One of the aspects of the Paulson bailout bill that was not clear until today is that the Treasury has no intention of running a true action for the toxic assets on bank balance sheets. An auction would tend to set very low prices on the current value of mortgage-backed paper. Based on the few transactions which have taken place in the past, this might be as low as 30 cents on a dollar.
It has been widely assumed that banks would need to take large write-downs on the devalued assets, creating the need for them to raise more capital and further dilute shareholders.
All of those assumptions were mistaken.
In testimony today, Ben Bernanke described the plan by saying "it is designed to avoid forcing banks to sell or value their mortgage assets at a `fire-sale' price. In a harsher tone than he has ever used in testimony, Bernanke spelled out the benefits that would accrue when the government can buy these mortgage assets at close to "hold to maturity" prices instead of the "fire-sale price."
The plan puts taxpayers at a substantially greater risk than a true auction system. Buying these toxic assets inexpensively gives the Treasury a chance to profit from its risk if the paper appreciates in value over time, providing taxpayers some "upside" . The more that assets appreciate, the better the chance that the American public's long-term liability is low.
What has become clear is that Treasury plans to purchase bad assets from banks at prices very near their original value. The risk to taxpayers under this program would be tremendous. If housing prices continue to fall, so will the value of the paper the government has purchased. Under this set of circumstances the public could be at risk for underwriting the great majority of the Treasury's purchases and never having a chance to recoup their investment.
Buying troubled bank assets at above where they would be valued in a free market now and at a price which is near to the potential price when they mature is a great handout to the banks but undermines almost any chance that the Treasury will ever get any meaningful yield from the bailout.
#1
Fred was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called pullets, and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs. He kept records and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced. This took a lot of time, so he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone, so he could tell from a distance which rooster was performing. Now he thought he would sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.
Fred's favorite rooster, old Butch, was a very fine specimen but during the first week after the bells were put on, Fred noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! When he went to investigate, he saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. To Fred's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one. Fred was so proud of old Butch he entered him in the Renfrew County Fair and Butch became an overnight sensation among the judges.
The result was the judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well. Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making. Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on his populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.
Vote carefully this year...the bells are not always audible.
As an aside, I trade stocks just for my own benefit, I'm not out to make a killing, just a bit of extra cash, and I've done well the last couple of weeks, Trading Ford Only, I've managed to turn $7,000 into $7,800 and change. we'll see what the next couple of weeks brings.
(Simple rules, buy around 4.60- sell around 5.00, 1000 shares brings a hundred bucks per Dime's change, average sale 20 to 30 cents above buy price, don't try for more at once. a bunch of small trades works much beter than trying for a huge killing that never comes.)
(and no it wasn't all profit, a couple of times I lost a few hundred, but overall I'm doing OK.)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/23/2008 19:51
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Again, 2008-2012 [2016] POST-DUBYA POTUS PERIOD > SOCIALISM-GOVTISM IN AMERIKA [overt].
The best time for RADICAL ISLAMISM [Iran + Militants-Terr Groups] TO FORMALLY GO NUU-KUU-LAAR - "WHITNEY HUSTON" FAN OSAMA BIN LADEN NOR ANY ISLAMIST HIDDEN IMAM-MAHDI/"SALADIN, etc INCARNATE" CAN'T ASK FOR BETTER LOCAL-WORLD CONDITIONS OR TIME TO MAKE AN APPEARANCE AND KICK INFIDEL, JUDEO-CHRISTIAN OR NON-ISLAMIC, HINIES.
AT least five Palestinians were killed and four others were wounded today when Egyptian forces blew up two smuggling tunnels beneath the Egyptian-Gaza border, medical workers and residents said.
Residents said the tunnels, used to bring goods from Egypt into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, collapsed when Egyptian soldiers detonated explosives in an attempt to curb smuggling. Egyptian officials were not immediately available for comment.
They were chortling too hard.
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.
Cause = Way too many generations of In'cest linked to BOOMBATAS.
one symnptom often noteticed before ultimate BANG UP is pour speling and bad boy grammer.
/bad joke on me
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
09/23/2008 19:24
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Palestinians die in border tunnel blasts
AT least five Palestinians were killed and four others were wounded today when Egyptian forces blew up two smuggling tunnels beneath the Egyptian-Gaza border, medical workers and residents said.
Residents said the tunnels, used to bring goods from Egypt into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, collapsed when Egyptian soldiers detonated explosives in an attempt to curb smuggling
Sorry I Almost Forgot Their Eulogy...
REST IN HELL FOREVER A$$HOLES!
.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
09/23/2008 21:02
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Residents said the tunnels, used to bring goods from Egypt into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip
goods= guns and explosives, at least in paleo-speak
Barack Obama and Joe Biden stepped out of sync again Tuesday, as the Democratic presidential nominee criticized his running mate for voicing opposition to the government bailout of American International Group early last week.
It was the second off-message moment for the Democratic team in two days. Biden had to ratchet back his own rhetoric Monday after an interview aired in which he called one of his own campaign ads "terrible."
The lack of harmony suggests the Obama team, for months a rancor-free institution, is running into the kind of message discipline problems that John McCain's campaign faced before he started to cut back his interaction with reporters.
The latest friction happened when Obama was asked on NBC's "Today Show" about why he criticized McCain for initially opposing a federal bailout of AIG when Biden was also speaking out against it.
"I think ... that in that situation, I think Joe should have waited, as well," Obama said. He was referring to Biden's interview with NBC last Tuesday in which he said, "I don't think (AIG) should be bailed out by the federal government."
That echoed McCain's comment the same day. But all the while Obama had stayed relatively mum on the crisis at AIG. He released a statement last Wednesday expressing his hopes for the rescue plans, but did not give a clear verdict on whether he supported the plan.
Having censured Biden for his remarks, Obama continued to criticize McCain Tuesday for initially opposing federal action on AIG. "(McCain) said the government should stand aside and allow one of the nation's largest insurers, AIG, to collapse," Obama said. " I think what has been clear during this entire past 10 days is John McCain has not had clarity and a grasp on the situation."
The internal static, however, was not quite as pronounced as when Biden denounced his own campaign's ad the day before. In an interview with CBS News, the Delaware senator took issue with an attack ad from his own side that criticized McCain for his lack of savvy when it comes to computers and e-mail. "I thought that was terrible by the way," Biden said. "I didn't know we did it and if I had anything to do with it, we would have never done it."
The McCain campaign pounced on the statement, and Biden later issued a clarification. "Having now reviewed the ad, it is even more clear to me that given the disgraceful tenor of Senator McCain's ads and their persistent falsehoods, his campaign is in no position to criticize," Biden later said, criticizing McCain for an ad accusing Obama of voting to teach kindergartners about sex. The Obama campaign has said the bill would help children avoid predators.
Biden also raised eyebrows two weeks ago when he said Hillary Clinton "might have been a better pick than me" to be Obama's running mate.
While Obama has worked intently to patch up the rifts between his campaign and supporters loyal to Clinton, he hasn't gone so far as to say Clinton would be a better running mate. Biden, however, told the audience at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire that Clinton "is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America."
He was responding to an audience member who criticized Clinton.
Washington The Club for Growth condemned the massive government bailout proposed by the Treasury and the Bush administration as unnecessary, unfair to taxpayers, and fraught with serious costs to the American economy.
Eighteen months into the credit crunch, many largely capitalized financial services firms are experiencing serious difficulties but the overall economy continues to grow. GDP growth over the past 12 months was 2.25 percent and 3.5 percent when excluding the drag imposed by the housing sector. Even within the financial sector, many banks are doing well. Regional bank indices had risen significantly since the lows of last Julyprior to the bailout announcementand thousands of community banks are thriving. It is extraordinary that a massive government intervention in the economy is considered inevitable when the economy is not even in a recession.
