In a rushed bid to ride out the storm sweeping American finance, 94-year-old Merrill Lynch & Co. agreed late Sunday to sell itself to Bank of America Corp. for roughly $44 billion.
The deal, which was being worked out in 48 hours of frenetic negotiating, could instantly reshape the U.S. banking landscape, making the nation's prime behemoth even bigger. The boards of the two companies approved the deal Sunday evening, according to people familiar with the matter.
Driven by Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis, Bank of America has already made dozens of acquisitions large and small, including the purchase of ailing mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp. earlier this year. In adding Merrill Lynch, it would control the nation's largest force of stock brokers as well as a well-regarded investment bank.
A combination would create a bank of vast reach, involved in nearly every nook and cranny of the financial system, from credit cards and auto loans to bond and stock underwriting, merger advice and wealth management. It would also show how the credit crisis has created opportunities for financially sound buyers. At $44 billion, or roughly $29 a share, Merrill would be sold at about two-thirds of its value of one year ago, and half its all-time peak value of early 2007. Merrill shares changed hands at $17.05 each on Friday, after falling sharply in the wake of Lehman's looming demise.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/14/2008
21:59 ||
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When asked to characterize Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's qualifications to be the Republican vice presidential nominee, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., stated flatly that Palin isn't ready to be vice president.
"She doesn't know anything," Wasserman Schultz said on CBS' Face The Nation, responding to a charge by a fellow guest, former Mass. Gov. Jane Swift, that Palin has been forced to undergo scrutiny in the media that some would characterize as sexist.
"There shouldn't be a double standard," Swift said. "We shouldn't ask of her questions about her ability to do the job that we wouldn't ask a guy in a similar circumstance.
"But I think that we also have to acknowledge that, because we've had so few women running for these high-level offices, although this is a great year on that front, that we're also not attuned to hearing women's voices and to seeing them in these positions.
"So it may be that we have to be most attuned to not having a double standard, to not asking any female candidate of either party to clear a bar that we wouldn't ask a male candidate in the same situation to clear."
Wasserman Schultz disagreed that Palin has had to meet an unfair standard. Now I know who Wasserman-Schultz reminds me of...
Aughra from, "The Dark Crystal"
#4
Ya know I am not surprised at teh attacks on Palin. If they didn't attack her people wopuld get bored and start asking about O'messiahs school records or business dealings.
But things have changed. First, America is very close to flat out winning in Iraq. This shouldn't be a partisan data point, but it is, and Republicans are starting to hold their chins high, thanks to the success of the surge, which, far more than the war, was an almost purely Republican initiative.
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have managed to drive Congress' approval ratings to near absolute zero. Also, if you don't actually think Barack Obama is a higher life form, listening to the press talk like Princess Leia for a year - "Help us Obama Wan Kenobi, you're our only hope!" - can get really old. Republicans feel a lot like Elaine in that Seinfeld episode where she was the only person in the world who didn't understand why everyone fawned over "The English Patient."
Changing everything was Sarah Palin. Oh, her. Suddenly, conservatives not only found something to love on the GOP ticket, but the boldness of the pick suggested that the outcome wasn't written in stone.
The tectonic plates are definitely rumbling. Partisan Democrats may not believe it, but independents and dispirited Republicans now see the McCain-Palin pick as a sharp break with Bush (McCain now has a double-digit lead over the "post-partisan" Obama among independents).
The Democrats' advantage in party identification has been cut from the mid-high teens earlier this summer to a mere five points, and the shrinkage continues. Gallup's generic poll asking voters whom they'd vote for for Congress may be even more telling. Last month, Democrats led by 11 points; now the GOP is down 3 points among registered voters. And among likely voters, Republicans are actually a full five points ahead.
Now, obviously, this is all a snapshot of the race, as they say, but sometimes you can tell a lot from a snapshot. Take a snapshot of the fans at a baseball game sometime right before they think they've lost, and compare it to a snapshot taken right after a game-changing home run, and you'll see what I mean.
#1
Republicans feel a lot like Elaine in that Seinfeld episode where she was the only person in the world who didn't understand why everyone fawned over "The English Patient."
#2
Trust me, it did. Made no sense historically, on a number of levels, which I would go into in depth, at the risk of boring everyone *S&&&less. (like, a combat field hospital would drag along a dying burn patient for a year or two? Like there weren't any big hospitals in the rear with the gear in Egypt. Oh don't get me started. You'll rue the day, et cetera, et cetera.)
And the book was even more impenetrable.
Rumors were Friday that Bank of America was the leading rube suitor for the failing Lehman Brothers.
Now it appears the last hope was Barclays, and they walked along with BOA when Paulson said no to backstopping the purchase; and the "end game" is in sight.
#1
An note to Rantburgers: though the odds are not great, a peculiar situation may yet evolve that is in essence a worldwide collapse in credit, affecting governments, corporations and individuals all at once.
From the individual point of view, other than some degree of economic catastrophe, greater or lesser, faster or slower, what would this mean?
Ironically, massive and truly unbelievable deflation.
That is, imagine if all at once, the major credit card companies invalidated ALL credit cards, concluding all existing sales.
This would mean that the only way for anybody to purchase anything would be with debit cards, instant debit checks, and cash.
Of course, that vast majority of transactions would have to be by debit card, which would be the bulk of our national economic activity. But far fewer merchants are currently able to do instant debit checks.
This leaves cash. And how many people would you guess have over $500 in cash in their homes? But for at least a month or two, or more, cash would suddenly be worth far more than face value. A penny might be worth a dollar, because everyone would *have* to have cash.
It sounds utterly bizarre, yet the "credit society" has only existed since WWII. Before then, cash was generally how transactions were done.
And the US mints are right now working at full capacity. The government is *incapable* of producing more paper money without opening new mints. We are talking something on the order of $500 billion dollars, with corporations shuttling around suitcases full of $100,000 bills, only redeemable with government authorization.
In any event, the reason I bring this up is because, for the next six months to a year, it would probably be a very, very good idea to keep a few thousand dollars CASH in a safe place.
If the credit crunch doesn't happen by then, you will only be out a few dollars interest, so no biggy.
But if it does happen, who knows? You might be able to buy a new car for $200, a really nice house for $5000, or an s-load of gold for the price of lead.
#4
I would argue that we are undergoing deflation right now. It is possible to have deflation with rapidly rising prices which can be tied to a supply and demand event, which we have in the case of our recent oil price spikes.
So, what is deflation?
I went through a deflationary event in Oklahoma during the oil bust.
Looking back on it, it wasn't bad: housing fell, wages were worth much more; you just couldn't borrow money because frankly no one had any to lend.
That may well be what the USA faces, and even in that event we could still be in a rising price environment.
If companies here cannot borrow to fund inventories, then manufacturers can't make stuff; then we have shortages or supply events and higher prices.
The solution is obvious. Government is crowding out private businesses with its voracious appetite for money, so that appetite much be curbed.
It will happen. Whether it is by an act of Congress or an act of the Fed is the choice we face now.
Government cannot continue to expand or even spend at it current level. It is hurting the economy and crowding out any chance the private economy will have to get back on its feet.
#5
Barclays has a lot of stuff marked to fantasy (i.e. fancy financial assets on/off its balance sheet that cannot easily be valued because of their complexity, but are clearly worth less than the amounts they owe to their creditors). Make no mistake - they are in deep doo-doo. For them to take on Lehman's liabilities would be like adding weight to a sinking ship. At the same time, if Lehman liquidates, Barclays will have to switch from marking its assets to fantasy to marking its assets to Lehman liquidation values. Barclays may not want to buy Lehman, but it was probably hoping that somebody else would.
Bank of America is buying Merrill, though. The rumor is that BAC has so many massive derivative trades with Merrill that it can't afford to let Merrill go under.
#6
Lehman survived, even prospered for 150+ years through depressions, panics, etc. and in periods when the govt was borrowing more than it is now as a percentage of total spending.
It is a mistake to blame govt borrowing. It is the company itself, especially the executives who awarded themselves many millions of bonuses. Certainly the govt bears responsibility for the Community Reinvestment Act which basically requires lending quotas and for several other govt actions that made things worse and, of course there is the Fannie and Freddie problem which was sort of a govt chartered and govt. coddled non govt agency.
#7
It is a mistake to blame govt borrowing. It is the company itself, especially the executives who awarded themselves many millions of bonuses.
Lehman's executives destroyed it. Period. They got carried away with leverage and also got involved in investments outside of their area of expertise where they, not the other participants, were the rubes. For once, Main Street got to stick it to the city slickers on Wall Street.
H/T Powerline. If this is true, the SS Obama is sinking faster than I thought. And I thought it was sinking pretty fast.
A new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll shows that the race is now a dead heat between Barack Obama and John McCain, each supported by 45 percent of likely voters in the state. The new poll likely will stoke both sides' efforts during the final 51 days until the election, triggering a barrage of advertising, grass-roots politicking and, potentially, stepped-up visits by the candidates. And, of course, a barrage of anti-Palin hit pieces in the Strib.
They'd do that anyway ...
The poll found that McCain has made gains across the board since a May Minnesota Poll that showed him trailing by 13 points. Part of the rise in McCain's fortunes nationally has been attributed to his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, a move that has energized his party's conservative base. Palin has energized the "conservative base", whatever that is. And, oh, about twenty million American women from Bangor to Honolulu.
But the Minnesota Poll found that the choice of Palin was essentially a wash among the state's voters. While 30 percent said it made them more likely to vote for the Republican ticket, 26 percent said it made them less likely to do so. For the rest, it didn't make much difference. If your poll shows that Palin isn't making a difference, you need to hire a new pollster.
Posted by: Matt ||
09/14/2008
16:48 ||
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#1
If your poll shows that Palin isn't making a difference, you need to hire a new pollster.
Well, it is the Strib, they've always needed new pollsters.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/14/2008 18:40
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#2
The American owmen thing is over played. Would people have been this enthusiastic if he'd chosen K. Bailey Hutchison? I think it's more the Beer issue.
#4
Alternate title :
Obama campaign dead, McCain draws even in Minnesota. GOP has not carried this state in Prez Election since 1972, and before that - 1956...
#5
I hope so - but let's not get cocky. A lot can happen between now and the election. I'm hopeful but we have a lot to do between now and then to make this happen.
#6
I'm still not putting a lot of stock in the polls. They could be cooking them to make a Obama "comeback" all that more exciting.
Or they could just be plain stupid.
Either way, the fact that tons of people have been re-energized for McCain/Palin and are lukewarm or over Obama/Biden does not bode well for the dhimocrats.
LONDON: Five Sharia courts have been set up in different cities of Britain with powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.
The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence, according to a report. The Islamic courts have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network's headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh, the report said.
Rulings issued by the five sharia courts are enforceable with full power of the judicial system through the country courts or high court. Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims. Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddique, whose Muslim Arbitration Tribunal runs the courts, said he had taken advantage of a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996.
Under the act, the sharia courts are classified as arbitration tribunals. The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law, provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case.
"We realised that under the 'Arbitration Act', we can make rulings which can be enforced by country and high courts. The act allows disputes to be resolved using alternatives like tribunals," Siddique said. "This method is called alternative dispute resolution, which for Muslims is what the sharia courts are," he said.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008
15:59 ||
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#1
Very sad. It was a good run for 400 years. Hard to believe I could have lived through Churchill's funeral to see this. Sad. We should open the immigration gates again.
Posted by: ed ||
09/14/2008 17:44
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#6
There'll have to be a few steps yet before they get to stone anybody. At the moment both parties have to agree to "arbitration," and agreement might not be forthcoming from a stoning candidate.
They need some kind of ruling that being a Muhammadan automatically means agreeing to "arbitration," and then there'll have to be some rule about which Sharia school gets to run them, and then there'll have to be some kind of EU waiver allowing Muhammadan executions.
The first ruling may not take very long. Agreement from the masters in Brussels might take a little longer: the only item of faith left to unite the EU seem to be that capital punishment is almost as bad as the USA.
Posted by: James ||
09/14/2008 17:51
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One of the cutest non-political political story about the election.
A taste:
Everybody wants to talk to Sarah. The moms about raising children and paying bills. The working moms about balancing work, children and paying the bills. Career women about the challenges of doing business, how to motivate people and the most efficient methods to get it done. The guys want to talk about fishing and hunting. The older guys about running efficient government, corruption and energy. Her husband Todd is a lucky guy. Pretty cool, too.
Over in the corner, your sister and some of her friends are making catty remarks about how she's running around with all those kids, shooting stuff *ugh* and generally making them look like a bunch of unaccomplished school girls. No one can be all of those things and definitely no woman. Women have to choose to either be a mom or a career woman. Besides, there is no way they are going to have four kids, live in a freaking igloo and shoot moose. Not that anyone asked them to, but just in case someone gets the big idea. They give all the guys the stink eye.
Did you hear? She actually wanted to pray before eating dinner! What is she? Some throw back to the 1950's? Now she's helping pick up the mess after dinner without being asked. Is she deliberately trying to make everyone look bad? What the hell is wrong with her? She is sooo setting women back like a gazillion years. Doesn't she know that the men should be helping clean up the mess and watching the babies, too? Oh. They are. That b*tch!
Lahore, Sept 14 (ANI): Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Luo Zhaohui has reportedly criticsied the cross-border raids in the Pakistani Tribal Areas by the US forces, saying that Pakistan and the US must resolve their differences through constructive and peaceful dialogue.
"The United Nations Charter required states to respect each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity," the Daily Times quoted Zhaohui as telling reporters here last evening.
He also urged the Pakistani authorities to ensure a safe release of the two kidnapped Chinese engineers.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008
15:33 ||
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AMERICAN raids on Taliban and Al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan could provoke terror attacks in London, Pakistan's high commissioner to the UK warned yesterday.
Wajid Shamsul Hasan said the US bombings had killed hundreds of civilians but had failed to eliminate any Al-Qaeda leader. "This will infuriate Muslims in this country and make the streets of London less safe," he said. "There are 1m Pakistanis in the diaspora here and resentment is mounting. I'm being flooded by text messages from community leaders saying we must organise our anger.
"The Americans' trigger-happy actions will radicalise young Muslims. They're playing into the hands of the very militants we're supposed to be fighting."
"Nice country you have here. Shame if anything happened to it because of those frisky Americans ..."
Pakistan's newly elected president, Asif Ali Zardari, arrives in Britain today on what was to have been a private visit to see his daughter off to university in Edinburgh. Instead he will hold crisis talks with Gordon Brown and David Miliband, the foreign secretary. He will appeal to them to exert their influence to halt the unauthorised bombings.
"We hope they will help convince the Americans to stop it, to give space to our fledgling democracy and revive our economy," Hasan said. "Otherwise the army will take over. Is that what they want?"
This article starring:
Wajid Shamsul Hasan
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008
15:16 ||
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#1
For a second, I was starting to worry about my buddies in East Lyme.
#2
"We hope they will help convince the Americans to stop it, to give space to our fledgling democracy and revive our economy," Hasan said. "Otherwise the army will take over. Is that what they want?"
Yes, that is EXACTLY what we want. Police your own damn boarders or we WILL do it for you.
Pakistan has cancer (al Queada and the Taliban) and the only cure is radical surgery. You don't worry about the medical bills you are about to get when you have a life threatening problem.
Police launched raids across the Indian capital today, detaining about a dozen people as part of efforts to track down the bombers responsible for a series of blasts that left more than 20 dead and 100 injured in Delhi.
Five explosions within half an hour caused havoc in one of the city's central parks and crowded shopping areas on Saturday evening - one of the busiest times of the weekend. Television and newspapers put the death toll at 30. Police yesterday confirmed 21 bodies.
Police said they were studying CCTV footage from two of the markets hit by bombs. A further three bombs, also placed in crowded areas of the capital, were found and defused. About a dozen people had been detained in the raids, believed to have targeted mainly Muslim areas of the city. A group called Islamic Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the bombings in an email, written in English and sent to several Indian news organisations.
Islamic Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for a string of bomb attacks in Indian cities in May and July that together killed more than 120.
Police said they had several leads, including talking to an 11-year-old boy who said he had seen two men drop off a large plastic bag at one of the blast sites.
Although Indian police have been quick to round up suspects, it has had little success in convicting perpetrators. After earlier attacks many people were arrested but charges have yet to be filed.
Last week, Maulana Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the head of Jama Masjid, Delhi's biggest mosque, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to complain that innocent Muslims were being arrested "in the name of terrorist activities".
In its email, Islamic Mujahideen warned India's richest man, billionaire Mukesh Ambani, not to build a 60-storey home on land in Mumbai that was once the spot of a Muslim charity. It also attacked the Indian media for biased coverage.
Police in Mumbai said they were investigating the possibility that the email had been sent from a hacked wireless network in a household in Mumbai's Chembur suburb. "Preliminary investigations show the email may have been sent from Chembur," Mumbai police Chief Hasan Gafoor told reporters.
After the July blasts, authorities questioned an American citizen living in Mumbai when an investigation revealed that the bombers apparently accessed his wireless network to send an email claiming responsibility.
Although India is seen as relatively peaceful compared to neighbouring Pakistan, there have been concerns about the rising number of bombings. The National Counterterrorism Centre in Washington says 3,674 people had been killed in militant attacks in India between January 2004 and March 2007, a death toll second only to that of Iraq.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008
13:12 ||
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#1
When are they going after the culprits in Karachi, Rawalpindi, and Hyderabad? Don't do half a job, do it all, and do it right.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 14:12
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As New Delhi bled on Saturday evening, Pakistani army rangers allegedly violated the ceasefire agreement with the specific purpose of pushing in militants across the Line of Control (LoC).
Times Now has learnt that while New Delhi was reeling from the aftershocks of the deadly serial blasts, Pakistani troops were pushing in militants into India. The violations took place between eight in the evening and ten-thirty in the night when the attention of the countries entire leadership was on containing the fallout of the Delhi serial blasts. According to highly placed military sources, Pakistani troops provided 'cover firing' to infiltrate militants in Mendhar and Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch.
Pakistan firing was also reported from Druchian posts and Rashid post. This is the 31st incident of firing from the Pakistan side in last 4 months.
Indian troops were on Sunday fired at from across the line of control in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, leaving a jawan injured, defence sources said. "There was firing from cross the LoC in Balnoi area of Poonch district. One jawan was hit by a bullet," they said adding the soldier was hospitalised.
One to two rounds of rocket projectile grenades were also fired in the area, they said, adding the militants may have fired the rounds.
Colonel S Jaswal, PRO of 16 Corps, said it was not a ceasefire violation and that no militants had infiltrated during the firing. "There is no ceasefire violation and matter is being blown out of proportion," he said referring to a media report about infiltration of militants.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008
12:48 ||
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#1
A GMLRS system with napalm warheads would put an end to that rather quickly, without actually "violating" Pakistani "airspace". India needs to respond more violently to these attacks, or they will increase in both number and savagery.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 14:14
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I have a problem that is driving me crazy & I hope you can help. I married a wonderful woman named Representative Government a couple centuries ago. Our friends also call her Democracy. Anyway, along with her came her dog Media. At first Media seemed like a great addition to the family, protecting the house against thieves and fast talkers. Everyone in the neighborhood got a kick out of Media's daily info drops, the articles on local kid activities and the occasional thoughtful analysis. Everyone except old Joe Stickyfingers down at Town Hall, anyway, but he had it coming after that kickback scam he was running.
