Seems that having signage amidst all the destruction would be a visual blight upon the tranquil setting of this small hamlet, so says the smaller minded mayor and her head cop.
go read the article.
World renowned child molester weighs in...
US filmmaker Woody Allen, best known for such comedy classics as "Annie Hall," says it will be no laughing matter if Barack Obama fails to win the race for the White House. "It would be a disgrace and a humiliation if Barack Obama does not win," he told Spanish journalists at the ongoing 56th San Sebastian film festival, where his latest film "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is being screened. "It would be a very, very terrible thing for the United States in many, many ways," he said. Tell em what they wanna hear, Woody. Good for the box office.
Democratic hopeful Obama, Allen said, is "so much better" than Republican rival John McCain, and "represents a huge step upward from (the) incompetence and misjudgement" of the Bush administration."It would be a terrible thing if the American public was not moved to vote for him, that they actually preferred more of the same." Spain's nice, Woody. Why don't you check out the real estate while you're there?
On Thursday, Spanish-born Hollywood actor Antonio Banderas, who is also in San Sebastian, said he is backing Obama for the sake of his daughter -- acknowledging, however, that he cannot vote as he is not a US citizen. So who cares what he thinks?
This is interesting...
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - In an unprecedented step, a space shuttle was moved to the launch pad Friday for a trip NASA hopes it will never make a rescue mission. The shuttle Endeavour is on standby in case the seven astronauts who go up on Atlantis next month need a safer ride home. Atlantis and its crew are headed into space for one last repair job on the 18-year-old Hubble Space Telescope. It's a venture that was canceled when first proposed a few years ago because it was considered too dangerous.
The risk is this: If Atlantis suffers serious damage during launch or in flight, the astronauts will not be at the international space station, where they could take refuge for weeks while awaiting a ride home. They would be stranded on their spacecraft at the Hubble, where NASA estimates they could stay alive for 25 days. Air would be the first to go. Endeavour and four more astronauts would need to blast off on a rescue flight as soon as NASA determined Atlantis was too damaged to fly home.
On Friday, Endeavour was parked at its launch pad just a mile from where Atlantis is tentatively set to lift off on Oct. 10. It is the first time since 2001 when flights were more closely spaced that both of NASA's shuttle pads have been occupied. And it will probably be the last.
The Atlantis astronauts say there's a slim chance any rescue will be needed, and they say they would fly to Hubble even if there were no such backup plan. Scott Altman, Atlantis' commander, said it may seem like overkill, but having a rescue ship on the pad is the right thing to do. "It's kind of a belt-and-suspenders approach. But if you need the belt after your suspenders fail, you would be glad you had it," said Altman, a retired Navy captain and former fighter pilot.
On top of the usual launch and landing dangers, the Atlantis crew faces an estimated 1-in-185 chance that a piece of space junk or a micrometeoroid will cause catastrophic damage to their ship. Those are greater odds than for a typical shuttle flight because of Hubble's extremely high and debris-littered orbit. Before reaching Hubble and again after leaving it, the Atlantis astronauts will inspect their spacecraft for signs of damage, just as crews always do while in orbit.
Ever since space shuttles resumed flying following the 2003 Columbia tragedy that killed seven astronauts, NASA has had a rescue plan in case of irreparable damage. But all those missions have been to the space station, where astronauts could camp out for two months. The Hubble mission offers no such safe haven. That's why the Hubble repair mission was canceled in 2004; NASA's boss at the time deemed it too dangerous. A new NASA regime reversed that decision, once space shuttles were flying safely again and repair methods became available to orbiting astronauts. The caveat was that another shuttle be on the launch pad, all prepped and ready to fly something never before attempted.
Once Atlantis is aloft, "if it even begins to smell" like a rescue might be needed, final preparations for Endeavour will begin, said launch director Mike Leinbach. He said Endeavour could lift off within six days. The rescue craft would fly to Atlantis and use a 50-foot robot arm to grab the damaged shuttle. The Atlantis astronauts would put on spacesuits and float, a few at a time, to Endeavour over the course of three spacewalks. Endeavour would return home with all 11 astronauts.
The toughest call, officials say, would be deciding that Atlantis indeed had serious enough damage that a rescue should be tried."This will be an emotional thing," Leinbach said. Such a rescue would put four more astronauts at risk and would mean the end of Atlantis, and undoubtedly the space shuttle program, which is set to be phased out in 2010. Atlantis would be sent into the Pacific once its astronauts were aboard Endeavour.
It would rank right up there with the drama of Apollo 13, said Ed Mango, Atlantis' launch director. For Leinbach, who would head up the rescue launch, it would be the most important thing NASA has ever done, period.
Altman realizes that if pressed into service, Endeavour might not get off in time. Storms or a last-second engine shutdown could keep it grounded."There's no guarantee it would get there," Altman said in an interview with The Associated Press. "On the other hand, you look at how many things would have to go wrong to make it not possible to pull off. There's a scenario out there that doesn't have a happy ending, and I think we all have to come to grips with that before launch."
#3
The shuttle Endeavour is on standby in case the seven astronauts...
The management at NASA hasn't learned a thing. Ok, there's risk. However, if one is saying it's that risky to have a standby on the pad, then why send up 7 astronauts. If its that risky, you reduce the crew to a minimum which also increases the time line in order to get the other up because there is less drain on resources in the vehicle.
#5
i like 3dc's thinking, a (redneck)George Jetson-style trailer park with a set of blocks propping up Atlantis. send up a bass boat and an old sofa to complete the set.
#10
like 3dc's thinking, a (redneck)George Jetson-style trailer park with a set of blocks propping up Atlantis. send up a bass boat and an old sofa to complete the set.
Anyone remember the old TV series (I think it was called 'Salvage') where a salvage yard made their own spacecraft to go up and 'salvage' space junk?
#11
I like one of Heinlein's short stories; I'm afraid I can't remember the title. A gentleman went into organized crime specifically to set up c4sinos on the moon, thus driving the government into a functional space program to follow the Mob there. A clever, if not ideal, way to push a research-oriented program toward practical applications.
ORbits are funny, you could have one oval shaped that went as high as the hubble on one end and as low as the space station on the other. You'd be safe most of the time but occasionally debris might cross your path.
Most of the rubble is in LEO though. Wrenches, paint flecks, chunks of explosive bolts left behind after fifty years of space travel.
#1
And they will be called "Uncle Toms" and traitors to their race.
Which I find to be completely racist, but what do I know? I'm only a German-Irish-Cherokee ... ooops, sorry... WHITE male who is completely racist by not supporting THE ONE.
Liberals only support free speech and freedoms when you support them and their viewpoints.
I suspect that his rallies have become noteworthy precisely because they have no demonstrators of any kind--only disciples in attendance--and this is making his campaign strategists very worried.
So if you are going to make phony protesters, who should they be?
"Republicans against Obama?" Nah.
"Women against Obama?" Nope. That is opening a big can of worms.
"White people against Obama?" I don't think so.
"Hispanics against Obama?" Definitely not, they are trying to attract Hispanics.
So who's left? Only one group. Blacks.
The one detail left is to insure that there are only crowd shots of the protesters--no face shots. Hide them behind signs. Put a ring of security around them to protect them from disciples.
See? Our candidate is controversial. He's oppressed or something.
Jim Geraghty, "Campaign Spot" @ National Review Why All The Talk of Replacing Biden?
I called it a "crazy prediction" back on August 29.
It's now a viral e-mail:
Subject: Biden stepping down
Let me share some info with you that I have gotten from excellent sources within the DNC:
On or about October 5th, Biden will excuse himself from the ticket, citing health problems, and he will be replaced by Hillary. This is timed to occur after the VP debate on 10/2.
There have been talks all weekend about how to proceed with this info. generally, the feeling is that we should all go ahead and get it out there to as many blog sites and personal email lists as is possible. I have already seen a few short blurbs about this - the "health problem" cited in those articles was aneurysm. Probably many of you have heard the same rumblings.
However, at this point, with this inside info from the DNC, it looks like this Obama strategy will be a go. Therefore, it seems that the best strategy is to get out in front of this Obama maneuver, spell it out in detail, and thereby expose it for the grand manipulation that it is.
So, let's start mixing this one up and cut the Obamites off at the pass - send this info out to as many people as you can - post about it on websites and blogs - etc etc
I think it's supremely unlikely that this will occur. Yet somehow, the meme continuestogrow...
Posted by: Mike ||
09/19/2008
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#1
health problems = complications from hair transplant
Bill & Hill ain't gonna do it. There's nothing in it for them, except the blame if The One doesn't make it (can't be HIS fault!)
They'd have to pick someone else. Don't know who would want in on this sinking ship.
Just for fun, let's say Pelosi. (I think she can still hold on to her Speaker seat, right? Not like she's putting in any work there anyhow.) PUMA's still are pissed off at the O-man. No new support for him there. Axelrod starts an astroturf organization called COUGAR (acronym to be worked out later), but it gets swamped by horny Nutroots D&D fanatics into older women.
McCain and Palin get a bump from the people who just can't stomach San Fran Nan.
MSM tries to spin this as a new, brilliant maneuver that strengthens the ticket (with the obligatory "Sorry, Joe, sad to see you go!" stories for a day or so). Olbermann gets even more creepy and Matthews gets that tingle up his leg again.
The Nutroots develop even crazier theories about Republican superviruses that affected poor ol' Joe. They are easily identified at the polls since they are the only ones wearing surgical masks and gloves in fear of the deadly cooties.
#8
Intrade.com has the odds of Biden withdrawing at 7% today. But, that is up 1.9%. If you have a few bucks for a longshot bet....
Posted by: Formerly Dan ||
09/19/2008 20:53
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#9
Gotta go with Blondie on this one, just cause he gives her the tap don't mean Shrillary is gonna hop to it. She and Bill are not the students, they're the professors, and like she said, what's in it for her/them? Nothing but blame.
#10
well he was remarking on some reporter's pecs today... a few more of those gaffs and he's toast....on the other hand, since it was a male reporter, maybe he gets a boost in the Alice B. Toklas (Gay SF Voters) club.
PS - ignore the nym - it's a coincidence - no really.... Fred, we need to talk.....
#11
I wonder when States start sending out absentee ballots? Seems that as much as the Dems use absentee ballots to stuff the ballot boxes that they wouldn't do anything to jeopardize that particularly lucrative form of voter fraud.
#12
The way Hillary will run as VP is if Obama is sure to lose. And the only way Obama is sure to lose is if he's found in bed with a live boy or a dead girl. Hillary doesn't want to wait 8 years to run again. She wants to run in 2012.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yakovenko said on Friday there was no possibility of a war with the United States and Russia wants the European Union to guarantee security in Georgia.
"Regarding the possibility of war between the United States and Russia, this possibility is ruled out," Yakovenko told reporters in Moscow.
"We hope that the European Union will guarantee security" in Georgia, he said.
#3
Again, IMO RUSSIA doesn't fear the US-NATO, etal. asmuch as it does the RADICAL ISLAMIST armed threat to its south and to the other major Asian states + former SSRS, and massively overpopulated = "living space" desirous, competitor CHINA's ambitions [read - future NUCLEAR SUPER-JAPAN?]on the RUSS FAR EAST. RUSS DOUBTS ITS LONG-TERM ABILITY TO MAINTAIN ITS GEOPOL LEAD "POLE POSITION", ECONOMIC + MILITARY-NUCLEAR, ON THE ASIAN SIDE OF THE CAUCASUS.
RUSSIA = VLADVEDEV must be well-aware that Radicla Islam is out to DESTABILIZE AND DISMEMBER AS MUCH OF ASIA AS POSSIBLE - IRAN, etc. may be Russ anti-US Ally now, but Russ believes that it will inevitably turn agz Russ POST-NUCLEARIZATION.
* RUSSO-GEORGIAN WAR > RUSSIA = "KEEP YOUR [old] ENEMIES [NATO-EU] CLOSE, AND YOUR [new future Enemies] FRIENDS [Muslims] CLOSER"; + "IFF YOU CAN'T BEAT 'EM [US-NATO/EU], GET READY TO JOIN'EM".
#4
The real focii should be on historically homogenous, anti-West/Euro CHINA, whom is PAKISTAN's ALLY.
Many CHIN NETTERS includ PERTS SUPPOR CHINESE MIL INTERVENTION AGZ THE US IN PAKISTAN IN CASE OF US INVASION OF SAME; + IN FORMER SOVIET SSRS IN CENASIA, ETC. TO PROTECT CHIN INTERESTS + NATIONAL INTEGRITY FROM THE ISLAMIST THREAT [e.g. UIGHURS = WEST CHINA].
#9
Somewhat off point, but it may be pointed out that RTS posted nice gains today, disspelling the doom-and-gloom notions of yesterday that "some," and we won't name any names here, harbored.
Human Rights Watch. Learning the hard way...
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela brusquely expelled two activists from U.S.-based Human Rights Watch on Friday who criticized President Hugo Chavez for political intolerance and for eroding democracy during nearly 10 years in power. State television played a video of officials reading an expulsion order to activists Jose Miguel Vivanco and Daniel Wilkinson, who were filmed packing their bags and being escorted on to a plane that took off just after midnight. Your work is done here. Adios.
The move highlighted the leftist leader's intolerance of international criticism and will further strain ties with the United States, Venezuela's main oil customer, a week after Chavez also ejected the U.S. ambassador.
Human Rights Watch is an independent group, but Chavez says it collaborates with the Bush administration in a campaign to unseat him and ignores his government's advances in reducing poverty. Oh, yeah, HRW's a big Bush collaborator...
"These groups, dressed up as human rights defenders, are financed by the United States," said Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro. "They are aligned with a policy of attacking countries that are building new economic models." They...ain't got their minds right.
Human Rights Watch is also fiercely critical of the rights record of Venezuela's neighbor Colombia, whose right-wing government is a close Washington ally. Politically motivated murder is common in Colombia. Now they got their minds right.
The activists said they were forced to hurriedly check out of their hotel by the police around midnight. Government officials said they were put on the first flight leaving Caracas. "Our phones were confiscated and we were denied permission to call our ambassadors," Wilkinson said, speaking minutes before their flight took off for Sao Paolo and using a cellphone they had managed to hide from authorities.
Vivanco and Wilkinson were in Venezuela to present a report on rights problems after a decade of Chavez government. They said Chavez encouraged discrimination against political opponents, stacked the courts and dampened freedom of expression. Venezuelan governments have traditionally handed out jobs to political allies, but Human Rights Watch says the practice has worsened under Chavez.
In the video of their expulsion, Vivanco is told his criticism of the government in a news conference broadcast on television on Thursday violates Venezuela law. He is told he is being expelled for entering Venezuela on a tourist visa.
Freedom of speech is one of the areas of concern highlighted by Human Rights Watch, with the report expressing concern that Venezuela has strengthened laws that penalize defamation and insults against officials. The report praises the Venezuelan constitution, written by Chavez supporters in 1999, for enshrining many basic rights, but it says the president has failed to implement it. Whaddya want, everything, muchachos?
It was a room full of people who rarely hold their tongues. But as the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, laid out the potentially devastating ramifications of the financial crisis before congressional leaders on Thursday night, there was a stunned silence at first. When Mr. Schumer described the meeting as "somber," Mr. Dodd cut in. "Somber doesn't begin to just[if]y the words," he said. "We have never heard language like this."
"You have the credit lines in America, which are the lifeblood of the economy, frozen." Mr. Schumer said. A gross exaggeration. My credit card was accepted last night, how about yours?
But it was clear they continued to examine ways to make clear that the government was stepping up not just to help the major financial firms but also to protect the interests of American taxpayers and families by safeguarding their pensions and college savings, and by preventing any further drying up of consumer credit. Another distortion. Putting American taxpayers at risk of an additional $1 Trillion in debt will "protect" them? I have no pension or college savings, just some $ in the bank -- and am certain the value of my savings will shrink for every $ the gov't throws down this rathole. Consumer credit is not drying up, but corporate credit (especially between financial institutions) is drying up & for good reason, many are insolvent & want to keep this a secret.
"Democrats said they intended to consider measures to help stem home foreclosures and stabilize real estate values." Right, make the country safe for seasonal laborers to keep their $750,000 mortgages and keep house prices grossly elevated so that the rest of us can't afford them.
The amount discussed in this meeting was not specified until Sen. Richard Shelby was interviewed on TV this morning.
#1
Since the people are providing the money for these bailed out failed organizations, it seems like we are the owners to a large extent. Do we get any benefits for our money?
When are we going to get term limits for our Congress critters so they aren't in Washington long enough to become corrupt and steal anything?
#2
Americans aren't nearly outraged enough over this . These guys have made hundreds of billions of dollars in the biggest swindle of all times and now they are going to go running off to the Cayman Islands to retire while we pump a Trillion dollars of tax money into the industry to make it barely solvent. We've been sold out boys. Who is going to hold these persons responsible? Nobody. What will prevent them from doing it again? Nothing.
#3
$1,000,000,000,000! Our total Gross Domestic Product is $16,830,100, 000,000. This bailout is a little over 6% of our GDP. That is astounding. Washington vote buying schemes, give away programs, and social engineering programs are going to break this country!
#4
The bailout may be as much as $1 trillion if all the worst case scenarios come true. But --
1) it won't be paid out all at once.
2) some of it comes back if the Fed liquidates assets, even if they do so at ten cents on the dollar.
3) stabilizing the markets saves us from a bigger disaster.
When the government bailed out Chrysler, it made a profit. When the government bailed out the S & L's (remember that mess?), the losses weren't nearly as great as predicted.
I don't like bailouts, but I like economic meltdowns a lot less. The right thing to do is get in front and lead, and that's what the Fed and the Treasury Dept are doing.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/19/2008 15:51
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#5
Your right Steve. Bailout is preferable to failure. I wonder if we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg or are we beginning to head out of this thing. There is a lot of credit card debt out there also.
#6
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae sold mortgages to third parties such as pension plans, corporations such as Merrill Lynch, etc. and insurance companies such as AIG. Many of these mortgages were subprime, i.e. to say risky.
#7
I'd like to point out that there are still good odds that the $1T will not be enough. And if it isn't, then there is still a grand potential for an international credit collapse.
Otherwise, let me note that already there is a "slow bank run" in progress around the US. People are quietly withdrawing cash from bank accounts, solely to have cash on hand.
It would not be a bad idea to have a few thousand in cash at home or in a safe place outside of a financial institution. Just for six months. If things have improved by then, you will just be out a literally couple dollars in interest.
#16
General_Comment has much improved I think, Barbara. I was a bit obnoxious about his Ovaltine comment yesterday, and he remained calm and reasonable. Some of our best posters charged in roaringly obnoxious, and stayed to learn and teach.
#20
Honey, how can I be angry when I'm laughing at you?
Can you say "projection"?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/19/2008 18:25
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#21
Please prove me right, General_Comment. Besides, if Barbara is doing domestic chores, she won't have time to arrange for a third popcorn machine and supplies, which are really needed as the U.S. and Canadian elections approach.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/19/2008 19:45
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#28
See CHINESE MIL FORUM > WHAT IF MARX AND MAO WERE RIGHT AFTER ALL!?
* SAME > POSTER OPINIONS - THE USA SHOULD CHANGE ITS NAME TO USSA[ Proposed Dubya Bailout + New Govt.Powers], versus "CRUS" [CRIMES-R-US = CRIMINAL REPUBS OF AMERIKA" due to seemingly pervasive CRIMINAL-NEPOTIST CULTURE in US GOVT-SOCIETY. ONe Poster argues that genuine/true CHRISTIANITY has been dying for 100 years, and has been replaced by CRIMINAL FAITH/CRIMINALISM???
Think about this, the velocity of money in the U.S. is about 6. That means the guvmint spends the money once, maybe it helps boodt the economy, maybe it doesn't, but the general public will spend it 5 more times that year. And that's the good news.
Now, we just need to borrow that trillion, and we're in good shape.
That, by the way, is why government deficits aren't the bad thing we think they are. Nations aren't smal businesses or household budgets.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/19/2008 23:04
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More, as promised, on Senator Joe Biden (why should Sarah Palin get all the coverage?). Remember, you read it here first: on September 11 this blog reported a mounting backlash from Catholic bishops against Biden, Barack Obama's "Catholic" pro-abortion running mate. At that time I estimated eight bishops had come out to denounce Biden; the total is now 55. Beyond that, Biden is being trashed across every state of the Union by Catholic newspapers, TV and radio stations, and blogs. It is a tsunami of rejection.
Joe Biden has really put his foot in it with the Catholics
The story has now hit the secular media. Last Saturday Time magazine asked: "Does Biden Have a Catholic Problem?" By Wednesday the issue had moved onto the front page of the New York Times. Joe the Jinx has blown it, big time. Biden has only himself to blame: he started this war, with his notoriously undisciplined mouth. He knew the dangers. Last August, Archbishop Raymond Burke, former Archbishop of St Louis and now Prefect of the Apostolic Segnatura in Rome, said communion should be denied to pro-abortion politicians "until they have reformed their lives".
Archbishop Chaput of Denver had already announced Biden should not receive communion because of his pro-abortion views. Defiantly, Biden took communion in his home parish in Delaware in late August. On September 2 the Bishop of Scranton, Pennsylvania (a crucial swing state) banned him from communion in his diocese. That is effective excommunication. Then came the crucial provocation. On NBC's Meet the Press programme on September 7 Biden grossly misrepresented the Catholic Church's teaching on abortion and audaciously cited St Thomas Aquinas in his own cause.
That did it. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had already done the same thing on the same programme, in her instance citing St Augustine. Even the torpid US bishops could not have false doctrine glibly broadcast by public figures, misleading their flock. So the counterattack described here last week began, culminating in a statement from the US Bishops' Conference. The bishops of Kansas City have also issued a pastoral letter on the subject. It is open season on Biden.
There are 47 million Catholic voters in the United States. One quarter of all registered voters are Catholics. At every presidential election in the past 30 years the Catholic vote has gone to the winning candidate, except for Al Gore in 2000. This year 41 per cent of Catholics are independents - up from 30 per cent in 2004. Psephologists claim practising Catholics were the decisive factor in the crucial swing states in 2004: in Ohio 65 per cent of Catholics voted for Bush, in Florida 66 per cent. They were drifting away in disillusionment from the Republicans and split 50-50, until Joe Biden worked his magic. This is electoral suicide by the Democrats.
#1
He can respectfully disagree with the church's position. A lot of Catholics do. But he simply cannot call himself a "good Catholic" and support a guy who voted repeatedly against the Born Alive bill.
#4
This is the guy that equates paying taxes with patriotism. So Joe, how about all our soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan? They don't make much money and therefore don't pay that much in taxes. Would you question their patriotism? Talk about foot-in-mouth disease.
#6
True as far as it goes, 'Hawk. However, the Church has also said (for a long time, since the middle '70s at least) that in voting, a Catholic has to take into account the morality of a candidate's positions. The Church teaches that abortion is always and everywhere a grave moral wrong. A Catholic cannot therefore vote for a candidate who supports the "peculiar institution" (as Biden and Pelosi do)--absent some extraordinary circumstances--and remain faithful to Church teaching.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/19/2008 15:54
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#7
LH, I have never heard a bishop tell anyone to vote or not vote for a candidate.
They will issue a statement from time to time saying "Candidate X is not in accord with Catholic values and here's why". It's generally only done when a candidate makes an issue of his/her Catholicism in order to get more votes.
Each diocese generally has one newspaper, and issuing the bishop's statement is pretty much as close as they get to endorsing a candidate.