At the same time, socializing economic risks come at a great cost to the American economy by misallocating capital, inviting political manipulation, and putting taxpayers on the hook for possibly a trillion dollars. Such a large takeover by the government will surely be accompanied by adverse, unintended consequences. Already, other companies and industries are lining up at governments door asking for their own bailout. And if the government incurs $700 billion in debt to finance the purchase of bad bank assets, the danger that it will eventually monetize that debt and trigger dramatic inflation is very worrisome
The Treasurys bailout proposal will likely cause more harm than good, said Club for Growth President Pat Toomey. Instead of launching the largest government bailout since the Great Depression, the government should be implementing policies to stimulate the economy. These include, at a minimum, cutting the tax on capital gains, cutting corporate taxes, reviewing and considering repeal of FAS 57 which requires banks to mark-to-market most securities, and emphasizing the need for a strong dollar.
Finally, many politicians are using the current struggle to make free-market capitalism the scapegoat for the economys troubles, when in fact, government played a major role in getting us into this mess in the first place. Free-market capitalism is alive and well, and we should be embracing its tenets, not rejecting them.
A woman on the north coast of New South Wales in Australia is being held hostage in her own home by a large pig, Australian media report. Uki woman Caroline Hayes, 63, says the pig is as big as "a Shetland pony" and that she cannot get out of her house because of its aggressive behaviour.
"It started knocking on my door at 4 am, head-butting the door, [after] some food," she told ABC television. When she opened the door, she said, the pig pushed her back inside the house. The offending animal, whom neighbours have named Bruce, also pulled a king-sized mattress out of her garage and ripped it up.
Ms Hayes, who describes herself as an animal-loving vegetarian, admits she and some of her neighbours had begun feeding Bruce. Rangers from Murwillumbah Council tried to catch the large animal but the cage was too small. Animal ranger Len Hing, who visited the scene, explained that Bruce's large size makes him difficult to control when hungry. "He is a bald pig [weighing] about 80 kilos [176lb]," he said. "I wouldn't like to see the pig go as a pet anywhere because he could become a potentially dangerous animal."
Rangers say the pig will be captured and taken to a piggery.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/23/2008
17:08 ||
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Why not turn him into bacon and ribs and shoulder and hams?
This morning, I had the honor of testifying before the House Budget Committee on the situation in Iraq. The discussion was polite and civilized, and was a reminder that even now it is possible for people who disagree about what to do in Iraq to argue without raised voices and disagreeable language (apart from the Code Pink women, yelling for those who think that shouting opponents down is preferable to arguing with them). Congressman Brian Baird once again demonstrated that it is possible even for those who bitterly opposed the war to recognize the importance of doing the right thing now--as well as the possibility of crossing the Republican-Democrat sectarian divide on this issue.
One question came up repeatedly in the hearing that deserves more of an answer than it got, however: Why, after all the assistance we've given to Iraq over the past five years, was the first major Iraqi oil deal signed with China and not with an American or even a western company? The answer is, in part, because three Democratic senators intervened in Iraqi domestic politics earlier this year to prevent Iraq from signing short-term agreements with Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, Chevron, and BP.
The Iraqi government was poised to sign no-bid contracts with those firms this summer to help make immediate and needed improvements in Iraq's oil infrastructure. The result would have been significant foreign investment in Iraq, an expansion of Iraqi government revenues, and an increase in the global supply of oil.
One would have thought that leading Democratic senators who claim to be interested in finding other sources of funding to replace American dollars in Iraq, in helping Iraq spend its own money on its own people, and in lowering the price of gasoline for American citizens, would have been all for it.
Instead, Senators Chuck Schumer, John Kerry, and Claire McCaskill wrote a letter to Secretary of State Rice asking her "to persuade the GOI [Government of Iraq] to refrain from signing contracts with multinational oil companies until a hydrocarbon law is in effect in Iraq."
The Bush administration wisely refused to do so, but the resulting media hooraw in Iraq led to the cancellation of the contracts, and helps to explain why Iraq is doing oil deals instead with China.
Senators Schumer, McCaskill, and Kerry claimed to be acting from the purest of motives: "It is our fear that this action by the Iraqi government could further deepen political tensions in Iraq and put our service members in even great danger."
For that reason, presumably, Schumer went so far as to ask the senior vice president of Exxon "if his company would agree to wait until the GOI produced a fair, equitable, and transparent hydrocarbon revenue sharing law before it signed any long-term agreement with the GOI." Exxon naturally refused, but Schumer managed to get the deal killed anyway.
But the ostensible premise of the senators' objections was false--Iraq may not have a hydrocarbons law, but the central government has been sharing oil revenues equitably and there is no reason at all to imagine that signing the deals would have generated increased violence (and this was certainly not the view of American civilian and military officials on the ground in Iraq at the time).
It is certain that killing the deals has delayed the maturation of Iraq's oil industry without producing the desired hydrocarbons legislation.
Nor is it entirely clear what the senators' motivations were. Their release (available along with their letter to Secretary Rice at the New York Observer quoted Senator McCaskill as follows:
"'It's bad enough that we have no-bid contracts being awarded for work in Iraq. It's bad enough that the big oil companies continue to receive government handouts while they post record breaking profits. But now the most profitable companies in the universe--America's biggest oil companies--stand to reap the rewards of this no-bid contract on top of it all,' McCaskill said. 'It doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect these dots--big oil is running Washington and now they're running Baghdad. There is no reason under the sun not to halt these agreements until we get revenue sharing in place,'
So was this about what's best for Iraq and American interests there or about nailing "big oil" in an election year?
Either way, like Barack Obama's asking the Iraqi foreign minister to hold off on a strategic framework agreement until after the American election, it was nothing but harmful to American interests and our prospects in Iraq
ANGOOR ADDA: Local tribes have shot down a U.S. drone here, according to Geo News.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/23/2008
15:15 ||
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I don't have the link handy but a recent review established that nearly all US military UAV crashes have been due to human error rather than hostile fire. Just something to keep in mind when you read accounts like this.
#2
If verified, it apparently would be the first time a pilotless aircraft was brought down over Pakistan and likely would add to tensions between Washington and Islamabad over recent American cross-border incursions into the country's lawless tribal regions.
The three officials said the aircraft was hit at the village of Jalal Khel in South Waziristan after circling the area for several hours. Wreckage was strewn on the ground, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
"A pilotless spy plane, we believe it is US, crashed in Pakistani territory but it did not disintegrate. Tribesmen picked it up and then Pakistani security forces retrieved it," a senior Pakistani security official told AFP.
"No firing was heard in the area so there is no question of it being shot down," he said.
Residents however said that the plane was shot down. "The tribesmen fired at the drone and it fell out of the sky," one resident told AFP by telephone, asking not to be named for fear of reprisals.
#7
Not quite, Chuck. If this was a cargo cult then the savages would be making totems out of rock in the shape of Predators and praying to their moon gods to have the hellfire missiles return.
Posted by: Ho Chi Hupailing9508 ||
09/23/2008 22:56
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US intelligence analysts are putting the final touches on a secret National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan that reportedly describes the situation as "grim", but there are "no plans to declassify" any of it before the election, according to one US official familiar with the process.
Officials say a draft of the classified NIE, representing the key judgments of the US intelligence community's 17 agencies and departments, is being circulated in Washington and a final "coordination meeting" of the agencies involved, under the direction of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is scheduled in the next few weeks.
According to people who have been briefed, the NIE will paint a "grim" picture of the situation in Afghanistan, seven years after the US invaded in an effort to dismantle the al Qaeda network and its Taliban protectors.
Spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Vanee Vines, said "it is not the ODNI's policy to publicly comment on national intelligence products that may or may not be in production."
The finished secret NIE would be sent to the White House and other policy makers.
Mike McConnell, the director of National Intelligence, has made it his policy that such key judgments "should not be declassified", although several have recently, including a report on Iran's nuclear ambitions. "That does not portend that this is going to become a standard practice," McConnell said it a guidance memo last year.