Here's my problem though. A while back Media's behavior began to change. She stopped coming in when we called. She started growling at the kids, stealing the Internet router and guarding it in her crate, stuff like that. This election season it's really gotten out of hand, with Media and her friends messing on the carpets and chewing the furniture every time Gov. Palin is on TV. I've tried to control her but she's actually threatened me!! -- and I think her rabies vaccination has expired ....
Some of my friends say the only option left is to put her down. But even if I could catch her without getting my throat ripped out Democracy has made it very plain she will divorce me, take the house and the kids and make sure I never work in this town again if I take Media on that last trip to the vet. Help! How can I housetrain Media and get her under control again? You're my only hope.
(signed) Angry despairing citizen who wants his floors to stay clean and the Media dog to act responsibly
Dear Citizen,
You've got a problem, all right. But don't despair - dogs like Media secretly want and need the discipline of the pack to be happy and non-destructive. It will take some work and determination, but you can retrain her to become a useful member of the household and to respect your leadership once again. In fact, you can take a few tips from Gov. Palin in this regard. But first let's review the basics of dog training.
Dogs learn by associating outcomes with behaviors. That's the basis of what we professionals call 'operant conditioning'. The dog operates on the environment and learns from the results. Behaviors that result in good things (rewards) get repeated. Rewards can be treats, praise, invitations to Sunday talk shows, subscription income, ad revenues, web page hits, links from other web sites. Anything that Media really wants is a potential reward.
Lots of people make the mistake of relying on punishment to change a dog's behavior -- you know, the rolled-up paper threat for peeing on the floor. However, punishment is tricky to get right and can even be counterproductive unless it's done correctly. There are actually four levers you have in training the Media dog or a killer whale or your annoying neighbors. They are:
a) Positive reinforcement -- giving the dog something she wants in response to a behavior you want
b) Negative reinforcement -- removing something she dislikes in response to a behavior you want
c) Positive punishment -- hitting, yelling etc. i.e. doing something she dislikes in response to a behavior you don't want
d) Negative punishment -- removing something she likes in response to a behavior you don't want
Of these four levers, positive reinforcement is by far the most effective in training a new behavior. (Stopping an unwanted behavior is a harder issue that we'll get to later in this column.) Giving a treat or praise whenever Media sits, comes when called, writes a fair and balanced news article -- this is the best way to train her to do something you want. Catch her doing it, even imperfectly, and treat her: she's bound to do it more often in hopes of getting rewarded again. When she does it really well, give her a particularly coveted treat: "extras for excellence".
Sometimes, though, the behavior we want is overshadowed by the dog's instincts or acquired habits. Then we move to negative reinforcement: opening the door only when the dog quiets down, continuing on a walk only when she stops pulling at the lead. That sort of thing. Negative punishment can be very effective as well. In my house, a dog that growls over a chew bone in my presence goes in a crate for a timeout. Quite often that's all it takes to change that unwanted behavior.
If a behavior is particularly dangerous, we might consider the carefully targeted use of positive punishment. My boy Charlie, now happily flushing birds in that great hunting field in the sky, had this down to a science when he was alpha dog of the pack here. When one of the other dogs disrupted the pack, taking away food or chewies from others for instance, Charlie stepped in. BOOM!!! Out of nowhere he would appear and in an instant the other dog was down on the ground with Charlie's fangs an inch from her neck. The look in Charlie's eyes said "Do it again and die." Not until the offender submitted did Charlie let her up.
Why not rely on positive punishment alone? Unfortunately, for positive punishment to be effective it has to be immediate, consistent and credible. Charlie couldn't maintain order if he overlooked bad behavior sometimes or if he wasn't around to catch it. He couldn't come up to the offender an hour later and start whining about her behavior or nagging her to do better, either. And that look in his eye, the rumble deep in his throat and his bared teeth had to present a credible threat of real consequences. Only when all 3 conditions are met does positive punishment work.
Okay, so these are the tools you have to work with in training Media: positive and negative reinforcement, positive and negative punishment.
Now let's look at how to apply them in a comprehensive retraining program. Normally I would recommend that you "train a conflicting behavior". I.e. -- if she begs at the dinner table, train a "down" command and reward her for staying down while you eat.
It's not going to be all kibble and treats in your case, however, because Media has already discovered all sorts of strong rewards for doing things you don't like, like biased coverage of Republican candidates and slanted reporting of war activities. She gets access to political influence, invitations to swank insider parties, TV time and a chance to influence elections as a result of her behaviors. So it's not surprising that she isn't paying any attention to you when you call her to heel.
What gets rewarded gets repeated, so Media's behavior has gotten totally out of hand. She's messing on your political floor and using doctored photos from insurgents and the other party's sympathizers. Try to reprimand her and she threatens to tear out your throat, expose your divorce records or drag your kids through the mud with slimy rumors and innuendo.
In cases like this we move directly to punishment to end this dangerous behavior before we can retrain Media into better habits. Remember the 3 requirements for punishment: to be effective it must be immediate, consistent and credible.
Immediate: Any misbehavior on Media's part must generate an instantaneous response. Emails to the editor, columns on blogs, TV interviews exposing Media's actions -- be prepared to respond quickly and forcefully when she steps out of line.
Consistent: This will take help. You, your family and your friends need to watch Media constantly. Fact-check her articles. Demand full transcripts and raw video from interviews and examine them for bias. Do not let a single offense slip by unnoticed. This will require great dedication on your part. It means someone you love will have to sit through Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews daily. Just keep telling yourself that this won't go on forever -- you will retrain Media with some effort and persistence.
Credible: Above all, every egregious misbehavior by Media must trigger an immediate response that credibly threatens Media with consequences she really doesn't want. Such as: Try to swing this election and we will not only expose what you're doing, cancel subscriptions and write to advertisers, we will also organize a massive effort to elect the candidate you're trashing. In fact, we will organize a backlash that just might retake Congress too.
Some behaviors are so egregious, so dangerous, that they demand a truly existential threat in response. So what is the equivalent of "do it again and DIE" for Media? It's withholding interviews and demanding independent videotaping of them, with the raw footage to go online immediately. It's developing alternate sources of reporting and analysis like Pajamas Media and weblogs. It's aggressive threats of libel lawsuits where appropriate.
And above all it's having reformer politicians who are not going to Washington to seek Media's good favor, but who are going there to serve the people of this country. Media has bared her teeth at you and me. The first step in retraining her is to show no fear. The second step is to make it clear to her that we will be respected.If that works, Media can begin to get treats again for good behavior.
And if not, well .... Sadly, there are dogs that just can't be rehabilitated and need to be put down.
PS: Don't be surprised if Media's misbehavior gets worse and worse as you begin this training program. It's quite common for your dog to try harder and harder to assert the behavior she's used to being rewarded for. Animal behaviorists call this an "extinction burst" and note that it is worst just before they finally quit trying. Parents of toddlers know this as the "I'm not TIRED !!!!" tantrum that immediately preceeds falling fast asleep. Just stick to the program and Media will eventually give up.
But remember: immediate, consistent and credible punishment for every misbehavior from here on out until she does.
What if it's remembered that whining got you to open the door and let her out at night _once_ back in 1994, and by gum she's not going to stop trying now for hours at a time, reward or not...
(And no, I'm not joking. Remember that partial reinforcement is a more powerful behavior control mechanism than anything else, especially for humans. The fact that people can make money by owning slot machines should be warning enough to us.)
Also, we're not paying attention enough to how the propaganda machines worked in other countries.
_Everyone_ knew the press was lying to them there. And everyone rejected 70% of what the press was saying. And thought they were clever, while they accepted the 30% or so 'payload' the government wanted them to. It was within the design parameters of the propaganda program.
#2
Operant conditioning works on cats too AS. The trick is to figure out what rewards them. I've used broiled salmon with cats who don't get their dinner until after our training session. ;-)
Yes, partial reinforcement is incredibly powerful. That's why it's so important that any punishment regime be really consistent and immediate and credible. Anything less will simply reinforce them to keep doing what they're used to doing.
The key, I think, is to keep the focus on the media. Educate the audience if you can, but keep that rolled up newspaper close to hand, keep a careful watch on what they do and be ready to put them down HARD when they pull crap.
Do it again and DIE. A motto to embrace this election season wrt the media IMO. It's not going to be easy, it will require the commitment of a lot of people. But I'm beginning to sense that many of us have reached that same line in the sand with the treatment of Sarah Palin and her kids.
#3
When I was a kid, my dog Harry (bless his soul) used to love TCBY yogurt. Say the letters and he would go bonkers. He would run to the door and jump and yelp and otherwise carry on. Knowing this, we only said it when we were going to pick some up and bring it home - giving him his own cup of strawberry flavored.
On one of these occasions, I put him in the car, then for some reason I don't remember any longer, we had to cancel that trip. When I tried ot get him out of the car, he would not come when called, so I reached in to take him out of the car and he bit me. The little bastard actually got blood through my jean jacket. At which point I did what any red blooded young male would do to re-establish dominance. I grabbed him by the color and in one move, yanked him out of the car and flung his misbedavin' ass across the driveway. He never bit me again.
The media has long ago stopped challenging the people for alpha status and assumed it.
Make no mistake ladies and gentlemen, this dog has bitten us. It's time to grab it's collar and fling it's misbehavin' ass in the direction of that tree over there.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/14/2008 14:12
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#4
Once long ago I owned a horse, he kicked me once, I hauled off and kicked him as hard as I could in the belly.
He never even tried to kick me again, several times I saw him cock his hind leg, think it over and set the leg down.
Whe He came to live with us he wouldn't come when called, the lady I got him from said he never obeyed, so I put some small apples in my pocket and called, he didn't come so I ate the apple, he saw that.
Next time he came when called and got his apple I never had another time he didn't come when called If he got an apple or not.
(He got a plenty)
I don't know if that would be called posiitive, or negative, but it worked.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/14/2008 15:07
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#5
A really good teaching moment is when repeatedly disobedient members of the media are dragged kicking and screaming to the Vet Stock Market for euthanasia. Make sure the others see, and learn (as much as their little brains are capable)
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/14/2008 15:23
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#6
I don't think we will need to put the media down as rabies is a fatal disease. The only problem is that it will infect so many people before it goes..
Besides, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Best to rely on your new dog Internet to help alert you whenever the rabid one draws near. I would say don't feed it, but that doesn't seem to help as it is as crazy as an angry meth junkie on a rampage. It seems to keep on going even though most people quit feeding it some time a ago.
#9
Why the heck should we 'retrain' the media? Its been lying to us for over 40 years (see Tet Offensive and Walter Chronkite).
In my opinion the existing media needs to die off (if not be killed off) right down to the 'schools of journalism' to the top of the New York Times and CNN. Its unreliable, biased, and simply cannot ever be trusted again.
In its place we need a 'new media' and new type of journalism which operating much the way the old stype 'reporters' worked - giving hard news and not opinion.
#12
You might point out to the breeders [the advertisers] that their product isn't selling anymore because of all the inbreeding and that they'd better be looking into a new stock to restart their business model.
The Big 'What If'
The hopes of black America ride on his shoulders. But the outcome's way up in the air.
By Randall Kennedy
I am a black man born in 1954, the year of Brown v. Board of Education. Fleeing the abuses of Jim Crow, my parents moved from South Carolina to Washington, D.C., later that decade. Tales of racial oppression and racial resistance were staples of conversation in our household. My father often spoke of watching Thurgood Marshall argue the case ( Rice v. Elmore) that invalidated the rule permitting only whites to vote in South Carolina's Democratic primary. Memories of that story played a large part in producing the tears I shed on the evening Barack Obama won this year's primary in the Palmetto State.
Related memories -- the most haunting being our visit to a D.C. funeral home to pay last respects to Medgar Evers, the courageous head of the Mississipppi branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People who was murdered by a segregationist -- helped reduce me to tears, again, on the night the senator from Illinois accepted his party's nomination as its candidate for president.
Never before have my emotions been so exercised by a political campaign. For one thing, never before has a candidate so fully challenged the many inhibitions that have prevented people of all races, including African Americans, from seriously envisioning presidential power in the hands of someone other than a white American. With intelligence, verve and elegance, Obama has opened the public mind to the idea of a black president and made that idea broadly attractive.
The senator's progressive politics, cosmopolitan ethos and pragmatic style have turned me into an enthusiastic supporter, and I savor the prospect of his triumph. But I'm watching this election very closely as I teach a course about it this semester. And I know that the conclusion to this electoral drama is far from determined. Yes, political gravity would seem to favor the Democratic candidate after two terms of Republican control of the White House. Yet the possibility is very real: Barack Obama could lose.
If that happens, then what? How will I feel? How will other black Americans feel? How should people like me feel?
Much depends on what might underlie any potential defeat. In September 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy, needing to allay anxieties about his religion in his quest to become the nation's first Roman Catholic president, addressed a Protestant ministerial association in Texas. At the end of his speech, he declared that if he lost the election "on the real issues," he would return to his seat in the Senate satisfied that he had been "judged fairly." He also said, however, that if the outcome was determined by a religious bias that deprived 40 million Americans of the chance to become president on the day they were baptized, "then it is the whole nation that will be the loser . . . in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people."
Whether black onlookers believe that this election was decided "on the real issues" and that Obama was "judged fairly" will be shaped in part by future developments, including the nature of the campaign in its closing weeks (will race-baiting intensify?) and the demographics of the final voting tally (will people who have traditionally voted Democrat vote differently this time around?).
I anticipate that most black Americans will believe that an Obama defeat will have stemmed in substantial part from a prejudice that robbed 40 million Americans of the chance to become president on the day they were born black. They will of course understand that race wasn't the only significant variable -- that party affiliation, ideological proclivities, strategic choices and dumb luck also mattered. But deep in their bones, they will believe -- and probably rightly -- that race was a key element, that had the racial shoe been on the other foot -- had John McCain been black and Obama white -- the result would have been different.
This conclusion will be accompanied by bitter disappointment, and in some quarters, stark rage. In the early stages of the Obama campaign, his rival, Hillary Clinton, outpolled him among blacks in part because many didn't believe that he stood a chance of prevailing. Then came Iowa. And the near-victory in New Hampshire. When blacks realized that Obama's candidacy represented a serious drive for electoral power with an appreciable chance of success, they gravitated overwhelmingly to the Illinois senator.
After he was nominated in the week marking the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, Obama became the focus of millennial aspirations. "Obama is a once-in-a-lifetime black candidate," wrote a black student in a memo for my course, "our one shot, probably the only real contender that my parents and grandparents will ever see, and maybe the only contender my generation will see. All my hopes ride with him." Imagine the pain of such hopes dashed. Nah. Palin can p[ick J.C. Watts or Michael Steele as Veep. But they're not a 'real' black guys, are they?
Black America, of course, is diverse. Some black conservatives -- columnist Thomas Sowell or Ken Blackwell, former secretary of state of Ohio -- will undoubtedly be delighted by an Obama defeat; he is, after all, their ideological foe. But there are also black leftists who oppose him. Writing in the Progressive magazine, Prof. Adolph Reed of the University of Pennsylvania urges voters to reject Obama (as well as McCain) because he is a "vacuous opportunist" who, like Bill Clinton, conservatizes the leftward end of the American political spectrum. A close variant is the camp of blacks who will be relieved by an Obama defeat because they fear that his victory would misleadingly suggest that America is no longer in need of large-scale racial reform. Still others, who believe that Obama has hurt himself by seeking the political center and declining to be more forceful in voicing a progressive alternative to the Republican ticket, would feel somber vindication.
There are blacks who'll be indifferent to an Obama defeat because they don't think that the outcome of the presidential race will have any real effect on their miserable fates. Others, protecting themselves against the pain of disappointment, have systematically repressed expectations. My mother will be sorry if Obama loses, but she won't feel disillusioned, because she hasn't allowed herself to get her hopes up. She has insisted throughout that "the white folks are going to refuse one way or another to permit Obama to become president." That she says this is remarkable, given the success of her three children, all of whom attended Princeton and became attorneys (one is a federal judge). Still, even though she has seen many racial barriers fall, she's simply unwilling to make herself vulnerable to dejection by investing herself fully in the Obama phenomenon.
If Obama loses, I personally will feel disappointed, frustrated, hurt. I'll conclude that a fabulous opportunity has been lost. I'll believe that American voters have made a huge mistake. And I'll think that an important ingredient of their error is racial prejudice -- not the hateful, snarling, open bigotry that terrorized my parents in their youth, but rather a vague, sophisticated, low-key prejudice that is chameleonlike in its ability to adapt to new surroundings and to hide even from those firmly in its grip.
If Obama is defeated, I will, for a brief time, be stunned by feelings of dejection, anger and resentment. These will only be the stronger because the climate of this election year so clearly favors the Democrats, because this was supposed to be an election the Republicans couldn't win, and because in my view, the Obama ticket is obviously superior to McCain's.
But I hope that soon thereafter I'll find solace and encouragement in contemplating this unprecedented development: A major political party nominated a black man for the highest office in the land, and that man waged an intelligent, brave campaign in which many millions of Americans of all races enthusiastically supported an African American standard-bearer.
I hope that I'll take to heart the wisdom offered by two of my students. "Obama losing," one wrote, "would be hurtful, but it still spells substantial progress. . . . Change WILL come -- the wheels have been set in motion." Declared the second: "Sometimes you have to believe in the change before it comes (and in the face of its apparent defeat) for the change to be possible."
Even if Barack Obama loses in November, he will have bequeathed to all America something that should bring comfort and pride to even the most disappointed of his followers. He has reached the edge of the pinnacle. And shown that we can stand atop it.
Randall Kennedy is a professor of law at Harvard University and the author, most recently, of "Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal."
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/14/2008
11:48 ||
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#1
so this is the level of thought that Harvard produces these days. Gotta vote for my man just cause he is black.
The irony is that the only one who fits the JFK mold is Sarah Palin. She has to convice the populace to vote for her on the issues and not to vote against her because of her faith.
#3
I don't object at all to what Prof. Kennedy has written here. Yes, Sen. Obama could well lose. If that happens (and regulars here know my opinion on that), then every person who voted for and supported the good Senator needs to accept that, recognize the progress, and support the new administration as the loyal opposition.
That same admonition applies to conservatives if Senator Obama wins.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/14/2008 12:52
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#4
What happens to black american if the One fails? Don't know? I'm pretty sure some will take it on to whitey. If obama fails, and I sure hope he will, even from across the pond, then more than a few people will be hurt, because of their wrong skin color.
#5
A guy at work is a hardcore Democrat. He liked the idea of Obama but supported Hillary because Obama is an empty suit. Now, of course, he is supporting Obama but he told me that the reason was because if Obama loses he fears there will be massive race riots in almost every major city.
Posted by: Scott R ||
09/14/2008 13:24
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#6
Yes, that's already been threatened in a Philadelphia newspaper article. If we give in to such threats we deserve what we get.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/14/2008 13:37
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#8
"Now, of course, he is supporting Obama but he told me that the reason was because if Obama loses he fears there will be massive race riots in almost every major city."
The other day somebody said: "oh, no we don't have a race war, it's just a black on black crime, i.e. common criminality." Isn't the above fears are good indication of what's really going on in the society???
#9
close variant is the camp of blacks who will be relieved by an Obama defeat because they fear that his victory would misleadingly suggest that America is no longer in need of large-scale racial reform.
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when on is only approx. 15% of the population, and hispanics are 20% - just may be kind of hard to get that major racial reform you're looking for.
He didn't listen to The One - he didn't suggest that his readers learn Spanish.