Now when it comes to things like propositions, amendments, etc., they may issue a yay or nay, but it's pretty predictable what they would support (restrictions on abortion), and what they wouldn't (taxes on church or synagogue property).
#8
This disagreement is between the politicians and their church.
As long as it stays as Cornsilk Blondie so eloquently put it,
They will issue a statement from time to time saying "Candidate X is not in accord with Catholic values and here's why". It's generally only done when a candidate makes an issue of his/her Catholicism in order to get more votes.
that's fine with me. But when it comes to telling people that one
cannot therefore vote for a candidate who supports...and remain faithful to Church teaching.
whatever the topic, whatever the church, a line has been crossed. That line has served our country and its many churches well. I am glad it has not been crossed recently by any of the major denominations and rue the exceptions.
I hope all Americans vote for the candidate they believe best fitted for office, informed by many factors including their church, but under orders or compulsion from none of them.
#9
Excuse me, Nimble, are you saying that the Church cannot urge its own doctrines upon its own congregants? 'Cause I don't see where that crosses any "line of separation" anywhere, other than the imaginary line the Left is trying to draw to keep believers out of the public square.
Nancy Pelosi is free to be a Catholic or not a Catholic. She is free to support abortion, infanticide, euthenasia, sodomy, and a whole lot of other things the Church teaches (in accord with several thousand years of Judeao-Christian Sacred Tradition) are morally wrong. If she misrepresents the substance of that teaching, the Church is free to correct her. I think we're all agreed on thst.
The Church teaches that abortion is always and everywhere a grave moral wrong. The Church teaches that if I cooperate in the performance of an abortion, I have committed a mortal sin and effectively excommunicated myself. If I vote for a candidate who promotes the practice of abortion--by, say, funding it with tax money--I am doing something morally dodgy at best.
The Church is supposed to remind me of this. As a matter of moral law, as well as U.S. Constitutional law, I get to decide how to vote. If I vote "wrong," the consequence is on my soul.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/19/2008 16:25
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#10
That is all different from telling someone whom they must or cannot vote for.
#11
the Church has also said (for a long time, since the middle '70s at least) that in voting, a Catholic has to take into account the morality of a candidate's positions
presumably including the church's teachings on issues ranging from social justice to torture.
#14
Nimble, so if the Church told you you should not vote for Hitler, it would be a bad thing?
The Church is required, by its very existence to be a moral voice. And there are times where that moral voice must say things that may anger people.
We have a DUTY to speak out against evil.
And Biden is being taken to the woodshed because he is violating Canons 915 and 1359 of the Catholic Church, and also violating several parts of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (which are linked directly to scriptural passages).
Joe Biden and Barak Obama cannot be supported by an rational, fully informed Catholic with a properly formed conscience. To do so would be a sin that one would be held accountable (Assisting evil instead of resisting it). The primary problem for them both is Abortion - and the Pope and the Bishops have been quit clear that abortion and euthanasia are first and utmost issues, not "prima inter pares" with social justice and war and the death penalty. They involve defending the defenseless against DEATH. They are at the core of the first principles of the church - that being LIFE. Its non-negotiable.
I'll write more on this later, have to roll out for a few hours.
But Archbishop Chaput put it quite well:
"If we believe in the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, we need to prove that by our actions, including our political choices," the Archbishop said in one [Denver Catholic Register] column. "Anything less leads to the corruption of our integrity."
"The 'choice' in abortion always involves the choice to end the life of an unborn human being," Archbishop Chaput wrote. "For anyone who sees this fact clearly, neutrality, silence or private disapproval are not options. They are evils almost as grave as abortion itself."
"So can a Catholic in good conscience vote for a pro-choice candidate? The answer is: I can't, and I won't. But I do know some serious Catholics-people whom I admire-who may. I think their reasoning is mistaken"
"If you don't accept what the Church teaches on issues of faith and morals you can't claim to be a Catholic. I would say if you're in favor of the choice to kill babies it isn't compatible with Catholic faith."
"Abortion is a matter of human dignity and human rights," Chaput said.
He then became more blunt. "It's not just a religious principle; we're not against abortion for only religious reasons. We're against it because it detroys a human life. No one should tell us to be quiet about that any more than we were quiet about segregation. It's very important that we're active; we encourage our people to vote their conscience. That's not interfering with the government."
#4
Didn't we have a discussion yesterday that the left lacks any real sense of humor? [First indication is the absolute inability to take self deprecating jabs at one's own foibles].
#7
"[The gang rape comment] is part of a much larger, nuanced, and yes, provocative (that's what I do) piece from my show about racism, freedom, women's rights and the extreme views of Governor Sarah Palin, a woman who doesn't believe that other women should have the right to choose," Bernhard told the Daily News today.
So people pay to see this shit? I guess times aren't as tough as we thought.
#13
I have never understood why Sandra Bernhard is a celebrity. Her writing is poor. Her acting is attrocious. Her "singing" will set dogs howling.
She, like Paris Hilton, seems like someone who is famous for being famous. But without the looks.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
09/19/2008 15:13
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#14
if the mug shot is any sort of accurate reflection of the inner person, then that would be enough to make a freight train take a dirt road. unable to open the link, computer timed out. probably just as well.
#16
Mayb Sandra should take her show on the road. Then she could find out for herself how humorous and uplifting people find it in Alaska. Lotta yuks, I'm sure. The elites in Manhatten and Hollywood and other progressive areas seem nearly as out of touch with the down home folks as the French aristrocracy were in 1790.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/19/2008 15:47
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#17
Wonder if Obama might consider this comment a little racist.
#20
The comment is racist and sexist. If she only added religion, say gang raped by black Muslims, she could have had the triple crown. Every horse-face should aim for the triple crown.
#22
There is a remarkable strain of common origin in the demographics of left-wing entertainers and media personalities.
Many of these people, including the most vicious, are not typically urban elitists looking down on the little people in flyover country. They are typically hinterland elitists, children of the local gentry out in fly-over country itself, trying to differentiate themselves from their origins.
Bernhard, for example, is the daughter of a proctologist from Flint, Michigan, as middle-American as you can get. (The detestable Michael Moore, aka Lumpy Riefenstahl, was also from Flint).
Dan Rather, similarly, was from a small town in east Texas. His colleague Scott Pelley is from Lubbock.
We all remember the semi-rich kid in high school whose father was a doctor or lawyer or local paymaster, and who could afford trips to Europe and such. They were the kids who focused on drama and journalism, confident their trust funds would see them through if they failed in their high-risk artistic endevours. They were hungry, not for food, but for status in the big world daddy's ill-gotten small town loot had allowed them to glimpse, for escape from the constricted world of their birth.
Some of them actually achieve the success they crave, a few out of millions. Once at the top, their hostility is focused on their own roots, since it was that hostility that drove them to the top of the media pyramid in the first place.
To be fair, many of the media elitists really were born to it; Keith Olbermann for example is rich kid from Westchester County NY; but it is the status-seekers from back-of-beyond who set the tone and put the savage predatory edge on media activism.
#26
AC's rant also describes uber moonbat Ted Rall, who has basically said that anyone who doesn't leave their small town For NY or LA is a racist fascist submoron.
Kinda like BHO's vision of clingy and bitter, but with more anger.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/19/2008 20:56
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#1
"All of my women friends, a week ago Monday, were on the verge of throwing themselves out windows," an author and political activist, Nancy Kricorian of Manhattan, said yesterday. "People were flipping out. ... Every woman I know was in high hysteria over this. Everyone was just beside themselves with terror that this woman could be our president â our potential next president."
These are 'adult' women? The writer doesn't understand that while Palin reinforces the concept of equality, the 'women' portrayed in this article are the worse stereotype of an emotional immature self centered bridezilla. IT'S MY WEDDING AGENDA!! How dare she wear the same dress!
#5
Palin is an absolute threat to these women because they believe, no demand, that they have the one and only archetype of feminism that is permissable.
These are big city women. They cannot comprehend, nor do they want to, the sort of life in which Sarah Palin was raised. They neither understand nor condone the concept of having 5 kids, let alone one that has downs syndrome.
Palin is so out of the orbit in which these women travel that she might as well have green skin and large almond-shaped eyes. And that someone so different from them could grasp the ultimate golden ring drives them to madness.
I think it is wonderful. I so hope that Sarah Palin becomes VP because she is going to shove it down these bitches throats for a long, long time.
#7
There was a quote yesterday attributed to M. Obama that went:"...don't vote for her just because she's cute..." and then demurrly indicated she was talking about herself. well for starters she isn't on the ballot, but imagine the outrage these same women would likely feel if that quote were uttered by SP with three words changed: " ...don't vote for him just because he's black."
the whole friggin world would be in an uproar and yet MO gets a pass and these bitches get coverage also? like a previous poster said: five stories minimum. Or go to LA and sit on some train tracks.
#11
A posting on a New York-based Web site for women, Jezebel.com, spoke of unbridled anger. "What I feel for her privately could be described as violent, nay, murderous, rage," an associate editor at Jezebel, Jessica Grose, wrote just after the Republican convention wrapped up. "When Palin spoke on Wednesday night, my head almost exploded from the incandescent anger boiling in my skull."
I don't know whether to laugh out loud or light a candle at the back of the church and ask for the intercession of St. Jude in the cause of this woman's sanity and inner peace.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/19/2008 15:35
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#12
EModerate,
You are both right & wrong.
Right that the US is not (thank God) full of these people, but,
Wrong in that the cultural trend setting institutions (Academia and Media, especially Hollywood) ARE full of people like this.
#14
Howie Carr has tagged these women "Hags from the Hamptons." Think about it the next time you hear from the 70+ "beautiful people" gaggle like Babba Walters, Sally Quinn, MoDo...
Posted by: regular joe ||
09/19/2008 17:54
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#15
These are people who care little for those who jumped out windows seven years ago....
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
09/19/2008 19:30
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#16
Drama princesses. 'Cause all little girls know princesses wear pink.
The Wikipedia definition of 'Community Organizer' is experiencing a very heated discussion in the Talk Page as to the definition of Communty Organizer. I went over there today to see how Wikipedia defines "Community Organizer" and found this notation above the definition.
Community Organizer
This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy.
Please share your thoughts on the matter at this article's entry on the Articles for deletion page.
Feel free to edit the article, but the article must not be blanked, and this notice must not be removed, until the discussion is closed. For more information, particularly on merging or moving the article during the discussion, read the guide to deletion.
In the Talk Page I found the following comments raging between Obama Supporters and McCain supporters.
Swipe at Republicans
I don't see how defining the aspects of "Community Organizing" merit cheap shots at John McCain, Republicans, or any political entity for that matter.Applesanity (talk) 21:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Weasel Words?
Can we get a review of this article to check on weasel words? 208.69.44.26 (talk) 21:38, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
You said it. Nobody can really define what a "community organizer" is. Is it a social worker, a Vista/AmeriCorps volunteer who organizes volunteers, a community activist? What IS it? The article doesn't explain it at all.--4 September 2008 SusanNunes
I don't remember Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr or Mother Jones ever calling themselves "community organizers." This unsourced stuff is obviously coming right out of the Obama campaign and has to be stricken. If you can provide a source, then it can be restored. RonCram (talk) 01:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Posted by: The Root Cause ||
09/19/2008
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#1
Big
Fat
Hairy
Deal
Wikipedia is all but discredited over stupid stuff like this. Look at their Astrology page. Last time I was there it talked about this stuff like it was a working, provable system. what whacko nutjob moderated that discussion and came to that decision?
I could go on for hours about the lack of objectivity over there, but I think you get the general idea.
#1
The class shows. Brown comes across like a ditch digger, who angrily looks up at a man in a suit walking by, a guy who used to be a ditch digger himself, and blurts out "You better den me, huh?, you &*$&*%%$!!!"
The man in the suit doesn't actually need to say anything. The question has been asked and answered.
#4
Cambell Brown, a number member of the elite MSM in the tank for and shilling for Obama. She is rude, interruptive, and comes across looking like more inept than a rookie newby reporter. Just another reason I never watch CNN.
#5
I was listening to the radio the other day and someone brought up the distinct possibility that, four years from now, a lot of these media jobs will be gone. So why not go whole hog for your boy Barry? The feds might need a spokesman for the Department of Transportation in Cleveland so why not try to grease the skids and get in good with The Man? Kinda like kamikaze pilots for the emperor in 1945. What do they have to lose?
Turkey has proposed new security measures for Black Sea coastal countries, an issue which came to the forefront of the world's agenda with the recent Russia-Georgia war. "We are considering expanding the content of the mandate of Blackseafor," Gen. İlker Başbuğ, the chief of general staff, told journalists during a meeting with representatives of the print media Tuesday.
The Black Sea Naval Co-Operation Task Group, or Blackseafor, a multinational naval on-call peace task force, was established in 2001 through the initiative of Turkey to enhance peace and stability in the Black Sea region. Along with Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria are the participants in the task force. The purpose of Turkey's initiative was to show that the security of the region could be provided by the Black Sea coastal countries and there was no need for NATO presence in the Black Sea.
The conflict between two littoral countries, Georgia and Russia, which turned into a limited war, drew attention to the region again, especially after the United States' decision to send warships to Georgia to extend humanitarian aid.
"Our primary view with regard to the Black Sea is that the region's security should be provided by the littoral countries. If it changes, there will surely be a mess," Başbuğ said. "We could broaden the scope of the Blackseafor. Russia and Ukraine responded positively," he said, without giving details of the proposals.
As the task force is composed only of naval forces, Turkey's proposal could include the inclusion of air and land forces to the Blackseafor, but this remains unconfirmed. The current mandate of the force includes search and rescue operations, humanitarian assistance, mine counter measures, environmental protection and goodwill visits.
Meanwhile a senior Foreign Ministry official confirmed the initiative and said only Bulgaria was cold to the proposal thus far.
Two new NATO members, Romania and Bulgaria, and likely future member Georgia are seeking a greater NATO presence in the Black Sea to balance Russia's powerful fleet in the inland sea.
"This sea is very small to carry out powerful naval military presence of different countries, especially of the U.S. and Russia," a senior official said, adding that Turkey made this point clear to both countries during the tense days of the Caucasus conflict.
"No one can ask us anything about the Montreux Treaty. It's there and will remain so," Başbuğ told journalists. The treaty limits the entrance to the Black Sea by military vessels of countries without direct access to the sea in terms of both duration and tonnage.
The Blackseafor is intended to be used in the Black Sea, but if required, could be deployed out of the Black Sea should the parties so choose through a decision by consensus. It may also be available for possible employment in the United Nations or the Organization For Security And Cooperation In Europe-mandated operations. A proposal to divvy-up the Black Sea between Russia and Turkey. Ride that tiger, Turkey ...
The Swedish government has proposed further cuts in spending on defence materiel, much to the frustration of the opposition.
Of course they did: they don't plan on defending themselves, so why spend money on defense?
On Thursday, the Ministry of Defence announced plans for a 2.3 billion kronor ($340 million) reduction in spending on defence equipment by 2011. Several planned upgrades and renovation programmes, including the modification of the CV90 combat vehicle and the Leopard 2(S) tank, will be scrapped altogether while other programmes will be significantly reduced.
"Together with other measures this [step] will provide for both a balance in finances and the ability to strengthen the military's core activities in the form of operational units," said Minister of Defence Sten Tolgfors in a statement.
But Håkan Juholt, a longtime Social Democratic member of Sweden's commission on defence, blasted the way the government handled the decision. "It's flimsy and flaky and short sighted and unreliable and doesn't build any trust. This happened without any dialogue with the opposition, plain and simple, and they don't want to take a long-term view," the TT news agency reported him as saying.
Juholt admitted that the proposal may have some valid suggestions, but he remained livid that the defence ministry had taken the decision without seeking, in his eyes, any sort of broad participation across the political spectrum. "There's been no dialogue," he added.
The cuts will likely have repercussions for BAE Systems, which has an ownership stake in three Sweden-based defence companies affected by the cuts: Hägglunds, Bofors and C-ITS.
Just this past year Sweden had agreed to purchase 549 of the CV90 combat vehicles, but now the order has been cancelled, along with other planned upgrades to existing vehicles. "We need to talk to our customer to determine what it means and analyze the situation," said BAE Systems spokesperson Marinette Radebo to TT.
Radebo refused to speculate on the potential income losses or the affects of the defence cuts on the company's workforce. "It's a little too early to say because we still don't know the scope of the cut backs," she said.
#1
Why spend when you can rely upon the American taxpayer to fund the military welfare racket for the Europeans. Just do barely enough to fool them to stay engaged.
#6
Now that's odd. I read an article in the past week saying that Russia's invasion of Georgia had worried Sweden encough that they were increasing their defence expenditures.....
#4
I will confess, I once bought a dorm-mate's soul.
A self-proclaimed atheist, he felt he could live without it. He priced it under a dollar, so I was able to make the investment without damaging my beer fund too badly.
Oddly enough, or not, depending on your outlook, within several days he became nervous and down-right apprehensive about the transaction and wanted it back. After yanking his chain a bit, I sold it back to him, at a tidy profit, since I am a capitalist and also felt he needed to pay a penalty for not having the courage of his convictions.
#6
How does she plan to deliver it: UPS, FedEx, or angels? What would a buyer do with such a thing from a total stranger? Eohippus Gling8621 tale makes sense when the parties know one another, but a stranger's soul?
#8
How do you know a certain someone doesn't already have a lean against it. I mean a lot of people have sold their soul to the DNC and Zero and its not like you can do a title search.
#1
I was deeply dismayed by the 72-year-old McCain's reckless choice of the inexperienced and untested Palin to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Yet the author fails to notice that Gov. Palin has more executive experience than the rest of BOTH tickets combined.
South Korea is being offered 36 refurbished U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships, rebuilt to like-new condition, for about $23 million each. That's a nearly 60 percent discount off the price of new AH-64s. These helicopters would have a useful life of about 10,000 hours in the air. The U.S. Army is planning to offer a total of 260 older AH-64s to allies via similar deals, or even an auction, if too many nations say yes.
The AH-64 has compiled an impressive combat record, and gone through several upgrades. The current version, which South Korea is being offered, is an all weather aircraft that is particularly effective at night. The U.S. Army has over 700 Apache (AH-64) helicopter gunships in service, out of about 1,100 built. The ten ton aircraft basically provides the close air support. Unlike jet fighters, the Apache only has a max speed of 360 kilometers an hour. But usual speed is much slower, from the cruising speed of about 280 kilometers an hour to a dead stop, while still in the air. The average sortie for an AH-64 lasts about 90 minutes, when just using internal fuel (that can be tripled with the maximum of four external tanks). Typically, AH-64s in combat will fly up to half a dozen sorties a day, often taking on additional ammo when they land to refuel.
The Apache is a Cold War era weapon, designed in the 1970s for seeking out and killing armored vehicles on the battlefield. It has been good at that and carries up to 16 Hellfire missiles and a 30mm automatic (ten rounds a second) cannon with 1200 rounds of armor piercing ammo. The Apaches are operated by a pilot and weapons systems operator. Eventually, all of the U.S. Army's Apache's will be equipped with the Longbow radar and sensor equipment that enables the gunship to find and attack ground targets at night and in bad weather. Entering service in the early 1980s, the Apache did an excellent job during the 1991 Gulf War. So far, the U.S. AH-64 fleet has spent over two million hours in the air, with nearly 600,000 of those hours flown since September 11, 2001. The U.S. Army does not need all the AH-64s that it has, partly because of the proliferation of precision weapons (smart bombs and GPS guided shells and rockets), and the high cost of operating attack helicopters. Thus the need to unload hundreds of older AH-64s.
NEW DELHI - Indian police battled suspected Islamic militants holed up in a house in the country's capital Friday, killing two and arresting one before the others escaped, police said. The gunbattle in a southern part of sprawling New Delhi put the city back on edge days after five coordinated bombings in the capital's markets killed 21 people attacks credited to homegrown Islamic militants.
A senior New Delhi police officer, Karnal Singh, told reporters at the scene of Friday's firefight in the Jamia Nagar neighborhood that there were five gunmen. Two were killed, one was arrested and two escaped, he said. Police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said two policemen were wounded in the fighting. "A sizable amount of arms and ammunition was discovered in the house," said Bhagat. "The area has been cordoned off, and we are continuing our investigation."
Soon after the gunbattle broke out around noon Friday, scores of police officers, many in riot gear, could be seen fanning out through Jamia Nagar, a leafy lower middle-class neighborhood. The scene was chaotic with authorities trying to get civilians out of harm's way while subduing the militants.
A group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the New Delhi attacks. It also said it was behind bombings that killed 61 people in the western city of Jaipur in May and July blasts in the western state of Gujarat that killed at least 45. Police apparently zeroed in Friday on one New Delhi house after interrogating a man detained after the Gujarat bombings, The Press Trust of India news agency reported. The man, identified as Abu Basher, said the home in quiet Jamia Nagar was used as a safe house by Islamic militants plotting attacks around India.
The Indian Mujahideen was little known before this year's bombings, and police believe it may be a front for the Students' Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, which was banned in 2001.
India has routinely blamed Pakistan or Bangladesh-based militant groups for dozens of attacks in the last three years. But as the death toll has mounted this year, evidence has pointed to the involvement of Indian Muslims, raising difficult questions for the government about growing anger among India's large Muslim minority. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a rare acknowledgment that Indians and not foreign Islamic groups may have been behind the New Delhi attacks, but cautioned the country's security services were facing "vast" intelligence gaps.
Several alleged SIMI activists have been rounded up in recent months, but police have made little apparent headway in finding those behind the attacks. Authorities believe the Islamic militants aim to spread fear among ordinary Indians and provoke violence between the country's Hindu majority and Muslim minority.
#2
Islam is just making friends and influencing people all over the planet, aren't they? Wonder what will happen when we collectively get tired of this sh$$. I'm already there.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/19/2008 13:38
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#3
Agreed OP. We are in a de-facto World War. Islam is at war along _all_ of its borders trying to expand its influence by outright war, terrorism, intimidation (UK), and sedition (USA, Canada). Just look at a map.
#4
You're 5x5 there fellas. Unfortunately,in the USA very few people took notice of the first shot for what it was, declaration of war. 1968, kitchen of an LA hotel, sirhan sirhan a palestinian terrorist assassinated our next POTUS. The GWOT should have started the next day and it should have been all out, B52's in the air, boots on the ground in the ME, over before Christmas, the end. Instead we have this sacrament of liberalism on our hands today. Yeah, yeah, call me crazy BUT I'll say this, somebody gets the STEWPIT sign hung around their neck. Gotta get back to raking leaves.
#1
some sleuthing I see this comment about the author: I dont usually indulge. The past is dead like Elvis, and Ive got an iPod. But heres a personal history you might find amusing.
I moved out of my parents house in 1972. And until 1996 when I moved to our garden district, I lived in black neighborhoods exclusively. In those 24 years I was not called Whitey, Cracker, Ofay (for you older folks), Honkey, (I do miss the seventies) or Jew. Never. But the day after I published my first piece in this newspaper, I received a letter, without return address, which stated, People like you belong in Mt. Airy. And it has been downhill ever since.
Jim Albrecht, writer of the Snowden Report and newly minted persona non-grata Hiller, tried to confront the issue in a brilliant speech at the annual meeting. He never mentioned color. He talked about a sectarian animus so rare in the 21st Century that, with the disbanding of the Ulster Guard, perhaps only the Hill can still claim it. The Protestant-Catholic issue! A concept so encased in amber that in needs to be extracted from stegosaurus by Richard Attenborough.
Bet they're glad they brought this broad along...
Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair, has been roundly mocked on dozens of blogs that have shown a copyrighted wire service photograph of her buying Snickers candy bars and soft drinks in a well-stocked food store in Gaza. She has called the region a "concentration camp" that is "under siege" by Israel's having restricted crossings due to continuing terrorist attacks against Israel. Did they have Snickers and Cokes at Dachau?
Pro-Arab activists and Hamas leaders have insisted that restricting shipments into Gaza to trucks with humanitarian supplies have created a severe food shortage, a situation contradicted by the photograph. Yeah, but you should see what they charge us for them!
In an interview with an Israeli newspaper last week, Booth said that conditions in Gaza are worse than those in Darfur and compared the area with Nazi concentration camps When's the last time she was in Darfur?
Booth is among 10 pro-Arab activists who remain in Gaza after having sailed to the beach as part of the "Free Gaza' Movement" publicity stunt that symbolically broke Israel's sovereignty over coastal waters. Like the song says, you can check in any time you like, but you can never leave.
Meanwhile, Booth has been unable to leave the area because Egyptian and Israeli authorities have not allowed her to enter their countries. She probably will leave Gaza if and when the next Free Gaza boats again try to break Israeli sovereignty next week. Probably? In the meantime, Lauren, feel free to soak up that Gaza lifetyle.
Although Booth is Blair's sister-in-law, the two are barely on speaking terms. "I am related to Tony Blair--a fact that makes neither of us happy today, I can tell you that," she said at a rally against the war in Iraq two years ago. Could you make a phone call for her, honey?
Sorry, Cherie, my...cellphone's broken. Terribly sorry, old girl.
In an interview with Canadian-born free-lance journalist Lisa Goldman, who blogs at On the Face and lives in Tel Aviv, Booth claimed that "high up sources" told her that Israel pressured Egypt not to allow her to cross the border at Rafiah. Sorry, we have our orders from our Zionist overseers. Enjoy your stay in Gaza.
Goldman wrote in her blog that she is against Israel's closing the Gaza crossing but that she has no respect for Booth. The writer said that when she identified herself as a reporter from Tel Aviv, Booth "launched into a tirade that was characterized by a mixture of hectoring, self-righteousness, drama and the occasional falsehood." Well, what did you expect?
Booth confirmed that she had said that the situation of "concentration camps" in Gaza received less media attention than the situation in Darfur. Maybe it's because they're such...lovely people?
Booth also has claimed that Israeli solders threatened to shoot her when she tried to cross into Israel. "There were Israeli soldiers on the Gaza side of Erez?" Goldman asked. "Oh, I dont know what they were. They were uniformed men with guns, all right?" Booth replied. Do you know who I am? You should accept this without question!
When the reporter replied that the gunmen apparently were Arabs and asked Booth if they had stopped her, she answered, "The Palestinians advised me not to cross, but I walked right into the tunnel and started walking. I was nearly at the Israeli side when a Palestinian man came running up behind me, holding a mobile phone and shouting that the Israelis had told him they would shoot me if I took another step." Yeah, I'm sure the IDF talks to some Hamas mook security guard all the time.
Goldman pointed out that the likelihood of an IDF soldier shooting at her is extremely low. "The entrance to Israel via Erez is practically impenetrable," Goldman explained. "It is a maze of turnstiles that lock automatically, bulletproof glass, closed circuit cameras and disembodied voices that issue instructions via the public address system. One does not see an Israeli soldier until one has passed through security, which is remotely controlled." Heh heh heh...
#1
It's fascinating to see how she believes whatever the Pals tell her. Hold up a cell phone and say the Israeli's said they'd shoot her and she buys it without question. It's really sad how brainwashed this woman is she's lost all critical thinking skills.
#2
She's a braindead bimbo, no doubt. Being used as a tool and being made a fool daily. Despite all this, I betcha the stoopid broad won't be heading back in there again once she makes her escape.
#4
I never get used to people that have no innate critical thinking brain nodes.
They can-not use or rely on their own perceptions of things but NEED to accept any nonsense told to them or handed out to them as the truth.
For instance: They can't even rely on their own senses to inform them it is raining out BUT must ask or will believe someone else's word over their lying eyes.
this is but one mental weakness & dynamic within our own populace our more sophisticated enemies exploit.
PS: Proof I have female family members & ex-wife that I can convince of [**almost] anything!
** I can't convince them Ima god............yet.
>:> /runs and puts on his plate and Kevlar.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
09/19/2008 12:58
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#5
this goldman, BTW, is an example of how you CAN lean dovish, and STILL be intelligent, rational, analytical etc.
Wonder if its possible outside of Israelis though.
In its brief lifespan of only 13 days, Hurricane Ike wreaked great deal of havoc. Affecting several countries including Cuba, Haiti, and the United States, Ike is blamed for approximately 114 deaths (74 in Haiti alone), and damages that are still being tallied, with estimates topping $10 billion. Many shoreline communities of Galveston, Texas were wiped from the map by the winds, storm surge and the walls of debris pushed along by Ike - though Galveston was spared the level of disaster it suffered in 1900. (28 photos total)
One of the key pieces of evidence against 11 alleged Toronto-based terrorists has been posted online -- a home video that shows masked men marching through a snowy Ontario forest and shooting guns.
The video has already been played in a Brampton, Ont. court this summer, but the judge hearing the case denied a request to release it to the media.
The two-and-a-half minute video shows men in wi More..nter camouflage carrying out activities that are alleged to be terrorist training exercises. They also shout "Allahu Akbar" -- or "God is Great" -- while waving a black flag.
...
Police rounded up 18 men in June 2006 in what they called Canada's largest anti-terrorism operation since 9-11.
The men arrested were alleged to be planning an attack on a number of Canadian targets, including downtown Toronto, Parliament Hill and specifically, an alleged plot to behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Posted by: ed ||
09/19/2008
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#1
...to behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper
at least such an attack wouldn't hurt anything he uses on a regular basis
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
09/19/2008 15:52
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Vermont, Peoples Republic of...
BURLINGTON, Vt. - Lots of political candidates make campaign promises. But not like Charlotte Dennett's. Dennett, 61, the Progressive Party's candidate for Vermont Attorney General, said Thursday she will prosecute President Bush for murder if she's elected Nov. 4. Dennett, an attorney and investigative journalist, says Bush must be held accountable for the deaths of thousands of people in Iraq U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. She believes the Vermont attorney general would have jurisdiction to do so. ...and she'd be wrong. But...so what?
She also said she would appoint a special prosecutor and already knows who that should be: former Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, the author of "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder," a new book. She might have to wait. Bush may be busy at the many other moonbat wet dream show trials that are planned.
"Someone has to step forward," said Dennett, flanked by Bugliosi at a news conference announcing her plan. "Someone has to say we cannot put up with this lack of accountability any more." Typical lefty dunce. Ya left out Cheney.
Dennett and two others are challenging incumbent Attorney General William Sorrell, a Democrat, in the Nov. 4 election. One of them will probably include Cheney in their proposal and steal her thunder.
Bugliosi, 74, who gained fame as the prosecutor of killer Charles Manson, said any state attorney general would have jurisdiction since Bush committed "overt acts" including the military's recruitment of soldiers in Vermont and allegedly lying about the threat posed by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in speeches that were aired in Vermont and elsewhere. "No man, even the president of the United States, is above the law," said Bugliosi. So just when did Vince become a whackjob?
The White House press office didn't respond to a request for comment Thursday. But Republican National Committee spokesman Blair Latoff denounced Dennett. "It's extremely disappointing that a candidate for state attorney general is more concerned with radical left-wing provocation than upholding the law of Vermont," Latoff said. "These incendiary suggestions may score points among the most fringe elements of American society, but can't be settling for anyone looking for an attorney general." Why even respond?
Anti-Bush sentiment runs deep in Vermont. It's the only state Bush hasn't visited as president, and one whose liberal tendencies make it unlikely he will. In 2007, the state Senate adopted a resolution calling for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Last March, the towns of Brattleboro and Marlboro voted to seek indictments against Bush and Cheney over the war, and dozens of other towns voted at town meetings to call for his impeachment. ...and, of course, Bush and Cheney now rot in prison. Or were they hung? I forget.
Sorrell, who is seeking a sixth term, said he doesn't believe a Vermont attorney general would have the authority to charge Bush."The reality is, in my view, that unless the crime takes place in Vermont, then I as the attorney general have no authority under Vermont law to be prosecuting the president," Sorrell said. Well, I guess you'll have to get to work and change that...
OK Vermont, hurry up and secede and form your socialist workers paradise up there. Just be sure to build a fence, because we don't want you running around freely in our nation when yours goes utterly bankrupt.
#4
An AG wannabe who can't even read the Constitution. Maybe it's time we start hammering such individuals for violating others Constitutional rights [like the 6th Amendment].
"The reality is, in my view, that unless the crime takes place in Vermont, then I as the attorney general have no authority under Vermont law to be prosecuting the president," Sorrell said. BINGO! Someone who can read it.
#12
So just to test this theory, let's pretend it's 1966 and federal officers are in Mississippi to enforce the civil rights laws. Are they subject to prosecution by the State of Mississippi for acts done in the performance of their duties? How say you, Vermont? Or does it depend on whose ox is beging gored?
Posted by: Matt ||
09/19/2008 17:46
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#13
I remember reading the Bug's unmemorable book on Manson. Reading between the lines you had the feeling that one day Vinnie would be carving an X in his forehead.
Posted by: regular joe ||
09/19/2008 18:02
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#14
Sorrell, who is seeking a sixth term, said he doesn't believe a Vermont attorney general would have the authority to charge Bush
The article didn't say anything about a groundswell of opinion against the incumbent, so I imagine it's not likely any of the crazies will win.
His fingers tapping like a tiny army over laptop keys, Waleed Korayem, a university student who quotes Einstein and Voltaire, skims the Internet in a noisy cafe and opens his Facebook group, the one that drives Islamists into fits of rage: Yeah, We Are Seculars and We Are Proud.
It's hot and he is sweating, clicking through cyberspace venom and passionate screeds of Muslims debating Islam and democracy in the Middle East. Some of it is playful, some of it mean, but beyond the aliases and funny log-on names, this electronic parallel world has given young Muslims a voice beyond their mosques and repressive governments. "This is not just a technical war, but a moral one. Facebook is reflecting what's happening in Muslim society," Korayem said. "I'm engaged in dialogue between Islamists and secularists. But there's too much tension. No one wants to revise his opinions. It's turned into a screaming war. Islamists speak to me as a disbeliever. They want to convert me. They quote verses of the Koran as if to awaken me."
The struggle is over Islam's role in the new century. Facebook groups like Korayem's seek separation between the spiritual and the political. Conservative pages and groups call for Islamic states and a pulling away from liberal Western influences. One Facebook group literally wants to awaken the faithful; it provides wake-up calls so its members don't sleep through dawn prayers. With dueling names such as the International Day to Take Off Your Veil and Prophet Muhammad: The Greatest Leader of All Time, they taunt one another; they agree to disagree and occasionally they hack into opposing Facebook pages to mute, at least temporarily, the offending polemic. Much more at link.
#4
Yes they are, ryuge dear, thank you. Trailing daughter #1 just moved on campus into the Honours dorm, so I've got only td#2 for two more years, which will give her time enough to read Miss Manners, The Naked Roommate and Don't Shoot The Dog before she has to leave, which will fill her with knowledge about how to behave properly, what to expect when she gets to university, and how to help her roommates not be difficult. And Mr. Wife arrived safely back from a two-day trip to Europe, so life is good.
Pakistan is one of the few countries where the deadly, crippling disease still exists. Polio, spreads through poor hygiene, and is also endemic in Nigeria, India and Afghanistan.
Islamic Jihadis are hostile towards vaccinating teams has led to a sharp increase in polio cases in Pakistan this year, health workers said on Friday.
Allan Akbar!!
Islamic Jihadis = Pakistani Pigs!
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
09/19/2008 12:25
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Time for the Dems to seethe like a Palestinian...
FORMER US president Bill Clinton has cast an approving eye at Sarah Palin's political skills, but would not be drawn on whether his wife Hillary could run for the White House in 2012. But ah'll do all ah can to make it possible...
Mr Clinton, acclaimed even by his enemies as one of the most consummate American politicians in recent history, said he did not agree with Republican vice presidential pick Mrs Palin on politics, but warned fellow Democrats not to underestimate her. "She's an instinctively effective candidate and with a compelling story," Mr Clinton said in an interview with CNBC."I think it was exciting to some that she was a woman," said Mr Clinton."I think she, I get why she's done so well. It's a mistake to underestimate her. She's got good intuitive skills. They're significant."
Mr Clinton said he thought Republican presidential candidate John McCain, a Vietnam war hero and veteran lawmaker, was a "great man" and that the election on November 4 would be close, but he predicted Democrat Barack Obama would emerge triumphant. wink...wink
But if Senator McCain should win, would Hillary Clinton, who narrowly failed to capture the Democratic presidential nomination this time around, challenge the Arizona senator in 2012? "I don't know," Mr Clinton said. Suuuuure ya don't...
#2
I guess Bonasera the Undertaker Obama didn't grovel hard enough during that lunch meeting...
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
09/19/2008 9:58
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#3
"kiss it"
/Bill
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/19/2008 9:59
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#4
While it is true that Bill is thought of "one of the most consummate American politicians in recent history" by conservatives, it is not meant as acclaim, but derision.
Posted by: Scott R ||
09/19/2008 10:03
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#5
I tried to tell ya all Hillary would make a better candidate but oh no, you wouldn't listen to the ol pro Billy. I been around the political block (and a few other blocks too) a few times. I know how to make the Hollywood elite sing and cough up their dough. I got the African Americans, Hispancics, The MSM are in the tank for me or whoever I say, unions, the gays, the poor in my pocket. I am the first black president if you remember. Ya remember that bit with the saxaphone I did on late night TV. Ya got to agree that was sheer genius. Ya all dissed the missus and you had to pay for it. Next time ya al will listen to the ol Willie.
Posted by: William J Clinton ||
09/19/2008 10:35
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#7
You now have two of the saviest, most dishonest, and dispicable politicos in American history, Billy and Willie, warning the Dummos, of which they are a part, to be careful in their treatment of and valuing of Palin's political worth. That should count for something, say a couple of warm french fries.
Gaza Maan Two civilians were killed and two others are missing on Thursday following separate tunnel collapses near Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Two tunnels collapsed at the Egyptian-Palestinian border Wednesday night, killing 19-year-old Ibrahim Zorab and 23-year-old Ahmad Abu Seilakh, medical sources told Maan on Thursday. The deadly collapse occurred in the Yebna neighborhood near the border with Egypt.
Palestinian sources also said that another collapse that night near the Salah Ad-Din gate in Gaza injured a number of civilians. Two remained missing Thursday.
#1
* US deputy secretary of state says co-operative efforts best way forward
When talk is your only "weapon", you insist that talk is the only solution. Just another State POS spewing assinine drivel. Glad he's out of Homeland Security!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/19/2008 14:24
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#3
Because they are nuclear armed. Because the European blend of Christianity and the classical Greco-Roman world was the foundation of our civilization, no matter how far they've strayed since. Because giving Europe up to Sharia brings more darkness into the world.
#5
I'm reminded of the Byzantines who exhausted themselves trying to rebuild the 'old' Roman Empire. Got a good portion back, but in doing so they eat up all their resources and manpower which is why the muzzies streaming out of the Arabian peninsula were able to overwhelm them in the first big push taking most of the Middle East and Northern Africa. If the Euros aren't willing to have their own Anbar Awakening, then from a cost effectiveness perspective, its time to cut line and move on in history.
#6
I expect that the increasing cost of socialism and the floundering of economies to bring real unrest. And that unrest will usher in political groups that are racist and xenophobic. We will see more ethnic cleansing and war in Europe by the 1/4 mark in this century I think and it will make the Balkans look like a kid's party.
#9
The Euros need an "American" revolution of sorts, to go toward individual rights and individualism, instead of the state socialism and collectivism. Its the only thing that can save them from Islam or dictatorship (or, God forbid, both at the same time).
I do not believe they have it in them. They have been bathing in statist collectivism for such a long time they are blind to the ideals they gave birth to a long time ago, other than Marxism.
#10
Yep, they are gonners. They have been feminized to the point that they have no will to fight back and protect their culture, their hard won democratic rights, their own land. Unless they get feisty fast and start eliminating these interlopers they are gone.
All the troublemakers, outcasts, misfits and otherwise socialy unacceptable went elsewhere, mostly to America, where they built a new society completely unlike the "Mother Country"(And which just happens to be the greatest in the world)
All the Confirmists, Church ridden, do-littles stayed and bred.
Europe had a chance, and blew it. Ever wonder why Diggers and 'Mercans, do beter?
Breeding.
The misfits, crooks and otherwise unwanted made their own place instead of "Fiting In"
Seems Obvious to me.
(And I'm damn glad to be here than be just another Europeon)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/19/2008 12:42
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#12
A muzz and a european are walking down the sidewalk approaching each other in opposite directions. The muzz steps into the path of the euopean and smacks him upside the head for having the audacity to share a sidewalk with him. The first thing a majority of europeans would do is to apoplogize to the muzz, beg forgiveness, and promise to never do it again. Perhaps coupled with an offer of monetary compensation for the slight.
That scenario is not a hypothetical. That's the reality of most (not all) europeans.
so yeah, if you're asking for a vote, I'd say yes, Europe is lost. It is sad for the reasons outlined by lotp. Sader still because I know my children, grandchildren, godchildren and their offspring will be asked one day to pull europe's ass out a fire that europe didn't put out while they had a chance.
Muzz burned the libraries of Alexandria. The same will happen again with libraries and museums of europe.
#16
Europeans pretend to be "civilized". I doubt you have to dig very deep in them to find the jungle. Europeans were the ones who perfected mass slaughter. It will be messy.
#17
Breeding, Redneck Jim? There is enough variation in the gene pool from which many of us at least partially derive to replace those who left with others of similar gumption. That's why there is a continuous stream of emigration from Europe to places less wrapped in government regulation, including the U.S. And why Rantburg has European posters who are well worth listening to.
It seems to me that with the industrial base in Europe, the jihadis could create an actual army with which to try to conquer the Dar al Harb, not merely the small groups of terrorists they produce now. Granted, the Dutch, French and other fighting troops would probably form Free European units under U.S. command, as is the tradition, but still. We'd have to reconquer Europe just to deny it to the jihadis, rather than focussing on the jihadi centers, as we have been doing since 2002.
#18
Let em have it. In time it will resemble the ruins of Mayan Empire -- choked in overgrowth and illiterate Muslims picking through the trash w/out pausing to wonder what ever happened to the previous civilization.
Posted by: regular joe ||
09/19/2008 17:59
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#19
#16: "Europeans were the ones who perfected mass slaughter. It will be messy."
I'll double my popcorn order, Chemist.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/19/2008 18:17
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#20
regular joe,
I think I understand your comment, and I certainly understand your sentiment, but I disagee.
"Let em' have it." you say ??? No...no...no...
Ideas ARE worth dying for (the muzz do it all the time), it's just that the ideas of Western Civ. ar superior in every resepect. "Stuff", too, is worth dying for. I didn't know THAT until the last few years...until I started to think it through. The physical representation of ideas, thought, word and deed. Be it in art (painting...sculpture ..etc), literature, architecture....agriculture (great verities of wine !) etc...
Good Lord people...we have so much to lose with the coming onslaught of islam. And seemingly so few seem to understand or appreciate or to even care throughout the world. Study the history of each and every place on the face of the earth conquered by islam. What do you find? Third and fourth world countries. and no, sorry, you can't blame the white man. Statute of limitations ran out on that defense a long, long time ago.
We should we so proud of our civilization and yet we have the elites telling us we need to be ashamed. How often do you read of muzz being told to be ashamed of who they are and what they do on a daily basis to themselves let alone to the "other"? Never happens. Never.
Fight back now so your children will not have to do it later.
For the past 150 years, most American war presidents -- most notably Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt -- have entered (or reentered) office knowing war was looming. Not so George W. Bush. Not so the war on terror. The 9/11 attacks literally came out of the blue. Indeed, the three presidential campaigns between the fall of the Berlin Wall and Sept. 11, 2001, were the most devoid of foreign policy debate of any in the 20th century. The commander-in-chief question that dominates our campaigns today was almost nowhere in evidence during our '90s holiday from history.
When I asked President Bush during an interview Monday to reflect on this oddity, he cast himself back to early 2001, recalling what he expected his presidency would be about: education reform, tax cuts and military transformation from a Cold War structure to a more mobile force adapted to smaller-scale 21st-century conflict. But a wartime president he became. And that is how history will both remember and judge him.
Getting a jump on history, many books have already judged him. The latest by Bob Woodward describes the commander in chief as unusually aloof and detached. A more favorably inclined biographer might have called it equanimity. In the hour I spent with the president (devoted mostly to foreign policy), that equanimity was everywhere in evidence -- not the resignation of a man in the twilight of his presidency but a sense of calm and confidence in eventual historical vindication. It is precisely that quality that allowed him to order the surge in Iraq in the face of intense opposition from the political establishment (of both parties), the foreign policy establishment (led by the feckless Iraq Study Group), the military establishment (as chronicled by Woodward) and public opinion itself. The surge then effected the most dramatic change in the fortunes of an American war since the summer of 1864.
That kind of resolve requires internal fortitude. Some have argued that too much reliance on this internal compass is what got us into Iraq in the first place. But Bush was hardly alone in that decision. He had a majority of public opinion, the commentariat and Congress with him. In addition, history has not yet rendered its verdict on the Iraq war. We can say that it turned out to be longer and more costly than expected, surely. But the question remains as to whether the now-likely outcome -- transforming a virulently aggressive enemy state in the heart of the Middle East into a strategic ally in the war on terror -- was worth it. I suspect the ultimate answer will be far more favorable than it is today.
When I asked the president about his one unambiguous achievement, keeping us safe for seven years -- about 6 1/2 years longer than anybody thought possible just after Sept. 11 -- he was quick to credit both the soldiers keeping the enemy at bay abroad and the posse of law enforcement and intelligence officials hardening our defenses at home. But he alluded also to some of the measures he had undertaken, including "listening in on the enemy" and "asking hardened killers about their plans." The CIA has already told us that interrogation of high-value terrorists such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed yielded more valuable intelligence than any other source. In talking about these measures, the president mentioned neither this testimony as to their efficacy nor the campaign of vilification against him that they occasioned. More equanimity still.
What the president did note with some pride, however, is that beyond preventing a second attack, he is bequeathing to his successor the kinds of powers and institutions the next president will need to prevent further attack and successfully prosecute the long war. And indeed, he does leave behind a Department of Homeland Security, reorganized intelligence services with newly developed capacities to share information and a revised FISA regime that grants broader and modernized wiretapping authority.
In this respect, Bush is much like Truman, who developed the sinews of war for a new era (the Department of Defense, the CIA, the NSA), expanded the powers of the presidency, established a new doctrine for active intervention abroad, and ultimately engaged in a war (Korea) -- also absent an attack on the United States -- that proved highly unpopular. So unpopular that Truman left office disparaged and highly out of favor. History has revised that verdict. I have little doubt that Bush will be the subject of a similar reconsideration.
#2
Yep, if he had clearly explained that the Iraq war was about deposing a dictator, setting up the first Arab democracy in the M.E. and establishing a toehold for freedom in that part of the world he would have been hit with a lot less slime.
People really hammered him (wrongly) with the 'No WMDs Found in Iraq, Therefore this War is Illegal' meme.