Last week, Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress "we're running out of time" in Afghanistan. "I'm not convinced we're winning it in Afghanistan," Adm. Mullen testified.
Perhaps foreshadowing the NIE assessment on Afghanistan, Adm. Mullen told Congress, "absent a broader international and interagency approach to the problems there, it is my professional opinion that no amount of troops in no amount of time can ever achieve all the objectives we seek in Afghanistan."
#3
I suspect that this is yet another "election contingency plan", and intentionally negative report purely for political reasons.
Clearly, by what we know of the situation, it sucks, because unlike Iraq, Afghanistan to a great extent *is* like Vietnam, but instead of Laos and Cambodia giving free run to insurgents, there is half the border shared with Pakistan.
That is, until we can freely smite the troublemakers, they can endlessly trickle across the border an endless supply of thugs to create trouble and keep Afghanistan destabilized.
#7
I don't get why anyone expects Afghanistan to become Wisconsin when that place has never been united or even functional. That we should spend blood and treasure to do so is insane. All we should care about it is that they never again be used as a launch point to attack us and the dire consequences clearly explained to them.
Posted by: ed ||
09/23/2008 17:11
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#8
As I understand it, the adversary there has changed. An infusion of well-trained, well-equipped militants from Iraq means we have to rise to the occasion. If Afghan and Pak governments get serious, it becomes very doable. The experience AQ's get caught in a border squeeze and squirt out to cause trouble someplace else. Northern Africa?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/23/2008 17:18
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#9
Maybe we can get them to move to Chechnya.. give Putie something to keep him occupied instead of muscling in on his neighbors
In the 4th century B.C., Alexander the Great fell afoul of Pashtun tribesmen in today's Malakand Agency, where he took an arrow in the leg and almost lost his life. Two millennia later the founder of the Mogul empire, Babur, described the tribesmen of the area now known as Waziristan as unmanageable; his main complaint seemed to center on his inability to get them to pay their taxes by handing over their sheep, let alone stop to attacking his armies. A couple of hundred years later, in the middle of the 19th century, the British experienced disaster after disaster as they tried to bring the same Pashtun tribes to heel, particularly in the agencies of North and South Waziristan. In 1893, after half a century of jockeying for position with Imperial Russia in the "Great Game," the British administrator of the northwest of Queen Victoria's Indian Empire, Sir Mortimer Durand, demarcated the border between India now Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Durand line, as it is still known to foreigners the Pashtuns call it "zero line" and completely ignore it separated the tribes on both sides of the line into 26 agencies, each with its own laws and tribal councils. It was this area that became the buffer between the British and Russian Empires, an agreed-upon "middle of the lake." The tribes were then left mostly to themselves for about 80 years.
#11
#8 Richard of Oregon has it about 110% right. We've got lots going on in Djibouti(military & civilian), we're advising the Ethiopians and Kenyans, Dept of the Navy did a little stretching, warm up sorties into Somalia in January and February of this year, President Bush proved our commitment to the Africans in general by stemming the tide of AIDS/HIV with billions in Rx, doctors and education starting back in '01 and continuing to this day. Africa is where we'll bleed 'em till they get the point. Probably get the Chinese on board when the jihadis start interrupting their commerce.
#12
I have little patience for the war in Afghanistan. Unless the Pak's get serious, there is no way we are going to win there. Flattening the tribal areas while trying to remain in A-stan is NOT an option. Other than not wanting another hell-hole failed state (which the tribal areas are anyway, with Pakistan close behind) what is the upside of the years and years and billions it is going to take to get this place to a point where it can be regarded as a normal state? Rathole if you ask me.
Make no doubt about it, a gaffe by Joe Biden in Ohio today will be seen on in Pennsylvania campaign ads soon. Biden, while talking to someone on a rope line, and probably not known he was being filmed said "we are not supporting clean coal," when asked why he was supporting it. Biden went on to say China is burning dirty coal and we need to make sure they turn it into clean coal, but then finished with "no coal plants here in America." With clean coal such a driving force in Pa. you can be assured it will be on the airwaves soon.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/23/2008
14:47 ||
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No coal, no offshore oil, no wind power off Nantucket, no military to secure the Persian Gulf... If they win, only those of us who own caves are going to survive the winters. Keep talkin', Joe.
#2
Are they Americans and free of felonies? Amazing.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/23/2008 17:21
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#3
Best reason yet for mandatory drug testing before voting.
Posted by: ed ||
09/23/2008 17:30
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#4
We prefer to call them Metabolism-Challenged Americans. They're one of our most loyal voting blocs.
Posted by: The Democrats ||
09/23/2008 18:36
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#5
Fellow RB'ers, the surviving members of the Grateful Dead all live in Marin (except Bill Kreutzman who I think lives in Hawaii). They are all liberals. No surprise there. The key question for this show is who is playing lead guitar? Trey Anastasio? Warren Haynes? Steve Kimock? Any one of those and you got your self a rippin show. Just contribute double the ticket price to McCain as an offset. Oh, and bring a barf bag for the political blather portion, which I doubt the band itself would do. Hard for most of them to string more than a sentence or two together.
Karma, Iraq - When the Iraqi Army caught Abdul al-Wasit, a mid-level operative for Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), he was working undercover as a shepherd in a rural area. It was a far cry from his earlier days in a village 65 miles south, where he used to extort locals and openly execute rivals.
The once seemingly untouchable insurgent had been reduced to hiding on the fringes of society. Many of his fellow operatives had joined him, and they continued to plan operations while supposedly trading sheep.
Facing a local population that has grown intolerant of AQI's indiscriminate acts of violence, many operatives like Mr. Wasit have gone underground -- some have even formed sleeper cells in the Iraqi security forces. Members now only emerge from hiding to conduct high-profile attacks. Though this strategic shift has created an apparently less active AQI, the group has not given up the fight in Iraq and will likely remain a threat here for years.
Continued on Page 49
The B-3 has been seen. The U.S. Air Force is working on a replacement for its current force of heavy bombers (20 B-2s, 67 B-1s and 76 B-52s). Models of what the new bomber might look like have been shown, and the "B-3" (officially the NGB, or New Generation Bomber) looks like the B-2.
There are two proposals (from Northrop Grumman and Boeing). Both look like the B-2. For the Northrop Grumman proposal, the main difference is that the stubby wings are "cranked" (moved forward a bit, rather than continuing in a straight line from the body of the aircraft). These derivative designs are apparently favored because the air force knows it is unlikely to get the money for a radical (and expensive) new design. There is also talk of building it so it can operate with, or without, a crew.
The air force hopes to get the B-3 into service in ten years. That may be possible, given that the air force has several billion dollars of its money currently invested in "black" (secret) aircraft programs. The B-3 spec calls for a smaller and stealthier aircraft that carries a ten ton bomb load (less than half what current heavy bombers haul). This is in recognition of the effectiveness of smart bombs, which are more than a hundred times more effective than unguided bombs.
Meanwhile, the most cost-effective bombers continue to be the half century old B-52s, simply because they are cheaper to operate. The well maintained B-52s are quite sturdy and have, on average, only 16,000 flying hours on them. The air force estimates that the B-52s won't become un-maintainable until they reach 28,000 flight hours. Thus these aircraft could serve another 20 or more years. The B-1 and B-2 were meant to provide a high tech (and much more expensive) replacement for the B-52, but the end of the Cold War made that impractical. The kinds of anti-aircraft threats the B-1 and B-2 were designed to deal with never materialized. This left the B-52 as the most cost effective way to deliver bombs. The B-1s and B-2s are getting some of the same weapons carrying and communications upgrades as the B-52, if only because these more modern aircraft provide a more expensive backup for the B-52.
Of the 744 B-52s built, only 94 are still fit for service. Nearly fifty have already been donated to museums (including one in Australia and one in South Korea.) Because of the Russia-U.S. START treaty, hundreds of B-52s in the "bone yard" were stripped of any useful equipment in the 1990s, and, since then, chopped up for scrap. This was all done out in the open, so that Russian spy satellites could confirm it.