#10
"Now, of course, he is supporting Obama but he told me that the reason was because if Obama loses he fears there will be massive race riots in almost every major city."
Btw, this race riots if the wrong candidate (IE sarko in this case) threat/possibility was raised by the socialists during the last presidential elections here in France; didn't materialize, though, despite a few incidents (a couple voting places being ransacked, but could have been leftists just as well, sarko really was painted as a right wing, muslim hater, Reagan-rethread, which is pretty funny in itself).
I was thinking more in the lines of individuals reacting alone or in small groups, just as say it was a very bad idea to be a lone blond guy in the streets of large german cities the night the german soccer team beat the turkish one in the Euro 2008.
#12
Just what do they think obambi is going to do, outlaw white people? Take our houses and give them to the blacks? I guess they'll be no better off or worse off no matter who wins. Dumbasses, they wonder why people are sick of their bullshit, we're all living here together.
#13
His empty rhetoric to justify race riots if Obama loses is a more subtle attempt to bully that the Philly Inquirer columnist so clumsily used last week. Whether threats of white guilt or race riots, they can bite me, cuz I'm voting against the man, his theology, his ideology, his friends, his empty rhetoric, his allies, and his wife
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/14/2008 14:35
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#14
Ditto, although not necessarily in that same order.
My final and at the moment strongest reason for voting against Obama is the need to slap down the far left and their media allies.
I would like to see us deliver such a stinging defeat that for the next generation even the thought of a reporter or editor or political consultant waging the politics of personal destruction on a candidate and her kids triggers an immediate immune response within the media and the electorate, both.
This stuff has gotten so deep and so vile that IMO it truly threatens the basic social contract that underlies our electoral process. It's time to tell them Do That Again and Die. (Not a threat of physical violence - follow the link for my somewhat lame attempt to argue for the necessity of slapping the media down hard in this election season.)
#15
"but he told me that the reason was because if Obama loses he fears there will be massive race riots in almost every major city."
Shades of 1968 - sounds like deja phooey to me.
I was in college in 1968, and well remember the riots following MLK's assassination - I was in DC during that time.*
Know where the riots and burnings were? In the black neighborhoods. That Palm Sunday, the sky was blue and the sun warm and you'd never even know anything had happened if you weren't in the black neighborhoods (except at night,when the whole city was under martial law and people of any color needed written permission to be on the streets).
I suspect it wouldn't be much different this time either, if it even happened.
BTW, Scott, you might want to point out to your buddy that his attitude is awfully racist. Apparently he doesn't think black people are capable of acting like responsible adults. Does he expect white people and/or women to riot if McCain/Palin lose? Ask his racist ass that.
*As an aside, that's where I first looked down the business end of a gun. They look damned big from the wrong end.... :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/14/2008 15:43
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#17
Now, of course, he is supporting Obama but he told me that the reason was because if Obama loses he fears there will be massive race riots in almost every major city.
Tell him that if Palin loses, his wife will make him sleep on the couch for the next four years.
I'm sure they will get a high black turnout for this election. And that will certainly help Obama. But I suspect that Mac and Palin are going to pull the hispanics in this race. Why do I think so? Because I haven't heard BOO about them recently. It wasn't too long ago that our beloved press was going on endlessly about the hispanic vote. Today... Nada.
#19
Has Obama every really 'challenged' something? By Challenge I mean like MLK who literally risked his life challenging the Democratic Party establishment for the Civil Rights Act? Like all those before MLK who challenged the Jim Crow laws (established by the Democratic Party) of the old south?
Its easy to 'challenge' when you aren't risking anything and you know you won't be thrown in prison, tortured or raped (like under Saddam - or if you are a christian living in an Islamic state) - entirely different when you actually have real risk.
#20
I hate to break ti to him, but the reason Obama is losing is that peopel are judging him by the content of his character, as opposed to black voters who are merely votign for him due to skin color.
#21
I'm sure they will get a high black turnout for this election. And that will certainly help Obama.
476 million black voters if ACORN gets its way!
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
09/14/2008 16:35
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#22
Let me help your waste of a Harvard education sort this out. It's really pretty simple. If you are anything-American get the Hell out of my country. Because at that point you are being divisive along lines OTHER than ideology. If you have a different idea, stand up and vote or run for office. If your idea is a good one you'll get positively noticed.
But don't ask me to vote for you because you are white/black/green, male/female, Protestant/Catholic/Jewish, or "something-" in front of American.
#23
Barbara, I picked up on the racist aspect of his comment right away but chose not to call him on it. I don't initiate political conversations at work and mostly listen when they do arise. What I've noticed is that the conservative can agree to disagree with the Dems and move on after the arguement is over. However, Dems that disagree with conservative hold grudges that effect working relationships for weeks and months at a time.
Posted by: Scott R ||
09/14/2008 17:50
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#24
This maneuver is known as the "pre-emptive white liberal guilt trip". So in response, all together now: "Boo Hoo!"
BTW, this is the same dickweed who wrote the book, "The Debt" which advocates blacks receiving reparations for slavery. I guess its not enough that his mother could send all of her kids to ivy-league colleges (Princeton, no less) and one is a federal judge. Now he also wants all black folks to become trust-fund recipients to boot.
Hey Randall, ya wanna see race riots? Just pass slavery reparations through congress.
#27
If Obama loses Blacks will continue to be convinced the US is racist. If Obama wins Blacks will continue to be convinced the US is racist.
If the bulk of your life you were told to see things through a racial lense you're gonna see things as racist even when they are no such thing. Part of me hopes that if Obama's elected we can end the race-baiting and false claims of racism and help the African American community fix itself and join the rest of the US. But that part of me doesn't think that'll really happen. Obama's policies will make the poor more dependent on government and W will get the blame twenty years down the road.
#28
"I'll believe that American voters have made a huge mistake. And I'll think that an important ingredient of their error is racial prejudice"
Unless, of course, more blacks vote for Obama because of his skin color than whites vote against him for it -- in which case racial prejudice worked in his favor.
If there are riots, the irony is that few of the rioters will have voted.
#29
"Even if Barack Obama loses in November, he will have bequeathed to all America something that should bring comfort and pride to even the most disappointed of his followers. He has reached the edge of the pinnacle. And shown that we can stand atop it."
It scares the hell out of me to think that Gore and Kerry each reached the edge of the pinnacle.
#30
Did anyone hear the Oprah taking a day or so ago on The View with McCain and asking him if she had to worry about being returned to slavery?
My computer doesn't have a sound board in it so I couldn't see the video and I haven't seen a transcript yet, but what in the world makes people like Oprah think that that's what will happen if a Republican is elected? As a white man in America I wouldn't stand for such a thing and neither would anyone else I know.
What is it that makes some elitists think we're all so damned evil just because we're Republicans or we love our country?
Statements like that are an affront to everything I stand for and everything my country stands for.
McCain was talking about Court Justices that are Constitutional originalists and she, being a dummy, thought that meant returning to the original constitution before the amendments and everything.
McCain made it worse by saying it was a good question instead of mocking her. "The Constitution has built in ways to change things, that is how Slavery was ended and that is how whatever your pet issue should be resolved rather than changing things randomly from the bench as many justices are want to do these days." That is how he should have put it.
#32
What will happen to Black America? I hope it dies. Dies along with the myth of victimizeation. I hope it just becomes America and fulfills Dr. King's dream.
Front-page 'news' on Sunday. I print the whole thing so you don't have to do all their ads.
WASILLA, Alaska -- On Sept. 24, 2001, Mayor Sarah Palin and the City Council held their first meeting after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The council condemned the attacks and approved a $5,000 gift to a disaster relief fund. Palin said she would try to obtain materials from both attack sites to include in the town's "Honor Garden."
And then the council and mayor returned to their normal business: approving funds to upgrade the public well, issuing a restaurant permit and taking up a measure forbidding residents from operating bed-and-breakfasts in their homes. After a lively debate, the bed-and-breakfast measure lost, 4 to 1. I suppose she should have invaded Russia? Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/14/2008
11:37 ||
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#1
So what's the murder rate in Wasilla and that of your own little burg, Da Capital [DC]?
#3
Sally, Sally, Sally. No need to get so bitchy, dahlink.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
09/14/2008 12:53
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#4
If they are going to mock Palin, why not simply refer to her as a former high-school basketball player and failed beauty queen. Refering to her as a former mayor comes dangerously close to implying she might have actual experience making decisions and doing actual things. Not to suggest that sitting around with a bunch of fellow community activists and making jaw-jaw about how to divy up the pie and who to extort money from next isn't doing stuff.
#5
The Democrats/MSM are coming to grips with the fact that, due to Palin, they have lost the middle. It should prove an entertaining 7 weeks as they increasingly lose their grip on other things.
Baring unusual levels of fraud, this election is over.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
09/14/2008 16:14
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#8
Remember also that Lynda Carter is a chronic alcoholic, and that her husband Robert Altman, not the director, was tried for banking and securities fraud, though acquitted.
#11
I don't mean to be "mean" but when I was in college everyone called her "Wonder Jugs".
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/14/2008 13:52
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#12
note the new McCain poster at Ace of Spades, building off The Atlantic's (home of Andi Heartache Sullivan) attempt to photograph him as evil for their cover. (NSFW)
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/14/2008 14:25
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#13
After what they have done to Palin and her family, it's time to tell the media Do That Again and Die.
Not a threat of personal violence, but (as the link suggests) a serious threat to:
- challenge them at every step of the way, exposing their bias and distortions to every one we know
- longer term, build up alternatives like Pajamas Media and Michael Yon and in the meanwhile use youtube and weblogs to get out the facts
- here and now, work to slap them down HARD by electing McCain/Palin and maybe even take back Congress for a term.
#15
Fascinating comments by Linda Carter because she harps on and on about how Palin tells people how to live their lives when Palin did no such thing and in fact had a very light touch while in office. I think Ms Carter has failed to read the retractions and debunking that go along with the main stream media.
#17
I can hear the sound of a back fire, and another, another,... The venom is bound to produce self-inflicted injury. Let irt come, let it come.e
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/14/2008 19:56
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#18
It might hurt Obama but it won't hurt Linda Carter's chance of work in Hollywood (if she's seeking such) as many in Hollywood would welcome her comments and would fail to see how they might have added to the ongoing damage to their man Obama.
Somali Islamists have threatened to stop planes using Mogadishu's main airport as part of an escalating insurgency rocking the Horn of Africa nation. The hardline Islamist group Al Shabaab, which is fighting the Somali government and its Ethiopian military backers, said it would stop planes from landing after midnight on Tuesday.
The Mog airport is open???
"We banned all planes from Mogadishu after confirming that American spies, the African Union, Ethiopians and the Bilderburgers infidel government troops use the airport,"said a statement in Somali on www.kataaib.net, one of several sites used by the militants. "We warn the Somali businessmen: Ethiopia gets revenue from Mogadishu airport. (AU mission) Amisom and Ethiopians also transport their injured and dead soldiers from this airport," said the statement that appeared at the weekend.
There was no immediate response to Al Shabaab from the government. But an AU spokesman said such threats were not new. "The airport is not for Amisom but for the Somali people," added AU spokesman Barigye Ba-Hoku. "It would hinder first of all the Somalis who need medicine, who need to leave when sick. So this threat means they don't care for the Somali people." A local airline official, who asked not to be named, said he had received a warning from Al Shabaab.
The threat reflects the growing confidence of one of the main players in the Somali war. The group recently led an Islamist takeover of the southern port of Kismayu, giving it a strategic sea access and proximity to the Kenyan border. Al Shabaab appears to have stepped up activities, and widened its sphere of targets, since being put on Washington's terrorist list earlier this year. In the latest attack, suspected Islamists laid a roadside bomb and fired on a peacekeepers' convoy inspecting for mines in Mogadishu on Sunday, AU staff said. One Ugandan soldier died and two others were wounded in the melee. There was also fighting between Islamists and AU troops at the Kilometer 4 area of Mogadishu on Sunday, locals said. "Two of my kids are missing and what I hear is only the constant crash of mortars," resident Seinab Farah said.
#2
I'm beginning to believe the only way to solve the "Somalia" cricis is to destroy everything that currently exists and start over from scratch. Leave no two stones piled atop one another. Turn roads into heaps of broken rubble and large holes. The only part of Somalia that's not at war with Western ideas or non-extreme Islam is the small portion that has declared its independence from the rest, and set up a functioning government. Puntland is nothing but a haven for pirates, and the rest of Somalia is worse. Doing nothing is no longer an option. If the Islamists win, we'll soon have to defend Kenya, Uganda, and points south. The shipping through the Suez Canal will also be endangered. It's way past time to do some rompin' and stompin'. I'd suggest reopening the production line for A-10s, replace the GAU-8 gattling gun on every other model with a 7.62 chain gun, and start hunting rabbitsIslamists. Sell a few dozen to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Congo, Malawi, Burundi, and anyone else that feels threatened by the scourge of radical islam. Take the war to the #(*&^@^$% enemy, instead of being on the defensive. Make radical islam so expensive no one wants to play. Do it NOW, not 20 years from now.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 14:06
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#3
Just how far back does the Opium trade go?
Would account for many Of the crazy things out of the mideast.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/14/2008 14:07
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#4
You've covered it pretty well, OP. What bothers me is that we're importing this same problem right here with cabbies and slaughterhouse employess. We can already see the problems popping up. Won't haul passengers unless it pleases them. Won't work if their schedules and holidays are'nt adhered to. Bad news any way you look at it. Very, very little to recommend any of this crew.
I think Pakistain may be in the process of making the decision to actually go to war with the United States. The jihadi bloc within the officially jihadi state was actually being held in check by Perv -- even as he tried to accomodate them. Balochistan outside the border marches and Sind outside of Karachi don't much count. The balance of power's shifted to the Punjabis and the Pashtuns the Punjabis think they're using as tools.
Entering a state of war with the U.S. will have one immediate effect: it will cut our supply lines to Afghanistan. Recall that country's surrounded by states that are either hostile to us -- Iran -- or whom we haven't been cultivating as we should have for the past seven years: Turkmenistan (post-Turkmenbashi), Uzbekistan (we're so fastidious about Karimov's authoritarian tendencies), and Tadjikistan (we have to get through the other two or the Soviet Union Russia to get there). Without Pakistain as an "ally" we'll have to either fight our way through or negotiate a new Central Asian deal in 24 hours or less.
Short-term, the prospects are grim for us, especially since Pakistain in probably the nation most likely to use nuclear weapons on the face of the earth, to include North Korea.
Longer-term, the prospects are horrible for Pakistain as a nation. Use of nukes will make their current pariah state seem benign. The Mighty Pak Army has never won a war, as I keep reminding anyone who'll listen. If they manage to restrain themselves from using nukes they may be allowed to remain as a state -- known as a perfidious would-be great power, useful only as a pawn from short-term tactical advantage on the international state but never to be trusted. If they do use nuclear weapons the only way they'll stay in business is if India or (post-ayataollah) Iran don't want the remnants of what we'll shatter in the course of a couple weeks.
What of Pashtunistan, Graveyard of Armies? Pashtun jihad thrives from hideouts. Without the hideouts the jihad will die as beturbanned savages waving small arms and rolling their eyes are targeted by modern weaponry. With nowhere to run, they must stand and die. It doesn't matter if they fight or not. The only way to save their miserable, ignorant lives will be to cease being beturbanned savages, to throw away the guns and willingly join the civilized world.
One telephone call seven years ago was enough for Islamabad to accommodate Washington's entire wish list. But United States pressure tactics will not work now. Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, is leading a military and a nation that is determined to resist Washington's plan to bring to Pakistan Iraq and Afghanistan. the ethno-civil wars of Pakistani military's brisk response is not just a reaction to the deliberately humiliating and outrageous unilateral American decisions to include Pakistan in the Iraq/Afghanistan war theater.
There is a bigger problem here. Pakistani policy analysts are convinced that United States has been a duplicitous ally during the past seven years, using the sincere Pakistani cooperation on Afghanistan to gradually turn that country into a military base to launch a sophisticated psychological, intelligence and military campaign to destabilize Pakistan itself.
The objective is to weaken the control of the Pakistani military over geographical Pakistan and ignite an ethnic and sectarian civil war leading to changing the status of Balochistan and NWFP, possibly even facilitate the break up of both provinces from the Pakistani federation.
The defeatist stance of Pakistan's elected government in the face of U.S. belligerence is discussed later in this paper. But it is worth noting that President Zardari has refused to publicly back the military's warning to U.S. He also delayed his China visit to go to London to hunker down with Gordon Brown. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Yousaf Reza Gilani, in a statement that deprives Pakistan of strategic advantage and dampens the psychological effect of army chief's warning, has said that 'Pakistan can't wage war with U.S.' In comparison, the governor of NWFP, Mr. Owais Ghani, has become the only government official to publicly state the truth.
On Sept. 12, the governor's office issued the following statement: "Foreign forces based in Afghanistan and militants [inside Pakistan] are working on the same anti-Pakistan agenda and both are following the same strategy to weaken the country [...] while the coalition troops were threatening to extend their war to Pakistan, the militants are also attacking the country and creating a war-like situation. It appeared that both the forces were working on the same agenda to weaken Pakistan."
In one sign of the grand double game, despite the poor relations with Iran, Washington has encouraged Karzai and the Indians to complete the construction of a road that links Afghanistan to an Indian-built Iranian seaport. The purpose is to end the dependence of both U.S. army and the Karzai regime on Pakistan for access to sea. U.S. military officials have also been seeking permission to use Russian air space for military cargo to replace Pakistani facilities.
These American actions show a degree of long term planning and are not connected to the recent American grievances against Pakistan and its intelligence agencies.
A segment of the U.S. policy establishment had decided to take the war to Pakistan from the outset in 2001. Washington first used Islamabad to occupy Afghanistan and then used the Afghan soil to start series of insurgencies inside Pakistan. The strategy was an alternative to a direct confrontation with a nuclear-armed country. A weak Pakistani state with a neutered military was envisaged as an ideal situation to protect U.S. interests with regards to China, Russia and India.
It is not clear how much the rest of the departments of the U.S. government knew about the destabilization plans for Pakistan. If the entire U.S. political and military strategy on Pakistan since Sept. 11, 2001 was based on consensus, then Pakistanis have been massively deceived by their American allies.
The anti-Pakistan lobby in Washington found willing allies in the Indians and the Northern AllianceKabul. component of the Karzai regime in
The idea to destabilize Pakistan appears to have started with simple and clear thoughts. The U.S.- and India-backed Kabul regime proposed reviving Pashtun nationalism and the secession of Pashtun regions from Pakistan. The Indians offered their decades-old experience in penetrating Pakistani territories for espionage. The Indians offered something else too: The revival of the so-called Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). The Soviets and Indians together created this terrorist organization in the 1970s and used Afghan soil to foment an ethnic-based civil war inside Pakistan. The idea died out naturally, until the Indians offered the Americans to revive it after 9/11 as a punishment for Pakistan.
Pakistan's tribal belt, Balochistan and Swat were peaceful until early 2005. Since then, series of insurgencies have erupted led by shady ethno-religious characters. One of them, a tribal thug who stayed in American and Karzai custody for several years, was released only to enter Pakistan and begin targeting Chinese citizens in the country. Another thug in Balochistan was convinced by handlers in Afghanistan that he would be made the head of an independent Balochistan with U.S. help if he agreed to launch an insurgency and help recruit young Pakistanis to get training to fight their own country.
