language punctuated with bold-face type and sentences in all capital letters, it ordered commanders to present plans within two weeks for achieving the 25 percent reduction.
Let there be no mistake, aggregate reductions WILL TAKE PLACE, Odierno and McHugh wrote. The money is gone; our mission now is to determine how best to allocate these cuts while maintaining readiness. We expect Army leaders, military and civilian, to seize this opportunity to re-shape our Army. This effort will take PRIORITY OVER ALL other Headquarters, Department of the Army activities.
Officials from the Air Force and Marine Corps told Stars and Stripes that both services are taking steps to follow Hagels direction on 20 percent headquarters reductions, but have no current plans to release details on how the cuts would be achieved.
I don't know enough about the military to know if this is appropriate, but I do worry that the fighting guys are usually the ones forced out by the political types.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/23/2013
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#1
I'd be looking at individual programs and agencies ie, DARPA, DIA, Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), Army Material Command (AMC), and Army Research Lab (ARL) before personnel, but those are pet rocks with heavy Department of the Army feather merchant Civilian strengths which are difficult to cut.
If you can live without some senior grades, why the fok weren't they cut years ago. Sort of telling isn't it ?
Excerpt, which shows the numbers are actually quite small. They appear to be the cutting of positions, thence reductions through normal attrition and a suspension of hiring vs layoffs.
The Army would lose more than 2,100 workers from a 263,900-person civilian workforce, and the Navy would cut as many as 2,672 of 214,000 people. Department-wide agencies would dismiss 1,500 people from a projected 137,000-person force, with most coming from the Defense Contract Management Agency.
If you compare the ratio of GOs (general officers) to enlisted in WWII and today, you got to see its way out of wack. Grade creep has been a serious problem for generations. Part of the problem has been dealing with NATO, specifically their over ranking vis a vis personnel strength (high officer vs enlisted ratio). The American argument for too long has been we can't have someone of lower rank dealing with an allied counterpart who's two or three grades higher. Now that we're disengaging from that situation, the rationale no longer holds.
If you have a 100 GOs, its important to be a GO. If you have only 10 GOs, it becomes important to be a Colonel.
Anyways, these days, who needs more political appointees in uniform? /rhet question
[Ynet] The Hezbollah-affiliated al-Akhbar newspaper released a report accusing Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, of not aiding security services to arrest the main suspect in the rocket attacks of Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Beirut in May.
According to the newspaper, official security sources in Leb claim the Lebanese intelligence services have information on the suspect, Ahmed Taha. Hamas denied any knowledge of Taha's whereabouts and claimed he is not a member of the group, but handed authorities with his brother.
[An Nahar] Masked gunniesrubbed out a Hizbullah supporter and two other men, including a member of the security forces, in the northern city of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... early Thursday, a security official said.
"Masked men on cycle of violences rubbed out Hussam al-Mouri, a security official and a third man who happened to be at the scene," the official said.
Mouri was a known supporter of Hizbullah, a key ally of Syria's Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... , and has been target of previous liquidation attempts.
He headed an gang in the northern city which last year clashed with faceless myrmidons opposed to Hizbullah and Assad's regime.
The majority of residents of the port city support the 29-month anti-Assad rebellion in neighboring Syria, and resent Hizbullah's decision to send fighters to support the army there.
Mouri, who was in his 40s, and the two other men were standing at the entrance to his home when the gunnies drove up and shot them, the official said.
"The army has deployed in the al-Zahriyeh district" in central Tripoli, near Mouri's home, the official said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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Top|| File under: Hezbollah
#1
Lebanon is way overdue for a round of civil war.
[Al Ahram] Egyptian authorities must protect churches and Christian homes and businesses from attack and Islamists must stop inciting sectarian violence, Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... said on Thursday.
The group said it had documented attacks on 42 churches and dozens of Christian institutions, schools and homes, as well as Christian-owned businesses across the country.
It said at least four people were reported killed in sectarian violence, three Christians and one Mohammedan.
Attacks on Egypt's Christian minority have escalated since the July 3 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
The attacks dramatically increased since the August 14 dispersal of two pro-Morsi protest camps in the capital.
Human Rights Watch said authorities had failed to protect Christians from attacks, and that Islamists, including Morsi's Moslem Brüderbund, had failed to properly condemn the violence and prevent future attacks.
"For weeks, everyone could see these attacks were coming, with Moslem Brüderbund members accusing Coptic Christians of a role in Mohamed Morsi's ouster, but the authorities did little or nothing to prevent them," said Joe Stork, the group's acting Middle East director.
"In the vast majority of the 42 cases Human Rights Watch documented, neither the police nor the military were present at the start or during the attack," the group said.
It said a priest in Minya province told the group he had called police and emergency services multiple times as mobs attacked his church, but no one came.
A bishop told the group he contacted senior government officials to plead for help, and though they promised to send protection, none arrived.