In the last half century, the air force has developed six heavy bombers (the 240 ton B-52 in 1955, the 74 ton B-58 in 1960, the 47 ton FB-111 in 1969, the 260 ton B-70 in the 1960s, the 236 ton B-1 in 1985, and the 181 ton B-2 in 1992.) All of these were developed primarily to deliver nuclear weapons (bombs or missiles), but have proved more useful dropping non-nuclear bombs. Only the B-70 was cancelled before being deployed. The B-1 was delayed and almost cancelled, but proved that the air force would do anything to keep the heavy bombers coming.
The air force generals are now asking the aircraft designers for a subsonic, long range heavy bomber that could operate with, or without, a crew. Since the B-2 requires only a two pilots, and many commercial airliners have flight control equipment that, with a little tweaking, could eliminate the pilots altogether, the idea of heavy bomber UAV is well within the capabilities of current technology. The way this is going, it's likely that the next heavy bomber will be smaller (60-100 tons) subsonic, stealthy, uninhabited and familiar looking. And if rumors from the world of "black projects" are any indication, it is already under construction.
#2
The truth of the matter is that the AF should buy some inexpensive, low tech, low maintenance "cargo bombers", that are not stealthy or fast or maneuverable, and don't gobble fuel. Even drones would work. Not "combat" aircraft, but "combat support" aircraft.
All they do is take off, fly a programmed pattern, drop SDBs (8 to a ton) on request, and land. Since most fuel is burned getting up to altitude, it might even be worth it to alternatively have them airship hoisted.
At a high altitude, it turns on its engines to make sure everything is working, then is detached from the airship in a nose dive, accelerating to full power. Even if the engines suddenly fail, it just moves by a glide pattern down to the landing strip.
The bottom line is that aircraft like this can provide 24/7 support at maybe a tenth of the cost of a B-52, which itself is a lot cheaper than the newer bombers.
#4
No surprise here - the USAF-DOD in time will deploy those [SUPER]AURORA-styled andor similar ADVANCED TRIANGULAR AEROSPACE CRAFTS WE SEE ON "UFO FILES" + AREA 51. We're just "GOING THRU THE MOTIONS" at this time.
#5
Think TV's "PARANORMAL STATE", where PENN STATE's PARANORMAL RESEARCH SOCIETY engages in hunting Ghostsma dother strange phenomenon. AS PER TV, PSU PCORRECTLY SEARCHES FOR "FUN" GHOSTS, ETAL. - OUTSIDE OF TV, PSU ACTIVELY BUT COVERTLY COLLUDES WID GOES/GGOS + NGOS IN ROUTINE, OFTEN NON-CONSENSUAL PYWAR, ETC. EXPERIMENTATION AND OTHER ON ITS STUDENTS + AMER CITIZENS, where NEITEHR STUDENTS NOR PARENTS, ETC ARE TOLD.
#6
If they are going to make a manned bomber, they need to re-make the equivalent to the FB-111, but with stealth and better EW/Avionics and speed (supercruise). The Pig (officially, "Aardvark") was a helluva a penetration bomber, as was the EW version, the Raven.
We still havent gotten anything as good as the raven for the USAF.
oe Biden's denunciation of his own campaign's ad to Katie Couric got so much attention last night that another odd note in the interview slipped by.
He was speaking about the role of the White House in a financial crisis.
"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed," Biden told Couric. "He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'"
As Reason's Jesse Walker footnotes it: "And if you owned an experimental TV set in 1929, you would have seen him. And you would have said to yourself, 'Who is that guy? What happened to President Hoover?'"
Posted by: Mike ||
09/23/2008
12:37 ||
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Chronic "diahrea of the mouth" and early-onset Alzheimer's. Keep talkin', Joe!
#2
Most of the rules we have regarding wallstreet abuse came about because of Joe Kennedy's ability to abuse the system. I don't know how Joe Kenney's memory is treated in the Democrats but his children are considered Saints so its possible he stands high and if so I'm not sure the Dems want to dig to deep into history.
Also Hillary said recently that we need some big ass government stuff to handle it like we did in the Depression but a lot of economists think Roosevelt may have lengthened the Depression by some of his actions.
Of course WW2 got us out and we've got a couple nations looking to help us fill that slot so no worries.
Ever since this story hit, I've been entertaining myself with a vision of Sarah at the debate, smiling sweetly at Ol' Joe and asking "So tell me, Senator...was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
09/23/2008 21:52
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The market storm that brought down Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., American International Group Inc. and other pillars of U.S. finance may have also blown holes in the portfolios of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator John Kerry and more than 50 other members of Congress.
Pelosi, in her most recent financial disclosure form, reported that her husband owned between $250,000 and $500,000 of stock in AIG, which ceded majority control to the U.S. government this week in exchange for $85 billion of loans.
Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, disclosed that his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, had more than $2 million of AIG stock at the end of 2007, when shares were worth $58.30. AIG has fallen 85 percent this week to close yesterday at $2.69. The lawmakers' aides didn't respond to calls seeking comment.
Altogether, 56 senators and representatives had stakes in AIG, Lehman, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns Cos. or IndyMac Bancorp Inc. -- some of the biggest casualties of the market bloodbath -- according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The most recent annual disclosure filings list investments as of Dec. 31, 2007, and reveal the size of holdings only within a range of values. Lawmakers may have sold shares since then.
``Lawmakers, like everyone else in America who has any kind of retirement portfolio or stock holdings, are going to be suffering,'' said Gary Kalman, a lobbyist for the Boston-based U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer-advocacy organization. ``This is a serious issue. We need to have a serious response.''
Market Plunges
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index plunged 7.6 percent during the first three days of this week on news that Lehman and Merrill Lynch & Co. -- which survived two world wars and the Great Depression -- were finished as independent investment banks.
Lehman filed history's biggest bankruptcy case on Sept. 15 and Merrill sold itself to Bank of America Corp. Even after rallying yesterday, the S&P 500 is down almost 25 percent from its October 2007 peak.
Lehman shares, which traded for as much as $67.73 last November, closed yesterday at 5 cents. Merrill's shareholders are in better shape. To avoid Lehman's fate, Merrill agreed to be acquired in a stock-swap worth $26.28 per share at yesterday's closing prices. In better days, Merrill soared to as much as $98.68 in January 2007.
Bear Stearns was the first Wall Street titan to fall as home-loan defaults battered the market for mortgage-backed securities and started a chain reaction that devastated credit markets. JPMorgan Chase & Co. bought Bear Stearns in March.
Government Takeover
Earlier this month, the government took control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which together accounted for almost half of the U.S. home-loan market. Fannie Mae shares had already plummeted more than 80 percent this year, to $7.04 from $39.98, before the government's Sept. 7 takeover was announced. Shares dropped to 73 cents when trading resumed the next day. Freddie Mac fell to 88 cents, after starting the year at $34.07.
Representative Robin Hayes, a North Carolina Republican, had Congress's biggest AIG stake, according to the Washington- based Center for Responsive Politics. Hayes's AIG stock was worth between $2.8 million and $11.5 million.
John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, avoided potential losses. Because of the Arizona senator's run for the White House, his wife, Cindy, last year liquidated a blind trust that had contained stock in AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Lehman. The amounts of stock she had owned weren't disclosed.
Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat, owned between $50,000 and $100,000 of Lehman shares, according to her disclosure form. Calls to offices of Hayes and Harman weren't returned.
Pasadena, California-based IndyMac's bank was seized by U.S. regulators in July, in the third-biggest U.S. bank failure. IndyMac stock closed yesterday at 6 cents, after trading earlier this year for as much as $11.32.
#1
I have to wonder how much their stakes in the financial companies that are still standing will affect their positions on the handout bailout package.