Between 2005 and now, the entire western Pakistan from the Arabian Sea to the border with China has turned into a cocktail of ethnic and religious insurgencies focused on fighting the Pakistani state and the Pakistani military.
On July 12, 2008, when U.S. Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and CIA Deputy Director Stephen R. Kappes were in Rawalpindi on a secret visit, Gen. Kayani, former President Musharraf and Pakistani intelligence officials confronted the American duo with conclusive evidence that showed U.S. complicity in feeding and sustaining a terrorist movement in Balochistan, where China is building a strategic seaport.
Pakistanis now also have damning evidence that shows that Karzai's security apparatus, which is heavily infested with Indian security and intelligence advisers, has been directly supplying weapons and money to clusters of thugs masquerading as 'Pakistani Taliban'.
The main assignment for these fake 'Taliban' is to target and kill Pakistanis -- military and civilians -- and kidnap Chinese citizens in Pakistan. Which is surprising because the Afghan Taliban, the real Taliban, are focused on targeting U.S. occupation forces in Afghanistan and not on spreading fear and chaos among Pakistanis. This is more like someone is trying to punish Pakistan through a planned effort.
In the latest incidents, over 25 worshippers perished when unknown terrorists lobbed hand grenades inside a mosque in northern Pakistan. The real Taliban would never indulge in such senseless violence targeting Pakistani citizens. Moreover, two Chinese engineers have been kidnapped. It is strange that the Chinese are the only foreigners being targeted in Pakistan, while citizens of United States and other NATO member countries are spared.
Even if U.S. officials deny that parts of the U.S. government are privy to this destabilization effort, there is no question that the U.S. military is inexplicably ignoring the Karzai-Indian export of terrorism into Pakistan.
The U.S. role is certainly suspicious. Starting in early 2007, the U.S. media unleashed an organized demonization campaign against Pakistan that was unprecedented in the history of Pak-U.S. relations. U.S.Pakistan and spread 'anti-Pakistanism' globally. media made a concerted effort to create world hostility against
Besides India, the United States is the only other country in the world busy in this deliberate creation of hostility against Pakistan. Take the example of this quote from an article that appeared in the conservative, pro-Bush magazine, The Weekly Standard, in Nov. 2007:
"A large number of ISI agents ... should be thrown in jail or killed. What I think we should do in Pakistan is a parallel version of what Iran has run against us in Iraq: giving money [and] empowering [anti-state] actors. Some of this will involve working with some shady characters."
On Feb. 1, 2008, New York Times, published an op-ed piece that discussed in detail the division of PakistanNYT is the same paper that allowed itself to be used by Bush administration spin masters to promote fake stories about WMD and Iraq before U.S. invaded that country. Pakistan's ace diplomat, Mr. Munir Akram, who has recently been removed by the Zardari government from his job as Pakistan's envoy to the U.N., saw the NYT article and sent a letter to the paper's editor, although it was not his job to do so but the responsibility of the press attaché in the Pakistan Embassy in Washington. into three independent states. The article was an example of malicious fear-mongering but the real surprise was that a prestigious paper carried it.
Mr. Akram wrote: "will confirm the belief of many Pakistanis that there is an international conspiracy to destabilize and disintegrate Pakistan [...] The orchestrated campaign against President Pervez Musharraf, the denigration of the Pakistani Army, calls for the capture of Pakistan's nuclear assets, the string of suicide bombings and terrorism in Balochistan are all seen as aimed at this malevolent design."
This American media campaign against Pakistan continues unabated. Last month, Mr. Harlan Ullman, a Washington columnist with strong ties to U.S. military, visited Islamabad and returned to float this stunning idea: "Pakistan should create integrated and joint operations centers at ISI or Army GHQ with U.S. military, State Department, law enforcement and intelligence officers in residence."
This U.S. media campaign has been going hand in glove for the past eighteen months with a wave of terrorism inside Pakistan targeting Pakistani civilians and government. The blame for these acts was laid at the doors of something called 'Pakistani Taliban' which is, in major part, a creation of Indian and Karzai intelligence setups inside Afghanistan.
It is highly suspicious that U.S. military attacks inside Pakistan in recent weeks have targeted pro-Pakistan tribesmen. Somehow the U.S. drones and spy satellites are unable to target the shady rebel leaders who are exclusively fighting Pakistan and never attack U.S. soldiers across the border.
Also, the American war strategy neatly fits in with the secessionist campaign that seeks to turn Pakistani Pashtuns against their own country. With every U.S. attack that kills women and children, Pakistani Pashtun are becoming convinced that their country, Pakistan, is either unwilling or incapable of defending its citizens. The military operations conducted by Pakistani military to kill these shadowy terrorists are indirectly sending the message that Islamabad is also party to spilling Pashtun blood. All of this is strengthening the case of those who are promoting a secessionist propaganda that the NWFP and the Pashtun areas must secede from Pakistan.
This is the first time in decades that the idea of Pashtuns, the real liberators of Azad Kashmir, turning against Pakistan is appearing to be a possibility. There is no question that Pakistan' military waited for a cue from the country's elected leadership to respond to U.S. violations of Pakistani territory.
On Sept. 6, marked as Pakistan Defense Day in memory of a failed Indian invasion of Pakistan in 1965, the Pakistani air force chief tried to send a message to the elected government. He told reporters that the Pakistani air force was ready to respond if the government made a policy decision.
The Zardari-Gilani government chose to ignore U.S. attacks. In fact, the defense minister, Mr. Ahmed Mukhtar, made statements on multiple occasions that raised eyebrows. At one point he said U.S. drones flew too high for Pakistani military to respond. At another point he justified U.S. attacks inside Pakistan by saying 'there must be a reason' for Washington to violate the border.
Then came Hamid Karzai to plant a misleading story in the Pakistani media when President Zardari invited him to his oath-taking ceremony on Sept. 9. After his arrival, Karzai called some journalists and leaked to them that Arabs were killed in the Sept. 8 U.S. attack on the house of the veteran Afghan commander Jalaluddin Haqqani in Miramshah.
This was a perfect justification for the violation of Pakistani territory and it helped the Americans tell their reluctant European allies that attacking Pakistan was justified. Karzai leaked the information, complete with names and numbers of the dead Arabs.
The sinister part of this exercise was that 'sources close to the Haqqani family' were cited to confirm the report. Major Pakistani news organizations picked up the story and made it their lead for several hours. This was the height of cynicism. The Haqqani family was in mourning, with several members of the family, women and children dead while a disinformation campaign was using their name to confirm the existence of foreign fighters in their house.
The truth was that Haqqani's house was never a secret hideout. His family maintained a house in PakistanAfghanistan and the people in the house where his extended family relatives, ordinary people with no link to the war in Afghanistan. This is like Afghan resistance groups deciding to target Mr. Karzai's extended family members who have nothing to do with Karzai's activities just to get back at him. The Afghan resistance has never done it. But Karzai and his American allies have no problem in resorting to this method. since the 1980s. Haqqani lived and operated in
The devastated Haqqani family corrected the story later and questioned the source of the story since there were no Arabs or foreign or any fighters at all in the house. The U.S. attack was a deliberate act of terrorism to cause maximum pain to the Afghan commander.
Pakistani military quietly watched the Zardari-Gilani government take no position on the U.S. attacks. Then came the bombshell when, last week, Bush and his military chief, Adm. Mullen, said Pakistan was now part of the Iraq-Afghanistan 'war theater' and New York Times published a leak that said Bush had authorized attacks inside Pakistan without Islamabad's consent.
The purpose behind the leak was to put Pakistan on notice and somehow force the issue down on Islamabad in the hope that Pakistan will grudgingly accept it.
After Gen. Kayani's tough-worded counter statement, an embarrassed Prime Minister Gilani said the statement reflected his government's policy.
But the biggest question mark is the silence of President Zardari. He did not endorse Gen. Kayani's statement. Even more shocking for Pakistanis was that Mr. Zardari reneged on his promise that China will be his first foreign visit as President. Instead he left for London after a call from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown 'inviting' him to London to discuss the new U.S. strategy.
It is clear that President Zardari supports the new U.S. policy and does not agree with the Pakistani military's warning that it will protect Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity at all costs.
Mr. Zardari is in power thanks to the arrangement -- known as the 'deal' - that Washington and LondonPakistan to accept. His assets are mostly in United States and Britain. There is no way he can risk alienating his backers. forced
There is every possibility that President Zardari has been convinced by close advisors, especially Ambassador Husain Haqqani in Washington, to tacitly accept U.S. operations inside Pakistan and not allow the Pakistani military to dictate its terms.
Ambassador Haqqani is strongly sympathetic to Washington's position. Last year, he played a major role in convincing Benazir Bhutto to make public statements accepting U.S. boots on Pakistani soil and American access to Dr. A. Q. Khan. Before his present assignment, Mr. Haqqani has been closely linked to the same hawkish U.S. think tanks that are the biggest advocates of U.S. military intervention in Pakistan. The elected government's soft position on U.S. attacks has a lot to do with the work of Ambassador Haqqani and another American figure--Zalmay Khalilzad, President Zardari's 'secret' American adviser.
It is a foregone conclusion; based on Ambassador Haqqani's intrusive record at the Pakistan Foreign Office in the past four months, that he has a direct link to the bizarre statement by Prime Minister Gilani ["PakistanU.S."-Sept 12] and the series of statements made by Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar that justified U.S. attacks against Pakistan ["U.S. drones fly too high, we can't attack them" and "If U.S. attacks, there must be a reason."]. can't wage war with
If Pakistani military tries to block U.S. military violations, there is a possibility of limited armed conflict between Pakistani and American soldiers on the Afghan border. Gen. Kayani's warning of retaliation did help NATO make a public statement that it does not share Washington's idea of taking the war to Pakistan. However, no one in Islamabad is convinced that NATO will remain neutral in the event that U.S. military tries to engage Pakistan in a conflict.
In case of conflict, Washington is expected to signal to India to open a front in the east in order to divert Pakistani military resources. Intelligence assets that have been planted inside Pakistan with links in Afghanistan will be activated and will possibly try to ratchet up the campaign of public terror in order to spread chaos and exert pressure on Pakistan military. More Chinese targets can be attacked or killed in order to strain ties between Beijing and Islamabad.
But Pakistan is not without options. In fact, the Pakistani position is stronger than what it appears to be. Islamabad can activate old contacts with a resurgent and rising Afghan Taliban inside Afghanistan. The entire Pakistani tribal belt will seize this opportunity to fight the Americans. The attempts to divide Pakistanis along sectarian lines have failed and the Americans cannot expect to repeat what they did in Iraq Pakistanis will fight and resist. There is a possibility that Pakistani tribesmen could cross the border in large numbers using secret routes to dodge aerial bombardment and join the Afghan Taliban and find their way to Kabul. The misguided 'Pakistani Taliban' who appear to be operating as an extension of U.S. military in Afghanistan will also come under pressure of the tribesmen and will be forced to target the occupation forces instead of fighting the Pakistani government. in March 2003.
Washington might be tempted by the idea of signaling to the Indians to engage Pakistan from the east. But the fact is that the Indian army has a dangerous rebellion on its hands in the valley. By opening a front with Pakistan, Indian soldiers will have to protect their front and rear simultaneously. The Pakistani military has contingency plans for dealing with hostilities on two fronts.
But the situation between Islamabad and Washington does not have to come to this. Islamabad can help tip the scales in Washington against the hawks who want a war with Pakistan. Not all parts of the U.S.Pakistan must make it clear that it will retaliate. Statements like that of Prime Minister Gilani must be stopped. His statement virtually damaged the psychological effect of army chief's warning. government accept this idea and this must be exploited.
U.S. military posturing aside, Washington has recently seen a string of diplomatic defeats. Russia has cut American meddling in Georgia to size. In Iraq, a coalition of Shiite parties is forcing the Americans to leave the country. Bolivia and Venezuela have expelled U.S. ambassadors, and, in Bolivia's case, the world has suddenly become alert to Washington's meddling in that country's politics and the role of the U.S.U.S. role inside Pakistan, where U.S. ambassador in fueling separatism. Which is not very different from the diplomats have created political chaos by directly engaging the politicians, coupled with creating and feeding insurgencies to weaken the country.
The only way to entrap Pakistan now is to either orchestrate a spectacular terrorist attack in U.S. and blame it on Pakistan, or to assassinate a high profile personality inside Pakistan and generate domestic strife that will make it impossible for the military to resist U.S. attacks.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008
09:30 ||
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#1
Uh, I think there's already plenty of domestic strife in pakistain and all the US has to do is watch, wait and lower the boom at the appropriate moment...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/14/2008 10:05
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#2
It's nice to know that as the American MSM collapse there's a place they can go to continue their profession of creative writing. It may not pay as well, but they get ink, damn it.
#5
Somehow the U.S. drones and spy satellites are unable to target the shady rebel leaders who are exclusively fighting Pakistan and never attack U.S. soldiers across the border.
Why should the US attack those who never attack us?
The Sikh king Ranjit Singh conquered the Pashtuns. The graveyards were filled with those Muslims who rose up in jihad against him and were defeated.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008 18:21
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#9
ARCLIGHT, just one, but a big one, down through the center of the FATA. Pakistan will fold like a wet paper bag trying to hold 20 pounds of potatos.
We don't want Pakistan. We really don't want anything to do with Pakistan. They just keep poking us with a sharp stick, and we're getting tired of it. It's time to spank a hand or two, preferably hard, but not nuclear. We also need to let them know that if they DON'T stop, they will disappear from the face of the Earth faster than a snowcone in the Mojave. The future of Pakistan is in the hands of the Pakistanis. They have to make the decision as to how they go forward from here. We, however, hold the trump if they make the wrong decision.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 22:57
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Japan's navy tracked a submarine that intruded into its waters for nearly two hours and then lost track of it without identifying its nationality, a military official said. The Naval vessel Atago spotted the submarine in Japanese waters at 6.56am (0756 AEST) but the craft did not raise a national flag or surface, breaching international laws, a defence ministry spokesman said.
Atago, an Aegis-equipped warship, chased the submarine off the coast of Kochi prefecture in western Japan, facing the Pacific Ocean, until about 8.40am (0940 AEST) , he said. "We have not identified the nationality of the submarine and we are still searching for it," the spokesman said.
Using sonar, Atago confirmed that the submarine does not belong to the Japanese navy nor its ally the US Navy, he said. "We will make a protest against the country through a diplomatic route" once Japan identifies the nationality of the submarine, Defence Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said, according to Jiji Press.
The Ruritanians have nuclear subs? Who knew?
It was the first time in four years that a foreign submarine had intruded into Japanese waters, according to the official. In November 2004, a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine entered Japanese waters. Beijing apologised less than a week later.
#1
Just wait until that Chinese submarine surfaces to discover large graffiti painted on the side saying something rude in Chinese, along with a picture of "Hello Kitty".
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/14/2008 10:54
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#3
Or someone forgot to print in Spanish the message 'do not use contents' on one of those South American drug smuggling submarines. It was the fumes, man, the fumes.
A Moroccan Islamic theologian, Mohamed Ben Sheikh Abderrahman Al Maghraoui, has caused a great stir by stating "A nine-year-old girl has the same sexual capacities as a woman of 20 and over"
He issued a fatwa (Islamic edict) where he "legalizes" the union between a child and an adult male. "We found that girls of that age give better benefits than adult women," he says. "Consequently they are so trained to marry as young of 20 years."
In the Islamic world, especially in the Arabian Peninsula, marriage between girls and adult males is relatively common, but Muslim theologians have not gone so far in justifying the practice.
Al Maghraoui, a well-known Salafist sheikh, and the author of half a dozen books of theology, posted the fatwa on the website of his association Preaching in the Koran and Sunna. His critics argue that he probably has done it to defend, from a religious point of view, the marriage contracted in secret by one of his friends.
His pronouncement has caused a major scandal in Morocco, but so far there has been no reaction from the authorities. The radical theologian bases his edict in the example of the prophet Muhammad. Aicha, recalls, had only six years when she became her fiancée but was not married until she turned nine.
There are "vicious theologians who are capable of putting religion in the service of paedophilia" writes the socialist daily Al Ittihad al Ichtiraki. "The era of our Prophet is completely different from ours. These days a marriage of the kind would be a true injustice towards the girl. A true aberration says Naji Adib, who heads the association No ones touch my Children, who campaigns in Morocco against this scourge.
"This type of people look at Islam from the point of view which is convenient for them. It is a restrictive vision of Islam. And it is bad. Fatwas like these show the lack of reasoning from those who issue them. I cannot understand via what intellectual road or for what mental construction they come to such aberrations" she added.
Faced with the passivity of the authorities, a lawyer from Rabat, Mourad Bakouri, has taken the initiative to denounce Al Maghraoui for "violation of the Family Code and violation of children's rights." The new Moroccan law, which came into force in 2005, stipulates that the minimum age for marriage is 18 years.
#1
Not a surprise as MOhammad liked 'em young. I think it would do everyone a world of good to be more informed with this side of the Religion of Peace.
A suicide car bomb claimed by Taliban terrorists insurgents killed two Afghan doctors working for the United Nations and wounded 18 other people in southern Afghanistan Sunday, officials said. The jihadis rebels also stormed a police post in the east of the country late Saturday and killed four policemen while Afghan and international forces killed several militants elsewhere, authorities said.
The powerful suicide car bomb struck a UN marked vehicle travelling towards the town of Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan, police said. "The explosion killed two UN workers," Kandahar province police chief Mutiullah Khan Qatah told AFP, adding they were doctors. He said around 15 people were wounded.
One of the doctors was from the health ministry and the other from the UN's World Health Organisation, the Afghan health ministry spokesman, Abdullah Fahim, told AFP. The health ministry doctor was apparently contracted to the United Nations, which is working on a polio vaccination project in the area. Their driver and 17 other people were wounded, Fahim said.
The Taliban movement, an extremist Islamic militia waging an insurgency against the Western-backed government, said the suicide attack was carried out by one its members. The militia has carried out scores of such blasts and the latest attack came as the governor of the province of Logar was buried near his home in Paghman, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) west of the capital. Mohammad Jan Abdullah Wardak was killed Saturday with two bodyguards and a driver in a roadside bombing also claimed by the Taliban.
Taliban rebels also attacked a district police headquarters in the central province of Ghazni on Saturday, provincial government spokesman Ismail Jahangir told. "Four policemen were killed and they have taken two policemen with them," he said. The police chief of Zana Khan district may be among the dead, he said. The Taliban confirmed its involvement. And in another incident blamed on the Taliban, an Afghan interpreter working for the US military was shot dead as he stepped out of his home Sunday, police said.
When The Atlantic called Jill Greenberg, a committed Democrat, to shoot a portrait of John McCain for its October cover, she rubbed her hands with glee.
She delivered the image the magazine asked fora shot that makes the Republican presidential nominee look heroic. Greenberg is well known for her highly retouched images of bears and crying babies. But she didnt bother to do much retouching on her McCain images. I left his eyes red and his skin looking bad, she says.
However, that's not the picture Greenberg hoped the Atlantic would use:
After getting that shot, Greenberg asked McCain to please come over here for one more set-up before the 15-minute shoot was over. There, she had a beauty dish with a modeling light set up. Thats what he thought he was being lit by, Greenberg says. But that wasnt firing.
What was firing was a strobe positioned below him, which cast the horror movie shadows across his face and on the wall right behind him. He had no idea he was being lit from below, Greenberg says. And his handlers didnt seem to notice it either. I guess theyre not very sophisticated, she adds.