But while HRW criticised the government for failing to protect Christians, it also said the country's Islamists deserved blame for inciting the attacks.
They came "after weeks of sectarian discourse by Moslem Brüderbund supporters" at two pro-Morsi protest camps, the group said.
And while some Moslem Brüderbund leaders have condemned the attacks, others "have suggested a Coptic role in the ongoing crackdown on the group," HRW said.
"While a few Moslem Brüderbund leaders have condemned these attacks, they also need to tell the group's followers to stop inciting violence by insinuating that the Coptic minority is responsible for the crackdown," Stork said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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Top|| File under: Arab Spring
#1
HRW noticed burning churches? Will wonders never cease?
#2
...well, it's not like they can send out the "Blame BushChimpHitler" fund solicitation letter to keep those useful idiots sending those $$$ in anymore and another NGO has the copyright on puppies and baby seals.
#3
HRW should have made this kind of statement years ago. Churches were being attacked and Christians tormented by the end of the Mubarek era. By May of this year there were already dozens of Copts dead from Muslim attacks and this was just referred to as 'sectarian violence'.
Obama and others in the administrative have made a few comments on this but has never condemned the MB for the attacks. And of course, in the background, there is the noxious case of Benghazi.
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/23/2013 10:46
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Top||
[Dawn] The votes in the biggest ever by-elections in Pakistain's history have now almost completely been counted. By and large the polls were conducted in an orderly manner although it has been marred by few allegations of rigging, terrorist attack on Pakistain Army troops and women being denied the right to vote.
The polls are not expected to shatter the status quo in the country's political discourse; however it will indicate the mood of the public regarding the incumbent political parties.
No massive change was witnessed in Sindh and Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... , like in the May 11 general elections, as the ruling Pakistain Musselmen League-Nawaz (PML-N) again topped the electoral race bagging 18 of 39 national and provincial seats.
However, a poor excuse is better than no excuse at all... few unexpected results have emerged in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... provinces.
The National Assembly seat vacated by PTI chief Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the brightest knife in the national drawer... in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. has been claimed by his May 11 rival, Ghulam Ahmed Bilour of Awami National Party (ANP).
PTI's Asad Umar has defeated his Pakistain Musselmen League-Nawaz rival Chaudhry Ashraf Gujjar to win the Islamabad seat, vacated by Javed Hashmi while Shmasun Nisa Memon -- mother of the May 11 winner and subsequently disqualified by the SC, Sadiq Memon -- has defeated PML-N's Syed Riaz Hussain Shah Sherazi to win NA-237 Thatha seat.
Meanwhile, ...back at the argument, Jane reached into her purse for her .38... Secretary Election Commission of Pakistain (ECP) Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan has said the commission has taken notice of the news of counting of votes at some polling stations before the valid time of 5:00 pm, APP reported.
"Counting cannot be started even one minute before the legal time. We have taken notice of the matter and would ask from the concerned presiding officers," he told the media while announcing the first result of the by-polls.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Al Ahram] Explosions were heard near Israel's northern border with Leb on Thursday, witnesses and AFP correspondents said, as Lebanese security sources said Death Eaters had fired four rockets into Israel.
Witnesses reported hearing several blasts near the northern coastal town of Nahariya.
No casualties or damage were immediately reported.
"We heard about four or five kabooms, and then the sirens went off for about a minute," a woman named Yasmin from the northern village of Klil told AFP.
A security source in Leb said that four rockets were fired at Israel from the south.
"Unknown gunnies fired four rockets from two positions, south and east of Tyre, at Israel," the source said as residents in the area said they heard four blasts.
The Israeli army said the Iron Dome defence system intercepted one rocket.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/23/2013
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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.
Twin explosions hit two mosques in 
[CNN] A military jury has convicted Army Maj. Nidal Hasan of 13 counts of murder and 32 counts of attempted murder in a November 5, 2009, shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, making it possible for the death penalty to be considered as a possible punishment.
Nawaz Sharif
[Dawn] The 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
KISMAYO, Somalia -- At least ten Al Shabaab fighters were reportedly killed in heavy clashes between Kenyan security forces and Al Shabaab militants late Wednesday night in a Kenyan vicinity bordering Somalia, Garowe Online reports.
[Dawn] A 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
Pervez 
[Dawn] Seven people, including a Customs official who was also a member of the Ahmadiyya community, were 
[Dawn] Women voters were absent from the polling stations in some parts of the 
ADDIS ABABA -- IGAD brokered talks between Federal Government of Somalia and Somalia's Jubaland administration are continuing for the third day in Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, Garowe Online reports.
[Dawn] Every child should know about the actual purpose and spirit of jihad as it couldn't be separated from the faith of 
[Ynet] The Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram's website reported that a cell suspected of the execution of 25 
[LVGuardianExpress] On Wednesday, health officials confirmed that bats in 
Wazoo