#4
It was probably also fortunate for any person in America who has an IRRA/IRA/401 K that has any investment in AIG and Lehmans. This is mile wide/inch deep problem. We all are going to suffer even if you didn't have any investment in those firms since without capital and credit the ones you do have investments in better have gobs of cash for their capital and competition programs.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/23/2008 16:20
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TOKYO, Sept. 23 -- Major Japanese banks, fat with cash and nearly free of toxic investments, are spotting opportunity in the global financial mess and snapping up substantial holdings on Wall Street. Because many Japanese banks and brokerage houses have vast amounts of cash while U.S. banks are increasingly desperate for it, analysts here say more major purchases are likely in coming days and weeks as the financial crisis churns on.
Nomura Holdings on Tuesday announced it would buy the European and Middle Eastern divisions of the failed Lehman Brothers investment bank -- just one day after it had picked up Lehman's Asia-Pacific franchise. Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection last week.
Japan's largest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ, said Monday it would acquire 10 to 20 percent of Morgan Stanley, a deal that could make the Tokyo bank the largest shareholder in a profitable company that is one of the crown jewels of global investing. The deal is valued at up to $8.4 billion, a relative snack for a bank with $1.15 trillion in deposits as of March.
Continued on Page 49
U.S. Marines fighting in Iraq have been issued low-power laser weapons designed to temporarily blind enemy forces, the Washington Post reported Monday. "Dazzlers," as they're called, shoot green beams designed to "warn or temporarily incapacitate individuals," according to a Defense Science Board report extensively quoted in the Post's story.
The Geneva Conventions ban weapons meant to cause permanent blindness, but a Pentagon spokesman explained two years ago that "Dazzlers" didn't fall into that category. "They don't blind people," Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable told reporters. "It's like shining a big light in your eyes."
The Senate added more money for laser weapons to this year's defense authorization bill, approved last week, the Post reports. High-powered ray guns, such as the one Boeing is currently testing to blast missiles out of the sky, were included in the increase.
#1
These things work very well. They are an excellent non-lethal device and the only one that has significant range (other than the very expensive Active Denial System and the dazzler has much greater range). These will actually save lives and seperate those whose intent is to do harm (GWB: evildoers) from the innocents.
#4
This adds a new dimension to land warfare. Polarized goggles now necessary to function on the modern battlefield. You need earplugs to block the screamer devices, and thick clothing to block the microwave heat devices. The combat exoskeleton seems to be evolving naturally.
#6
This will be quickly discontinued, because it creates a bad precedent. Some years ago, a proposed aircraft device that scanned like the electron beam in a TV tube was quietly banned internationally, because anyone who looked at the aircraft would be instantly, and permanently blinded.
#8
For an innocent a dazzle or temporary blindness is much better than a 50 cal through the windshield. I will admit the PR and anti-war types will probably go nuts. The lawyers have probably already vetted this or it would not have been fielded.
#9
This laser dazzler is eye-safe. It does not permanently blind anyone. It has been vetted and approved.
The advantage of the green dazzler is that it is very visible evenduring daylight. Again, it is an excellent warning device that is not likely to be discontinued.
The Geneva Convention bans weapons mean't to cause permanent blindness but allows weapons that can kill, or maim (VEID's, IED's) or cause massive casualties such as bombs.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/23/2008 14:29
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#11
Why is this news? They outfitted the sharks with lazers years ago ...
#15
Red Dawg: not really. The major powers have lots of weapons they don't talk about and don't use, because they are not particularly hard to fabricate and could be very ugly if used by tin pot dictators or terrorists.
Do you think for a moment that Chavez would hesitate to use lasers to blind? Kim Jong Il? So the major powers are careful not to let such kooks get their hands on such toys or even mention them to them. Sure, they are open source, but they avoid talking about them.
Among the major powers it is also understood that while Geneva may be ineffective at banning them, their use will be regarded as an escalation, which could get ugly in a hurry. If one of our combat battalions suddenly goes blind after the fly by of a Russian aircraft, half the Russian navy might suddenly develop large, acute leaks in their hulls.
#16
Wouldn't an eyepatch at least protect one eye if these were suspected on the battlefield?
Sounds like the dazzle/temporary feature is the key. Anyone using versions with permanent effects is just opening the door to all sorts of unanticipated ugliness - not a good move.
Yes, it's real.
DOUGLAS -- A celebration of life for James William "Jim" Adams, 53, will be held at a later date. He died Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008 at Memorial Hospital of Converse County in Douglas.
Jim, who had tired of reading obituaries noting other's courageous battles with this or that disease, wanted it known that he lost his battle. It was primarily as a result of being stubborn and not following doctor's orders or maybe for just living life a little too hard for better than five decades.
He was born June 8, 1955 in Garrison, N.D. the son of James William and Ruby Helen (Clark) Adams.
He was sadly deprived of his final wish, which was to be run over by a beer truck on the way to the liquor store to buy booze for a date. True to his personal style, he spent his final hours joking with medical personnel, cussing and begging for narcotics and bargaining with God to look over his loving dog, Biscuit, and his family.
He would like to thank all "his ladies" for putting up with him the last 30 years.
During his life, he excelled at anything he put his mind to. He loved to hear and tell jokes and spin tales of grand adventures he may or may not have had.
He is survived by five sons, Jeremiah Adams and his wife, Nicole, Mica Olivas, Wade Olivas, Brice Simpson and Cole Adams; sister, Jerri Giegerich; two ex-wives, Vickie Harrison and Marilyn Williams; four grandchildren; two nieces; and two great-nieces. He was preceded in death by his parents and a brother-in-law.
In lieu of flowers, he asks that you make a sizeable purchase at your favorite watering hole, get rip roaring drunk and tell the stories he no longer can.
Gorman Funeral Homes - Converse Chapel of Douglas is in charge of the arrangements.
#2
I've been to Douglas on my way to Worland when I was stationed on TDY at Warren. There is a small cafe in town on the main drag where I stopped for lunch. I was the only guy in there without a stetson and wearing jeans and boots. I sat down at the counter and the waitress came over saw my haircut and creased plaited shirt and said "chow must be getting pretty bad for you to come all the way up from Warren for lunch"! Will never forget that place and the people. I had the best steak sandwich I have ever had there.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/23/2008 14:44
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#3
thanks tu for posting this one!
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
09/23/2008 19:50
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#3
Hmmmm, almost 80% of those viewing the article say the school should not have punished the kid. And the place for comments (shoutbox) is full and can take no more traffic......
Maybe we should Google the school and see if the phone lines or email work? Nah, why bother it's just children's minds being programmed.....just saying.
#4
Most of the time when elementary school students wear something inappropriate, they're required to change it for something out of the spare clothing bin the nurse keeps for bathroom and school lunch accidents. Suspension seems a bit harsh, under the circumstances.
#7
I have to wonder how strongly the kid feels about the Presidential campaign compared to his parents. I mean did the kid really choose to wear this or are the parents using the kid to create an attention getting first Ammendment battleground.
Having said that the school administrators are fools and unfit to be anywhere near children.
#8
The story says the kid was given the option of changing the shirt, turning it inside out, or getting suspended. Looks like he was (most likely with Daddy's encouragement) trying for option number 3 as a kind of political statement/attention seeking activity.
#9
That does change things, Cornsilk Blondie. If there aren't consequences for stupid choices when people are young, they end up having sex on railroad tracks and other Darwinian adventures later.
It was all over the press last week. At a time when the conflict in the Caucasus reached an alarming level, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called Foreign Minister Ali Babacan. Come Ali we are going to Moscow, he said. They both got on the plane. At the end of a brainstorming that lasted during the three hour flight they landed in Moscow with the Caucasus cooperation and stability platform. And the Foreign Ministry's bureaucracy learned about it from the press.
Although those who are fond of conspiracy theories won't like to hear it, sometimes, there are simple explanations to specific state behaviors. Criticized by the press at the at the early days of the conflict for being on vacation and doing nothing to defuse the tension it appears that the members of government came up with this Caucasus platform in order to calm down the press by giving the impression that they are doing something concrete. Thank God (or in fact tanks to Washington) the Georgians started to drag their feet which will hopefully provide the opportunity for the government to think more (than three hours) about whether the platform which covers Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia is a good idea.