#1
SOP; a somewhat running joke for anyone who looks at the pics of conservative pols in msm... it doesn't even have to be sophisticated like that one, usually, just pick a picture when the guy is open-mouthed or looks confused, or tired, or anything that will project a bad image. Really, just pay attention, once you see it, you can't miss that habit. While I don't like much pépé Le Pen, here in france, almost all pics of him used by the msm show him looking from below (same trick as with Mc Cain here, to get that "dictator with the chin up" subliminal image), or with his mouth open, like he's eructing (which is his habit of talking, on the other hand). Just look at how GWB was shot over the years, you can't miss it.
Also in comments: Yes, earlier in the day she had an image up with a monkey urinating and defecating on top of McCain's head. Apparently she had enough sense (or counsel) to pull that one. Sorry I didn't screencap it.
Posted by: ed ||
09/14/2008 16:36
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#4
I saw her list of clients. After this, if any of them who hire her to photograph anything for them, they're certifiable.
Hope she enjoys her moment in the sun. It may well be her last....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/14/2008 21:57
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LEIGH SALES: You're not a fan of the US giving too many concessions to its enemies in negotiations, but is it inevitable that the US and its allies are going to have to eventually negotiate with the Taliban to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan?
JOHN BOLTON: Absolutely not. Not any more than we negotiated the surrender of Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbour, the only negotiations was on the deck of the Missouri when they signed the surrender and if there's anything comparable for the Taliban, they'd be lucky to get that.
"on the following terms, to wit: Rolls of all officers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to an officer to be designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against the Government of the United States until properly [exchanged], and each company or regimental commander to sign a like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked, and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to his home, not to be disturbed by the United States authorities so long as they observe their paroles, and the laws in force where they may reside. "
Another example of the way that Obama plans to win. As a reminder, although McCain/Palin accepted public funds, you can still donate to their/the RNC's compliance fund if you so choose. Those monies will pay for lawyers etc. to observe, detect and challenge this sort of thing. We all lose if either party gets away with throwing elections in this fashion.
Keep an eye on this. Obama has a large ground organization and can draw on Soros etc. funding. Add in voter registration and vote casting fraud by the likes of ACORN and it's obvious that this election won't be won or lost until election day itself - or in the courts afterwards unless there is a very clear victory by one or the other side.
#3
The Washington State Governor's race of '04 was a template of what I expect Obama and the Chicago machine to utilize fully.
There they 'recounted' until King County's election's office (includes Seattle and is a fiefdom of the Democratic County Executive) 'found' enough D votes (and lost enough R votes) to turn the tide in favor of the Democrats.
Then of course the courts refused to consider unless the Republicans can tell how each and every {found|lost|dead|imaginary} vote (in a secret ballot) actually voted.
#4
CF - remember that the KC Dems kept "finding" piles of ballots jammed behind furniture, tossed in filing cabinets, etc., etc., etc.? And also the hordes of transients registered to vote using the King County admin building as their mailing address? And it's looking more and more like the Obamabots realize their only hope of winning this election is to steal it - apparently ACORN has recently been very, very busy in Ohio...
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
09/14/2008 15:57
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#5
due we even have any federal body responsible for investigating and prosecuting vote fraud? It doesn't seem like it. Everyone knows Acorn cheats and no one does anything about it.
#6
Voter registration is a state responsibility. The feds can get involved in certain cases where civil rights issues are raised, but only after the fact IIUC.
#7
Voter Registration is easy. If someone really wanted to vote, they could do it themselves. The number of sick, lame, and crazy that can't be bothered to register on their own, but will actually vote on election day will always be limited.
Then there is the matter of registering the dead etc. I wonder if some of these group's "volunteers" are being paid by-the-piece for application submissions that go nowhere. And even if accepted, unless a fraudulent registration is followed up by a fraudulent ballot, it makes no difference in the end.
The Detroit Free Press had an article that fraudulent ACORN applications had already been caught during verification. If ACORN is being busted in Detroit(!), they have a problem
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
09/14/2008 16:44
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#8
due we even have any federal body responsible for investigating and prosecuting vote fraud?
Actually we do. However, that is why those Federal DAs were fired for NOT pursuing the issue. Something that disappears in the bogus media and Donk storm that followed about a President firing Presidential appointees.
Their message was as disturbing as ever - and the date, September 11, was particularly symbolic. On Thursday evening this week, at a packed meeting in London's East End, two profoundly dangerous men urged the destruction of the British way of life.
I was there as the radical cleric and self-styled sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed proclaimed that this country - where he received state benefits for two decades - will soon be transformed into an Islamic state, or Khilafah, run according to the rules of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.
Bakri's black-robed right-hand man went one step further. Anjem Choudary, a 41-year-old militant and the leading light of a thriving new organisation called islam4UK declared: 'There are already six or seven million Muslims here in Britain.
'By the year 2020, we will be the majority. 'In the streets of London - Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Stratford - people are becoming Muslim in their droves. By sheer numbers, Britain will become an Islamic state. 'We will never need to conquer this country. Our eyes are now on Downing Street,' he added, with an excited laugh.
Alarmingly, at the three-hour conference called to mark the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 atrocities, there were shouts of support from the 100-strong audience of men (some only boys in their teens) and women.
At first sight, the meeting in an upstairs room next to the Walthamstow Mosque on Northumberland Street, Leyton, seemed harmless. Between speeches from the robed clerics at the front, there were breaks for prayers and a meal of chicken curry and dates. Children played on the floor and veiled mothers held babies.
But what was being said has deep implications for the future of this country.
This article starring:
Omar Bakri Mohammed
Posted by: ed ||
09/14/2008
00:48 ||
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#1
depressing. But if I were ol' Bakri or one of his followers, I don't think I would count on Britian going down without a fight. JMHO.
#3
If I were living in Britain, I think I'd take up archery. I'd learn again to use the yew longbow of my ancestors. A good bow can kill up to 70 yards away, and with a bit of tinkering, can be next to silent. "Let the gray gulls fly" instilled fear into many an invader of Great Britain, and can do so again. It looks quite likely it'll be needed.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 14:51
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#4
"If I were living in Britain, I think I'd take up archery."
That's probably illegal there now, too, OP - just like everything else that could remotely be regarded as either (a) for self-defence, or (b) traditionally English. :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/14/2008 15:49
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#2
I found it more interesting that Miliband seemed to be flaunting his marxist credentials as if that somehow would matter to the soviets. You are no longer useful, idiot.
#3
It is late and I am tired... but it seems to me that we are seeing a major change in the dynamic as far as Russia is concerned. I realise that on one level that is a no &&& Sherlock. But what I am finding interesting is the fact that the Russians no longer seem to be willing to humor the the useful idiots that they courted for well over half a century.
We see changes in the dynamic in our own country on a regular basis and it often takes our enemies a long time to get with our program. For example ...Carter to Reagan or Clinton to Bush. Yet, despite the changes there is still a consistency in the American Way that continues no matter who is in charge.
And I would say that the same is true for Russia. Unlike Americans, who have a soft spot for democracy and freedom, the Russians have a history of cruelty and extortion.
Are we seeing a new phase where the Russians who are now in power no longer see a value in courting their western useful idiots? It almost seems as though that is the case.
People get old and die and as they do the dynamic changes. It seems to me that the useful Marxist idiots of the Stalin era are no longer deemed to be as useful to the current Soviet power brokers. Perhaps the young bucks see that their grandfather's investment in these fools did not provide the dividends that they once believed possible.
#4
Are we seeing a new phase where the Russians who are now in power no longer see a value in courting their western useful idiots?
Yes and no I think. Russia and China are no longer great experiments in the Marxist social ideal, they're all capitalists of one sort or other now. Thus they'd have much less use for useful idiots who share their failed statist ideology and more for useful idiots of other sorts.
#7
The Russians have little to be happy about. They were destroyed in the Second World War, they lost the Cold War without a shot, they couldn't make the transition to modernity so they've reverted to tsardom, and they've stopped reproducing while their enemies prepare to overwhelm them from the south and east.
#8
And massive pollution and destruction of once-fertile lands in the western part of the country. The loss of Lake Baikal as an ecosystem doesn't get much press but is representative of the devastation left by the Soviet approach to industrialization.
#11
Well, some peacenik guy just said that some Repuclican said that Goergia started the war and since I'm a republican stooge, I now support the Commies on this one.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/14/2008 12:10
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A fly over of Galveston Island during and after Hurricane Ike from a HU-25 Falcon Jet from the Aviation Training Center in Alabama. Scenes include flooded neighborhoods, hotels, highways, an airport and flightline as well as a burning building.
#1
My brother lives in Spring, near the Woodlands, and is without power, but safe. A friend of mine lives on Galveston Island, and I haven't heard if she evacuated or not. Saw photos in today's newspaper of I-45 where the causeway leads to the Texas City exit. It's usually 15 feet above water. The photo showed water on the sides of the road, and the entire Interstate covered in debris.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 23:25
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A man shot his 17-year-old daughter for honor on the Lower Mall. The police said that Nazia, the daughter of Hanif, a resident of Mohni Road Mohalla Qureshian, fled with her lover, a Christian boy, some one week ago. On Saturday, she returned home and took poisonous pills fearing a strong reaction from her parents. The girl, who fell unconscious under the drugís effect, was shot dead by her farther. The body was removed to morgue for autopsy. The accused father presented himself before the police for arrest saying that he had killed his daughter over her bad character. A case has been registered against the accused father for killing her daughter.
#1
The only way to stop this crap is to shame those who "honor" kill, and their families. Only the victim is held up as "innocent", and the only "good" member of the family.
The rest of the family, especially the killer, are vilified and exhibited as a "family dishonored by murder", along with the strong suggestion that the dishonor will exist until the *murderer* is dead.
This works in several ways. Firstly, by correctly elevating murder as the worst of offenses, not just criminally, but against "honor".
Second, by elevating the despised victim over her family, ignoring any petty sin she might have done.
And third, creating the idea that murder can only be cleansed as a sin by the death of the murderer, either by sanctioned execution by the government, or implied, by someone killing the murderer.
This is not hypocritical, oddly enough, because murder is only of the innocent, but murdering a murderer is justice. Killing a murderer is killing, not murder. An important point.
And *anyone* can kill a murderer without punishment, just like killing a rat. So from the moment a murderer commits an "honor" killing, he has signed his own death warrant, and anyone can kill him after, for any or no reason, without fear of punishment themselves.
And *this* will definitely put a halt to "honor" murders.
Posted by: ed ||
09/14/2008 1:34
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#3
Hate is a pretty big word for a reporter. As much as I disagree with the left, hate has never entered my conversation. This person is just a bigot showing her true soul, filled with anger and racist hate.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/14/2008 5:15
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#4
Lots of that sort of thing going around on the left these days 49. Methinks if it continues it might be a good thing for the country as the worst of them will seriously discredit themselves.
#7
Yes Pan, they hate. They hate with all the mindless bigotry they Freudianly project upon those they despise. The right looks upon the left as mistaken, misinformed, and lost, but the left thinks the right is just plain evil. It's one of the reasons they seem to fail so often. They do not understand their opponents.
#8
She doesn't so much hate white people as life itself.
Look at the picture she chose to put in the paper for how many people in Chicagoland to view every day. She looks just like the bitter teachers we'll be seeing soon at back to school night. Wizened faces once fresh and eager like the younger teachers.
But they've stayed at the grind stone of obnoxious children five years too long just to get the pension that won't be there in 15 years. And they know it. And they're bitter.
And Mary's that bitter. The Age of Aquarius isn't much different than the previous Age.
That is one of the things that is impressive about McCain. Talk about a guy with reason to be bitter. And he's been down in the primaries and in the general. But he sees the cup half full and keeps on truckin.
#9
note that Palin has been on the national scene for all of two weeks and this twit HATES her. Sez more about this mirthless racist drone Mitchell than Palin, I think. The fact the Sun-Times printed this dreck says a lot about them as well. Opinion piece? No, this is a hate-filled tantrum. Welcome to the Donk base
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/14/2008 9:35
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#10
How old is she, anyway? This article reads like it was penned by a 15 year old annoyed that she has to spend the weekend with her uncool parents and her totally annoying little brother.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
09/14/2008 11:02
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#11
Right you are AzCat. Media is downsizing, and as each reporter goes their individual way, all they will carry with them is their reputation. Let the future Randi Rhodes' self-select their isolation from mainstream life.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
09/14/2008 17:33
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Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/14/2008 0:59
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#2
I'm getting tired of this. I'm at the point where the self-righteous fervor of the left isn't even making me angry or annoyed. I just expect it now. I expect them to act unfair and they always do, becoming more and more shrill with each passing day.
I have no idea what it is that they are hoping to accomplish by laughing at Randi Rhodes when she suggests that Palin sleeps with teenage boys or when ABD edits Palin's words to fit their own narrative.
The left has become like a crazy person who yells at people walking by. No one really listens or cares what the crazy person is saying, they just want to get past with as little contact as possible to get on their way.
(Xinhua) -- The United States should take the initiative to improve ties with Russia strained by the recent Russian-Georgian conflict over South Ossetia, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.
"In conditions of global crises mutual interests prevail over some contradictions," Putin said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro. "I wait for the relations to improve. They (the United States) marred them, and they should improve them," he said in the interview published Saturday.
Russia and the United States "always would turn out to be together" when global crises emerged, Putin said, noting that the two countries were allies in both WWI and WWII. "Here in Russia, we never forget it. We would also like our U.S. partners to remember that too," he said.
Meanwhile, the Russian premier said the country's gross domestic product (GDP) will be doubled compared to 2003 by the year of 2010. The aim will be achieved in late 2009, or according to other calculations, in the first quarter of 2010, Putin said. "Russia is developing at a rapid pace. In 2003, I said that we set a mid-term goal to double the gross domestic product. And we really are achieving the aim," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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#1
OK Vlad - you're short of cash, how much for Siberia?
#2
The rapidly falling energy prices are going to put a slight delay in your GDP predictions.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/14/2008 0:52
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#3
I remember reading in the 1980's that from birth rate data and actuarial tables starting in the early 1900's the Soviet should have had 100 million more people than it did. That the Communist wars and purges wiped out, or never caused to be born because of the early deaths of their parents, 100 million souls is something that is almost incomprehensible.
No thanks, Vlad. The Russian soul is much too dark and requires too much human sacrifice. I'd rather keep you as far away as possible.
Posted by: ed ||
09/14/2008 1:08
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#4
Soviet = Soviet Union
Posted by: ed ||
09/14/2008 1:09
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#8
I love the whole "yeah, we invaded but it's your fault!" theme he's got going on, not to mention his new and improved "seven year plan" that will be achieved ahead of schedule.
I hate to admit it, but both me and the Tsar am impressed by the style of Volodya's bullshit.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
09/14/2008 11:23
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#9
Personally I think the Russians should stop obsessing over the US like some jilted lover. Europe has culture and needs balls. Russia has balls and desperately needs culture. They should become fast friends with European cash putting Russian peacekeepers wherever the UN needs so Europe can feel they are doing something (without any pesky casualties) and Russia can be a big player again (without those pesky costs.
Also Russia should be cozying up with Japan. Russia has some worthless islands the Japanese really, really want. Russia has unpopulated wasteland connected by a rickity old trans-siberian railway. Japan has cash and the engineering to build a bullet-train that could connect Moscow with the Pacific and make Russia a proper two-coast nation.
Lastly Russia should be cozying up with India and Latin America. Anyone that wants to immigrate to Siberia but doesn't have a territorial claim on the area (that means no Chinese) or tend to be problems (that means Islam) should be invited to come in and become Russian citizens to help reverse some of the downward economic trends and populate the Pacific Coast of Russia.
Instead Putin pisses off the world and now has to semi-grovel hoping to restore relations.
Humayun Gauhar is the ghost author of General Pervez Musharraf's 2006 In The Line of Fire: A Memoir. His father, Altaf Gauhar, was the ghost author of General Ayub Khan's 1967 Friends, Not Masters
Beirut- Hezbollah's decision to dispatch the head of its politburo Sheikh Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed, as the official representative of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, to the funeral of slain Druze official Saleh Aridi was seen as a step toward reconciliation between Hezbollah and MP Walid Jumblat's Progressive Socialist Party.
The daily As Safir on Saturday, citing well-informed sources, said both sides have expressed their desire to "upgrade the present security coordination formula" between Hezbollah 's Wafiq Safa and PSP's Akram Shehayeb.
It said serious backstage efforts continue in this regard between Hezbollah and Mustaqbal ( Future) Movement in a bid to achieve reconciliation.
The sources said there is a "real chance to achieve a breakthrough" in this regard.
Today Sheikh Naim Kassem, deputy of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said: The Future movement did not make its political decision yet about a meeting between Nasrallah and Hariri . Such a meeting could resolve 90 % of the problems and the remaining 10 % could be resolved through dialogue"
Hezbollah arms remain the key issue for the ruling majority. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said national dialogue meetings will be held under the title of "the defense strategy."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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(Xinhua) -- Two blasts hit a residential area near the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture in Japanlate Friday, local media reported Saturday. The explosions, which caused no injuries when they occurred at about 10:30 p.m. in a hilly area of the city, were believed to be an attack against the U.S. military base, said the reports, citing local police.
The U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington, which carries 5,600 and 70 aircraft, is scheduled to arrive at the port of Yokosuka on September 25 to replace the carrier Kitty Hawk. The nuclear vessel's deployment caused vast concern in local communities with some residents reacting to its impending arrival with anxiety and anger.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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#1
I think the US should send the Japanese a price quote for 2 carriers, air wings, support equipment and 50 years of technical support. Then announce plans to move the fleet to the nearest US territory.
Posted by: ed ||
09/14/2008 0:59
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#2
I expect Japan could build their own if they had a mind to. Unlikely to happen but I'd like to see what kind of design they might come up with. Might use a pair of big mother marine diesels instead of nukes? Wouldn't be much for acceleration but 216,000 HP would get a decent top end for just about anything.
#3
You'd probably want four, instead of two. Most modern carriers have four props and three rudders for maximum stability and evasive maneuvers. Sell the Japanese the Kitty Hawk to use until they build their own carriers. They'll need two or three to protect the Ryukyus from China in the near future, and to force-project against a radical Korea. Such a deal would provide the ability to defend all Japanese territory with the least expenditure of force and cash, and it'd still be within their "defensive" posture.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 14:11
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#4
Might use a pair of big mother marine diesels
When I was a Sailor I was sent to another ship slated for the scrapyard,(Strip the machine shop of all goodies) this was a tanker built near the end of WW2, it had a twin nine cylinder diesel hooked direct drive to the prop, they had sent a team to measure wear, and found enough wear to scrap the ship.
The idea was no expensive reduction gears needed.
It was built around the engine, don't know the stroke, but the heads were off showing bores four fet across, started and reversed by air pressure.
I was told once the pipe burst when docking and they cut a pier in half, no way to reverse the engine. looks considerably similar to this Huge diesel, built about 60 years earlier.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/14/2008 22:32
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Key corps commanders of Pakistan's 600,000-strong army issued orders last night to retaliate against "invading" US forces that enter the country to attack militant targets. The move has plunged relations between Islamabad and Washington into deep crisis over how to deal with al-Qa'ida and the Taliban
What amounts to a dramatic order to "kill the invaders", as one senior officer put it last night, was disclosed after the commanders - who control the army's deployments at divisional level - met at their headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi under the chairmanship of army chief and former ISI spy agency boss Ashfaq Kayani.