#3
Ultimately, history will judge him in light of events that are yet to come. The WOT has barely begun and noone knows it's outcome. His legacy, for better or worse, is in the hands of future presidents and future scumbags. I hope it goes a bit like Truman's. A lot of his enemies wiill need to die before the merits of his administration can be fairly assessed. Personally, I think he did a tremdous job under very trying circumstances. Even many of his 'friends' take every opportunity to stab him in the back.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/19/2008 10:17
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#4
When I was a kid my parents always said I would be judged according to the company I kept. I apply that wisdom (and its converse) to my assessment of Pres. Bush: who are the people who hate him? Ted Rall, Islamofascists, Euroweenies etc. Who like him? Soldiers, roughnecks etc.
#7
I heard George W. on CSPAN talking about the economy and "persecuting" people guilty of financial wrong-doing. I might be in favor of that if my investments lose any more. I'd be in favor of prosecuting them too.
#8
I'll venture this, President Bush's greatest achievement will be as the man who saved the continent and peoples of Africa. If we would have had 8 years of algore the only human beings left in Africa would be the Chinese, maybe a few French. algore would have continued the clinton libtardcommiecrat policies of do nothing in Africa about AIDS, tribal war or islamofascist genocide - IMHO.
German authorities arrested two men suspected of supporting a Sunni Muslim group that prosecutors say was linked to plans to attack U.S. facilities in German cities last year. The two 27-year-old men -- a German of Afghan origin identified as Omid S. and a Turkish national called Huseyin O -- were taken into custody yesterday in the Frankfurt area, the German Federal Prosecutor said today in a statement. The prosecutor said both men traveled to Pakistan last year for training at a militant camp, and they provided aid to a network that was planning what authorities say could have been one of the worst terrorist attacks on German soil.
A year ago, police unveiled the alleged plot when they seized hydrogen peroxide-based explosives with more power than those used in Madrid in March 2004 or London in July 2005. The bombers were targeting U.S. citizens and facilities in cities including Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Munich, Cologne and Stuttgart, the prosecutor said two weeks ago. The three men arrested then, identified as Fritz Martin G., Adem Y. and Daniel Martin S., were members of the Islamic Jihad Union and also trained at camps in Pakistan, from where they allegedly planned to ``take the Jihad to Germany,'' the prosecutor said. The three were formally charged with plotting terrorist attacks on Sept. 5.
The two men arrested yesterday were sent to camps on the Pakistani-Afghan border at the instigation of Adem Y., who also took both men's debit cards to fund the plot, the prosecutor said. They also furnished the IJU network with objects including binoculars, an infrared beam, mosquito nets, flashlights, batteries and compasses, the authorities said. While Huseyin O was apprehended by Pakistani authorities in July 2007 and didn't make it to the training camp, Omid S. received training between May and September of last year and was planning to return this month before he was arrested.
Britain's youngest terrorist was locked up for two years after plans to cause death and destruction were found hidden in his bedroom. Schoolboy Hammaad Munshi was just 15 when he was recruited into a worldwide plot to wipe out non-Muslims and longed to become a "martyr".
Munshi, a GCSE student and grandson of a leading Islamic scholar, led a double life, obediently attending school by day and surfing jihadist websites at night. He was part of a cell of cyber groomers devoted to brainwashing the vulnerable into killing "kuffar", or non-believers.
Munshi, 18, of Greenwood Street, Saville Town, Dewsbury, West Yorks, was found guilty last month of compiling information likely to be useful in terrorism. London's Blackfriars Crown Court heard how he downloaded files about making napalm, detonators and grenades for himself and terrorist comrades Aabid Khan and Sultan Muhammad.
Sentencing him at the Old Bailey to two years in a young offenders' institution, Judge Timothy Pontius said that he "fell under the spell of fanatical extremists". He added: "There is no doubt that you knew what you were doing."
The convict's grandfather is Sheikh Yakub Munshi, president of the Islamic Research Institute of Great Britain at the Markazi Mosque, Dewsbury.
#2
No, Cornsilk Blondie at an undisclosed location. It is stupid. Any time you restrict markets you reduce efficiency. It's a way of suppressing unwanted information. The information doesn't disappear, it just takes more malignant forms. Sort of like our current drug laws. The cinematic version is "I can't hear you. Lalalalalalala."
#3
For any or all of you Financially apt Rantburgers I have a question.
Back in 1929, it is said, that one of the major contributory causes to the crash was the practice of buying stocks with virtually no real cash so when margin calls came in there was no where to go.
Now the question. All of these leveraged derivatives I keep hearing about in the realestate mortgage market seem to be suffering from the same problem. Mortgages given with $0 down and wacky interest rates.
Should there be a regulatory tightening up of these practices? Particularly in the bundling and resale of these worthless mortgages?
#4
NS, you are operating on the laughable assumption that the market is rational. It is not. Sometimes panics happen. The good get punished along with the bad.
A temporary freeze could allow people to catch their breath, actually research the situation and separate the lambs from the goats. Yes....it will probably, almost certainly, continue a downward slide later. That is to be expected, and not a bad thing.
A crash that locks up the financial markets is NOT a good thing for people looking to expand businesses, get college loans, that kind of thing. Yeah...you'll show those greedy bah-stahds at Lehman, et al.....but you run the risk of seriously hurting the little guy on Main Street.
If some hedge funds can't squeeze out an extra billion or so in this debacle, I ain't gonna lose any sleep over that. They got more than enough in the run-up to this present situation.
#5
AlanC, there definitely needs to be some updating of the rules and regs in the banking industry. (Sorry, can't give specifics....I only ever worked on the stock side of the market.) Much of it was predicated on the idea that home values would always go up and that if someone got in over their heads they could sell at a profit.
Toss in the idea that "everyone needs to own a house", regardless of their financial situation...and it simply had to come crashing down sooner or later. I'm not sure what percentage of home ownership is optimal, but it sure isn't 100%.
(Nice comparison of the margin stocks/real estate shenanigans, BTW. Wish I would have thought of that. ;) )
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/19/2008 9:36
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#7
And you're making the laughable assumption that markets work better with less information than more. If you want to shut down the market to let the blood return to normal, fine. But don't tie one of the market's hands behind its back and let it keep operating.
#8
With regard to short selling: the government plan which will run at least through the first week of October will force investors to purchase shares of financial companies at artificially inflated prices. It is egregious manipulation and I believe it will do more harm than good.
And it was the Community Reinvestment Act which compelled banks to lower lending standards leading to this debacle. The complexity of mortgage-based derivatives and the previously untested chain of guaranties of institutional financial solvency (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc.) aggravated the problem.
#9
And you're making the laughable assumption that markets work better with less information than more. If you want to shut down the market to let the blood return to normal, fine. But don't tie one of the market's hands behind its back and let it keep operating.
Call me when it becomes a market again instead of a heavily-taxpayer-subsidized hobby.
It's being kept afloat by the taxpayer, so remember the golden rule, he that has the gold, makes the rules.
Personally I think it would have been a lot better if these banker types would have found a different hobby.
#10
Did you even read my comment, NS? This thing is going so damn fast that the info can't keep up. That's the problem. People aren't reacting to actual information. They just see that some stock is tanking and they're jumping on it. I doubt any of them are doing a bit of research to see if the company in question actually is healthy or not.
No one is suggesting suspending all trading. That's a far more drastic step that has been done in the past when things went nuts. Doing this can possibly forestall a temporary market close. Don't you SEE that?
You can still buy, you can still sell. You simply won't be able to sell what you don't have for a few days, and you're just gonna have to get your happy butt off to Vegas or Atlantic City if you want to place a wild bet. BFD.
#11
the ban is being described in the seattle press as preventing the rumor mill to depress prices and allow traders to buy up what is an undervalued asset. and it only affects 799 fiancial companies. so you can still short commodities.
#14
The regulatory / gov't intervention problem with markets is that in our society there is a total disconnect between risk and reward.
In a world of markets you make a risky investment in the hope of a big reward. If it works, you win big, BUT, if it loses you lose big.
Our overactive Nanny state has removed most of the risk factor so that when the RISKS (mortgage I can't afford on a house that drops in price) arise......no sweat! Uncle Sugar will bail me out. That happens on the institutional level as well which is why Fannie and Freddie were so leveraged. The PEOPLE involved had no risk.
#15
#3 For any or all of you Financially apt Rantburgers I have a question.
Back in 1929, it is said, that one of the major contributory causes to the crash was the practice of buying stocks with virtually no real cash so when margin calls came in there was no where to go.
Posted by AlanC 2008-09-19 09:14|| Front Page|| ||Comments Top
The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in the United States and included banking reforms, some of which were designed to control speculation.[citation needed] Some provisions such as Regulation Q that allowed the Federal Reserve to regulate interest rates in savings accounts were repealed by the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980. Provisions that prohibit a bank holding company from owning other financial companies were repealed on November 12, 1999 by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act signed by President Bill Clinton.
Alan C., Bill Clinton repealed the laws you referred to under pressure by Citibank, and other banks that would allow them to make loans to more parties, those being parties that really could not afford those loans.
I cannot believe the republicans are not on top of this thing that Clinton did, for that is why the banks are now in trouble. We came very close to 1929 again in the past couple of weeks.
Posted by: The Root Cause ||
09/19/2008 10:39
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#16
In other words, re-instate the The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that Bill Clinton repealed in 1999 and things will be stable again like they had been for 66 years until Clinton repealed that act, which led to todays banking mess.
Posted by: The Root Cause ||
09/19/2008 10:43
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#17
The problem is that risk in lending wasn't priced properly. There are several reasons for this, but the most important was that high risk loans were channeled through F/F Mae which were perceived to wash off most of the risk because these securities were believed to have a federal government gaurantee behind them.
Today the US government has guaranteed them. Much as you may not like it, the market acted rationally and correctly. The real risk was low because the government has stepped in with gaurantees.
The stock market volatility is an effect and stopping short selling has marginal consequences.
#18
This is a horrible idea. Shorting stock has become a one of the basics of stock trading. The issue they should address is margins/leverage.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/19/2008 11:00
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#19
I think they screwed this article up. Once again, the SEC is proposing to ban *naked* short selling, which already is illegal, but still widely practiced. Which the SEC threatens to enforce every year, but never enforces.
They even deny it exists, and attack any business owner who objects to it because it is killing his business, as a favor to the big brokerage brokers who do most of the NSS.
It is a nasty business, but adds millions or billions to the big brokerage bottom line, so they turn a blind eye to it as well.
Naked short selling is the practice of selling shares you don't own, with the idea that you will eventually buy those shares. But you sell so many shares that it drives the price into the basement. This makes you "free" money, when you drive that small business into bankruptcy.
Some ruined small businesses had as many as twice their issued shares being regularly traded in NS sales.
By law, you must cover a short sale within 14 days, but this is evaded by two NSS brokers passing dying stocks back and forth between them. This is why bankrupt companies whose stock price has been knocked down to a tiny fraction of a cent each, still have trades every 14 days.
Over the years, hundreds of even thousands of small businesses were ruined, enriching a lot of brokers. In the long run it deeply hurts our economy as a whole, however.
About the only defense is to not take the company private, or to only float (make available to the public), a small fraction of shares, the rest being kept by insiders, who can quickly vote to pull them from the market, and thus stick it to the corrupt traders.
But that condemns the company to always being in the pink sheets (not listed by a major exchange), because to do so you are required to have exposure to the Market Makers whose legitimate purpose is to stimulate trading in your shares.
#20
On a similar note, our older son is a pretty good judge of the financial markets and he says this about the AIG And Fannie/Freddie bailouts:
"I think the government has a great deal with AIG if they don't go under and slowly sell off the stocks in the future. They will actually make money out of this. I do think that is true with Fannie and Freddy as well.
Something to think about with AIG. The government gave them a loan at about 11% interest and they have 1 trillion is assests. AIG wanted a Bridge loan, but the government didn't want to do that. This is because AIG didn't have enough cash on hand for emergencies say of 80 billion dollars to handle this. They could have easily raised more capital by selling off some of the 1 trillion in assets, however it takes a long time to sell this many assests.
The government also got about 80% of the stocks in AIG. The real bad thing about this is that the stockholders of AIG got their stocks diluted they lost alot.
This is one of the sweetest deals for the government in a lifetime. With this loan they will probably make alot of money off this if they were a private company like Berkshire or something. I'm surprised Warren (Buffet) didn't do something like this.
Think of this buy is like buying assest at 10 cents on the dollar because now they have 800 Billion in assets since they own 80% of the company. This is just such a steal from that perspective.
This is the best kind of value investing I have seen in years, however sadly the government will mess this up I suppose with AIG. Too bad it was the government and taking us closer to socialism with each move..............
Well those are my thoughts.
Thanks,
S-"
he is correct that the government will probably "mess this up".
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
09/19/2008 11:23
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#21
What I recall reading is that they are writing in a ban on naked shorting, which is sound - you should not be able to short shares that you do not have possession of. Especially if you are doing it with borrowed money. Naked shorting is destructive, and actually "creates" shares out of thin air, which are then sold short, thus inflating the supply of a stock and reducing the price for holders of actual stock. This kind of financial legerdemain is purely destructive, and it effectively robs the corporation of control over how many shares of stock it has issued. Its cheating, its gaming the system, and its wrong. Naked shorting should be made a felony with hard time and large forfeiture and fines.
I doubt we wll get a total ban, but I believe they are going to reduce or eliminate the use of loaned money, effectively de-leveraging shorting, and if so, then that's a good move. Hedge funds and other "professionals" shorting beyond their ability to pay the money they borrowed to short is what has caused a lot of the mess. In plain English, shorting with borrowed money is going to become a LOT tougher, shorts will have to have a lot more skin in the game than before. So that is a good thing.
#22
The government also got about 80% of the stocks in AIG. The real bad thing about this is that the stockholders of AIG got their stocks diluted they lost alot.
When the Fed dumps 10, 50, 150 Billion into the market trying the make up the paper loses these people created, the value of our holdings in dollars devalues. The dollar is worth a lot less and as long as Nancy Inc refuse to start exploiting American resources that means even more dollars flow out further cheapening the paper. Inflation is going to bite big time, then the inflation adjustments for government pension programs and social security are going to double the pain on the working class as the government scrambles to make up the difference. It ain't over yet.
#24
There's nothing wrong with short selling. As for short selling stocks you don't own, that's the only way to make money selling short. You can't very well short sell stock you already own.
Heres how it works:
I think Microsoft is over-priced, so I want to profit from the price falling. I borrow shares of microsoft from my broker, sell them at the current market price, and later, when the stock prices come down, I purchase microsoft shares and pay them back to the broker I borrowed shares form.
Sell the shares and 45, buy them back at 35 and pocket 10 a share.
Sure, the act of selling the shares drives the price down, but the act of buying them back drives the price back. Sure, they buy the shares back over a longer period of time, so it doesn't offset.
However, there is risk to short selling, like if the price goes up, you take it in the shorts. Or if you get caught in a 'short squeeze', you also lose.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/19/2008 12:27
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#25
---- Naked short selling has always been illegal,no change here -- but the gov't doesn't enforce the ban. Why this failure to enforce is not headline news, I don't know.
---- Today's ban is on plain short selling of 799 entities, not on all stocks. It expires on 10/3/08 -- barring a sudden economic miracle, that ban will most likely be extended, else the stock market will go nucking futz that day. Exempt from the ban are certain market makers on the floors of stock exchanges, as short selling is almost essential to their operations.
#27
Mike N - suppose there are no shares you can borrow - i.e. normal holders have marke dthem with their brokerage as to be held. So your broker cannot borrow any to sell. He instead offers them for sale via a market contract, sells them, then covers later buying back at a lower price and delivering the bought back shares to the first buyer.
THAT is what is being banned. If you read my post above, NSS is horrible economic policy, and it is dishonest in that, as I said above, it artificially creates shares that do not exist thus cheating the corporation of control over how many shares it has.
And shorting itself is destructively wrong if it is over-leveraged shorting. It allows an artificial run to be put forth on a stock, deserved or undeserved, at little risk to the person initiating the run.
If you BORROW the money to short with, then get stuck, who gets screwed? The person who lent you the money. And that is what is partly causing the collapse of many of these banks -- due to to multiple failures in the hedge funds (the largest short and derivative players) they have been unable to pay back loans, and thus when the home loan business started failing, they didnt have cash to cover, so insurers like AIG got put in the squeeze.
So yes, the SEC needs to tightly restrict the practice of short selling, to ensure that there are genuine shares there, that it is not leveraged, and that the deals are honest and open and transparent (and not deliberate manipulation, like the repeated trades to create an artificial trading "velocity").
Short selling has its place, like handguns, but that doesn't mean you can do it indiscriminately and endanger others in doing so.
#28
I'd like to see the McCain administration suspend COLA adjustments for all non-military federal employees for at least one year. Screw ASCFME (or whatever the hell the acronym for the federal workers union is). Then take a knife to the federal budget in a way that would make Cap Weinberger look like a big spender. If they can streamline some acquisition processes, all the better. Then we can draw back, slowly at first, but with increasing speed, from this massive entry of government into the private sector.
#29
And lets please note the recovery in price and stability of the financial stocks due to this restriction. The shorts were creating a destructive environment by attempting to create a panic they would profit from, even on stable companies.
THAT is why the SEC stepped in. The short sellers were borrowing more money and attempting to collapse the stock of vital companies in an emotional panic driven rush. Pure greed, and they would not be around for any of the consequences for the collapse of the major bank - they'd take the money and stick us with the problems.
I'd propose that in order to short they MUST provide the certificate numbers for every share in the short play, and not be allowed to leverage the short play in any form whatsoever, no margins allowed.
Prove they have the shares, and put their own money on the line.
And allow stockholders to routinely "lock" their shares from being available for shorting - better yet, make this the DEFAULT for shares, and require permission of the stockholder that his shares can be used for shorting.
If I were a car mechanic, while your car is in my shop, I could not loan out your car to a buddy of mine to drive 1000 miles to vegas and gamble (i.e. reducing its value) and then bring it back with no consequences.
Why should stock you OWN and leave with your broker in his brokerage be any different?
That simple requirement, that stock holders must give formal and informed consent before a short sale is made using their stock, and that short trades must be backed by sufficient assets with no debt allowed, that is enough to fix things.
#30
GolfBravo, that's another reason I'm happy they're clamping down a little on the practice. I prefer to have smaller players in the game instead of one huge monopoly....especially one like BofA (yep, have a personal problem with them, to the point of refusing to park my car near any of their branches because of the screwing they did to my checking account...OT I know)
I do like OS's idea of getting the stock owner's consent before shares are borrowed. It always struck me as more than a little dishonest to "borrow" someone else's stock without their knowledge or consent.
#31
I have not come across evidence that short-selling is causing major problems. If you thinks otherwise, please post citations and urls. The MAJOR problem is that so many financial institutions have imbibed deeply of toxic loan koolaid, and are fundamentally insolvent. Banning short selling of these losers is just delaying the inevitable. The longer the delay of the reckoning, the greater the damage done to the economy & general welfare. There may come a day on the stock market when a major financial institution's shares are offered -- and there are no bids, not even those of shorts trying to cover themselves.
But those in the business think it's a short-sighted "witch hunt" that will make markets more volatile than they already are. "It weakens confidence in financial markets further," said Steve Schlemmer, head of European sales at Churchill Capital, a London-based brokerage firm that deals exclusively with hedge funds. "It might make people on the street feel more secure that Royal Bank of Scotland is up 30% or whatever, but it makes the real professional money managers less secure."
"Its the kind of thing you would expect from less developed markets," said Stephen Rothwell, a trader at Argos Capital in London. "But I guess its symptomatic of the U.S. and U.K.s way of dealing with things at the moment."
Shorting is the bread and butter of hedge funds, epitomizing the act of "hedging" against risk. A typical hedge fund will go short on half of all its trades. "It's a big problem for us," said one trader, who said the complete ban on short selling was unexpected. "It's pretty extreme."
There are a number of concerns about what the clampdown on short selling could do to equity markets. Some say short selling actually helps smooth out the market, providing more of a balance of sellers to buyers. There is also the argument that short sellers aren't entirely to blame for the recent bloodying of Wall Street institutions like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs in the markets. According to dataexplorers.com, a firm that tracks short interest in companies, short sellers made up 3.9% of Morgan Stanley's outstanding shares on Sept 17, the day before the company's shares went into freefall. On the same day, they made up just 3.1% of Goldman Sachs' outstanding shares.
Again, shorting is not causing the problem. It's a convenient headline grabbing boogeyman for the press.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/19/2008 14:13
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#33
What a ridiculous concept, you can only buy into the market if it will achieve the results that they want!!!
#34
AC hit 2 of the 3 nails on the head. There has been a disconnect between risk and reward. I have been thinking about writing a rant on this for the opinion page on Monday. This problem goes far beyond financial markets as this kind of thinking permeates every aspect of our culture now. Including our tactics in Iraq. That is why this discussion of short selling is looking at a leaf when there is a whole forest in front of us.
#35
Naked short selling is the practice of selling shares you don't own, with the idea that you will eventually buy those shares. But you sell so many shares that it drives the price into the basement. This makes you "free" money, when you drive that small business into bankruptcy.
How do you drive a business into bankruptcy by cratering its stock price? A publicly-traded business's books consists of elements that have nothing to do with its stock price. A rise or fall in its stock price has no effect on either assets or liabilities.
The basic problem with these financial companies is that they took on bad bets in various financial instruments while borrowing too much money to do it. Short-selling has nothing do with their problems. What they really need to stay solvent (i.e. fix the problem of liabilities > assets now valued at $0.30 on the dollar) is to issue trillions in new stock to recapitalize their balance sheets. This is what the ban on short-selling is all about. The idea is to provide breathing space to these companies so that they can issue huge amounts of new stock, thus minimizing the need for a taxpayer bailout.
The problem? Informed buyers know that the lack of short-sellers will result in inflated stock prices. Prices may go up initially, but the end result will be catastrophic. China, which has never allowed short-selling, has seen its index fall 66% from its high. Anyone who buys into this rally for anything other than short term gains is playing with fire.
#36
How do you drive a business into bankruptcy by cratering its stock price?
Well...you can certainly make it more difficult for them to get loans for expansion or other business purposes. Like it or not, the stock price sometimes is seen as shorthand for the health of a company. Your fundamentals might be strong, but if your stock price is tanking, you are going to have what is politely referred to as a "challenge". You might not get the loan, or you might have to pay more in interest.
#37
How do you drive a business into bankruptcy by cratering its stock price?
I'm not a financial genius. However, Merrill Lynch stock was selling at around $90 about a year or so ago. On black Friday recently, it tanked at around $10 or so. Lehman stock had already tanked and they declared bankruptcy. It would seem that not being able to attract capital would affect your assets.
#38
Well...you can certainly make it more difficult for them to get loans for expansion or other business purposes. Like it or not, the stock price sometimes is seen as shorthand for the health of a company. Your fundamentals might be strong, but if your stock price is tanking, you are going to have what is politely referred to as a "challenge". You might not get the loan, or you might have to pay more in interest.
Not being able to expand is a different thing from being driven into bankruptcy, isn't it? And if the business is set up so that it can't survive for months without new funding, maybe it needs to reassess its capital structure - i.e. borrow less money and have more cash on hand. In my view, these companies are like home buyers who use Option ARMS mortgages and then complain during rate resets or mortgage recasts. They made their bed and are now casting around for people to blame when they should be looking in the mirror.
The fact is, whether you like it or not, there are a lot of businesses that have plenty of assets (land, factories, royalties, patents)....but not a lot of cash sitting around.