Turkey's policy under scrutiny
Recently Turkey's Caucasus policy came under scrutiny at a security conference in Istanbul organized by the Arı Group. Most of the panelists argued that Russia's invasion of Georgia was intended actually to strike a blow to the east west energy corridor. Richard Giragosyan, an American Armenian who has been living in Yerevan for the past two years said with its new initiative Turkey took the frozen problems of the region from the US agenda, and put it to the Russian agenda. No wonder how the Russians have jumped on the idea whereas the Americans tried to kill it through Tbilisi.
What is so obvious to a group of experts is not so obvious to the Turkish government.
It appears that no one thought about the implications of giving leverage to the Russians on both Turkish Armenian rapprochement and the problem or Nagorno Karabagh through the Caucasus platform. Obviously it will be unthinkable for Russia which is deeply engaged in Armenia not to play a role in the diplomatic processes involving Armenians. But this is the gist of the problem. In a regional platform Russia will undoubtedly make all the others play to its tune, and it will be impossible for Turkey to counterbalance Moscow.
If Turkey wants a solution to Nagorno Karabagh and improve its relations with Yerevan it will need the backing of the United States as well as the European Union which has leverage over Armenia. Only these two power centers can counterbalance the influence of the Russians in Armenia.
The argument behind the Turkish proposal that regional problems should be solved by the regional players not outside powers, can only be valid if your regional interlocutors have good will and a spirit of cooperation, a mentality which seems absent in today's Russia. In contrast to the Turkish foreign policy which seeks stability in the Caucasus, Russia derives its strength and influence in the region from the existence of instability. It is thanks to that policy that today it offers the Azerbaijani government a solution on Nagorno Karabagh in exchange for its energy sources.
I had heard previously an Azerbaijani official talking about this proposal but was unable to confirm it. Last week a Russian newspaper ran a report on the offer made to Azerbaijan on similar lines. Considering the current Russian mentality, this should not come as a surprise.
Speaking at the Arı conference Sergei Markov, an advisor to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was very clear about the Russian position. If the energy pipelines passes from our territory we support it. If it does not we don't support it, he said with a tone in his voice as if asking what's wrong with that. One can hardly call this a spirit of cooperation based on mutual interest.
Unfortunately the brain storming of Erdoğan and Babacan on a three hour flight to Moscow seems to have ended with the naive belief that Turkey can handle that kind of mentality alone.
#1
See WAFF.com > RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN CONFLICT/WAR > THE KREMLIN'S STRAIGHT FACE + RUSSIA'S MILITARY FORCES ADVANCING BLINDLY. RUSSIA'S MILITARY FORCES ARE TOO WEAK TO FIGHT THE US-NATO BUT CAN STILL INTIMIDATE/THREATEN NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES.
ALso, KOMMERSANT > US SAYS RUSSIA TOO WEAK TO FIGHT ANOTHER COLD WAR; + TOPIX > RUSSIA'S SECRET PRO-NATO AGENDA IN GEORGIA + RUSSIA USING "GANGLAND" APPROACH IN GEORGIA.
#3
You know I was thinking the other day that the reason he wrote his two books was that if he hadn't then the press would have to look not for his last years at Columbia but also the years between 1961 and now. I think he is so empty and so full of it that he reminds me of that other poor soul that Oprah empathized with and later found out he had made up his life story. This guy is looking more and more like a plant out of John LeCarre novel.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/23/2008 16:06
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A couple in South Africa who were having sex on a railway track in Mpumalanga Province have been killed by a goods train, police say. Note to self. No sex on the railroad tracks. Or at least bring a mattress ...
Spokesman Abie Khoabane said it took place on Friday evening and the victims were yet to be identified. He told local newspapers that the couple ignored the driver's shouts as he moved the train into the disused station in Kinross town. Get a room!
"They continued with their business," he told the Sowetan paper. The earth moved. But not for long...
According to South Africa's Beeld newspaper, the area was deserted with no cars or houses nearby. There was, however, a big ass train.
The man died at the scene and the woman died later at hospital, the Sowetan reports. They're dead, Jim.
The police have appealed for those with missing relatives to come forward to help with their investigation. Hey, anybody seen Umbagwa lately? Investigation? They got run over by a train. What's to investigate?
#4
Reminds us of the young couple in Columbia, SC who last year fell four floors from a pyramid shaped roof while having sex. They were naked and still alive when a taxi driver found them in the street at 5am. When hormones call, ya gotta answer.
Like him or not, he's 'been there' and understands (sort of) what a president has to put up with and actually do. His answers were not always good, but at least he mostly understands the questions, unlike most of the media and congress critters.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
09/23/2008 10:59
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#7
Has the $21 million check from the DNC cleared ? If it has, look out the Hill & Bill parade will be turning the corner once again.
I don't remember the last time BC (before Clinton) that a Dem won back to back. There was the twofer of JFK & LBJ but the last single to do it was FDR in '44.
#10
JFK wouldn't stand a chance with today's Democratic party. This little tidbit from his inaugural address would get him kicked out of the clubhouse for sure:
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
#11
Bill was personally trashed by O with a false racism charge. I seriously doubt he's forgotten that or forgiven it. Forget about Hillary - Bill has ample personal reason to destroy O.
#12
Playing "Addicted to Love" as Bill was walking off the podium at the Dem convention after endorsing Obama could not have helped matters.
Posted by: ed ||
09/23/2008 17:01
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#13
Ya hate to say it BUT ya gotta love clinton in this situation - he's been stabbing barry in the back then throwing him under the bus about once a week since last Spring! HA!
It sounds like the rabid rantings of some poor demented shlub posting at the Democratic Underground. Instead, it is Al Gore's former fashion adviser, Naomi Wolf, indulging in sanity-challenged fantasies on her Huffington Post blog. The target of Wolf's derangement is Sarah Palin and it is so over the top that one might suspect Wolf is an agent provocateur working for conservatives in order to discredit the left. Think I'm kidding? Check out this sampling of Wolf's plunge off the political deep end (emphasis mine):
Please understand what you are looking at when you look at Sarah "Evita" Palin. You are looking at the designated muse of the coming American police state.
You have to understand how things work in a closing society in order to understand "Palin Power." A gang or cabal seizes power, usually with an affable, weak figurehead at the fore. Then they will hold elections -- but they will make sure that the election will be corrupted and that the next affable, weak figurehead is entirely in their control.
Um, thanks for letting us "understand" how things work, Naomi. And from here, she regales us with a strong dose of melodrama:
I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites ("the heart of America is on display") and realized Bush's speechwriters were writing her -- not McCain's -- speeches. I heard her tell George Bush's lies -- not McCain's -- to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners -- this is Rove-Cheney's enthusiastic S and M, not McCain's, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit --but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain. . . .
You probably think Wolf's rantings could not get any more bizarre but it does. It does:
Under the coming Palin-Rove police state, you will witness the plans now underway to bring Iraqi troops to patrol the streets of our nation.
Under the Palin-Rove police state, there will be no further true elections. Mark Crispin Miller has done sensational and under-reported investigating t o establish that -- as I warned -- indeed the GOP staffers on the US Senate Judiciary Committee have been .
Under the Palin-Rove police state, citizens will be targeted with state cyberterrorism. Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda, a former Reagan official, warned me three years ago that the Bush team went after a Republican who had crossed them through cyberstalking: they messed with his email, messed with his phones and I believe messed with his bank account -- he became a cyber-pariah, unemployable and haunted.
Am I trying to scare you? I am. I am trying to scare you to death and ask you to scare your Republican and independent friends most of all. How do you know when it is war on citizens? When there are mass arrests, journalists are jailed, the opposition is infiltrated, rights are stripped and leaders start to ignore the rule of law.