Leading English-language newspaper The News warned in an editorial that the US determination to attack targets inside Pakistan was likely to be "the best recruiting sergeant that the extremists ever had", with even "moderates" outraged by it.
The "retaliate and kill" order came amid reports of unprecedentedly fierce fighting in the Bajaur Agency of Pakistan's tribal areas, an al-Qa'ida stronghold frequently mentioned as the most likely lair of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
At the same time, a series of brutal killings by the militants were reported. The beheaded bodies of two of nearly 40 police recruits abducted a week ago were found near the town of Hangu. Their discovery follows warnings that the recruits would be put to death, one by one, unless Pakistan stopped its big offensive in Bajaur.
The bodies of three local Bajaur men who had been shot in the neck were also found yesterday. Notes were attached declaring the men to have been spies.
In a day of what appears to have been unrelenting combat in Bajaur, helicopter gunships, heavy artillery and tanks were used to strike al-Qa'ida targets.
Officials said at least 100 militants had been killed, bringing the number who have died in the six weeks since the offensive was launched to well over 700. The figure is regarded as remarkable, given that NATO forces in Afghanistan seldom achieve a "kill" rate of more than about 30 in any single operation. Many of those killed are reported to have been "foreign fighters" - mostly Arabs and Central Asians, who have been flooding into Pakistan's tribal areas to join al-Qa'ida and the Taliban.
Ground troops are said to have moved into key areas formerly controlled by the militants, despite a promised ceasefire marking the holy month of Ramadan. "We launched strikes against militant hideouts in Bajaur and destroyed several compounds they were using," an official was quoted as saying.
The order to retaliate against incursions by "foreign troops", directed specifically at the 120,000 Pakistani soldiers deployed along the border with Afghanistan, follows US President George W. Bush's authorisation of US attacks in Pakistan.
Washington's determination to launch such attacks has caused outrage across Pakistan, with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani last night strongly backing a warning by General Kayani that Pakistan would not allow its territorial integrity to be violated.
The "kill" order against invading forces, and the sharp deterioration in relations with the US, has far-reaching implications for the war on terror.
Anger at all levels in Pakistani society was summed up last night in The News, not normally sympathetic to the militants. "There is an escalating sense of furious impotence among the ordinary people of Pakistan," the newspaper said. "Many - perhaps most - of them are strongly opposed to the spread of Talibanisation and extremist influence across the country: people who might be described as 'moderates'.
"Many of them have no sympathy for the mullahs and their burning of girls' schools and their medieval mindset.
"But if you bomb a moderate sensibility often enough, it has a tendency to lose its sense of objectivity and to feel driven in the direction of extremism.
"If America bombs moderate sensibilities often enough, you may find that its actions are the best recruiting sergeant that the extremists ever had."
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008
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#1
We need to secure the nukes, if we can, and let Pak go into the abyss, which they will do, anyway.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/14/2008 0:26
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#2
The "moderates need to start killing these animals so we don't have to. Clean up your own mess and we'll be satisfied, but the mess will be cleaned up, one way or another.
#4
That Pakistan exists is an affront to the civilized world.. That the US government has paid more than $10 billion in direct aid and billions more for sponsoring the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks is an abomination.
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh The Wall Street Journal was one of the only Western news organizations to follow up on the story, citing the Times of India: "US authorities sought General Mahmud Ahmed's removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 was wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of General Mahmud."[3] Another Indian newspaper, the Daily Excelsior, quoting FBI sources, reported that the "FBIs examination of the hard disk of the cellphone company Omar Sheikh had subscribed to led to the discovery of the "link" between him and the deposed chief of the Pakistani ISI, Mahmud Ahmed. And as the FBI investigators delved deep, sensational reports surfaced with regard to the transfer of 100,000 dollars to Mohammed Atta, one of the kamikaze pilots who flew his Boeing into the World Trade Center. General Mahmud Ahmed, the FBI investigators found, fully knew about the transfer of money to Atta."[4]
Posted by: ed ||
09/14/2008 1:25
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#5
Oh yeah, kill the US invaders. This is such a colossaly bad idea it could only come from a place like Pakistan.
#11
Use one 'nym, Freedom/PeaceSqueaks. We welcome vigorous debate here, cherish well honed snark and ban tendentious trolls when we get tired of them. Which lately tends to be pretty soon after they appear. -- The Mods
#12
I've noticed you guys are a bit trigger happy. My folks need a little OJT. C'mon, help a guy out. Training budgets aren't what they used to be since the price of oil fell below $100.
Posted by: Your supervisor ||
09/14/2008 8:08
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#13
Vote for McCain/Palin then.
Mac has proposed a thoughtful job training & industry seeding effort to better adjust our economy for the 21st century. Among other areas, he's focusing on new energy sources and technologies.
Given that that will change geopolitical and domestic political power relationships a good deal, the economics of the entrenched set are sure to change ... albeit perhaps not in the direction you'd prefer.
#14
It doesn't seem like Pakistan is actually quite as anti-American as this order would make them sound. It only applies to units in the vicinity of an incursion against the units making the incursion. Given the current Pakistani force status and US mission style this is unlikely to matter at all. If this was more than just politics for internal consumption they would stop convoys and cancel overflight permission.
Still, maybe we could learn something and try this approach on our Mexican border (against drug gangs and Mexican army - but I repeat myself.)
#15
Everybody remember that every-thing said in the region is always, consistently, lies. It is a matter of principle in the entire region to never, ever tell the truth when you can lie.
Now that being said, look beyond what was said.
Areas of Pakistan are off limits to the Pak army, by all sorts of agreements and treaties. This creates safe havens for the scoundrels, that they use accordingly. For the Pak army to enter to fight these scum would "break the rules".
Unless, the Pak army entered *not* to fight the scum, but to "fight Americans". Then it would be A-OK.
But it would also put the scum between hammer and anvil.
"We were shooting at the Americans, but the Taliban and al-Qaeda were in the way. They all died in the process, but we drove off the Americans who were "driven off" after all the Taliban and al-Qaeda were dead. We are victorious!"
For domestic consumption only. Remember Kayani was the guy Mullen entertained on the carrier. If this were for export, I'd suspect we'd be replying. But we just keep on doing.
#18
Glenmore: no, it is a lot worse. To an American, it is like bizarro world, where everything is the opposite of the truth. To make matters worse, it is done almost automatically, for no reason. If you ask a man with a watch what time it is, he will lie.
A weird example was in Afghanistan, when after a battle, it was traditional to lie and exaggerate how many enemy were killed. Americans perplexed and fascinated the Afghans by intentionally under-counting enemy killed.
The Afghans knew the Americans were also lying, buy were hypnotized as to *why* they would lie that way, instead of bragging. (It is done to encourage the enemy to overestimate their resources in the field.)
Once the Afghans figured it out, they were very impressed by the Americans, and started lying the same way, under-counting enemy dead, which is just playing havoc with the Taliban command.
However, the one thing the Afghans would never do is give an *accurate* account of enemy dead, because there is no way anyone could ever justify that to them. The British Empire tried to insist on truth telling, and the Afghans just thought they were crazy.
In that part of the world, only a crazy person would tell the truth. To anyone, about anything.
#19
"There is an escalating sense of furious impotence among the ordinary people of Pakistan,"
who exactly are the ordinary people?
geez
Posted by: Jan at work ||
09/14/2008 13:12
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#20
Jihadi groups in Pakistan raise money openly. They collect outside mosques, shopping centers etc.
It is estimated that more than 80 percent of Pakistanis contribute to the cause
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008 13:26
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#21
"under the chairmanship of army chief and former ISI spy agency boss Ashfaq Kayani"
Been telling you guys here for years the ISI is a cancer that must be excised. The CIA *must* start shedding senior and mid-level ISI blood, copiously.
#22
The other thing that needs to be done is for Bush to call the Pakistani Ambassador on the carpet, and give him a lecture on the Hague convention.
Art. 4.
Corps of combatants cannot be formed nor recruiting agencies opened on the territory of a neutral Power to assist the belligerents.
Art. 5.
A neutral Power must not allow any of the acts referred to in Articles ... 4 to occur on its territory
Pakistan is ceding its sovereignty when it supports combatants that cross over into other nations and fight there.
Bush needs to lay doewn the law, and trheaten them with dismemberment of the Pakistan nation if they do not remedy their failures that allow recruitment and supply of belligerents and illegal combatants in Afghanistan and India.
#25
"We were shooting at the Americans, but the Taliban and al-Qaeda were in the way. They all died in the process, but we drove off the Americans who were "driven off" after all the Taliban and al-Qaeda were dead. We are victorious!"
Sounds like Tales from the Crossfire Gazette. We'll just have to wait and see if it works out that well. But, speaking of crossfires, how about Pakistan between India and the US?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/14/2008 18:01
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Dozens of gun-toting Islamic militants briefly seized a government building in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar late Saturday, but no one was hurt, officials said.
The militants were believed to be loyal to Mangal Bagh, the leader of a radical group accused by officials of kidnapping for ransom in Peshawar, harassing locals and running torture centers and private jails.
Witnesses said the fighters -- who later fled under cover of darkness when security forces surrounded the building -- were heavily-armed and wearing masks.
A security official said the building's security guards were briefly taken hostage, but they managed to alert police, prompting the response from security forces. "We have vacated the building and freed the hostages but the militants have managed to escape," Peshawar police chief Sulaiman Shah told reporters.
Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, is not far from Pakistan's rugged tribal areas on the Afghan border, where the army is battling Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.
A senior security official told AFP the hostage-takers had been able to leave the building after tribal elders from the Khyber agency intervened, indicating that an agreement had been made to secure their safe passage. "The attack appears to have been symbolic, to convey a message that they can attack a government building," the security official said.
As well as kidnapping for ransom, Bagh's Lashkar-e-Islam group has also been accused of attacking convoys ferrying supplies to NATO and US troops in Afghanistan that travel through the historic Khyber Pass.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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The governor of Afghanistan's Logar province was killed in a suicide attack near Kabul on Saturday, government officials said, blaming the attack on the "enemies of Afghanistan".
Logar police chief, Ghulam Mustafa, said the governor was struck by a suicide car bomb near his home in the Paghman area near the city. "He was targeted by a suicide bomber in which he, a driver and a police (guard) were martyred," Mustafa said. The governor had apparently been on his way to parliament, he said.
The interior ministry, however, said it was a roadside bomb. "This morning his car hit a bomb on the side of the road. The governor has been martyred," spokesman Zemarai Bashary said. He blamed the attack on the "enemies of Afghanistan" -- a term Afghan officials use to refer to Taliban militants and other extremists or criminals behind a wave of violence.
A body handling provincial governments also said the blast was caused by a roadside mine. "It was a deliberate attack," said Abdul Malik Sidiquee, deputy head of directorate of local governments. "It was the work of the enemies of the country."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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#1
Is there a "Friendly" bomb somewhere?
Posted by: Steven ||
09/14/2008 20:33
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A decision on an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is likely to come later than the widely-expected date of mid-October, the International Criminal Court's top prosecutor has said.
"Normally, when the judges start to analyze (a case) they call us for hearings and they ask for more information. They have not yet done that," ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told Reuters in an interview on Friday. "I don't know how long it will take, the judges will decide, but I don't think October would be possible," he said.
Bashir is accused of orchestrating a campaign of genocide in the Darfur region beginning in 2003 that has killed 35,000 people outright and at least another 100,000 through starvation and disease, with another 2.5 million forced from their homes.
Moreno-Ocampo said he had asked Sudan and the Arab League for an update on investigations into a recent attack in a refugee camp to determine whether it was an isolated incident or the start of a new wave of violence against civilians.
Sudanese forces attacked South Darfur's volatile Kalma camp on Aug. 25, leaving up to 27 dead and injuring more after surrounding the camp and going inside to search for weapons, according to rebel leaders. Attacks usually take place outside the camps, the prosecutor said.
The Khartoum government and army leaders denied the August attack even took place.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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#1
For some reason, every time I see the International Criminal Court abbreviation, I read it as the "International Communist Conspiracy", which was what ICC used to stand for.
#2
#1 For some reason, every time I see the International Criminal Court abbreviation, I read it as the "International Communist Conspiracy", which was what ICC used to stand for.
Is there a differance, Anonymoose?
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 14:48
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IIRC, Sudan has not ratified the ICC treaty. That would make an arrest warrant a little presumptuous.
Posted by: James ||
09/14/2008 18:08
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(PTI) Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani today strongly condemned the serial blasts in Delhi, terming those responsible as "enemies of humanity".
In separate messages, Zardari and Gilani expressed shock and grief over the loss of precious human lives. Gilani said elements involved in such heinous acts are "enemies of humanity" and Pakistan condemns all terrorist acts perpetrated in any part of the world. "The people and government of Pakistan share the pain of the victims and bereaved families," he said.
"Please don't retaliate against us!"
Information Minister Sherry Rehman condemned the blasts, terming them a "barbaric act of cowardice".
Leading rights activist and former Pakistan human rights minister Ansar Burney too condemned the terrorist attacks in New Delhi.
In a message, PML-N chief and former premier Nawaz Sharif said the perpetrators of such heinous acts were enemies of peace and humanity. He expressed his sympathies to the bereaved families and prayed for the early recovery of the injured.
At least 18 people were killed and 70 injured in a series of near-simultaneous blasts in three crowded market areas in the heart of Delhi this evening.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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At least 10 people were killed and 70 others injured on Friday when a Metrolink commuter train slammed into a freight train near a Los Angeles suburb, authorities said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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#1
The 11 pm news said 25 dead. Ugh.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/14/2008 1:07
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The MTA contract driver ran a red light.
It was one day after 9/11.
Did the driver commit murder suicide.
Was this driver muslim?
Or was it pure negligence?
A couple of years ago, they did not have enough trained train crews, so trains sat, and workers were stretched to the max. Some fell asleep at the controls.
I had hoped it was the UP driver who ran past the red signal.
Of course, I could also tell you a story about a new Amtrak engineer, so focused on maintaining speed, that she lost 'situational awareness' and ran past red signals, plowing into another train - but at less than 10 mph - no one killed.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/14/2008 7:16
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One of my co-workers was hit by a car making a turn through a red light while texting. Fortunately it was only broken bones. More fortunately a bus driver and 30 passengers saw the whole thing. Astoundingly, the driver of the car pulled over, but finished texting before emerging from her car to see what had happened. This is enough to make me support cell phone bans while driving.
The furore has intensified over Washington's decision to pursue Islamic militant targets inside Pakistan, with opposition lawmakers threatening the country could pull out of the war on terror if the US refuses to respect its borders.
About 100 protesters burned American flags after the latest missile attack left at least 12 people dead in the North Waziristan region of the troubled northwest. Residents said they heard the sound of propeller-driven US Predator drones circling overhead before the explosions.
President Bush secretly approved more aggressive cross-border operations in July, current and former American officials have told The Associated Press. Since Aug. 13, there have been at least seven reported missile strikes as well as a raid by helicopter-borne US commandos that Pakistani officials claim killed 15 civilians in tribally governed territory where the government has little control. The frontier region is considered a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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#1
Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has denied that and vowed to protect the country's sovereignty "at all cost."
Does this include the most urgent threat to Pakistan's sovereignty posed by the Taliban?
#3
It's still not too late to end the failed experiment that was the creation of Pakistan. Just as it was created, it can be destroyed. Pakistan has only one redeeming factor in its continued existence - the port of Karachi. If Pakistan closes that port to us, there would be no continued reason for Pakistan to exist. I'm sure India would be willing to take over the territory to the east of the Indus River, and Afghanistan would be more than happy to reunite the Pashtuns and receive a port they can share with India.
The United States needs to gear up to fight the war against islamic extremism. That means at least ten new divisions and the equipment to arm and support them. We're not going to be able to win this "war" without breaking some countries' will to aid and support our enemies, beginning with Pakistan.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 14:59
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Among the victims was General Gennady Troshev, a former top commander of Russia's war in Chechnya and advisor to ex-president Vladimir Putin, Interfax news agency reported, citing Russia's transportation ministry. - AFP link
Eleven-year-old Rohit (name changed) sells balloons on Barakhamba Road. Saturday was just another day in his life until the bomb went off near Gopaldas Building, before his shocked eyes.
Almost one and half hours after the blast, the boy still stood in the melee at the blast site. The pouch of balloons tied around his waist suddenly raised suspicion -- there was a rumour that a live bomb was strapped around his waist.
The police quickly surrounded him. Rohit showed them that it was only a pouch for balloons around his waist.
But he had a lot more to say. He told the police he had seen two men dressed in black get off an autorickshaw and drop a plastic bag into the dustbin. About 15 minutes later, the dustbin blew up. Rohit had become an invaluable witness.
The cops said they were examining the boy and a sketch of the suspects is being drawn up based on the descriptions provided by him. "So far, he has told us about a man clad in black dress, possibly wearing kurta-pyajama. He had a long beard, while the other man was clean shaven and wearing a shirt and trousers," said a senior police officer.
Rohit -- whose photograph we have but have decided not to publish -- is held at the Connaught Place police statio. An NGO working with children, as well as psychatrists, are helping him reconstruct the exact sequence of events. The police also contacted his family members and brought them to the police station. They are also examining other children who were present along with Rohit.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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#1
Kay and Jay? Fighting intergalactic alien activity?
SIR Paul McCartney has been threatened that he will be the target of suicide bombers unless he abandons plans to play his first concert in Israel.
Self-styled preacher of hate Omar Bakri claimed the former Beatle's decision to take part in the Jewish state's 60th anniversary celebrations had made him an enemy of all Muslims.
Sources said Sir Paul was shocked but refused to be intimidated. In an interview with Israeli media yesterday he said: "I was approached by different groups and political bodies who asked me not to come here. I refused. I do what I think and I have many friends who support Israel."
Sir Paul, 65, should have gone to Israel with the Beatles in 1965 but they were barred by the Jewish nation's government over fears they would corrupt young people.
Yesterday a number of websites described him as an infidel and suggested he was going to Israel only because of the reported £2.3m fee for the one-off concert. A message posted on one website said: "Shame on you Paul McCartney for day trippin' to apartheid Israel" and vowed never to buy his music again.
Bakri, who made his weekly internet broadcast to fellow extremists from his home in Lebanon, where he has lived in exile since being banned from returning to Britain, said Sir Paul was "making more enemies than friends".
Syrian-born Bakri, 48, went on: "I heard today that the pop star Paul McCartney is playing as a part of the celebrations. If you speak about the holocaust and its authenticity never being proved historically in the way the Jewish community portray it, people will arrest you. People will you say you should not speak like this. Yet they go and celebrate the anniversary of 60 years of what?
United States House of Representatives
Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia
Gary L. Ackerman (D-NY), Chairman
You are respectfully requested to attend the following OPEN hearing of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, to be held in Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building .
Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Time: 10:00 AM
Subject: Defeating al Qaeda's Air Force: Pakistan's F-16 Program in the Fight Against Terrorism
witnesses:
***Vice Admiral Jeffrey A. Wieringa
Director
Defense Security Cooperation Agency
Mr. Donald Camp
Deputy Assistant Secretary
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
U.S. Department of State
Mr. Frank Ruggiero
Deputy Assistant Secretary
Bureau of Political-Military Affairs
U.S. Department of State
Admiral, Mr. Deputy Assistant Secretaries, may I respectfully suggest that you don't breathe a word about the kill-switches in the Pak F-16s? The New York Times will be sure to warn them by publishing the information on page one ...