If you choke off funding for businesses, which has basically been happening lately, then a good chunk of them won't grow. They'll stagnate. Another large chunk won't be able to take advantage of new opportunities, and might have to hold off on R&D for future products or technologies. You lose market share...and yes, you can eventually go bankrupt if you can't reverse the situation.
Besides...if banks don't loan out the cash, how are banks going to pay any kind of interest to CD holders and other people who deposit the cash with them?
The fact is, whether you like it or not, there are a lot of businesses that have plenty of assets (land, factories, royalties, patents)....but not a lot of cash sitting around.
If you choke off funding for businesses, which has basically been happening lately, then a good chunk of them won't grow. They'll stagnate. Another large chunk won't be able to take advantage of new opportunities, and might have to hold off on R&D for future products or technologies. You lose market share...and yes, you can eventually go bankrupt if you can't reverse the situation.
Besides...if banks don't loan out the cash, how are banks going to pay any kind of interest to CD holders and other people who deposit the cash with them?
These are not word games. If they are not keeping enough cash on their books to survive without borrowing or issuing new stock on a day-to-day basis, they have borrowed too much money, in the same way that someone who lives paycheck-to-paycheck while paying off huge credit card balances has borrowed too much money. If margins are so low that they have to borrow huge sums to stay afloat, they might simply be in the wrong business.
#43
This is all to reminiscent of the great liberal Nixon's wage and price controls. What happened when they came off? What will happen when the short selling rule comes off?
#44
This is all to reminiscent of the great liberal Nixon's wage and price controls. What happened when they came off? What will happen when the short selling rule comes off?
Ever heard of a "no bid gap down"? It's certainly a possibility, especially if the no short rule is implemented for an extended period of time. The fact is that shorts moderate stock prices on the upside by initiating short positions and on the downside by covering (i.e. buying back) to take profits. China has never allowed shorting - the result was that its markets shot up too high and now lack the buffer of shorts buying back shares to cover their positions to slow down the 66% decline it has suffered from the peak.
#45
Bottom line is that companies are either solvent (assets > liabilities) or insolvent. Share prices have nothing to do with it. If a company has to borrow more money or issue new shares to stay afloat, that is the definition of insolvency. Short-sellers and long investors who sell stocks are merely responding to their perceptions of the company's solvency. The question is always - do you believe what management is saying or are they simply stalling for time in hopes of divine intervention?
#46
I don't know that short selling is the problem--maybe part of the problem. There is far too much debt. Debt is O.K. as long as it is paid back. If it is not paid back; well now that is a problem.
#47
Amusing anecdote - some short traders have taken to using the name Golem Sachs in honor of Paulson, who is assumed to be the evil genius behind this move. Folks who had large September put positions in the financials have obviously been taken to the cleaners, given that this is a triple witching Friday, and the policy was implemented today.
#48
Golem Sachs? How queer. The original golem of Eastern European Jewish tales was merely a clay statue brought to temporary life by a piece of paper with the secret name of God written on it. His brief was to protect the ghetto from non-Jews bent on pograms; the paper was removed, and with it his life, once the city folk calmed down.
Perhaps the short traders are unfamiliar with classic folk tales.
#49
I'm not a financial genius. However, Merrill Lynch stock was selling at around $90 about a year or so ago. On black Friday recently, it tanked at around $10 or so. Lehman stock had already tanked and they declared bankruptcy. It would seem that not being able to attract capital would affect your assets.
Lehman levered up $30 to each dollar of shareholder capital and made some very bad bets. If you lose more than $1 of that borrowed capital, you have wiped out your shareholders. Lehman's bad bets not only wiped out its shareholders; they have wiped out its subordinated debtholders, who will be getting nothing for their troubles.
How did Lehman end up in such big trouble? Aren't these guys rocket scientists and Masters of the Universe? Chalk it up to a bad case of "this time, it's different". They assumed that they had figured out all the risks (from looking at historical data), and thought they had everything hedged. In reality, they discarded historical standards and ratios, and went for whatever would make them the most money. They talked the talk but marked to fantasy, hoping that the next roll of the dice would save them from their mistakes.
#50
ZF, for the last time....I am not referring to companies in such bad shape that they need frequent, constant infusions of cash. Obviously, they gots lotsa problems, and should be allowed to fall.
I am talking about companies that need to tap into the credit markets from time to time. If a good company is getting hammered in the market simply because other ones are screwing up, not because of their own mistakes....yes, that's a problem. Short selling exacerbates it.
If you think that a hedge fund making an extra few million at the expense of a growing concern that could actually add something to the economy long-term is a good thing, just come out and say so.
#52
If you think that a hedge fund making an extra few million at the expense of a growing concern that could actually add something to the economy long-term is a good thing, just come out and say so.
Companies have no God-given right to capital - another word for investors' hard-earned savings. They must prove their worth in the marketplace. In a marketplace that doesn't include short sellers, too much capital will be allocated inefficiently, and the result will be the kind of thing the Chinese are getting during the bursting of their stock market bubble (and during our Great Depression) - no capital for anyone at any price.
#53
Shorting in and of itself is OK, but the unlimited, naked and highly margined short selling is hugely destructive of capital.
Highly margined. That's the key.
For a company, let's say AIG, to go to 0, it takes way more than just short sellers. For a little perspective, 501,816,525 share of AIG traded hands today. No way in hell any broker is going to naked short the millions of shares in would require to flood the supply side and drive the price down.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/19/2008 18:40
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#54
Brokers might not, Mike, but that's how some hedge funds make (or lose) millions. Moreover, keep in mind that in situations like this a lot of trading is triggered automatically based on technical trends, i.e. you get a destructive positive feedback loop which snowballs.
Zhang Fei, you seem to be missing the key role that cash flow financing plays in small and medium sized businesses and in some larger businesses which adopted just in time inventory management. And that financing is indeed tied to balance sheet as a whole but stock price in particular for many industries. That's what Cornsilk Blondie is getting at, among other issues. When that sort of credit dries up it slows economic activity in a potential death spiral.
The hedge funds were shorting either due to panic or trying to take advantage of panic. The SEC put a temporary halt to it and every one else in the markets took a deep breath and tentatively began sorting things out. Not a move to make lightly but absolutely necessary in this MBA's opinion.
#55
Well, lesse, If 50 hedge funds all naked shorted 1 million shares each, they would have been 10% of todays AIG sales.
Really think some hedge funds naked shorted that many shares in 1 day?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/19/2008 20:51
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#56
ZF
Profitable company: stock price goes down, rating agency cuts ratings, triggers collateral defaults causing company to need to put up cash even though the underlying assets are doing fine, no one is willing to lend the company money. Company defaults on contracts, assets sold off at firesale prices - profitible company does not exist anymore. Almost happened to morgan and goldman and still might...
I agree with oldspook. Shorting:good naked shorting (and fire) bad :)
#57
Several orders of magnitude more than that, Mike. Total trading on the NYSE alone was 10.3 billion shares last Thursday, 9.1 billion today. The difference is that there was massive short selling on Thursday - not an orderly market at all - and from what I'm hearing an awful lot of those sales were naked.
#58
OK, geniuses, show us all the industrials getting clobbered right now. Who's been forced out of business? Just over leveraged financials. Maybe GM and Ford end up in trouble, but it's not like they weren't in trouble before.
It's a panic. The weak will die. That's the way capitalism works. If you can't weather a month of heavy weather, maybe you should go under. Sorry, but it's a cruel world.
#60
from what I'm hearing an awful lot of those sales were naked.
So what? That just means there is a lot of potential demand. With shorts illegal, there is a lot of potential sales pressure building up. When they remove the short prohibition, watch out. The bears will sink the market worse than what we've seen so far. Thanks.
#61
ZF
Rating agencies rational? Hah! Who do you think rated CDO's of subprime mortgages AAA in the first place (one of the big causes of this mess). You think those ratings were rational? Now they have gone the other way by threatening to downgrade companies for any reason they feel (including stock price drops) because they are trying to stay relevant in the world.
#62
Nimble
If you want naked shortselling you should have the ability of buyers to take shares "off" the market as well in order for it to be a level playing field (I have no idea how to accomplish that btw).
I mostly agree with you but what was happening to goldman and morgan was crazy, they would have gone out of business for no good reason I can see (and still might btw), and if you think that that would not have affected industrials and workers who had no business being affected, you are sadly mistaken.
What is funny (sad really) is the Fed is preventing buyout shops from buying financials because the controlling shareholder rule starts at 9.9%, severely restricting the ability of buyout shops to operate. Perhaps they should up this to a higher level. Private equity wants in but cant right now. Talk about bad regulation...
#63
Several orders of magnitude more than that, Mike. Total trading on the NYSE alone was 10.3 billion shares last Thursday, 9.1 billion today.
That's an entire exchange. I'm talking about one stock. Do you think funds naked shorted 50 million shares of one stock in one day?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/19/2008 22:06
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#64
Please distinguish between "naked short selling" -- always has been illegal -- and "short selling" rendered illegal by the SEC order of 18 Sept 2008 which expires 2359 2 Oct 2008. Much of this discussion has been confusing apples & oranges.
#65
Bloomberg: Unintended consequences: "Options market makers would have been prohibited from making short sales starting next week under the ban adopted today to keep speculators from driving down stock prices. The Options Clearing Corp., which guarantees all trades exchange- listed options, said a ban would have proved ``disastrous.''"
#66
Frank, you can take shares off the market by demanding the actual certificates, which slows your ability to liquidate them if you need to - you have to reregister and validate them with a broker, and then you'll be able to trade them again.
That's why I beleive the must track cert numbers, and reconcile cert numbers on every trade. And pass securities laws requiring expressed and formal consent before shares are allowedto be used for shorting. Consent must be explicit and voluntary, the brokerage must not be able to demand their availability as a condition for any services, the default mode of stock with any broker must be "unavailable for short trading".
If they do that and disallow margin, completely, then the destructive shorting will stop, and only truly speculative shorts will be in the game, putting as much on the line as longs do.
We've lost the balance, and the risk, on the short side due to cheap credit and low margins, as well as loose bookkeeping and poor regulation.
It needs to be reinstated, and the above will do it.
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats ||
09/19/2008 10:46
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#3
It's not a real protest until they spell something with their nekkid bodies.
Posted by: ed ||
09/19/2008 11:15
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#4
There are several interesting possibilities in art in the future, to extricate it from its half century slump.
My favorite is phenomenological art. That is, if you go to a museum of science and industry, they have any number of scientific phenomena on display. They do this to explain it, but why not integrate it into art?
In a manner of speaking, to put the "magic" back into art. If done properly, most viewers should be left with the question how is that done? Importantly, the artist doesn't answer the question, but uses it to enhance the rest of the art.
Another idea is to create dynamic art which reaches beyond itself. Simple versions of this are art that is interactive with the viewer, their presence and actions changing images and sounds. Art for the Wii generation.
A different style that impressed me had obvious origins. The artist had created an erect skeleton of sorts, made from ordinary re-bar. Inside it was a light bulb traveling on a track. The art was the shadow on the walls of the darkened room which contained the skeleton.
The end result of art today should be to move aesthetics back in to the utilitarian home. Most homes are terribly utilitarian, with little art other than generic and bland pictures on blank walls.
The last great adventure in architecture was Space Age design, which was ahead of its time, but with the better materials we have today, should still be around. It was both utilitarian and aesthetically pleasing, but without being oppressive.
Perhaps improving its ergonomics and efficiency somewhat, today we might finally create the home of the future, which we always dreamed of.
#5
Trying to upstage the US; The SOund Transit debacle here in the Seattle area has a mandate to install art in all its facilites and one artist was going to use (and I am not making this up) old F-18 airframes and suspend pieces of them from the ceiling. the Capitol Hill neighborhood where the staing will be went absolutely ballistic. the howls from the peaceniks could be heard all over. how dare they hsng intruments of war in our neighborhood. ST folded, took its gonads and went home.
There is an artist I like very much named James Turrell, who specializes in art utilizing light in ways sometimes subtle and sometimes spectacular. There was a small exhibition of some of his work at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art several years back, and it made as much of an impression on me as any exhibition I've ever seen. I actually visited a few times. One piece I found particularly fascinating, called GasWorks, was shaped like a gas tank. You lie in a bed and enter the interior of the spherical container (sort of like an MRI). The interior of the sphere is uniformly white and, naturally, there are no corners or shadows. When they turn it on, you see your whole body enveloped in light. It was amazing! Honestly, I felt so much like I was dreaming that I was almost tingling. It was very strange. I felt like I was floating in a sea of pure colors with no perception of any limits to the space around me at all.
On my 40th birthday, I happened to not be working, so I drove myself down to get there when they had just opened. Since it was a weekday, I was the only person there for quite some time, so the attendant who ran the machine was happy to let me experience it over and over again. Definitely one of the best birthdays I've ever had.
Three people have been killed in fresh jihadi separatist violence in Thailand's Muslim-majority south, while an elementary school was burned to the ground, police said. One person and two primates killed by my calculation
Two Muslim terrorists militants were killed and a policeman injured Thursday evening during a 10-minute gunfight with security forces, police said. The clash broke out as soldiers and police sealed off a village to search for suspected terrorists militants. Both the dead were wanted on suspicion of planting bombs in the region along the southern border with Malaysia, police added.
In nearby Narathiwat province, a Muslim teenager was killed in a drive-by shooting, while a primary school in Yala was torched in an arson attack.
#3
What is credible to me is her description of Law office heirarchy, from a legal admin perspective. In a past life, Legal Administrators were a major market of mine. They even have a professional society, ALA. I always enjoyed working with them as a group as they were usually very efficent, no BS types.
I do see a bit of a victims perspective, in terms of linking Obamas lack of compassion for her wages... the reality is the (producing) partners haggle that out, to death usually. A new junior member wouldn't even be on the on CC list for firm operations decisions.
I don't doubt her description of his "selection process" for who he was friendly with. Legal skyscrapers need a special bank of elevators just to get the egos up to the 40th floor in an organized manner. You cant even begin to imagine the battle for an office with a window.
#5
I would guess this is exactly how Hussein and the wonderful wife function. He is arrogant to the point that he can't disguise it. It is the most prevalent aspect of his character. That he would prohibit religious discussion in the office is enlightening. I'd bet a dollar to a donut, he'd stand behind the practice for any of his Muzz friends.
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said she expects a challenging debate next month when she faces a Democratic opponent who was elected to the Senate when she was 8 years old.
"Sen. (Joe) Biden has tremendous amount of experience," Palin said in an interview scheduled to air Thursday on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes." "I think he was first elected when I was like in second grade. He's been in there a long, long, long time." Too long.
Lowering expectations is typically part of the political gamesmanship before a debate. Biden has said he has debated "an awful lot of tough, smart women" and Palin will be no exception.
"She's a smart, tough politician, so I think she's going to be very formidable," he told NBC's "Meet the Press" earlier this month.
Biden, 65, was elected Delaware senator in 1972 at age 29. He turned 30 before taking office. He serves as chairman of Foreign Relations Committee and is a former chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
"So he's got the experience," Palin noted. "He probably has the sound bites. He has the rhetoric. He knows what's expected of him. He is a great debater, also. So yes, it's going to be quite a task in front of me." "Oh, and did I mention he's a lefty?"
Palin, 44, was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, population 6,500, before becoming Alaska's governor in December 2006.
The vice presidential contenders are to meet Oct. 2 at Washington University in St. Louis. So when are the presidential contenders going to meet?
Posted by: tep ||
09/19/2008 3:20
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#2
I heard on the radio yesterday that Biden's currently spending 3 - 4 hours every day preparing for this debate. I wonder why a senator who's been around for eons and has debated "an awful lot of tough, smart women" needs so much preparation.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/19/2008 9:39
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#5
No matter how much time I had in office, I would make damn sure I took a few hours a day to make sure I had everything nailed down for a Vice-presidential debate.
However, I expect the gaffe laden Biden to show up when Palin starts in on him.
#6
Biden's currently spending 3 - 4 hours every day preparing for this debate.
Well sure. I mean, what else does he have to do? The 737 he flies around in is virtually empty and his campaign stops attract no attention. Might as well practice.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/19/2008 11:19
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#7
Joe Biden's opening remark (via Mallard Fillmore):
"Four score and seven years ago, it was the best of times; it was the worst of times, so I asked NOT what my country could do for me, but said "Call me Ishmael..."
#8
The University of Mississippi community is pleased to host the first presidential debate of 2008 on September 26. Foreign policy and national security issues will be the focus of the 8:00 p.m. debate
#9
I bet Biden has a gotcha quote prepped. That's his style in the Senate - ambush politics with a smirky "gotcha" attitude. He gets one very old "gotcha" quote out of context that he uses to put someone back on their heels and force the topic off in a different direction. He used it against nearly every person he has gone against in Senate hearings, including Supreme Court justices.
Its typically out of context, thus requiring the person to supply context to rebut him. And he or his staff tend to find the most obscure public statement or written statement to use for that sort of thing in order to reduce the likelihood that the victim will be able to rebut him.
One thing that is fortunate for Palin is that her public life is not all that long nor famous thanks to being in Alaska, so it ought to be easy for her prep team to pull her entire public spoken and written record and comb through it to prep Palin on all her "gotcha" moments and supply her with context.
#10
Palin is smart, by propping up her opponent it makes a win (for her) even greater and a loss easier to deal with.
I suspect Biden is learning less about debating and more about body language and specific terms that will come off as bullying and sexist so he can avoid them like the plague. I suspect that Lazlo/Hillary debate is the game film and he's watching it over and over.
#11
Having served in the Senate with Biden for so many years, McCain should have some good ideas for countering the guy. He should be able to provide Palin with several Joe "gotchas". It should be an interesting debate.
#12
I thought Darth Vader was prepping Palin....
I mean Bolten would eat Biden for breakfast, make a lunch out of his tongue and a stock for supper out of his bones.
BLINK and you would have missed it. The expression of disgust on former US president Bill Clinton's face during his speech to the Democratic National Convention as he says "Obama" lasts for just a fraction of a second. But to Paul Ekman it was glaringly obvious.
"Given that he probably feels jilted that his wife Hillary didn't get the nomination, I would have to say that the entire speech was actually given very gracefully," says Ekman, who has studied people's facial expressions and how they relate to what they are thinking for over 40 years.
It seems that Clinton's micro-expression gave away more about his true feelings than he intended. Politicians do not usually give themselves away so tellingly, and many of us would like to know whether they mean what they are saying. So how are we to know when they are lying?
Technology is here to help. Software programs that analyse a person's speech, voice or facial expressions are building upon the work of researchers like Ekman to help us discover when the truth is being stretched, and even by how much. "The important thing to recognise is that politicians aren't typically good at out-and-out lies, but they are very adept at dancing around the truth," says David Skillicorn, a mathematics and computer science researcher at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. "The 2008 election has so far given us plenty of chances to see them in action."
Skillicorn has been watching out for verbal "spin". He has developed an algorithm that evaluates word usage within the text of a conversation or speech to determine when a person "presents themselves or their content in a way that does not necessarily reflect what they know to be true".
The algorithm counts usage of first person nouns - "I" tends to indicate less spin than "we", for example. It also searches out phrases that offer qualifications or clarifications of more general statements, since speeches that contain few such amendments tend to be high on spin. Finally, increased rates of action verbs such as "go" and "going", and negatively charged words, such as "hate" and "enemy", also indicate greater levels of spin. Skillicorn had his software tackle a database of 150 speeches from politicians involved in the 2008 US election race (see diagram).
When he analysed the speeches of John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, he found that even though the speeches were rehearsed, written by professionals and delivered by trained speakers, there were discernable differences between them.
So the analysis appears to back up McCain's claim that he is a "straight talker". However, for the purposes of political speech-making this may not be an entirely good thing for him. "Obama uses spin in his speeches very well," says Skillicorn. For example, Obama's spin level skyrockets when facing problems in the press, such as when Jeremiah Wright, the reverend of his former church, made controversial comments to the press.
"When you see these crises come along, the spin goes up," Skillicorn says. "Obama is very good at using stirring rhetoric to deal with the issues. And it seems to work if you look at what happens in the polls afterwards."
McCain does not seem as adept at using spin to his advantage, and his "straight talk" can make his speeches fall flat from a motivational point of view, according to Branka Zei Pollermann, founder of the Vox Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, who has analysed the candidates' voices for communication consultants Clearwater Advisors, based in London.
Hackers have shut down several hundred Websites of Shiite clerics and seminary schools in Iran, Iranian media reports said.
The hackers have blocked access to 300 sites, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported.
According to Iranian state TV the hackers are Sunni Muslims based outside of Iran, suggesting a possible sectarian motive, but it did not say how it had obtained this information.
Fars said that the hackers are based in the United Arab Emirates, home to a large Iranian community, some of whom oppose the clerical rule in the Islamic Republic.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#1
One way to shut up the clerics. Of course, there are other ways as well. Sounds like a concerted, organized effort. Mmmmmm.
The US is seeking $20bn from its allies to help stabilise Afghanistan as it plans to send thousands more of its own troops to confront the growing insurgency in the country, American officials disclosed yesterday.
Robert Gates, the American defence secretary, said the US was considering a fundamental review of its strategy. But his message was clear - the US expected countries which did not contribute troops to Afghanistan to contribute money instead. "Lessons had been learned from Iraq ...that means more forces," Gates told journalists in London.
General David McKiernan, the US commander in Afghanistan, has asked the Pentagon for three more American brigades in addition to the extra one already announced by President Bush and due to be deployed in January. This would increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan, at present numbering 30,000, to nearly 44,000.
It remains unclear, however, whether Britain will increase its military presence in the country after the bulk of the 4,000-strong garrison now stationed at Basra airport leaves Iraq, as expected, in the first half of next year. There are now about 7,800 British troops in Afghanistan. Gates, in London for a meeting of Nato defence ministers, said that "the UK may increase the size of its force [in Afghanistan]".
Gates said he expected "substantial commitments" from other allies for other purposes. "One of the issues I will be raising at the [Nato] meeting is that we need as an alliance and with our partners to figure out a way to help pay for [doubling] the size of the Afghan army," he said. "The capability of the Afghan army ultimately is the exit strategy."
A US official said yesterday that the plan was to double the size of the Afghan army from the present 65,000 in five years. That would cost an estimated $20bn. "We can see what those countries which are not contributing troops can contribute financially," he said. That plan, which could include countries outside Nato, such as Japan, "makes sense", he said.
Admiral Michael Mullen told the US congress last week he was "not convinced we're winning it in Afghanistan".
Gates referred to "increasing challenges" and a more complex conflict. It was not just a fight between foreign forces and the Taliban, he said. He referred to "a kind of syndicate working together" consisting of the Taliban, foreign fighters, and supporters of Gulbertin Hekmatiyar, an Islamist militia leader. "Syndicates of different players [present] a different kind of challenge," Gates said. He added: "Clearly a piece of the problem is governance and corruption fuelled by the narcotics trade."
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/19/2008
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#1
Add another bil or two to buy up the poppies while you're at it. Or Afgh farmers could sell their harvest to the global pharma companies.
Posted by: tep ||
09/19/2008 3:09
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#2
I dunno. Using a calculator, the cost of Afghani troops = $300,000 each. Just for the new ones. Sounds high to me. Let us open the books.
#4
I've a better idea. Britain could start a program of enlisting its overcrowded prisons as "noncombatant" and unarmed soldiers in Afghanistan. Your basic labor battalions. And if they wanted to desert and join the Taliban, well, wouldn't that be a shame?
#9
Ok, and what part of Afghanistan has a shoreline? Then what exactly is the good Admiral's opinion worth again?