Okay, enough with the regular political fantasies. Let us now watch Wolf's hard core paranoia:
Almost everyone I work with on projects related to this campaign for liberty has been experiencing computer harassment: emails are stripped, messages disappear. That's not all: people's bank accounts are being tampered with: wire transfers to banks vanish in midair. I personally keep opening bank accounts that are quickly corrupted by fraud. Money vanishes. Coworkers of mine have to keep opening new email accounts as old ones become infected. And most disturbingly to me personally is the mail tampering I have both heard of and experienced firsthand. My tax returns vanished from my mailbox. All my larger envelopes arrive ripped straight open apparently by hand. When I show the postman, he says "That's impossible." Horrifyingly to me is the impact on my family. My childrens' report cards are returned again and again though perfectly addressed; their invitations are turned back; and my daughters many letters from camp? Vanished. All of them. Not one arrived. Try explaining that to a smart thirteen year old. Try explaining it in a way that still makes her feel secure and comfortable.
Ahh, but the strawberries that's... that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic... that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox DID exist, and I'd have produced that key if they hadn't of pulled the Caine out of action. I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officers...
Oops! Wolf's diatribe caused your humble correspondent to channel Captain Queeg. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
09/23/2008
09:08 ||
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#1
She's comparing Sarah Palin to Evita????
Ok....well...she was a sports reporter, so I guess that's kinda/sorta close to being a radio actress, but exactly what rank did Todd Palin hold in the military again?
She's stuck in that "a woman can't attain power unless she marries into it or is born to it" BS. Stick to picking out earth tones for alpha males, sweetie. It's what you're best at.
#3
Recently, on Drudge, I think, was a report that vegetables shrunk your brain. Need we more evidence than this?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/23/2008 9:48
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#4
Al Gore's former fashion adviser
Strange profession ... I never put the word "fashion" and "Al Gore" together in a sentence before. Its not something obvious...
#8
Wolf was born in San Francisco, California in 1962
In 2006, the Sunday Herald carried an interview in which Wolf claimed to have taken on the spirit of a 13-year-old boy and saw Jesus Christ.[2] The paper called her comments "more than a little disturbing," and Salon magazine called the confession "truly outlandish."
Camille Paglia derided Wolf as unable to perform "historical analysis," and called her education "completely removed from reality."
Likewise, Christina Hoff Sommers criticized Wolf for publishing the claim that 150,000 women were dying every year from anorexia.
Caryn James lambasted the book as a "sloppily researched polemic as dismissible as a hackneyed adventure film...Even by the standards of pop-cultural feminist studies, "The Beauty Myth" is a mess." After rejecting her thesis, the review leveled even harsher appraisal of her methodology and statistics, writing, "Ms. Wolf doesn't begin to prove her claims because her logic is so lame, her evidence so easily knocked down...Her statistics are shamefully secondhand and outdated."
The New York Times published a stinging review that characterized Wolf as a "frustratingly inept messenger: a sloppy thinker and incompetent writer. She tries in vain to pass off tired observations as radical apercus, subjective musings as generational truths, sappy suggestions as useful ideas."
The Library Journal excoriated the work, writing, "Overgeneralization abounds as she attempts to apply the microcosmic events of this mostly white, middle-class, liberal milieu to a whole generation....There is a desperate defensiveness in the tone of this book which diminishes the force of her argument."
Slate Magazine wrote, "Both her evidence and her reasoning are deeply flawed...Her gaps and imprecision give fodder to skeptics who think sexual harassment charges are often just a form of hysteria."
The Wall Street Journal wrote, "One is left with the unpleasant suspicion that Ms. Wolf wanted to get back into the spotlight and went rummaging in her basket of anecdotes until she found a juicy one to squeeze for publicity."[28] The Washington Post called for an end to "exaggerated victimhood as embodied by Wolf."[29] Author Camille Paglia described herself as "shocked" at the allegations and told the Guardian, "It really smacks of the Salem witch-hunts and all the accompanying hysteria. It really grates on me that Naomi Wolf for her entire life has been batting her eyes and bobbing her boobs in the face of men and made a profession out of courting male attention."
Wolf has spoken favorably about the dress required of women living in Muslim countries. She observed
The West interprets veiling as repression of women and suppression of their sexuality. But when I travelled in Muslim countries and was invited to join a discussion in women-only settings within Muslim homes, I learned that Muslim attitudes toward women's appearance and sexuality are not rooted in repression, but in a strong sense of public versus private, of what is due to God and what is due to one's husband. It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but that it embodies a strongly developed sense of its appropriate channelling - toward marriage, the bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home.
According to a report by Michael Duffy in Time, Wolf was paid a monthly salary of $15,000 "in exchange for advice on everything from how to win the womens vote to shirt-and-tie combinations."
I read her Wikipedia page so you don't have to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wolf
#9
Naomi did have one brief moment of sanity, when she wrote "Fire with Fire" - wherein she pointed out that strict doctrinaire feminism was getting women nowhere... and if women were going to play seriously in the political world, we would have to let go of the man-bashing, the various 'loyalty tests' that the hard-line feminists were apt to apply to other women... and tolerate divergent views among us.
Seriously, I wonder what happened to 'that' Naomi Wolf. It's as if the woman who wrote an eminently sane and realistic book about women and serious political power had been kidnapped, heavily medicated and sent to a reeducation camp, where she was made to produce this kind of insane dribble.
#12
Her unhinged state was made very apparent during W's first term. She had a complete midlife crisis meltdown and wrote an article claiming that young women's preference for trimming of their nether regions represented some sort of repressive setback for the women's movement and that it was wrong that the sight of any naked female body in any state (read, her own) didn't excite modern young men into mad lust, followed by an embarrasing onscreen groping of a horrified David Horowitz on MSNBC a few weeks later.
She seemed to disappear for a while after that, I assumed she was in counseling. I see that I assumed wrong.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/23/2008 15:06
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#13
Parebellum, are you a glutton for inanity or what?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/23/2008 16:03
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What lies behind such fantasies? We suspect the answer is that for malcontented citizens of a free society, imagining that one is being persecuted is a means of self-affirmation, of styling oneself a hero. Like a nut in search of a squirrel, Wolf seeks validation in being preyed upon. She flatters herself that she is important enough for anyone to be interested in reading her mail. She even invokes the name of erstwhile Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky (though she misspells it).
Posted by: Mike ||
09/23/2008 16:23
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#15
Compare wid FOXNEWS AM > AHMADINEJAD - THE AMERICAN EMPIRE IS NEARING COLLAPSE.
Moud is prob doing the "PRO-BUSH BUT MODERATE POTUS MCCAIN + JIMMY CARTER II POTUS OBAMA + ANGRY RUSSIA-CHINA, etc = NUCLEAR IRAN/ISLAMISM = OWG CALIPHATE" Post-Jan 2009 Math???
South Korea has revealed that, although it has practically no Moslems, it has arrested 74 foreigners as terrorism suspects in the last five years. There were 19 separate investigations. Most of the suspects were Moslems from South Asia or Southeast Asia. Most were involved in collecting information on American military forces in South Korea, or planning terror attacks against non-Koreans. Some Arabs have been caught involved in criminal activities that were apparently to provide funds for terrorists. ...
Posted by: ed ||
09/23/2008
08:50 ||
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Life for a foreigner in a South Korean prison would not be good. Koreans have no sense of humor about these things.
A tense standoff is underway in northeastern Somalia between pirates, Somali authorities, and Iran over a suspicious merchant vessel and its mysterious cargo. Hijacked late last month in the Gulf of Aden, the MV Iran Deyanat remains moored offshore in Somali waters and inaccessible for inspection. Its declared cargo consists of minerals and industrial products, however, Somali and regional officials directly involved in the negotiations over the ship and who spoke to The Long War Journal are convinced that it was heading to Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia's Islamist insurgents.