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008
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#1
I worked with the VADM during a tour in VA-165 here @ NASWI: a good stick and a good JO. Went our separate ways, but remember reading of him periodically; always in a good light.
A series of synchronized bomb blasts rocked New Delhi on Saturday, killing at least 18 people and injuring dozens more in some of the busiest market areas of the Indian capital.
Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said five bombs had gone off, and Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil put the death toll at 18, with many more injured. The five blasts of varying intensity included two at Connaught Place -- the city's largest financial and commercial centre -- and two more at the busy, upmarket shopping district of Greater Kailash.
A Muslim militant outfit, Indian Mujahideen, claimed responsibility for the bombings in an e-mail. The group has claimed recent bomb attacks in other Indian cities. India's television network NDTV quoted the e-mail as saying, "In the name of Allah, the Indian Mujahideen has struck back again. Do whatever you want. Stop us if you can."
Police in Greater Kailash searched for survivors among a mess of mangled motorcycles and shattered glass from vehicles caught in two blasts that went off within seven minutes of each other.
President Pratibha Patil denounced what she described as a "mindless act of violence."
Police said two unexploded bombs had been found in Connaught Place -- one in a cinema -- and a third near India Gate, one of the country's most iconic landmarks. Both locations are popular with international tourists.
An explosive expert with one of the bomb disposal units said the devices appeared to have been packed with steel ball bearings and nuts and bolts "to cause maximum harm."
Triple blasts in New Delhi in October 2005, blamed on Pakistan-backed Islamic rebel groups, claimed nearly 70 lives, while a 2001 attack on India's national parliament complex also blamed on Muslim militants killed 14 people.
The Indian Mujahideen group had claimed responsibility for a wave of bombings in July that killed at least 45 people in the western commercial city of Ahmedabad.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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(Xinhua) -- Thailand's core ruling party, People Power Party (PPP) is set to decide on its candidate for the prime minister post on Monday, after party leader and disqualified premier Samak Sundaravej declined the nomination amid strong opposition, said a deputy party minister on Saturday.
Sompong Amornwiwat, a PPP deputy leader and caretaker justice minister, said that the PPP nomination, once decided and sent to the other five coalition parties, will be submitted to the House of Representatives for voting.
He also said that all the six parties in the caretaker coalition government, led by PPP, will make a statement at a joint press conference on Tuesday, he said.
The selection of a new premier started after Samak was forced out of job with a verdict of the Constitutional Court on Sept. 9 which found him violate the charter by hosting two TV cooking shows while in office.
Samak had been embattled by the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) with continuous street protests since May, calling for the step-down of him and his cabinet, accusing the administration of a proxy of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who had faced mass protests led by PAD and was finally ousted in a military coup in Sept. 19, 2006.
The PPP declared on Thursday that it would renominate Samak as the new premier candidate at Friday's voting, and Samak accepted it later.
However, it was met with opposition by fractions of PPP and the other five coalition parties in the coalition government, now a caretaker one, who boycotted a parliament voting session scheduled on Friday morning, leading to the abortion of the voting for lack of quorum.
The voting to elect a new prime minister was rescheduled on Sept.17
Samak then reportedly withdrew his bid to be reinstalled, and speculation held that he would soon declare a resignation from the PPP party leader post.
On Saturday, PAD leaders Chamlong Srimuang and Somsak Kosaisuk said at a press conference that the group maintained its stance that the entire caretaker cabinet must resign unconditionally.
They also renewed urges for the new administration to implement its so-called "new politics" concept -- to have a partly-appointed, partly-elected House of Representatives, with the appointed MPs outnumbering elected ones. They claimed it was to protect the country from domination of corrupted politicians, but critics see it as a step backward in the country's democracy.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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#3
Much older pic from the 1920s (I provided it to Fred). But Manos: The Hands of Fate is my choice for worst movie ever made. Even worse than Plan 9 ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/14/2008 12:40
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Doc, your list of "worst movies" doesn't include my favorite - When Worlds Collide. It's a class "F" (or worse) '50s sci-fi movie from Britain, and it's BAAAAAADDDDDDD. Saw it on AFN-Europe in the '80s. We always got the "BEST" AFN could find...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 13:53
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#6
Saw "When worlds collide in the 60's, was so bad I still remember it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/14/2008 14:03
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#7
Battlefield Earth is a near-worst.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/14/2008 15:06
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#8
Yall obviously haven't seen "Surf Nazis Must Die".
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/14/2008 15:24
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#9
Mercifully no, DB.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/14/2008 15:28
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When my cell phone rang on vacation, I eyed the phone number wearily. It was my employer, Vogue, calling. My four-year-old, just out of the ocean and covered in sand, was whining for a shower. My three-year-old was thirsty. My hedge-fund husband was upstairs on his BlackBerry making plans to buy Dubai. I picked up the phone.
If life is simply a reprise of high school, Palin was the jock who attended church faithfully, ran the soup kitchen, and organised the bake sale. If her paper on the Lincoln-Douglas debate wasn't the most nuanced, so be it.
It was the publicist from the magazine calling to say that CNN wanted to interview me about Sarah Palin. My initial response was cool. "What do they want to talk about?"
"You're one of the few people who has interviewed her for a national publication," the publicist answered, referring to an article I had written earlier this year profiling the governor of Alaska for the magazine.
"Is she dead?" I asked worriedly. Alaska is notorious for small plane crashes - that's how the politician father of the writer and journalist Cokie Roberts died - and I knew Palin owned a float plane. It never really occurred to me that she might be the vice-presidential candidate. With so little time in office, even Alaskans hadn't yet made up their mind about Sarah Palin's job as governor of the state.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/14/2008
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#1
Care about a woman's right to choose her own biological destiny?
I thought the majority of abortions was being done by women in their 20s and 30s, so - after having all that experience - I still can't understand why they can't control their bodies?
#3
Once upon a time, I also would have been contemptuous of Palin's incurable optimism but, having been knocked around by life a bit, I now understand what a gift chronically happy people are given.
-------------
Isn't there a new psych course for patients which lasts about 13 weeks and teaches people how to quit obsessing and move on w/one's life and those people are happier? So they don't need the psychiatrists like they thought?
The caretaker government not only failed to fulfil the promises it had made at the time of 1/11 changeover, but also suffered a moral defeat, said speakers at a dialogue yesterday.
The speakers observed that the government also impaired its anti-corruption drive by releasing from detention graft suspects like Tarique Rahman, through which move it lost the moral ground for keeping any other person in jail on charges of graft.
They however observed that bringing Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia to a table for a dialogue might help to initiate a new political culture in the country replacing the current culture of 'walking out of the parliament'. But they noted that release of the two former premiers from detention alone will not ameliorate the country's current political crisis.
The comments came from a dialogue arranged by BBC Bangla Sanglap in Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre in the capital. AL Presidium Member Abdur Razzak, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Bangladesh Mujahidul Islam Selim, Action Aid Bangladesh Country Director Farah Kabir, and former energy adviser Mahmudur Rahman were the panel of dialoguers in front of a live audience.
The speakers said formation of the Truth and Accountability Commission (Tac) gives an impression that any corruptionist will finally be absolved at the end of the day. They said the government's lack of planning and strategy, and its disorientation regarding the projects it took up has resulted in the present crisis in the country, with corruption suspects getting freed hampering the anti-graft drive severely.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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I should slow down my scan rate, cuz I thought it said "anti-gravity drive."
Mullah Nasrullah, a Taliban commander, made what has become a routine trek from his guerrilla base in Afghanistan across the jagged peaks into Pakistan last month. His destination: the headquarters of his patron and supplier, the powerful insurgent leader Sirajuddin Haqqani. A genial young man in his late 20s or early 30s with a bushy black beard, Haqqani leads the bloody Taliban insurgency in eastern Afghanistan, where American casualties are highest. Interviewed by NEWSWEEK on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Nasrullah refused to specify the reason for his meeting with Haqqani, though it's likely he was looking for more suicide bombers, explosive vests, weapons and money to use against U.S. and NATO forces.
Once inside Pakistan, Nasrullah says, he traveled between insurgent camps. He rode in a new four-wheel-drive vehicle with a towering radio antenna fixed to the front bumper, followed by four pickup trucks filled with militants. Yet their convoy sailed through Pakistani military checkpoints. Whenever they neared one, the jihadists would hail someone named "Col. Niazi" on the radio, who would arrange their safe passage. Nasrullah believes this was a Pakistani Army officer and possibly an operative in the military's premier spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. "He seems to feel invulnerable," Nasrullah says of his patron, Haqqani. "The ISI protects him."
Washington seems to agree. Combating Haqqani fighters has become one of the top priorities for American commanders in Afghanistan. But U.S. officials who would speak only on condition of anonymity when discussing sensitive matters say they have evidence that some elements of Pakistan's ISI are protecting or even helping the Haqqani network. That's helping to drive a far more aggressive U.S. strategy in the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where the Haqqanis and other Taliban groups have established a network of safe havens and training camps for their own and Al Qaeda fighters. And it's raising tensions between America and Pakistan, supposed allies in the war against terror, to levels not seen since September 11.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008
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This is why Pakistan needs to cease to exist - they're duplicitous double-dealers who are getting US Servicemen killed and wounded. Tomorrow will be fine, but it should have happened two weeks ago.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 15:04
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The Senate Committee hearing the gruesome details of the live burial of women in Balochistan was told on Friday that the number of such women could be seven and not five or three as earlier reported.
But the Committee on Human Rights was ignored totally by the PPP government as none of the three important ministers, who are active members of the Senate body, attended the meeting chaired by Senator SM Zafar.
The absence of these three powerful ministers was felt more, not only because of their current ministerial status but in their capacity as its members, by the jam-packed Committee Room which heard shocking disclosure that the total number of the unfortunate women might be seven. Those who did not attend the meeting were Farooq Naik, Latif Khosa and Rehman Malik.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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BAGHDAD - Gunmen kidnapped and shot dead three Iraqi journalists from Iraqs Sharqiya TV station along with their driver in the volatile northern city of Mosul on Saturday, the station and police said. It was one of the single deadliest militant attacks on journalists in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Today at noon, armed people kidnapped and killed four of our workers in the channel, Sharqiya, an independent channel based in Dubai and known for its criticism of the Iraqi government, said in a statement read by one of its presenters. It said the dead were its chief Mosul correspondent Musab Mahmoud al-Azawi, two cameramen and a driver.
The staff of this channel, whose hearts are full of mourning today, confirm our determination to go ahead with its independent work, the statement said.
The four went missing in the early hours and police said they recovered their bodies bearing gunshot wounds on the western side of Mosul. They had been filming a programme on charity during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. One of the crew later told Reuters her colleagues were snatched from outside a house where they were filming. She escaped.
The head of Iraqi security operations in Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province, Major-General Riyadh Jalal Tawfiq, who has himself survived more than one assassination attempt in Mosul, said Iraqi forces were pursuing suspects. We surrounded the area, chased the suspects and so far weve arrested two of them in a car, he told Sharqiya in an interview. But he added that two others were still on the loose.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/14/2008
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No matter what side the reporters were on, this is a blow to the democracy of Iraq. Free speech is a cornerstone to any democracy.
However, I think we can expect more of this. As we are seeing even here in our own country, the media is no longer about reporting but has become a weapon in political arsenals.
We've always been told that the pen is mightier than the sword. But I think that we have come to realize that is only true when the pen is protected by a mightier sword.
#2
Hopefully, this TV station will file a whopping big lawsuit against the Saudi Arabian Mufti who authorized the killing of TV station employees a week ago. That would make a very interesting trial.
Especially if the families of these TV employees are Shiites, since the Mufti is Sunni. Blood feud time.
#3
"We've always been told that the pen is mightier than the sword. But I think that we have come to realize that is only true when the pen is protected by a mightier sword."
Thus has it ever been, Betty.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/14/2008 10:51
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#4
The old comic "Odd Bodkins" had an interesting take on the pen and the sword.
One character proclaimed that his pen was mightier than the sword, so the other asked him to set it down, and then chopped it with his sword.
He chopped it in half, but one half of the pen flew up and hit him in the eye, painfully.
Thus the moral: "The sword is mightier than the pen. But the pen is mighty sneaky."
"Our nation and its press will rise or fall together." Without an INDEPENDENT press, things go downhill rather fast. We see that in our own nation. The majority of the Mainlysleaze Media is killing itself, while the Internet news arena is booming. I don't know what these three journalists were doing, but it must have been something good for the terrorists to kill them.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 14:31
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#6
Wasn't it just the other day the Saudi Grand Poobah said it was kosher (yeah, I know... but I don't know arabic for kosher) to kill evil TV journalists. Apparentlty he has a direct line to the baddies.
NANKANA SAHIB: A member of the Alami Majlis Tahaffuz-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwat was shot dead at Chak 4 here on Thursday night.
Muhammad Malak, a resident of Chak 6 and a complainant in a blasphemy case, was returning home after offering Taraveeh when some people opened fire on him, killing him on the spot. He was buried at a local graveyard. A large number of people attended his funeral prayer.
A large contingent of police was also present. People passed resolutions in mosques after Friday prayers, condemning the incident and demanding immediate arrest of the killers. The AMTKN city Ameer Mehr Muhammad Aslam Nasir, advocate, condemned the incident and demanded immediate arrest of the accused, including Nadeem, Rana Iftikhar, Rashid, Ishrat Shah and their three accomplices.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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Sounds like filing a complaint of "blasphemy" was not well received, like saying "Yo' Mama!"
I am all in favor of more blasphemy complainants being killed. Send the message that you don't be doing that shiat.
Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager on Saturday, hours after Jewish settlers clashed with Palestinian villagers in the occupied West Bank and an Israeli boy received stab wounds.
Palestinian security officials said the 18-year-old was shot by troops after he and a group of Palestinian youths hurled stones at an army patrol near the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
An Israeli army spokesman said troops arrived at an area near the village of T'koa after two American tourists were hurt by rocks thrown at their bus by Palestinians.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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Banned Islamist militant outfit Harkatul Jihad al Islami (Huji), comprised of Afghan war veterans, has started activities across the country to take part in the next parliamentary polls under a new name.
Huji leaders under the banner of Islamic Democratic Party (IDP) gathered for an iftar party in a Rajshahi community centre in Shalbagan on September 8 claiming to be in negotiations with the government for holding political programmes openly.
Even though they claimed that they are not involved in any criminal or anti-state activities, they admitted that their organisation began from Huji. They said they are still in Jihad as before in Afghanistan but the Jihad is for "rebuilding the country by promoting true democracy".
They said two top Huji founders--Mufti Abdus Salam and Rahmatullah alias Shaikh Farid--are president and secretary of the party. They collected the application form for getting IDP registered with the Election Commission for participating in the next general elections. They already formed fully-fledged IDP committees in 42 districts and in all thanas of Dhaka city to that end. They have begun renting offices in districts and forming committees and organising activists in 300 upazilas across the country.
The government so far has made no visible effort to arrest Huji kingpins since banning the outfit in October, 2005.
Several police and intelligence officials said even though Huji has been banned, they have never received any instructions from the government to launch any drive against Huji leaders and activists.
HUJI'S RAJSHAHI TOUR
The IDP launched organisational tours in northern part of the country from September 6. They held meetings in towns and upazilas of Chapainawabganj, Rajshahi and Rangpur.
Local law enforcement agencies were learnt to be ignorant about Huji gatherings, in the name of IDP, even though teams of "Mujaheeds" are touring other parts of the country, sources said.
Chaired by Rajshahi IDP President Maulana Faisal, the meeting in Rajshahi was attended by Afghan war veteran and IDP central Dawat and Tabligi (invitation and campaign) division President Abdul Kuddus and Abul Kalam Azad, an Arakan Mujaheed and president of Natore and northern units of IDP.
Over 300 activists assembled at the meeting while Rajshahi IDP General Secretary Mufti Mustafizur Rahman, Nayeb-e Amir (vice-president) Nazmul Ahmed, Organising Secretary Hussein Ahmed and Aynul Haque and Arifur Rahman were present.
"We are still in a Jihad in the country as we were in the past in Afghanistan against Russia and America. But now we are fighting against evil-education, corruption, and communalism," Abdul Kuddus, who reportedly claimed to have fought in Afghanistan for 17 years against Russian and American forces, said talking to The Daily Star.
"We want to rebuild the country establishing a true democracy and selecting honest and efficient leadership on the lines of the holy Quran. We will take part in the next parliamentary elections. And we believe that we will have a remarkable influence in the political arena within a short time," he told the gathering.
Mahbub Mohsin, commissioner of Rajshahi Metropolitan Police (RMP), told The Daily Star that IDP did not take prior permission for holding such meetings and the police were unaware of the meeting being held.
Sources say that the IDP claims to have had discussions with the government at different levels and that they had convinced the government of their innocence.
The meeting organisers also said they had even informed the government in advance about their countrywide meetings under the banner of IDP.
"We succeeded in convincing the government that nobody of Harkatul Jihad, other than Mufti Abdul Hannan and Mufti Abdur Rouf, was involved in any criminal activities or has any criminal records. That Harkatul Jihad was dissolved in 1998," Hussein Ahmed told The Daily Star.
"The name of IDP was selected in presence of administrative high-ups after the government was convinced, through its intelligence agencies, that our activities do not pose any problems," he said.
He denied having any negotiations with the government for holding meetings across the country.
Around 40,000 Bangladeshis joined the Afghan war and a number of the returnees formed Huji's Bangladesh chapter in the late 80s during the Ershad regime. Returning from the Afghan war, Mufti Abdul Hannan and Mufti Abdur Rouf floated separate organisation Harkatul Mujahideen, claimed Hussein and Huji sources.
Advised by "senior Islamic scholars", Harkatul Mujahideen merged with Huji and the new Huji was officially launched under the leadership of Mufti Abdus Salam in Dhaka in April, 1992.
When Mufti Abdur Rouf criticised Islamic scholars and Abdul Hannan was found engaged in anti-state activities, they were expelled from Huji in 1998, sources claimed.
Huji was dissolved then and the Huji leaders, except Mufti Abdur Rouf and Abdul Hannan, kept on working under a new organisation--Islami Dawati Kafela, Bangladesh.
"Thirty-nine members out of the 41-member Huji shura [governing body] left in course of time. We changed our organisation's name to Islami Gono Andolan until negotiations with the government started," Hussein said.
Huji leaders and activists went into hiding when the Awami League government launched a crack down on them following an attack on late poet Shamsur Rahman and an assassination attempt on Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina.
As the media ran several reports on the activities of Huji, Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) came to the limelight by blasting bombs across the country.
After the government launched a crackdown on JMB, Huji leaders succeeded in convincing the government that none of their leaders and activists was involved in any kind of violence or militant activities.
They also told the government that a faction of Huji men led by Mufti Hannan and Abdur Rouf, who were responsible for violence, was expelled from the organisation in 1998.
"The government banned Harkatul Jihad of Mufti Hannan and Abdur Rouf. The original Huji was dissolved in 1998," Hussein claimed.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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The Americans picked an inauspicious day to open a new front in the war on terror. It was 4am on the third day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and the villagers of Angoor Adda, a small Pakistani mountain town near the Afghan border, were lighting their stoves for breakfast before a long day of fasting.
Two US helicopters supported by a AC130 Spectre gunship landed close to the shrine of a local saint. Out jumped about three dozen heavily armed marines and Navy Seals from a crack unit called Detachment One. As they emerged from the churning dust onto the rock-strewn hills, they made for a terrifying sight in their night-vision goggles.