Admiral Mullen is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
The JCS is responsible for ensuring personnel readiness, policy, planning and training of their respective military services. The JCS also act as military advisors to the President and the Secretary of Defense.
As such, Admiral Mullen is working within his capacity as senior military advisor and his opinion matters.
#11
I see the $ sign but wouldn't they be paying in euros? ha!
As to Adm Mullen, we should hang on every word or haven't you noticed - the Dept of the Navy is methodically taking over the world. Not really a bad thing IMHO. ;~)
Elderly people suffering from dementia should consider ending their lives because they are a burden on the NHS and their families, according to the influential medical ethics expert Baroness Warnock.
She's a kook, and certainly no expert of any medical ethics I know. Apparently she's not heard of the Hippocratic Oath.
The veteran Government adviser said pensioners in mental decline are "wasting people's lives" because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.
She insisted there was "nothing wrong" with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society. The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be "licensed to put others down" if they are unable to look after themselves. So.. she wants to kill Stephen Hawking because he is obviously worthless by her criteria.
Hawking, and you, and me, when we're old and infirm. Spit.
Her comments in a magazine interview have been condemned as "immoral" and "barbaric", but also sparked fears that they may find wider support because of her influence on ethical matters.
Lady Warnock, a former headmistress who went on to become Britain's leading moral philosopher, chaired a landmark Government committee in the 1980s that established the law on fertility treatment and embryo research.
A prominent supporter of euthanasia, she has previously suggested that pensioners who do not want to become a burden on their carers should be helped to die.
Families work out the burdens on their own without government help. It's a very short step, as Europe learned, from 'voluntary' to involuntary euthanasia. Once you start killing you just can't stop.
Last year the Mental Capacity Act came into effect that gives legal force to "living wills", so patients can appoint an "attorney" to tell doctors when their hospital food and water should be removed.
But in her latest interview, given to the Church of Scotland's magazine Life and Work, Lady Warnock goes further by claiming that dementia sufferers should consider ending their lives through euthanasia because of the strain they put on their families and public services.
Or, she could just kill them ...
Britain's leading moral philosopher?
Ouch... and then she went directly to hell.
#1
You know, the Catholic Church haws been warnign about the oncoming normalization of "the culture of death", via the slippery slope. And here it comes, on the back of humanism, secularism, and the sick calculus of moral relativism that forces the view that right and wrong are momentary and arbitrary.
The right to life precedes the right to liuberty and property or the pusuit of happiness, and justly so -- without life there is nobody there to claim the rights.
Life must be defended as an absolute, from conception to natural death. To not do so puts arbitrary lines, whcih, as you can see, are readily moved by politicians and powerbrokers.
Pope John Paul II was right. Pope Benedict is right. Nurturing and inculcating the culture of life into our societies is probably the only way to win against the horrors of the culture of death.
#5
This is just an extension of NHS policies to dementia. For decades the refused dialysis to people over 65, which is a death sentence to people with kidney failure. Hey, you've got to find a way to pay for all those Sharia-compliant meals somehow .....
#7
Is is just me, or do most of the "medical ethics experts" seem to be extremely pro-death of anyone who cannot shortly go back to "productive labor" for the common good?
I don't recall hearing any of them arguing for the basic dignity of someone's life, just their arguments as for why some other poor soul's existence ITNSHO isn't worth it.
#8
Lady Warnock, a former headmistress who went on to become Britain's leading moral philosopher
hmmm and when was that award bestowed?
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/19/2008 9:54
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#9
Baroness Warnock, at 84 years, your licence to live has expired. Pull over to the side of life's highway and we'll arrange an appointment with an expiration expert. He or she will relieve NHS of the burden of your existence. It'll only take a moment of your time.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/19/2008 9:58
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As long as they include Rosie O'Donell and Lindsey Lohan among the demented, I'm all for it.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
09/19/2008 11:24
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#11
They really should change their name to the National Death System. Just charge a flat fee for an injection of whatever poison is in vogue. That way, it would limit their rate of growth of their budget to only double digits annually.
#15
Docs on this side of the pond push this stuff too. My mom had a stroke during heart valve replacement. Rough go for a while afterward. When she got a urinary tract infection about 8 weeks after the surgery her cardiologist encouraged me cut off the food and water. I moved her to a private facility, which she could fortunately afford, and she blossomed. Yes, her quality of life is not what it once was, but she still laughs, sees her kids and grandchildren and gives joy to others as she gets it herself.
#16
Hasn't Europe learned it's lesson when it comes to eliminating undesirables who are a burden to society? It's a very old cliche in that part of the world. It never really caught on here. I presume there will be one person who decides, with a very sharp pencil indeed, who will live and who will die?
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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hel;o! help me somebody please) I looking for a text about Great Britan tadafil prescription if you have some information about this, I will be glad to read it :) I will be grateful
SPRINGFIELD---A day after getting a phone call from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, Senate President Emil Jones decided Thursday to summon senators back to the Capitol next week to tackle a high-profile ethics bill.
"I plan to call the Senate back into session to deal with the issue of ethics only at the request of my friend, Barack Obama," said Jones, whom Obama has called his political godfather.
Jones had been criticized for saying he wouldn't quickly call the Senate back to Springfield to consider Gov. Rod Blagojevich's changes to legislation to ban contributors who have or seek contracts worth at least $50,000 from giving to statewide officials who dole out the business.
The House overrode the governor's veto last week, but the soon-to-retire Jones said he'd wait until after the Nov. 4 election. Proponents argued that could kill the reforms, citing a 15-day clock they argued started ticking after the House vote.
Jones spokeswoman Cindy Davidsmeyer said other issues also are expected to be addressed next week but would not elaborate.
Trying to stay in the game on the issue, Blagojevich announced Thursday that he's calling the General Assembly into special session Monday to deal with ethics reform. With the potential for the Senate to also override his veto, Blagojevich summoned lawmakers back to Springfield in an attempt to get them to deal with his suggested changes.
The reversal comes after Obama's Wednesday phone call to lobby Jones on the issue.
"Sen. Obama called Sen.Jones today to offer his strong support for the ethics reforms pending before the Senate and urged him to pass them at the earliest possible opportunity," Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said in a statement.
Some lawmakers and self-styled good government groups had called on Obama to lobby Jones, given Obama's history of pushing ethics reforms during his tenure as a state senator.
By calling Jones, Obama moved to quell questions about his dedication to ethics reform before they affected his presidential campaign.
Looks like Palin has embarrassed him into doing one good thing
It was unclear Wednesday night what impact Obama's call had on Jones.
Stepping outside a Senate Democratic fundraiser at a Chicago hotel Wednesday evening to smoke, Jones was asked whether Obama's input would sway him.
"Come on, please, please, please, please, I'm here doing other stuff now. I'm not talking to [anyone] in the press," Jones replied.
#1
Citizens demanding ethics reform... Emil can't hear us
Tribune running articles and stories on IL ethics reform... Emil didn't read em
National Media begining to talk about IL Corruption... Emil didn't watch 'em
Sarah Palin brings it up, and 'The One' drops in the polls... Quick call Emil and demand that he do something to help prop up my failing campaign!
Illinois Corruption is the key to Obama, and will be his downfall. Rezko has been meeting with Federal Prosecutors regularly since his conviction. Anyone care to 'name that tune'?
Hundreds of anxious families waited outside Tijuana's infamous La Mesa State Penitentiary for word on their loved ones Thursday after police fatally shot 19 prisoners to regain control of the facility.
Wednesday's riot was the second deadly melee in three days at the prison just across the U.S. border from San Diego.
About 12 people were injured Wednesday and two remain in critical condition, said Agustin Perez, spokesman of the Public Safety Secretary's office, which oversees prisons in Mexico's state of Baja California.
Blaming prison troublemakers for the uprisings that killed a total of 23 inmates, state authorities immediately transferred 250 inmates to other prisons in Tecate and Ensenada.
But relatives of the inmates say they rioted because they were not given food or water since the previous riot on Sunday.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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Failed state alert. Speaking of which, when we're done obsessing about identity politics and idiotic culturewar pissfests, could Tweedledum and Tweedledee please explain to the nation just why it is that we're importing a 2nd underclass of semi-literate dropouts, again? When we haven't even addressed the problems of our existing underclass?
Posted by: tep ||
09/19/2008 3:16
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#2
CBS8 in San Diego has good video up on the first and second riots
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/19/2008 9:34
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Nigeria's main militant group says its fighters bombed another oil pipeline in the restive southern oil region. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta says it destroyed the pipeline run by a unit of Royal Dutch Shell PLC with high explosives. Shell officials could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday. If confirmed, the attack would mark the sixth straight day of stepped-up violence in the southern regions of Africa's oil giant.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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NYMEX crude oil closed on Friday (9-19-08) up $5.96 a barrel, which was a 6.09% jump in price in one trading session.
Happy Motoring!
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
09/19/2008 17:55
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Afghan police alleged on Thursday that international troops had shot dead an Afghan district governor and two of his men after mistaking them for Taliban. President Hamid Karzai expressed sorrow over the killing, which he called a 'misunderstanding', and said the district chief and another man killed in a Taliban bombing on Thursday had been his close associates. The NATO-led multinational force said it was investigating the shooting late on Wednesday in Uruzgan. Chora Governor Rozi Khan and two of his men were killed as they went to the aid of a friend, believing the Taliban had surrounded his home, police commander Gulab Khan said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#3
They mistook helmeted, BDU attired, not an AK or RPG in sight, NATO troopers in Humvee/SUV's for Taliban!? Deserve to be dead, keep their DNA outta the gene pool or sheep population.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out again at Israel on Thursday, saying that it won't survive in any shape or form. Speaking to reporters, the hard-line leader smirked at a former mantra of the Israeli right of a Greater Israel that would include Palestinian territories. The idea has since been abandoned, with Israeli consensus now that there will be a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that the idea of a Greater Israel, which includes the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, is a thing of the past, and that anyone who still thinks in this way is delusional.
Ahmadinejad said that "while some say the idea of Greater Israel has expired, I say the idea of a Lesser Israel has expired, too."
The press conference was an opportunity for Ahmadinejad to speak to the media at length before traveling to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly. The Iranian president repeated his previous anti-Israel comments, calling the Holocaust by Nazi Germany during World War II a fabrication and saying that Israel is perpetrating a holocaust on the Palestinian people.
The remarks appear to be part of Ahmadinejad's effort to deflect growing criticism at home over failed economic policies and recent comments by some close associates. Iran's inflation hit 27.6 percent last month, while Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashai was recently quoted as saying Iranians were friends of all people in the world - even Israelis.
Ahmadinejad, known for virulent anti-Israeli rhetoric, said in 2005 that Israel should be wiped off the map and later called the Holocaust a myth. Most recently, he described the Jewish state as a germ of corruption.
Speaking about Iran's controversial nuclear program, Ahmadinejad claimed the UN nuclear watchdog agency has no right to consider documents provided by the U.S. alleging that Tehran sought to make an atomic bomb.
Ahmadinejad said regulations under which the International Atomic Energy Agency operates do not allow it to act on claims by any government. On Monday, an IAEA report said Iran had blocked a UN investigation into allegations it tried to make nuclear arms and that the inquiry was deadlocked.
Ahmadinejad said the report verified the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is only for electricity production, and urged the West to end its hostile policy toward Iran.
Iran is already under three sets of sanctions by the UN Security Council over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. Ahmadinejad on Thursday insisted the enrichment would not be stopped. "Let them put sanctions on us, Ahmadinejad said. We are a very strong nation," he said.
The United States and its allies are expected to press the UN for a new round of sanctions after Iran refused to accept a recent package of economic and technological incentives in return for suspending enrichment.
Iran denies U.S. claims that it is seeking to build a nuclear weapon, and insists that it has the right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to develop reactor fuel using enrichment.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#1
Some witty Zionist could really get Nutjob's goat, if he proposed that the Joos already had a conspiracy in place and were soon to take over Iran.
Ah, the scheme: forcing comely Iranian women to wear sexy designer clothes in public, as well as high heels, perfume and makeup. Forcing young people to dance in discos and listen to rock music, while making them drink overpriced and silly looking liquor drinks served by flamboyantly gay bartenders.
And the worse part would be that goats would be only be allowed on farms and protected from those who would sexually exploit them.
(AKI) - Philippine troops have seized a major Muslim rebel training camp on restive southern Mindanao island and killed seven guerrillas in a separate clash, the military said on Thursday.
The Philippines army says over 100 rebels have been killed in a month-long operation in the south to hunt down three commanders from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
At least 22 soldiers have died and over 100 have been wounded in the bloody clashes, which have left Malaysian-brokered peace talks in shreds.
At least 68 civilians have been killed and more than half a million people have been displaced or lost their homes and livelihoods on Mindanao since the military offensive began last month, according to the Philippines army.
Besides the camp used by fugitive Moro rebel commander Abdulrahman Macapaar captured late on Wednesday, government troops have taken three other major rebel camps and 15 smaller ones over the past month, the army said.
Macapaar and two other wanted MILF commanders attacked several predominantly Christian communities after negotiations on an expanded Muslim homeland stalled last month due to legal challenges raised by mainly Catholic politicians.
In an exclusive interview with Al-Jazeera on Thursday, MILF chief Haji al-Murad Ebrahim warned of war if the rebels are forced to defend themselves against an expanding government offensive.
He said he did not want to have "another Iraq" in South-East Asia but if his forces were "pushed to the wall" they would have no option but to retaliate, Ebrahim said.
Ebrahim rejected accusations from some intelligence agencies that the MILF has ties to Al-Qaeda, but admitted that anyone can infiltrate war-torn Mindanao "because there is no control of the area."
The rebels have been waging a rebellion for nearly 40 years that has stunted growth in the poor region. It is believed to possess hydrocarbon and mineral deposits.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
He said he did not want to have "another Iraq" in South-East Asia
Yeah, because he sees how that turned out for his boys.
#2
40 years? Don't they mean since we left Subic under a layer of volcanic dust? We've been back, what, 3 or 4 years, giving the Filipino's balls again, killing these islamofascist pieces at a nice rate(they are suing for peace, that's the sure sign). Leave 'em inflatables with paddles, let 'em make their way to the peace talks in Malaysia. Exxon/Mobil and Halliburton can help the folks get to the "hydrocarbon and mineral deposits" they can stop living in the Stone Age. HA!
#3
I think the Army Rangers and possibly the Marines have been having regular, what I think they call "training exercises" with the Philippine forces down there, Last Breath Farm Resident. 49 Pan has commented about it occasionally, if I recall correctly.
#4
Precisely my point with the "We've been back ......" sentence. We've also opened fronts in the GWOT in Africa(even creating an Africa Command)and South America. Like dog shit, we're everywhere and that's a good thing.
#5
Took me a little time to recall who but when I did, I gave them a holler. Quickly refreshed my memory, The Atlantic on Line, October 2005, Imperial Grunts. www.theatlantic.com ?
#2
What armament and ordinance can this plane carry?
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
09/19/2008 0:44
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It is equipped with either a scale model Little Boy or Fat Man bomb, depending upon the mission.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Delta Junction, AK ||
09/19/2008 1:17
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#4
I'd like to see this sucker flying over Wazoo. The noise alone would stimulate mass seething.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/19/2008 1:42
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Just watch your weather, do thorough preflights, and don't let THIS happen to your model.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Delta Junction, AK ||
09/19/2008 2:15
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#6
Worlds second largest Model R/C Airplane? ... model airplane has 8 real turbine engines and took 2 years to build! Has a 22 ft wingspan, and takes two pilots to control.
#8
these are much cheaper than real airplanes, build a buttload of them and fly them over Pakiwaki border at some low altitude; due to their size they would look like the real thing and when the Paki gov't protests, you can say, in all honesty, "they are just toys."
do this for several days, and then sortie a real section over, complete with the obligatory ARCLIGHT strike.
#9
Whatcher seein here fellers is yer Belgian air force in action. The fly-boys over there in chocolate bon bon land have had their budgets cut pretty sharply. Now the marchin band still gets top dollar, mind you, but these boys, since theys got what is clearly an "offensive weapon" has to be kept on a tight spending leash.
A Swiss gastronomist has stirred a controversy in the tranquil Alpine republic after announcing that he will serve meals cooked with human breast milk.
The owner of the Storchen restaurant in the exclusive Winterthur resort will improve his menu with local specialities such as meat stew and various soups and sauces containing at least 75 per cent of mother's milk. "We have all been raised on it. Why should we not include it into our diet?" Hans Locher, who has become Switzerland most controversial restaurant owner, said.
Mr Locher attracted the attention of the leading media of the German-speaking world this week after he posted ads looking for women donors, who will receive just over three pounds for 14 ounces of their milk. He said: "I first experimented with breast milk when my daughter was born.
"One can cook really delicious things with it. However, it always needs to be mixed with a bit of whipped cream, in order to keep the consistency."
The food control authority in Switzerland was initially confused by the apparent loophole in local legislation regulating the use of human milk and it was not clear whether Mr Locher could actually be banned from serving his specialities."Humans as producers of milk are simply not envisaged in the legislation.
"They are not on the list of approved species such as cows and sheep, but they are also not on the list of the banned species such as apes and primates," Rolf Etter of the Zurich food control laboratory said.
#8
Ick. On the other hand, that lovely English insult, "You stupid cow!" wouldn't be far off anymore, in certain cases. Especially since nursing, and presumably substitutions therefore, release calming hormones in the woman.
#12
Is there a Swiss authority confused about the loophole for going to the spa and being injected with liquefied fetus? And you thought folks went for the skiing. heh
Russia defied the United States yesterday by announcing plans to sell military hardware to Iran and Venezuela.
The head of the state arms exporter said that he was negotiating to sell antiaircraft systems to Iran despite American objections. Russia has already delivered 29 Tor-M1 missile systems under a $700 million (£386 million) deal with Iran in 2005.
âContacts between our countries are continuing and we do not see any reason to suspend them,â Anatoli Isaikin, the general director of Rosoboronexport, told the RIA-Novosti news agency at an arms fair in South Africa.
Reports have circulated for some time that the Kremlin is preparing to sell its S300 surface-to-air missile system to Iran, offering greater protection against a possible US or Israeli attack on the Islamic republicâs nuclear facilities. The missiles have a range of more than 90 miles (150km).
Sergei Chemezov, the head of the state-owned Russian Technologies, also disclosed that Venezuelaâs leader, Hugo Chávez, wanted to buy antiaircraft systems, armoured personnel carriers, and SU35 fighter jets when they come into production in 2010.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Igor Sechin, one of the closest allies of Mr Putin, the Prime Minister, visited Venezuela and Cuba this week. Kommersant, the financial newspaper, said that Russia was forming âalliance relationsâ with the two antiAmerican regimes as a response to US involvement in former Soviet republics.
The Russian moves mark a serious deterioration in relations between Washington and Moscow. Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, threated to block Russiaâs membership of key international organisations. She told the Kremlin that its âauthoritarian policiesâ could prevent it from joining the World Trade Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which coordinates economic policies among industrialised countries. In an outspoken speech to the German Marshall Fund, an institution promoting greater cooperation between America and Europe, Dr Rice said: âThe picture emerging is of a Russia increasingly authoritarian at home and aggressive abroad.
âRussiaâs bid to join the World Trade Organisation is now in question. And so too is its attempt to join the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.â
She added: âRussiaâs international standing is worse now than at any time since 1991.â
The WTO is due to meet in Geneva on Thursday to discuss Russiaâs bid to join the global trade body, a process that began in 1993, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Dr Rice said that Russiaâs actions in Georgia fitted into a âworsening pattern of behaviourâ, which included its âintimidation of its sovereign neighbours, its use of oil and gas as a political weapon, its threat to target peaceful nations with nuclear weapons, its arms sales to states and groups that threaten international security and its persecution â and worse â of Russian journalists and dissidents.â
#2
We saw how good this Russian stuff can be when state-of the art Russian stuff protected Syria and their little nuke plant. If Iran wants the best, they need to go to Israel for superior weaponary. Make a little oil-for-missles deal with them.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/19/2008 10:49
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#3
You can't blame the Russians. Apart from oil, natural gas and vodka what else do they have to export? Let they buyer beware, though. The track record of Russian military hardware in the hands of piss ant little countries like Iran and Venezuela isn't good.
#6
You know, I do get the occasional email from Russia in which some girl is looking to marry me. Never know I was all that eligible. Not to mention how Mrs. Uluque6305 would feel about it.
Iran's president played down the possibility of an Israeli attack against the Islamic Republic, saying the Jewish state was in a weak position, Iran's state Press TV reported on Thursday. In an interview with Press TV, Ahmadinejad had said "Israel is in a weak position to launch attacks against any other country."
He said Iran had made it clear it would defend its territorial integrity if attacked, Press TV reported.
The comments came amid persistent speculation about a possible U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, which the West and Israel suspect are part of a covert bid to build bombs, despite Tehran's denials.
Meanwhile, a top adviser of Iran's supreme leader said that in the event of war no ship passing through the oil-rich Gulf region would be beyond the reach of the country's missiles, a government newspaper reported on Thursday.
Iran, embroiled in a standoff with the West over its nuclear ambitions, has said it could respond to any military attack by closing the strait at the southern end of the Gulf through which about 40 percent of the world's traded oil passes. The United States, whose Fifth Fleet is based in the Gulf state of Bahrain, has vowed to keep shipping lanes opened.
"At a time of war no ship can pass through the region of the Persian Gulf without being in the reach of the Revolutionary Guards' coast-to-sea missiles," Yahya Rahim-Safavi, a senior military adviser of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted by the Iran daily as saying.
Rahim-Safavi earlier this week said Khamenei had put the elite Guards in charge of defending the Gulf against any enemy attacks and that they would not hesitate to "confront foreign forces."
The Guards have a separate command and their own air, sea and land units. They are deployed on sensitive border regions and guard key institutions and their arsenal includes the Shahab-3 missile, which reports say can reach targets in Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#1
PAYVAND > RUSSIAN MILITARY ALLIANCE WID IRAN IMPROBABLE DUE TO DIVERGING FUNDAMENTAL INTERESTS.
JURASSIC PARK > T-REXES - ITS UNETHICAL TO PLAY WID PREY/FOOD WE'RE GOING TO KILL???
(AKI) - Local people in northwest Pakistan on Thursday fought three militants and freed about 300 school students who had been taken hostage earlier in the day.
The residents stormed the primary school building in the Upper Dir district of the North West Frontier Province, bordering Afghanistan, where three suicide bombers were holding the children. According to media reports, the captors engaged in a gun battle before freeing
Two of the militants were reportedly suicide bombers who blew themselves up, while the third fled.
all the captives unhurt. Two of the militants were reportedly suicide bombers who blew themselves up, while the third fled.
The district is near the Bajaur tribal region and the Swat Valley, both of which have been the scene of much insurgent violence in recent months. Pakistan's security forces claim to have killed more than 700 militants in an offensive in the Bajaur tribal region bordering Afghanistan in the past six weeks. At least 19 gunmen were killed in a battle in the region on Wednesday, according to military sources.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#2
Making friends. Bet the locals don't like the Taliban much now, huh? Another Beslan prevented?
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/19/2008 7:29
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#3
Wonder how many of the young males were sexually assaulted - rape,the cornerstone, building block of the taliban and palestinians for producing suicide bombers.
(AKI) - Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, should resign and allow his Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, to end the "sorry decline" of his government and its many scandals, a leading US expert said on Thursday.
Bruce Riedel is a former adviser to three US presidents and now senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington. In an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI), Riedel welcomed Livni's election as leader of the ruling Kadima party. "Livni's election should help bring to an end the sorry decline of the Olmert government and its many scandals," Riedel told AKI. "Olmert should now do the honourable thing and leave and let her take up the office."
Tzipi Livni is attempting to form a new government after her election as leader of Olmert's party. She has 42 days to form a coalition and replace him as prime minister. "Livni is a former Mossad officer who has grown in office and demonstrated a strong commitment to negotiations with the Palestinians," said Riedel. "But she inherits a weak government with an unstable coalition held together only by fear of the (rival) Likud party and the next election."
Riedel, a former CIA officer, also warned her election was unlikely to advance Middle East peace in the short term. "No real progress will come in the Middle East peace process until a new American President is elected who is committed to advance the process with direct presidential leadership," he warned.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#1
Livni is a former Mossad officer....
hmmm... probably not at all a "limp noodle" like Olmert (hat tip to TW for the cusine analogy)
(AKI) - Yemeni police have arrested at least 30 people with suspected links to Al-Qaeda in relation to the deadly blast outside the US Embassy in the capital, Sanaa, on Wednesday.
Two suicide car bombs set off a series of explosions outside the heavily fortified US embassy, killing 16 people, including four civilians. The victims were all Yemeni, except for a 26-year old Indian nurse. No US citizens were killed in the attack.
The US State Department on Wednesday condemned the bombings saying they bore "all the hallmarks" of an Al-Qaeda attack.
A group calling itself Islamic Jihad in Yemen has claimed responsibility and threatened attacks on other embassies including those of Britain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, unless Yemen frees several jailed members of the group. Islamic Jihad in Yemen has no connection with the Palestinian group with a similar name. I'd guss they do have a connection with Egyptian Islamic Jihad...
An Al-Qaeda affiliated group claimed responsibility in March for a mortar attack that missed the same US embassy but wounded 13 girls at a nearby school. The US State Department ordered all non-essential diplomatic staff to leave the country a month after that embassy attack, later claimed by Al-Qaeda's Jund al-Yemen Brigades.
This article starring:
Islamic Jihad in Yemen
Jund al-Yemen Brigades
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#1
30 PURPS will escape Justice unless we or our friends kill them. Yemen will just play patty Cakes with them.
spit!
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
09/19/2008 12:15
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How long was it before those arrested and connected to the Cole bombing escaped from yemeni custody? Should start a pool.
The Dutch foreign minister protested Thursday against an alleged Moroccan espionage attempt and announced that two Moroccan diplomats had been recalled from The Hague over the matter.
"It is a vile matter when foreign security services try to gather secret information about the police in the Netherlands," Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen told MPs in a parliamentary budget debate, according to his spokesman Bart Rijs. "Arising from this matter, explanations were sought from Morocco, and consequently two diplomats were recalled by the Moroccan government," he added.
Rijs declined to reveal the names or level of seniority of the envoys, who left The Hague a few months ago.
Media reports that a Dutch policeman of Moroccan descent was dismissed in July on suspicion of being a spy also triggered heated debate in the House of Representatives Thursday. Dutch television reported Monday that the 38-year-old brigadier had transmitted confidential information to Moroccan secret services.
A Rotterdam police spokeswoman declined to confirm these claims against the brigadier, saying only he was dismissed "for serious dereliction of duty."
The Rotterdam prosecution service said Wednesday it had launched a preliminary probe based on information recently acquired from the Dutch intelligence service AIVD.
MPs will continue debating the topic next Tuesday, before which "the government will report in a letter to parliament on this issue as well as reports that Morocco has tried to recruit other Dutch citizens of Moroccan descent or those with passports of both countries," Rijs said.
Former MP Fouad El-Haji, now a Rotterdam municipal councilor, told Dutch television on Wednesday that he too had been approached by Moroccan secret services. He said he refused the advances, but accused a former colleague of having collaborated in the affair.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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They can't feed their people but they can build a rocket engine. Maybe. Sorta.
TOKYO, Sept. 16 — North Korea has tested the engine mechanism for an intercontinental missile that might be able to hit major cities on the U.S. West Coast, according to an account published Tuesday in the South Korean press.
A previously unknown missile launch site on the west coast of North Korea was identified last week by Jane's Defense Weekly, which cited commercial satellite images. The facility has a mobile launch pad and a 10-story tower that would support the North's largest ballistic missiles, Jane's reported.
Appearing before a parliamentary committee in Seoul on Thursday, South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee said the launch site is about 80 percent complete. His remarks added to the growing body of information about the site in recent media reports.
If accurate, the reports indicate that while North Korea has pursued on-again, off-again negotiations with the United States and four other countries on abandoning its nuclear weapons program, it has continued to work on developing a long-range ballistic missile and is diverting scarce resources from a collapsing economy that has brought about chronic food shortages.
A 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution demands that North Korea "suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile program." The North must abandon its program in a "complete, verifiable and irreversible manner," the resolution says.
The South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported that a U.S. reconnaissance satellite had detected a test earlier this year at the launch site of a long-range missile, presumably an updated version of the Taepodong-2 missile, which failed in a 2006 test firing. Chosun Ilbo was the first newspaper to report last week that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had collapsed in August.
The U.S. Embassy in Seoul and South Korea's Defense Ministry declined Tuesday to confirm or deny the missile test report.
An "improved version" of the Taepodong missile might have a range of more than 6,200 miles, the Chosun Ilbo reported, putting Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles within reach. A previous version had a range of about 4,150 miles, which could reach Alaska.
Analysts in Seoul were not surprised by reports of North Korea's continuing missile development, which they saw as distinct from the country's nuclear ambitions. "This is expected, because attention was focused on the nuclear issue," said Dong Young-seung, a North Korea expert at the Samsung Economic Research Institute. "That left North Korea with room to make progress with its missile development without much sanction from the outside world."
Cha Du-hyeogn, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said that if North Korea does curtail its nuclear program in exchange for economic aid and a reduction of diplomatic sanctions, government officials in Pyongyang will "feel very nervous." The missile program "is their only remaining leverage against an outside threat," he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/19/2008
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#1
I am presently a few miles away from Fort Greeley, site of our activated missile defense system here in Alaska.
I say, take out their ground support facilities for these missiles. We should have done it when they shot that long range missile test over Japan a few years ago.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Delta Junction, AK ||
09/19/2008 0:48
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#2
TOPIX > WORKER'S PARTY, NOT MILITARY, FAVORED TO TAKE OVER REINS AFTER KIM.
#8
They can shoot at our cities, ONCE, (Note I did NOT say hit)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/19/2008 21:53
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#9
I was just thinking, perhaps their long term goal is destruction by the USA, we have a past history of blasting the bad guys, then sending Billions rebuilding them?
Curiouser and curiouser.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/19/2008 21:59
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#10
The more I think about it, the more viable the idea, start a war, surrender Quickly, then watch the aid/cash flow in.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/19/2008 22:03
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#12
TOPIX > NORTH KOREA SAYS IT WILL RESTART YONGBYON REACTOR, and that it doesn't care iff it stays on the US terror blacklist or not; + CIA CHIEF HAYDEN: NORTH KOREA HAS AT LEAST SIX PLUTONIUM BOMBS.
(AKI) - Humans rights organisations have denounced the alleged enslavement and exploitation of thousands of Indonesian children employed on palm plantations in neighbouring Malaysia.
"Both Indonesia and Malaysia have ratified the convention against slavery, and both have not acted, allowing children to be enslaved in a systematic manner," said Arist Merdeka Sirait, secretary general of the Indonesian National Commission on Child Protection (KNPA) in an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI). "We now demand that Jakarta use its diplomatic channels to put an end to this scandal," said Sirait.
The Forum of Non-Permanent Teachers recently reported alleged child exploitation in the Malaysian plantation hub in Sabah to the National Commission on Child Protection.
Wahyu Susilo, representative of non-governmental organisation Migrant Care Indonesia said that the problem of child slavery is old and that the group had been trying for years to get the Indonesian government to intervene.
"We knew about the problem for many years, but putting pressure on the Indonesian government did not bring any results," said Susilo. "Jakarta is guilty for not having done enough. But Malaysia is the main responsible partner because the abuses take place in their territory."
The KNPA also said that children are forced to work for long hours, in many cases without pay. They are also forced to live in isolated makeshift shacks without running water or electricity. Many of the children have never been to school and have been subjected to violence and sexual abuse, said the KNPA.
Official data from the Indonesian consulate in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of the Sabah state in Malaysia, says more than 330,000 Indonesians work in at least 103 palm oil plantations in Malaysia. Almost half of them are illegal workers but it's not clear how many of them are children.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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The United States imposed sanctions on six Iranian military firms on Wednesday. The companies are owned or controlled by groups supplying equipment for Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, the Treasury said in a statement. "Iran attempts to shield its procurement activities behind a maze of entities, essentially hoodwinking those still doing business with Iran," Treasury undersecretary Stuart Levy said in the statement.
The groups include Iran Electronics Industries, Shiraz Electronics Industries, Iran Communications Industries, Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company, Farasakht Industries and Armament Industries Group.
The U.S. has also charged 16 foreign companies and individuals with illegally exporting to Iran U.S. products that can be used to make bombs and for military purposes, the Justice Department said Wednesday. The 16 were accused of purchasing and exporting to Iran "dual use" commodities with military applications, such as parts used in improvised explosive devices.
The charges follow a two-year inter-governmental probe that studied the use of U.S.-made products in explosive devices used against U.S. coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the department said in its statement.
"Today's indictment details the global reach of Iranian procurement networks and underscores ... the importance of keeping sensitive U.S. technology out of their grasp," said Patrick Rowan, the department's assistant attorney general.
According to the indictment handed down by a federal grand jury in Florida Wednesday, the 16 defendants, mostly of Iranian descent are based in the U.S., Britain, Germany, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. If convicted they face between five to 20 years in prison.
The exported items included "120 field-programmable gate arrays, more than 5,000 integrated circuits of varying types, approximately 345 Global positioning system (GPS) and 12,000 microchip brand micro controllers," the statement said. "All those items have potential military applications, including as components in the construction of improvised explosive devices."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#1
wonder if ther is any digging going on to see if any of these contributed$$ to any political party or person. if it took 2 years, i bet somebody's palm got greased.
Russia has threatened to block NATO from using its airspace for operations in Afghanistan if member states did not stop 'hostile' policies towards Moscow, the Kremlin's top diplomat in Kabul said. "Russian air space is still open, but if the NATO countries continue their hostile policies with regard to Russia, definitely this issue will happen," Zamir Kabulov told BBC Radio in an interview aired on Thursday. NATO imports most of its logistics via Pakistan to Afghanistan, but also uses Russia's air space for some cargo. Russia is fiercely opposed to further NATO expansion. Kabulov said the United States had made far too many mistakes since toppling the Taliban government in 1991. "During the past six-and-a-half years, they have strengthened their military presence instead of strengthening the Afghan government, the Afghan armed forces and the Afghan economy, and this is a main and fundamental mistake."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#1
Don't you shmoogliki have more important things to worry about right now? Given that the RTS has lost over half its value in the span of several weeks, aren't Volodya and his fellow FSB/mafiya pals feeling a bit, er, lighter these days?
Posted by: tep ||
09/19/2008 3:13
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#2
Russian airspace or CIS airspace? As far as I can see, Russia doesn't come that close the A-stan.
(AKI) - Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Thursday the government received no warning from the United States about a suspected missile strike in the country's northwest.
Ooops. Forgot. Our bad.
Wednesday's missile strike was reportedly targeting a compound in South Waziristan used by Taliban militants and Hezb-i-Islami, another group involved in attacks in Afghanistan. It was the fifth American strike inside Pakistan this month and came came hours after US military chief Admiral Michael Mullen reiterated Washington's respect for the sovereignty of Pakistan.
Officials say at least five people and fourteen fluffy bunnies were killed when a US drone fired missiles at the suspected target.
The incident came as Mullen was in Pakistan to discuss with top officials the growing tension over US attacks along the Afghan border. While denying prior knowledge of the strike, Qureshi said Pakistan's leaders wanted to defuse tension through diplomacy in upcoming talks in the United States.
Addressing the media, Qureshi said all countries should respect each other sovereignty. But he said the cross border violations will not benefit the US in the long-term.
Nor will it benefit the Paks. Just wait til we train the Afghan National Army (and Air Corps) sufficiently so that they can do cross-border raids ...
Qureshi said there was a lack of coordination between US government and military. He also said there was a communication gap between allied and US forces in Afghanistan.
We've noticed that ...
Wednesday's attack is expected to provoke more anger in Pakistan over a surge in cross-border operations by US forces -- including a 3 September ground assault -- that strained relations and led to a formal complaint from Islamabad.
Just because Zardari and Gilani can't control their border is no reason for us not to.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
General Petraeus: "Hello. I'm calling to inform you about our next attack."
Mahmoud the Weasel: "Yes, General. Where and when?"
GP: "Within one meter of your present location in 3, 2, 1..."
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/19/2008 7:30
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#3
You've got to wonder how often we called in a notice and watched the cell phone lines light up and the targets scramble to safety at some large population area they know we wouldn't target.
If I was the CIA I'd send warnings in the middle of the night all the time. Keep the buggers awake and also make the numb to the warnings. Then eventually after you've cried wolf often enough: BAM!
#5
In some instances they're calling us, i-phones and Google earth = devastating target acquisition. Works/ed well in Iraq. Nice calculus, cash + i-phones = less humpin' the street > dead jihadis.
(Xinhua) -- A Greek ship with 25 crew members has been seized by armed pirates off the coast of Somalia in the latest attacks on the world's most dangerous waters, a regional maritime official said on Thursday.
Andrew Mwangura, the coordinator of the East Africa Seafarers Assistance Program (SAP), said the vessel was sailing to Kenya when it was hijacked off the eastern coast of Somalia, the 13th such seizure by the pirates in the past two months. "We have been receiving reports about the Greek vessel since yesterday (Wednesday) but I have not confirmed the name of the vessel and the nationalities of the crew members," Mwangura told Xinhua by telephone.
Using increasingly sophisticated equipment, pirates have stepped up attacks on merchant vessels in the gulf, increasing insurance costs for ship owners and raising the possibility of military intervention.
The IMB's Piracy Reporting Center described three large "motherships"- two Russian-made stern trawlers and a tugboat- that officials suspect are coordinating at least some of the recent attacks.
The International Maritime Bureau have reported more than 50 attacks or attempted attacks in or near the Gulf this year, up from 13 for all of last year.
The IMB's Piracy Reporting Center described three large "motherships"- two Russian-made stern trawlers and a tugboat- that officials suspect are coordinating at least some of the recent attacks.
A spate of hijackings by pirates off the coast of Somalia has triggered the deployment of a multi-coalition naval force to patrol the world's most dangerous waters. The U.S. Navy said Western coalition warships and aircraft said it will conduct patrols to boost security in the Gulf of Aden.
The Horn of Africa nation's 3,300-kilometer coastline is considered one of the world's most dangerous stretches of water because of piracy. Somalia is at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden, which leads to the Red Sea and the 166-kilometer Suez Canal, one of the world's most important shipping channels.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#1
so ... its a big ocean... just quietly sink the motherships...
#6
Arrr.... Avast there Darth Vader!!!
Clamp them pasty codfish in irons and we'll sell em fer slaves!!!
Might as well put a couple deblumes in our pockets for our trouble.
Rajshahi Metropolitan Police (RMP) yesterday arrested the coordinator of Bangladesh chapter of Hizb ut-Tahrir and nine of his cohorts at Rajshahi City Press Club on suspicion of promoting militancy in the country.
The police said the Hizb ut-Tahrir men were distributing leaflets calling for establishing its self-styled Khilafat rule dethroning the present government in this holy month of Ramadan. "We arrested them on suspicion of encouraging militancy in the country...We are investigating their activities," said RMP Commissioner Mahbub Mohsin yesterday.
Quoting the Quran in its leaflets, the Islamist group called upon Muslims asking them to "take oath for establishing the rule of Khilafat by dethroning the present ruler in this holy month of Ramadan" to unite Muslims and revive their lost glory. It criticises sending of forces in United Nations Peace Keeping missions for protecting "enemies" instead of "turning them the flag bearers of Islam".
"Our rulers have discarded the Quran and the Sunnah...They have handed us over to enemies. So, we should take oath to overthrow the present ruler this Ramadan and we have to replace them with Khilafat rule," says the leaflet distributed by the arrestees.
Of the arrestees, four are teachers including the outfit's Coordinator Dr Syed Golam Mowla, who is a teacher of management at Dhaka University (DU) and a resident of Dhanmondi, while others are students of different universities and colleges. The arrest sparked tension in the city forcing the authorities to beef up security.
The police produced the Hizb ut-Tahrir men before the court of Metropolitan Judicial Magistrate BM Tariqul Kabir under section 54, accusing them of engaging in a conspiracy to topple the government. The court sent the arrestees to jail in the afternoon.
They were arrested just before holding a scheduled press conference at the press club around 12:30pm. The police also seized from their possession a lot of leaflets, booklets and posters containing provocative statements against the government. Ramzan Ali, officer-in-charge of Boalia Police Station, said, "The arrestees were provoking unrest among people in the name of religion...Their activities also violate the state of emergency."
Meanwhile, leaders of Rajshahi City Press Club including its President and Dainik Sangram bureau chief Sardar Abdur Rahman, and daily Naya Diganta correspondent Sardar Anisur Rahman told reporters that the press conference was postponed as the Hizb ut-Tahrir leaders failed to show them any permission from the police. However, the Islamist group was finally given a schedule for the press conference at 1:30pm without the permission from the RMP.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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(AKI) - More than 85 illegal immigrants being held at a temporary reception centre started a riot overnight on Thursday in the city of Elmas near Cagliari on the Italian island of Sardinia.
Most of the rioters began destroying the building and furnishings in order to prevent an imminent deportation order, media reports said. About 50 police in riot gear and paramilitary Carabinieri police officers arrived at the scene. Most of the immigrants were of Algerian origin. There have not been any arrests, but the police headquarters have asked the interior ministry to transfer the illegal immigrants to another temporary holding centre.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#1
You have guns ? You have bullets ? I know you need some target practice. Get with it. I assure you the rioting will cease posthaste.
Posted by: Black Charlie Uleanter1279 ||
09/19/2008 11:43
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(AKI) - Sri Lanka's military claimed on Thursday it was moving closer to the strongholds of the separatist Tamil Tigers in the north of the country, after fierce clashes left more than 83 dead. The Defence Ministry said the main battles occurred near Kilinochchi where at least 40 rebels and 10 soldiers were killed.
Fighter jets conducted successive air raids targeting separatist strongholds in the Kilinochchi area on Thursday in support of government troops on the ground.
"Confident troops bravely resisted and directed hard blows on the enemy and chased them away," the ministry said in a statement.
According to the defence sources, a fierce gun battle was reported between security forces and LTTE terrorists in the area of Vannerikulam.
The LTTE did not comment on the government's claims. But a Tamil website said on Thursday that the Sri Lanka Army had triggered a landmine that had killed at least three civilians when a passenger bus exploded in Kilinochchi.
Posted by: Fred ||
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At least two Palestinians were killed and three others were missing on Thursday when a tunnel they were digging beneath the Egyptian-Gaza border collapsed, medical workers said.
Residents said the tunnel was meant to be used to bring goods into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Many Gazans use tunnels to bypass an Israeli blockade that was tightened after Hamas Islamists seized the coastal strip last year. Israeli officials have said many of the tunnels are also used by militants to smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#1
Goods: TNT, RPGs, ammo, AN, steel tubes, allies
Bads: Medical supplies, food, fuel, visas to get the hell out of there
(AKI) - The Palestinian economy is becoming increasingly aid dependent, and Israel's policy of border closures in the Gaza Strip is eroding the occupied territory's industrial backbone and paralysing its municipal services, a World Bank report warns.
Becoming?
Real per capita gross domestic product (GDP) is now 30 percent below its 1999 level as the economy shrinks and the population grows and grows and grows, according to the report on Palestinian economic prospects.
Maybe if you knocked off a few more Dogmushes ...
The report has been published amid growing concern over the occupied Palestinian territories' stability. Unemployment has reached nearly 30 percent, ...
... the other 70 percent work for the Gaza Tunnel Authority ...
... and the percentage of those living below the national poverty line rose to 57 percent in 2006, according the UN.
The report noted that the Palestinian Authority has received 1.2 billion dollars in external budget support so far this year but requires another 650 million dollars and 300 million more in development aid. The figures highlight the fact that as Palestinian economy worsens, it is becoming more aid dependent, the report said.
Ninety-eight percent of its industrial operations have been shut down. Out of 3,900 industries, only 23 are still operating, showing the crippling economic effect of Israel's blockade on the Gaza Strip, according to the report.
And Egypt's blockade. But most of all, their own stoopidity.
"Closure of Gaza is also resulting in the collapse of the municipal sector. Municipalities, providing key services such as water, sewage, solid waste [disposal] etc. are facing a deep financial crisis," the report stated. "The impoverishment of the population and the near absence of private sector activities imply that municipalities are unable to collect fees for service provision and are unable to pay staff salaries."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#1
starve in the dark, f*ckers
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/19/2008 7:43
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#2
...and 300 million more in development aid.
Besides rockets and tunnels, what do these guys 'develop'?
#3
The only major export is hate and death. Usually not in high demand on the world market [often due to more than sufficient local domestic production.]
#4
And kaffiyehs, P2K. But once they stop being "hip" at Urban Outfitters and Abercrombie & Fitch, I'm sure that approximately 1/2 of the remaining 23 industries will shut down, too.
#5
The Paleo's used to be self sufficient? and now are becoming aid dependent? I didn't know that. What are they smoking at the world bank these days? Whatever it is it helps keep the staff a long ways from reality.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/19/2008 11:22
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#6
Well, that is what happens when you accept to feed opeople who have burned the greenhouses who were supposed to feed them.
And that is what happens when you acpat that people live without working for sixty fricking yeatrs.
That is what happens when you accept to feed people who have not enough money to deed themselves but have plenty of it for terror.
The 8,000 British troops currently in Helmand could be substantially boosted next year, possibly by an extra brigade of up to 4,000 soldiers.
Military commanders are already in advanced planning to substantially reduce the 4,000 strong force in Iraq to just a few hundred early next year. It is thought that this will free up troops from the overstretched military to be used in Afghanistan.
The Ministry of Defence has refused to confirm that numbers will increase only saying that the force levels were "under constant review". But during an interview with journalists Mr Gates told The Daily Telegraph that "my understanding is that the UK may increase the size of its force there (Afghanistan)".
Asked to clarify what the size of the reinforcements might be Mr Gates, who immediately after the meeting had lunch with the Defence Secretary Des Browne, said: "Maybe I will find out today."
With large parts of southern Afghanistan still under the sway of insurgents, commanders have been discussing a "surge" of the area by swamping it with extra troops.
The Americans have already committed a brigade of US Marines to Helmand and another four Brigade Combat Teams are expected to deploy to Afghanistan next year. The Nato-led force in Afghanistan has 53,000 troops, and the United States has pressed allies to provide more forces and military capabilities to stem an increasingly violent insurgency.
Mr Gates admitted that southern Afghanistan had become "an increasing challenge" and had seen most of the fighting since 2006 when the British first entered Helmand. "We see some lessons to be learned from Iraq in terms of the need to establish security as a precondition to economic development and better governance. That means more forces," Mr Gates said. "But I think we are in complete accord with our European allies that the military side of this is only one piece of the solution."
Mr Gates admitted that Washington was "looking at" a possible change of strategy in Afghanistan.