Within minutes the commandos had surrounded the mudwalled compound of Payo Jan Wazir, a 50-year-old woodcutter and cattle-herd. They believed an Al-Qaeda leader was hiding inside.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008
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#3
Why do I doubt the accuracy of this report of the slaying of 20 innocent civilians? I agree it was a 'crack unit'. And such missions are uncommon, and thus very carefully planned. A well-planned mission by top troops with our RoE - whoever is dead was not innocent.
#5
Why do I doubt the accuracy of this report of the slaying of 20 innocent civilians?
I doubt them too and I also notice the sudeen concern Pazkiatsnis, those bastards who set bombs in Delhi, sponsor suicide bombres in Afganistan and killed or raped 2 million in Bangladesh, feeel for "innocent civilians" TM.
Oscar winning actor Matt Damon says as a US citizen, he is frightened to see Republican Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency.
"I think there's a really good chance Sarah Palin could become president, and I think that's the really scary thing," Damon said.
Since Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain announced two weeks ago that first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would be his running mate, Democrats have pointed to his advanced age, saying that the 44-year-old governor could soon be just 'a heartbeat away from the presidency'.
John McCain, who celebrated his 72nd birthday on August 29, has made it clear that should he win the White House bid in 2008, he would not seek a second term.
According to the actuarial tables insurance companies use to evaluate customers, there is a roughly 1 in 3 chance that a 72-year-old man will not reach the age of 80 - without factoring in individual medical history, such as McCain's lengthy battles with potentially lethal skin cancer.
"I know that she was a mayor of a really, really small town. And she is the governor of Alaska for less than two years... I think the pick was made for political purposes, but in terms of governance, it is a disaster," Matt Damon continued.
Palin managed to raise eyebrows on Thursday in her first televised interview since she was named to the GOP ticket; she said the US would have to go to war with Moscow if Georgia becomes a NATO member and comes under Russian attack.
"It's like a really bad Disney movie. The hockey mom, you know, 'oh, I'm just a hockey mom' and she is the president and she is facing down (Russian Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin," Damon added.
A spokeswoman for Palin later rejected Damon's comments as 'name-calling'. Maria Comella accused Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and 'his celebrity supporters' of inventing ideas about the Alaskan governor.
"It's clear they're threatened by a candidate who actually has a record of achieving reform and change, while Barack Obama just talks about it," Comella said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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#2
Matt hasn't considered how many small towns or states his hero Obama has governed. A little clue for you Matt - zero.
And, talk about bad movies. Imagine BO: He's just a community organizer and he's staring down Putin.
Riiiight.
Posted by: Thomotch Scourge of the Jutes4046 ||
09/14/2008 0:53
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#3
And who would know more than Matt about bad Disney movies. Still, I loved him as The Little Mermaid. And wasn't he brilliant as the wooden and emotionless spy in The Good Shepard? (see #1 for screen shot)
#4
"I think there's a really good chance Sarah Palin could become president, and I think that's the really scary thing," Damon said.
The 'establishment' said the same thing about Teddy Roosevelt. You know Matt, that last head upon Rushmore. Ever contemplate why he's up there and will last [much like the Sphinx] well beyond your existence .
#8
"I think there's a really good chance Sarah Palin could become president, and I think that's the really scary thing," Damon said.
And he's absolutely correct. If, that is, you are interested in maintaining the status quo. Or if you are a socialist, hate America, and want the gov't to continue it's corrupt policies while you milk MY tax dollars to feather your own nest.
But real change is always scary. Sen. Obama's "The same old change we always promise" means nothing. There's no change involved there.
The thing that has me scratching my head is this:
Why do people care what some sub class of person, who's work involves lying to themselves until they believe it, has to say? Seriously, WTH qualifies Ed Bagely, Kevin Costner, et. al. to comment on "Climate Change"? Does any of them have a degree in meteorology? Why do I care what Mr. Damon has to say on politics, does he have a degree in PolitSci?
No that that qualifies him for gassing like he does.
Posted by: Albert Clavins5664 ||
09/14/2008 10:58
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#10
Insulting her by comparing her to a Disney movie?
Next, he should insult her for being patriotic, Christian, enjoying apple pie and milk, and for having children. Then sneeringly call her fat and that she wears ugly shoes on her big feet, and complain that she doesn't "mind her place" when men are around.
"Now get back in the kitchen and make me some pie!"
Then, for the rest of his life, he could wonder why random women approach him on the street and punch him before walking off, muttering to themselves.
#11
Matt Damon. Along with Ben Affleck and Tom Cruise. Major turn offs. Don't bother to see any movie with one or more of these in it. I can't even be bothered renting a DVD with one of them.
Posted by: Aussie Mike ||
09/14/2008 17:39
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#13
Matt and Ben should have stayed together as a couple. I blame JLo.
Posted by: ed ||
09/14/2008 18:07
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#14
The problem with Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Tom Cruise is that they really do think they are the characters they play in movies. They actually eat their own bullshit - with relish!
#16
Excuse my ignorance, but just WHO is Matt Damon? I know I don't go to movies or keep current on who's doing what to whom in hollywierd, but just who is this doofus??? Neverheardofhim.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/14/2008 20:04
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#17
Dear Matt__
Life isn't like the movies. And movies aren't like life. Get out of the Hollywood hothouse and get a (real) life.
Another CIA-operated spy plane intruded into Pakistan's territory in North Waziristan Agency early Friday and fired two Hellfire missiles.
Senior government officials based in Miramshah told The News that the Predator had attacked an alleged training camp of militants from the Punjab. The officials claimed that all the 12 people who were killed in the attack were hardcore militants belonging to Jihadi commander Ilyas Kashmiri's group. The residents, however, claimed the dead included women and children. Ilyas belongs to the Pak branch of HUJI.
Soon after the missile strike, some unidentified miscreants attacked a military convoy, which was on its way to Bannu from Miramshah near the Chashma Pul, injuring two security personnel.
In retaliation, the troops also fired shots at the attackers, wounding four tribesmen who were travelling in a passenger coach.Tribal sources told The News that two spy planes had been flying over the villages of North Waziristan Agency along the Pak-Afghan border for the past 24 hours. The residents said one of the planes, apparently a US Predator, fired two Hellfire missiles on a house owned by a tribesman Sadim Khan in Tolkhel village, two kilometres east of Miramshah. The residents, who immediately reached the spot for rescue work, said they had recovered 12 bodies.
According to the villagers, all of the dead were local residents belonging to Sadim Khan's family. The sources said the missile attack also damaged some other adjoining houses in the village, seriously injuring 10 people. The injured were rushed to various hospitals of Miramshah.
However, senior government officials based in Miramshah told The News that the Predator had attacked an alleged training camp of militants from the Punjab. The officials claimed that all the 12 people who were killed in the attack were hardcore militants belonging to Jihadi commander Ilyas Kashmiri's group.
They confirmed that a US Predator had fired two missiles at the school building that was being used by the militants.The officials said some tribesmen living near the alleged training centre were also killed and injured in the attack.
Sources close to the tribal militants operating in the NWA denied reports that the school building hit by the US spy plane was a training centre and those killed were militants."Every time after the US attack, the government people exaggerate casualties and play up the importance of the victims," said a tribal militant commander based in Miramshah, who wished not to be named.
It was the second attack in one week by the US planes in North Waziristan Agency. In an earlier attack carried out by the US Predator on one of the houses of veteran Afghan Taliban commander, Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, on Monday at Danday Darpakhel village near Miramshah, 25 people were killed and several others were injured.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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#1
What's the blast radius of a Hellfire? Ours seem to be unusully powerful in NWFT - can destroy a school and damage buildings around it, killing and wounding their occupants. Either that or unusually shoddy construction.
(sarc)
A Palestinian infiltrator stabbed a 9-year-old settler in the West Bank outpost of Shalhevet early Saturday, sparking a settler rampage in the nearby Palestinian village Asira al-Kabaliya that left at least eight Palestinians wounded, two of them moderately.
The mayor of the village, Hosni Sharaf, said dozens of settlers from Yitzhar, the settlement adjacent to Shalhevet, fired their weapons in the air, overturned a car and broke the windows of three homes. The mayor said several residents had been wounded, of which two were shot with live rounds.
The Israel Defense Forces imposed a curfew on Asira al-Kabaliya following the clash. At present, no settlers have been arrested in relation to the violence.
Events began early Saturday when a Palestinian man set fire to an abandoned building in Shalhevet, the IDF said. The boy was stabbed when he spotted the intruder and tried to call for help, the military said. The boy was treated for minor wounds at a hospital in Petah Tikvah.
The resulting rampage continued for almost three hours. Resident Ahmed Daoud said settlers broke windows in his house and shot at water tanks on his rooftop. He said he, his children and a neighbor threw stones from the roof to try to drive the assailants away.
Daoud said his 10-year-old son was lightly hurt by shrapnel and that the neighbor was hit in the face by a rubber-coated steel bullet.
Sharaf said that in all, two villagers were hit by live fire and four by rubber bullets. It was not clear whether soldiers also opened fire to enforce the curfew. One of those hit by live fire, 17-year-old Wafa Subboh, was struck in the shoulder and was treated at Raffidiyeh Hospital in the nearby city of Nablus, hospital officials said.
Another resident of the village, Muhammad Asayrah, 58, told Haaretz described a "cat and mouse" game between troops and the rioting settlers, who he said went from house to house in the village and fired randomly at villagers.
Yehuda Liebman, a member of the Yitzhar settlement security patrol, said Saturday that the stabbing took place directly above an IDF post manned by troops, saying that "the incitement, the fire that raged, the stabbing and the escape of the terrorist" all took place under the soldiers' noses and "no one fired a shot."
Initial IDF investigations have found that troops stationed in Yitzhar did not notice the terrorist entering the Shalhevet neighborhood, and only spotted him when he exited the settlement and was not carrying a knife, and therefore did not raise their suspicion. "There is always movement from the settlement to the outside and therefore it didn?t raise suspicion. He entered the neighborhood without us seeing him, probably by way of a nearby wadi (dry creek bed)," an IDF officer said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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#1
The mayor of the village, Hosni Sharaf, said dozens of settlers from Yitzhar, the settlement adjacent to Shalhevet, fired their weapons in the air, overturned a car and broke the windows of three homes. The mayor said several residents had been wounded, of which two were shot with live rounds.
Gee, that sucks. Still, I wonder why it felt alright for them and their brethen when for example their co-religionists rampaged through that parab Christian hamlet after a muslim girl supposedly had an affair with a kufr? Poor paleos, they sure can and love to dish it out, but they can't take it, and they're whiners, too.
#2
Sheikh Hasina's bravely decamped -- I think she's in the USA, in fact. The original intention of the EC, I'm pretty sure, was to run both the harridans out of the country and let some sort of normal political life evolve.
Khaleda simply refuses to go haunt somebody else's house. She intends to win by default, and likely will because she's the more determined of the two. She's also the more evil of the two.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008 11:00
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#3
Sounds like Khaleda should beware of ruby slippers and falling houses.
Russian troops withdrew from the region around Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti on Saturday, within a Sept. 15 deadline set for the first phase of a pullback brokered by France.
Georgia's interior ministry confirmed the Russian withdrawal from five key posts they held in the west of the country. "I can confirm that the five Russian checkpoints on the Poti-Senaki axis have been removed. The Russian troops are heading towards Abkhazia," Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP.
A Reuters reporter saw troops in armored personnel carriers (APC) and trucks pull out from positions on the outskirts of Poti after dawn. The reporter said Russian forces had also left another three positions on the way to nearby Senaki.
On Monday, Moscow agreed to withdraw its troops from "security zones" inside Georgia around South Ossetia and a second breakaway region, Abkhazia, within a month.
The deal, brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy on behalf of the European Union, included a commitment to pull out by Sept. 15 from "monitoring posts" in the Poti region, where an oil and dry grain shipment port is considered vital to the Georgian economy.
"This is an example of Europe being united, and the aggressor having to retreat," Georgian National Security Council Secretary Kakha Lomaia told Reuters. "I'm optimistic the other troops will be withdrawn," he said.
Russia followed up Monday's pullback deal a day later by saying it would station about 7,600 troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both of which the Kremlin recognized last month as independent states.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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#1
within a Sept. 15 deadline set for the first phase of a pullback brokered by France.
I'm sure that our warship nearby had absolutely nothing to do with their decision.
Pakistan has ordered its jet fighters to confront any attack by the US-led coalition forces on the tribal belt near the Afghan border. Air force fighters have carried out sorties in the tribal region for the first time after US missiles attacks killed dozens of civilians, sources said on Saturday. Those'd likely be the F16s they were so hot to buy from us, wouldn't they?
Air Force Chief Marshal Tanvir Mehmood, meanwhile, said that the Air Force could respond to violation of the country's air space by the US forces if the government issued orders.
Tribal elders and witnesses in Miranshah told local news networks that they had seen Pakistani fighter planes hovering over North Waziristan. They had also seen warplanes flying towards the Afghan border area.
Earlier, Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Kayani issued a harshly-worded statement, criticizing cross-border attacks by the coalition forces from Afghanistan and vowing to defend the country "at all cost".
The Air Force's decision followed bloody incursions by the US ground troops into the tribal belt as well as a string of missile strikes by US-operated drone aircrafts. The reaction comes after US President George W. Bush endorsed US military raids inside Pakistan without Islamabad's agreement.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#4
The Predator is great for doing somersaults, all the way to the ground.
Gee, DoD and DoS, how's the alternate Georgia-Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan supply route shaping up? Or is it another case of not planning ahead?
Posted by: ed ||
09/14/2008 1:15
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#5
You just know that every single fast mover pilot in the region that belongs to the US is sitting there itching for a "Avenge the Predator" mission if Paks are insane enough to fire on one of the drones.
#7
The Air Force's decision followed bloody incursions by the US ground troops into the tribal belt as well as a string of missile strikes by US-operated drone aircrafts
Is that true? Perhaps GWB intends to finish up as America focuses on lipstick.
#9
Gee, DoD and DoS, how's the alternate Georgia-Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan supply route shaping up?
Word is that the grand reopening of the trans-Persia portion of the Silk Road is almost at hand. Well that or the correction of Afghanistan's status as a landlocked nation.
#11
JFM,
Right you are, sir. On the other hand, my understanding is that with well trained pilots, a superb C3 system (including AWACS) and better mods of the F-16 than the Pakistanis have (their birds aren't as good as ours, and are missing some...um...key systems)they might be able to locate and bring down a drone.
The Paks have none of those things.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/14/2008 8:02
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#12
JFM, are you suggesting the report would be more credible if it came from the MSM? As far as I can tell, they're working for the same boss.
#14
F-16 loiter time? Distance of Predator country from F-16 bases? From Afghan air space 'safe haven'?
Would be a 'shame' if an F-16 missile overshot a Predator and accidentally slammed into a militant Madrassa (but I doubt they can aim that well.)
#15
I had the impression from another article here that the packs might be stepping up enforcement - maybe the additional air power is cover for that.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/14/2008 11:29
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#16
The Pakistanis will do all they can to protect their jihadis. They provide it with crucial leverage against Afghanistan and India. Pakistan will not give up jihad.
There are known terrorist compounds less than a kilometer from Peshawar garrison with its sixty thousand regular army troops. They havn't moved.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008 12:25
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#17
John... would they move if one of those camps just disappeared?
Posted by: john frum ||
09/14/2008 14:50
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#19
Importantly, in another article, off Drudge, it was noted that US drones are now flying in groups of three!
Any of you AF types, what does this mean, other than three times as much firepower? Is there a tactical advantage to this? I note that B-52s at least used to fly in groups of three on Arc Light missions.
#21
I don't think they're going to want to start downing our drones. Especially if the cost is the destruction of their air force. Fighter aircraft are expensive to replace.
#22
C'mon folks, it's a basic ploy, while they're out chasing drones a flight of bombers takes out their landing field.
For added nasty, take the field out as they're on final approach, be sure and have a couple of fighters to make sure their landing is a messy one shoot them down as they make their final flare just before touchdown.
No base, no planes, old tactics.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/14/2008 22:11
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#23
C'mon folks, it's a basic ploy, while they're out chasing drones a flight of bombers takes out their landing field.
For added nasty, take the field out as they're on final approach, be sure and have a couple of fighters to make sure their landing is a messy one shoot them down as they make their final flare just before touchdown.
No base, no planes, old tactics.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/14/2008 22:11
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Lou: "KO savaged my two children and I have to say this... if I ever meet Keith in a dark alley ... we are going to have a real meaningful conversation about his ..."
Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers yesterday accused the government of planning a genocidal campaign against Tamils as UN agencies began pulling out of the rebel-held Wanni regions in the island's north.
UN agencies began pulling out of the region on Friday after Colombo said it could not guarantee the safety of aid workers as troops pushed towards the Wanni region, which comprises Kilinochchi and Mullattivu districts.
People in Kilinochchi have protested the departure of UN agencies from the Wanni region, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said in statement through its peace secretariat. Residents had gathered outside the offices of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the World Food Programmeme from early Friday, said the rebels, who are fighting for autonomy in the island's north and east since 1972.
They were "demanding that the agencies should stay behind and continue their humanitarian work for the Wanni people facing a humanitarian crisis," the rebels said of the protesting residents. While protesters tried to block traffic to prevent UN vehicles from leaving the area, resident representatives had discussions with the two agencies, which had promised to raise the issue at the UN, the release said.
"The appeals (from resident representatives) mostly said that the Sri Lankan government is ordering the international agencies out as it readies for the final stage of the genocide of the Tamils," the rebels said.
UN agencies say at least 160,000 people have been displaced in the past few months in the districts of Mullaittivu and Kilinochchi. Some 70,000 people have fled due to fighting in the past two months alone.
According to the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies, 11 UN and other agencies have been working in the rebel-held Wanni area.
Colombo wants to avoid troops being accused of killing aid workers in a repeat of the August 2006 massacre of 17 local employees of the French aid agency Action Against Hunger in the east of the island.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2008
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Former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim works to complete his comeback. Keep an eye on this; the change in government from a Malay-majority corrupt elite to a coalition of ethnic Indians, Chinese and Islamists could introduce some fair bit of instability.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/14/2008
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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.
In a rushed bid to ride out the storm sweeping American finance, 94-year-old Merrill Lynch & Co. agreed late Sunday to sell itself to Bank of America Corp. for roughly $44 billion.
When asked to characterize Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's qualifications to be the Republican vice presidential nominee, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., stated flatly that Palin isn't ready to be vice president.
Somali Islamists have threatened to stop planes using Mogadishu's main airport as part of an escalating insurgency rocking the Horn of Africa nation. The hardline Islamist group Al Shabaab, which is fighting the Somali government and its Ethiopian military backers, said it would stop planes from landing after midnight on Tuesday. 
A series of synchronized bomb blasts rocked New Delhi on Saturday, killing at least 18 people and injuring dozens more in some of the busiest market areas of the Indian capital. 
The Senate Committee hearing the gruesome details of the live burial of women in Balochistan was told on Friday that the number of such women could be seven and not five or three as earlier reported.
Banned Islamist militant outfit Harkatul Jihad al Islami (Huji), comprised of Afghan war veterans, has started activities across the country to take part in the next parliamentary polls under a new name.
Pakistan has ordered its jet fighters to confront any attack by the US-led coalition forces on the tribal belt near the Afghan border. Air force fighters have carried out sorties in the tribal region for the first time after US missiles attacks killed dozens of civilians, sources said on Saturday. 