On the orders of President George W Bush an extra Army brigade of 3,700 soldiers will join the 33,000 US troops in Afghanistan. An American commander in Afghanistan has already asked for an additional 10,000 troops to surge the country.
The Afghan National Army is also expected to double from 65,000 to 122,000 at the cost of £12 billion.
The Ministry of Defence said there were no immediate plans to increase troop numbers in Afghanistan beyond the extra 230 being sent on the current six month deployment boosting numbers to 8,000. "There is no further intention to increase levels beyond this," a source said but added levels were "kept under continual review".
The MoD said in a statement it had been assured that Mr Gates was not attempting to "pre-empt a UK announcement" or to "box in" Britain into increasing troop numbers.
Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh remained unnoticed for several years before the grenade attack on the British high commissioner at Hazrat Shahjalal shrine in Sylhet over four years ago.
Though it has been banned in Asian and European countries and even in the Middle East, its chapter here has been operating overtly and unhindered for the last few years. Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh had posted anti-British and -US posters around the Shahjalal shrine two days before the attack on the then UK High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury on May 21, 2004.
This made the investigators suspect that the shrine attack was carried out by Hizb ut-Tahrir. Since then, the outfit has been alleged to have militant links at home and abroad, said a law enforcement official who was involved in the probe.
Rajshahi police yesterday rounded up some of their leaders and activists as they were preparing to hold a press conference in the divisional city.
According to information from different websites, Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) is banned in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. It is also banned in Pakistan, Tunisia, Libya, Turkey, and in the former Soviet states in Central Asia.
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09/19/2008
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The Ugandan government plans to set out measures to combat prostitution, including publishing names of offenders in newspapers, on the internet and on television, Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo confirmed on Thursday.
The government is also concerned about women wearing miniskirts, which is seen as promoting immorality and prostitution as well as distracting drivers and causing motor accidents, Nsaba Buturo said.
"We want to shame these prostitutes who are doing the business, including those who are running brothels," he said.
"Women of 60 years and below are putting on miniskirts and this is crazy. The miniskirt can cause an accident when you are sitting with a woman in a car. Men while driving gaze out when they see these women and this causes accidents," he said.
There is no direct law forbidding women from wearing of miniskirts in Uganda. A decree banning the short skirts in the country was issued by the country's late military ruler Idi Amin, but it went out of use after the dictator's ouster in 1979.
Although prostitution is illegal, it has mushroomed on the streets of Uganda's major towns in recent years and the ministry of ethics estimates that numbers of prostitutes now run to thousands.
A person convicted of prostitution in the Ugandan courts is sentenced to six months' imprisonment but there is no record of any conviction in the country's history because police say they find it difficult to prove the charges.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#1
Publishing the names of johns is more effective than publishing the names of the prostitutes which would just give them free publicity. Send out decoys and when they get propositioned nab the would be john, get his name and put it in the paper.
As for the miniskirt, give the judge some discretion depending on the shape of the legs.
Prostitutes in Italy who have been ordered to stop wearing skimpy clothing while they tout for business in broad daylight plan to dress as nuns instead.
#13
Re: #4: one in particular had the nick "Humpty-Dumpty." had her own part of a wall all reserved and everything, but alas, she fell down and broke her crown and died. There was much gnashing of teeth aboard the USS Independence.....
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni vowed on Thursday to start work immediately on forming a new coalition that will let her succeed the scandal-hit Ehud Olmert as prime minister.
After her election as the new leader of Israel's centrist Kadima party, with her narrow victory over party rival Shaul Mofaz, Livni said she would do her best for the sake of national stability. "Tomorrow, I will begin meeting with representatives of the factions in order to form quickly a coalition that can deal with all of these challenges that lie ahead," Livni told reporters outside her home after a final tally of Wednesday's Kadima vote. "On the level of government in Israel, we have to deal with difficult threats," she said. "The national mission ... is to create stability quickly."
Livni, considered to be a pragmatist, got 43.1 percent of the votes in a primary election Wednesday against reputed hawk Mofaz, the transport minister who received 42 percent. Her win does not automatically assure her the post of prime minister in the place of Ehud Olmert
Olmert, who telephoned Livni with congratulations, has said he will resign as soon as Kadima has a new leader. But the outgoing premier, who could be indicted for corruption, has also vowed to exercise his right to stay on in a caretaker capacity until Livni forges her own, new coalition government.
That process, involving deals with ambitious Labor party leader Ehud Barak on the left and influential Jewish religious parties on the right, could take weeks or months. Many believe there may yet be an early parliamentary election, which polls show Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud would win.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#1
What the media does NOT tell us, is the fact that she won by 400 votes, and that happened only after the same liberal media published phony polls, that showed she was winning by double digits. So maybe we should learn and DO NOT PAY ATTENTION TO POLLS, they only another tool to help their candidate to win..
Posted by: lena ||
09/19/2008 12:47
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#2
the exit polls scewed up, but IIUC they were released after the polls closed. Why, I dunno, maybe a reverse bradley effect (sephardim reluctant to admit voting on ethnic grounds?) No evidence of a conspiracy.
So it was close, who knows how the sheetrit and dichter voters would have gone. A win is a win, as George Bush has told us.
#3
and btw didnt the right wing medial like Yediot, and Jpost, publish the same polls as the left leaning media? Or is lena someone to whom anything to the left of Arutz Sheva is leftie?
The caretaker government will have to pass the responsibility to complete the ongoing anti-graft drive on to the next government as it limps along amid stay and bail orders and rules from higher court.
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At least 14 people were killed and 26 injured on Thursday in clashes between the warring tribes of Kurram Agency despite security forces' deployment in the area. According to Dawn News, the clashes have intensified in the Pewar, Pewar Tangi, Mangak and Arwali areas of Kurram. Meanwhile, local Taliban have evicted around 200 shia families from Aurakzai Agency who have resettled in Kohat, authorities said.
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A top adviser of Iran's supreme leader has declared that in the event of war no ship passing through the oil-rich Gulf region would be beyond the reach of the country's missiles, a government newspaper reported on Thursday.
Iran, embroiled in a standoff with the West over its nuclear ambitions, has said it could respond to any military attack by closing the strait at the southern end of the Gulf through which about 40 percent of the world's traded oil passes. The United States, whose Fifth Fleet is based in the Gulf state of Bahrain, has vowed to keep shipping lanes opened.
The West accuses Tehran of seeking to build nuclear warheads but Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, insists its aim is to master technology to make electricity. Washington has not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to end the row. "At a time of war no ship can pass through the region of the Persian Gulf without being in the reach of the Revolutionary Guards' coast-to-sea missiles," Yahya Rahim-Safavi, a senior military adviser of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted by the Iran daily as saying.
Rahim-Safavi earlier this week said Khamenei had put the elite Guards in charge of defending the Gulf against any enemy attacks and that they would not hesitate to "confront foreign forces."
The comments came amid persistent speculation about a possible U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Iran has dismissed reports of possible U.S. or Israeli plans to strike the country, but says it would respond by attacking U.S. interests and Israel if any such assault was made. Iran's air force and defence units held war games this week to test equipment and boost readiness, Iranian media reported.
Alongside the regular army, Iran has a Revolutionary Guards force viewed as guardians of the Islamic ruling system. The Guards have a separate command and their own air, sea and land units. They are deployed on sensitive border regions and guard key institutions and their arsenal includes the Shahab-3 missile, which reports say can reach targets in Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/19/2008
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#1
And your missiles would be within reach of the 101st Airborne, for starters.
#3
We've been hearing this crap for years. It has gotten to the point that I'd love to see the US launch a few a SMs and fire up the CIWSs, just to teach Iran a lesson. Just to set an example before anyone else feels like being belligerent for the wrong reasons.
Posted by: tep ||
09/19/2008 4:20
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#5
What's the old saying?
"REMEMBER, If the enemy's in range SO ARE YOU"
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/19/2008 12:07
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#6
Actually since Iran borders the Persian Gulf their hand grenades can reach the Persian Gulf. If the ships get within 3 miles even a primitive rocket could get near them.
Its a bit like saying that Russian missiles can now hit the Caspian Sea.
#2
Couldn't find a description on how this thing works and how to build my own. He lives in Beaverton, Oregon near where I do. The sun doesn't shine here but once in a blue moon. Mostly, we have clouds and showers. Inventing a super duper sun-to-electricity converter is about as useful to us as inventing super xray vision glasses for a blind person would be.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/19/2008 10:31
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#3
Every now and then you find some kid who is so dang talented in some subject that you know schooling is just going to be wasted on him. His future is predestined, and anything he does other than his genius is wasting his time.
I once met a gutter punk who I just knew was a heck of a lot smarter than about anyone else. He had dropped out of high school out of mind numbing boredom. The only teacher he liked was one that gave him extremely hard professional written tests to do during class.
Well, I brow beat the punk for two weeks before I persuaded him to go to the local university student services office, practically dragging him there.
After they gave him a GED that he practically aced, he ended up getting a full engineering scholarship to Stanford. The only follow-up I ever got was that he wrote an ex-girlfriend objecting that most of the other students, and at least several of the faculty, were unmotivated dim-wits.
But there were at least some smart people there, so he was happy.
#5
The bands for IR go from 700nm to 1mm, which is extremely long when the nano towers that receive the light are built for the visible light spectrum, 380nm to 750nm, and the UV spectrum, 10nm to 400nm.
And it is probably a lot easier and cheaper to make small nano towers.
Pakistan is close to completing a second plutonium-producing reactor, and is well into building a third, and these reactors could increase its ability to make atomic bombs, a United States think-tank said on Thursday.
"The wider implication ... (is that) there is a real risk this will exacerbate an India-Pakistan nuclear arms race and increase tensions more broadly between the two," the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said in a report.
The report included commercial satellite images taken two weeks ago and in February and May showing construction of the second and third Khushab complexes. The 10-page report estimated the reactors would run on power of "about 100-megawatts or more", which could enable the two combined to yield plutonium for 8 to 10 atomic bombs a year.
Pakistan has an operating heavy-water reactor and heavy-water production plant already at Khushab.
A row of cooling towers indicated the second reactor was close to completion and could be ready to operate in a year's time, according to the 10-page report. "Once completed, these reactors will increase several-fold Pakistan's ability to make weapons-grade plutonium (fuel)." "When finished...will allow a significant increase in the quantity and quality of Pakistan's nuclear weapons."
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
If there is a place you don't want an increased nuclear capability it is Pakistan. And Iran... Both pose tremendous dangers to the West.
ION NOT NECESSARILY UNRELATED [Russ = USA/Ruso-Georgian war], IRNA > IISS DECLARES: IDEALISTIC MODE OF WESTERN FOREIGN POLICY [read - USA] IS OVER. AGE OF AMBITIOUS DEMOCRATIZATION + REGIONAL STRATEGIC MAKEOEVRS being replaced by INCREASINGLY INWARD-LOOKING NATIONALIST + REGULATORY FOCII, as due to the WORLD-AFFECTING TRIPLE SHOCK OF OIL, FOOD, and CREDIT etc. WOES.
"IDEALISM and REALPOLITIK" will be dependent on the NEXT US PRESIDENT.
There is a limit to how many troops can be sent to Afghanistan without drawing down the number deployed in Iraq or other places, the Marines' top general said Thursday. Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, told reporters before speaking to a sea power conference that the time is right to send about 2,000 Marines to southern Afghanistan instead of Iraq's Anbar province because violence has subsided.
The Marine task force includes a battalion from Camp Lejeune and will replace two North Carolina-based Marine units now in Afghanistan. The task force is scheduled to deploy in November.
"The things we used to do in Anbar are much less needed today," Conway said, noting that on a recent trip to Iraq he saw people building instead of fighting. He said 20,000 to 25,000 Marines in Anbar plus Iraqi forces that have been trained are enough for now.
But if the president wants "to increase the Marine presence in Afghanistan you must reduce in Iraq," Conway said, adding his personal belief is Marines are needed more in Afghanistan than Iraq. "We can't continue unless we're allowed to draw down elsewhere."
Conway said Marines also need more time at their home bases so they can reconnect with their families and get more training for both traditional combat and counterinsurgency missions. He said the Marines can do both missions, but need training and have been focused on counterinsurgency. He said they need to be deployed seven months and at home for 14.
He also said it would take a year to remove all Marines from Iraq if ordered. Conway also said Marines are being trained both for duty in Afghanistan and Iraq at desert and mountain training centers.
Conway and other military officers also spoke to a conference that promotes the importance of U.S. sea power. Conway said the U.S. should equip sea bases with ground combat troops and aircraft that can quickly respond to emergencies in countries that won't allow war ships into port. He said the sea bases could allow U.S. forces to move around hostile countries rather than needing to seize airfields and ports. Sea bases comprised of five or six ships that act as ports and airfields afloat also can be used for humanitarian relief.
Planners in the Marine Corps believe future conflicts will include oil supply disagreements but "nations will be prepared to go to war for water," he said.
#1
On the last part, nanotechnology help may be on the way, in which USMC might not have to fight in "water wars" over fresh water but help provide "water support missions."
That is, new nanotechnology filters are able to convert brackish water to fresh water with a fraction of the energy needed by reverse osmosis, and they are also scalable. So a nuclear ship would park on the coast and pump enormous amounts of fresh water inland.
The USMC would be needed to prevent attacks against the pipeline and denial of the fresh water to the hated enemies of the locals, whoever they were. And that can get pretty harsh--as bad as delivering food aid--people will fight and die to keep other people from being fed or having water.
#2
Lily Pad Theory, he's been to NWC in Newport, paid attention in class. Wasn't that long ago though the "war for water" thing was eh'd. Things change and I'm more intent on raking leaves and lowering my handicap.
Centre on Thursday issued a warning to NDA-controlled governments of Orissa and Karnataka under Article 355 to rein in violence against Christians, in an action which will be praised as appropriate in many quarters but will sharpen the UPA vs NDA faultlines.
While BJP condemned the action as ''partisan'', Congress welcomed it with glee.
Article 355 vests emergency powers in the Centre to ensure adherence to the Constitution and it can even be seen as a precursor to the application of Article 356 (President's rule). But in the current context, it also serves the political purpose.
Importantly, with the government acting against the Opposition governments over violence against minorities by RSS affiliates, it could clear the way for a tougher response against terrorism.
There has been a strong voice in Congress and UPA that fight against terror should go hand in hand with tough action against communal violence. The anti-Christian riots have spread fast from Orissa to Karnataka and even in Kerala, in what is seen as part of a campaign.
The argument was also articulated by minority affairs minister A R Antulay at Wednesday's Cabinet meeting where he said the Centre should bring in a tough law on communal riots.
For the Centre, buffeted between demands for tough laws against terror and the sensitivities that there should be safeguards to ensure that they are not misused against minorities, it could be part of the Manmohan Singh government unveiling an all-round action plan against violence.
Congress welcomed the action, with party spokesman Veerappa Moily saying that it was ''a shame on BJP''. He said, ''Those who are talking of fighting terrorism are not in a position to contain communal terrorism.''
But the BJP reacted strongly. Party general secretary Arun Jaitley said, ''The action is unwarranted. Orissa has taken steps and succeeded in restoring peace. Karnataka government is trying its best by appealing to one section not to bring out inflammatory pamphlets on conversions and taking steps to convince the other sections not to attack prayer halls. The Centre's action makes it obvious that it is not interested in resolving the issue but in politicising it. Why does not the Centre consider similar action in case of Maharashtra government with regard to its inability to deal with Raj Thackeray's repeated provocations.''
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Sri Lanka's military said yesterday it was moving closer to the northern headquarters of the Tamil Tigers, as fierce clashes in different locations left more than 83 dead.
The main battle lines were around 11km west of Kilinochchi, with the latest fighting on Wednesday leaving at least 40 rebels and 10 soldiers dead, the defence ministry said. The military said they captured areas around a major irrigation tank. "Confident troops bravely resisted and directed hard blows on the enemy and chased them away," the ministry said.
Elsewhere, the military said they killed 32 rebels for the loss of one soldier on Wednesday. The latest fighting raised the number of rebels killed by troops since January to 6,637, while 646 soldiers have died in combat, according to the ministry tally. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) did not comment on the claims.
But the LTTE accused army commandos of setting off a roadside mine on Thursday targeting a passenger bus inside rebel territory, killing three civilians and wounding five, the pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website said.
Security forces are now trying to take control of the rebels' political capital of Kilinochchi for the first time in 10 years. The rebels have warned that the large Wanni region, which comprises Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu towns, could turn into a mass graveyard for government troops.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse said this week that security forces hope to capture Kilinochchi by December. The army ejected the rebels from the east in July 2007.
The defence ministry also said Thursday that its navy had destroyed a rebel boat in a sea battle off the northern coast of Nachchikudha.
Earlier international aid workers on Wednesday evacuated Sri Lanka's north, where government forces are pursuing a major offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels, officials said. The pull-out, demanded by the island's authorities for security reasons, prompted fears for the fate of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians displaced by the military onslaught.
The Sri Lankan government said its soldiers were just over five kilometres (three miles) from Kilinochchi, the political capital of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
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TUCSON, AZ - The son of a U.S. Congressman was arrested in Willcox Sunday, charged with human smuggling. According to court documents John F. Boyd, son of Democratic Florida Congressman Allen Boyd, attempted to drive through a Border Patrol checkpoint in Willcox on Sunday with five illegal immigrants, including a 6-year-old girl.
#3
I heard in an interview with one of the organizers that they were really writhing over this, and it's their own fault.
They intended to invite both Hillary and Sarah to the event in the double hope that it would raise its profile and maybe become a soft-glove partisan slug-fest. But Hillary wanted nothing to do with it on those terms.
Then by dis-inviting Sarah, they really get kicked in the teeth, because it makes them look like bad hosts, which is a serious faux pas to a lot of their members. Like asking a relative to not come to a wedding, because the bride thinks they're ugly.
#5
Doesn't the bride disinvite other women because she thinks they're too pretty
Now, now, you know that mommy Michelle (Obama) said that we shouldn't vote for someone because they are pretty... of course voting for them because of the color of their skin is ok - in fact the DNC message is that if you don't then your a racist.
#6
Only stupidly insecure brides surround themselves with plain bridesmaids, just as stupidly insecure executives surround themselves with less than the best advisers. In fact, one of the things I admire about President Bush is the caliber of the men and women he tapped for his cabinet, because their luster enhances his own.
#8
I'm sure you're better qualified to judge than I, mhw, but VP Cheney was a prize catch, and I still admire Mr. Rumsfeld and current Secretary of Defence Gates. Not to mention General Petreus and amusing Mr. Rove.
(AKI) - Fifteen people, including a well-known actress, were arrested in five Turkish provinces on Thursday in relation to a plot to overthrow the government.
Turkish news agencies said lawyer Levent Temiz, who is also the former head of a nationalist organisation, actress Nurseli Idiz and Seyhan Soylu, an artist manager, were taken into custody in Istanbul. Eight people were also detained in the Turkish capital of Ankara, news agencies reported.
The arrests were part of an ongoing investigation, known as Ergenekon, in which politicians, journalists, intellectuals and retired generals are accused of being members of an illegal organisation that was planning a military coup. Eighty-six people have been charged with conspiracy against the government in an indictment filed in Istanbul on 14 July 2008. They are expected to begin appearing in court in October.
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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.
South Korea is being offered 36 refurbished U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships, rebuilt to like-new condition, for about $23 million each. That's a nearly 60 percent discount off the price of new AH-64s. These helicopters would have a useful life of about 10,000 hours in the air. The U.S. Army is planning to offer a total of 260 older AH-64s to allies via similar deals, or even an auction, if too many nations say yes. 
His fingers tapping like a tiny army over laptop keys, Waleed Korayem, a university student who quotes Einstein and Voltaire, skims the Internet in a noisy cafe and opens his Facebook group, the one that drives Islamists into fits of rage: Yeah, We Are Seculars and We Are Proud. 
* US deputy secretary of state says co-operative efforts best way forward 
By Charles Krauthammer
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said she expects a challenging debate next month when she faces a Democratic opponent who was elected to the Senate when she was 8 years old. 
Hackers have shut down several hundred Websites of Shiite clerics and seminary schools in Iran, Iranian media reports said.
The US is seeking $20bn from its allies to help stabilise Afghanistan as it plans to send thousands more of its own troops to confront the growing insurgency in the country, American officials disclosed yesterday.
Hundreds of anxious families waited outside Tijuana's infamous La Mesa State Penitentiary for word on their loved ones Thursday after police fatally shot 19 prisoners to regain control of the facility.
Nigeria's main militant group says its fighters bombed another oil pipeline in the restive southern oil region. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta says it destroyed the pipeline run by a unit of Royal Dutch Shell PLC with high explosives. Shell officials could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday. If confirmed, the attack would mark the sixth straight day of stepped-up violence in the southern regions of Africa's oil giant.
(AKI) - Local people in northwest Pakistan on Thursday fought three militants and freed about 300 school students who had been taken hostage earlier in the day.
(AKI) - Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, should resign and allow his Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, to end the "sorry decline" of his government and its many scandals, a leading US expert said on Thursday.
(AKI) - Yemeni police have arrested at least 30 people with suspected links to Al-Qaeda in relation to the deadly blast outside the US Embassy in the capital, Sanaa, on Wednesday.
The Dutch foreign minister protested Thursday against an alleged Moroccan espionage attempt and announced that two Moroccan diplomats had been recalled from The Hague over the matter. 
Russia has threatened to block NATO from using its airspace for operations in Afghanistan if member states did not stop 'hostile' policies towards Moscow, the Kremlin's top diplomat in Kabul said. "Russian air space is still open, but if the NATO countries continue their hostile policies with regard to Russia, definitely this issue will happen," Zamir Kabulov told BBC Radio in an interview aired on Thursday. NATO imports most of its logistics via Pakistan to Afghanistan, but also uses Russia's air space for some cargo. Russia is fiercely opposed to further NATO expansion. Kabulov said the United States had made far too many mistakes since toppling the Taliban government in 1991. "During the past six-and-a-half years, they have strengthened their military presence instead of strengthening the Afghan government, the Afghan armed forces and the Afghan economy, and this is a main and fundamental mistake."
(AKI) - Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Thursday the government received no warning from the United States about a suspected missile strike in the country's northwest. 
(Xinhua) -- A Greek ship with 25 crew members has been seized by armed pirates off the coast of Somalia in the latest attacks on the world's most dangerous waters, a regional maritime official said on Thursday.
At least two Palestinians were killed and three others were missing on Thursday when a tunnel they were digging beneath the Egyptian-Gaza border collapsed, medical workers said. 
(AKI) - The Palestinian economy is becoming increasingly aid dependent, and Israel's policy of border closures in the Gaza Strip is eroding the occupied territory's industrial backbone and paralysing its municipal services, a World Bank report warns.
The 8,000 British troops currently in Helmand could be substantially boosted next year, possibly by an extra brigade of up to 4,000 soldiers. 
The Ugandan government plans to set out measures to combat prostitution, including publishing names of offenders in newspapers, on the internet and on television, Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo confirmed on Thursday. 
A top adviser of Iran's supreme leader has declared that in the event of war no ship passing through the oil-rich Gulf region would be beyond the reach of the country's missiles, a government newspaper reported on Thursday. 
here is a limit to how many troops can be sent to Afghanistan without drawing down the number deployed in Iraq or other places, the Marines' top general said Thursday. Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, told reporters before speaking to a sea power conference that the time is right to send about 2,000 Marines to southern Afghanistan instead of Iraq's Anbar province because violence has subsided.
(AKI) - Fifteen people, including a well-known actress, were arrested in five Turkish provinces on Thursday in relation to a plot to overthrow the government.