The MV Iran Deyanat is owned and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) - a state-owned company run by the Iranian military that was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury on September 10, shortly after the ship's hijacking. According to the U.S. Government, the company regularly falsifies shipping documents in order to hide the identity of end users, uses generic terms to describe shipments to avoid the attention of shipping authorities, and employs the use of cover entities to circumvent United Nations sanctions to facilitate weapons proliferation for the Iranian Ministry of Defense.
The MV Iran Deyanat set sail from Nanjing, China, at the end of July and, according to its manifest, planned to travel to Rotterdam, where it would unload 42,500 tons of iron ore and "industrial products" purchased by a German client. Its arrival in the Gulf of Aden, Somali officials tell The Long War Journal, was suspiciously early. According to a publicly available status report on the IRISL Web site, the ship reached the Gulf on August 20 and was scheduled to reach the Suez Canal on August 27 - a seven day journey. "Depending on the speed of the ship," Puntland Minister of Ports Ahmed Siad Nur said in a phone interview on Saturday, "it should take between 4 and 5 days to reach Suez."
#3
I'd never heard of insurgents wanting chemical weapons before. Seems like the kind of thing terrorists might want but insurgents?
If the ship set out from China isn't it strange the Chinese have had nothing to say so far? They must have clean hands or something on this one despite their support for Sudanese thugs nearby.
#6
I've only heard of one thing that can burn you and make your hair fall out just from opening the door and looking at it. It was a shipping container in the middle of Siberia that a couple of hunters found a few years ago. They opened the door to see what was in it and found white ceramic discs. Turned out to be very high level nuclear waste, dumped by a sky crane, in the middle of the Siberian forest. The hunters made it home, but died very shortly after, from similar symptoms; burns and hair loss.
It may not be the catchiest song ever, but it's timely.
Singer/songwriter Gerry Stanek's tune "I'm In Love With A Girl Named Sarah Palin" is slowly but surely making its way around the web.
Stanek, the man behind the song, says that he woke up with an idea on a recent Saturday morning.
I practically jumped out of bed, struck with the notion that I should present a comical, open letter to my wife; a song about Sarah Palin. Palin is such a cultural phenomenon and her entry into the presidential campaign had affected me deeply.
"Finally, he laughs, I might be able to justify the time Ive spent listening to talk radio and watching the news.
Stanek, who lives in Hastings, PA , says, My obsession with the election led to this song. Regardless of who wins, I got something out of it.
You can listen to the song at Gerry Stanek's MySpace page. Does not appear to be available from iTunes . . . yet.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/23/2008
08:23 ||
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I share his sentiments, but not his taste in music.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/23/2008 10:05
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Try not to be a creepy little troll Gerry.
We all think she's a good pick for VP, but lets not start exposing ourselves in public or anything.
ImpeachBush.org, a subsidiary of International ANSWER, has set up a website named "VoteNoBailout.org" Demand that the Bailout Legislation Be Rejected
We are witnessing a bankers' coup d'etat. In the name of saving the economy from a crisis created by their own greed and immense profits, the biggest bankers have taken a country and a people hostage.
"Give us your money and tear up what's left of your Constitution or we will sink your economy," is the message from Wall Street and the Bush Administration. "Give us the power and money we demand or you will be left jobless from a new economic depression."
Under the pretext of the banking crisis, the Bush Administration is changing the way this country operates. This is not simply taking trillions of dollars from the people and giving it to the richest bankers to do with as they see fit. . . .
. . . A spineless Congress authorized Bush's illegal war in Iraq and rubber-stamped the Patriot Act. Now they are being herded like sheep again to give the White House and Wall Street dictatorial control over the people's money.
As the Instapundit cautions, "just because International A.N.S.W.E.R. is against the bailout doesn't actually guarantee that the bailout is a good idea." Still, it is something to consider.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/23/2008
07:52 ||
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I've heard all the economic arguments for the bailout, but it still seems like we are rewarding the very people who DID it to us. It wasn't an accident, it was caused by greed and perpetuated by fraud and cover-up until the lid blew off the whole mess. I don't want an economic collapse, and I don't want to be jobless. But can we let a few thousand people plunder such a sizable portion of our country's wealth without any punishment? Should we reward them for it? Most of the operators in this have already gotten massive exit packages. It just seems wrong, ethically, morally, and financially. But I don't have a great enough understanding of the system to suggest a better tack. Seems like we have to do something or we're dead in the water.
#2
Of course, ANSWER is against the bailout, they're afraid it might work. They want the economy to collapse. Revolution, fighting in the streets, and all the rest of that commie BS.
#3
The problem is that the Congress, the President(s) have been too cozy with the very people that looted the economy. Before we do this bailout, we need investigations. But we cannot trust Congress with the investigations, as they are part of the problem. We need forensic auditors, the type that go into embezzlement cases. The results need to be public without spin.
I am a problem solver, but I do not see an easy way out of this one. We are only seeing the tip of the sh*tberg. Who can you turn to? Who can you trust? We need a tidal wave of sorts to put out most all of the Congress. The financiers who did this need some real punishment to serve as an example that one NEVER crosses the line again. I think that I better stop there.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/23/2008 11:26
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The exit packages, and golden parachutes, are most probably aspects of contracts the executives had with their employers who are now going belly up -- and you can't just blow off and negate those contractual provisions without doing severe irreparable damage to the foundations of US commerce. But, that's not the end of the story . . .
There are a number of standard contract principles that could be used to quash the massive reward of massive impropriety and bad judgement. For example, "impossibility of performance" and "frustration of purpose" may well be employed in a situation like this, where the executives have bankrupted the company. Also, "void as against public policy" may very well be one to use in a situation like this.
Separately, RICO and other laws that create criminal penalties for white collar crime certainly seem appropriate.
So, bail out the companies and keep the economy running. And, then take the trash out!
Posted by: James ||
09/23/2008 12:16
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A calm and sensible voice in the midst of the shouting, James. I have to admit, we benefitted from the higher interest rates in our money market accounts these past few years, that were paid out from profits the investment companies made using our money. And the trailing daughters lost money when they invested some of their savings for college in a mortgage backed security a year ago. They cashed out and left their loss on the table months ago, so it could have been worse. But the financial wallahs were only executing our investment choices; we own this as much as they do.
cingold, your expertise brings the comfort of useful knowledge.
#7
Problem as I see it, People were led to think not of a "Home" but of a "Investment' when buying a place to live.
I'm not with the thundering herd, I see "Home" and have no intention of "Selling in a few years"
Instead I plan to build what I need, live in it until I die, and pass it on to whoever in my family survives me and needs a "Home". If none, then sell it and divide the cash, I don't plan to prosper from he building I call "Home", the prosperity is owning shelter.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/23/2008 12:45
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Rush made a comment this morning that said "You know the democrats are responsible for this mess because they are NOT calling for hearings. They are not going to investigate themselves." Too true. Am I not getting something when I believe that those who can't pay their mortgages should go into foreclosure and the property then be resold. Does that resale not determine the value of the property and the loss on the original mortgage (and therefore any securities tied to that mortgage).
There is a big part of me that wants everyone who got us into this mess to feel serious pain, but I don't know if that is going to get us much. I do believe there has to be some short term intervention, but I'm not sure it needs to be as large as Paulson wants.
We need to grow ourselves out of this problem. We need to address federal spending, address major regulatory chokepoints, streamline our tax system and alter our energy policies so that we get the majority of our energy needs at home and stop sending our money overseas.
#9
One problem America has had since the 50s was mobility. People stayed with jobs for a short period of time than found a better paying one. Stayed in a house for a short period of time, then found a bigger one.
There was no real permanence built into the lifestyle the way it was in the past which just adds to the loss of community so many feel. At least outside of small town America.
#10
I have to disagree with you TW, about your assessment of James' link: the "theology" professor is engaging in "joint and several" morality, that substitutes "did you profit?" in place of "what did you do?" This inverts cause (what did you do) with effect (did you profit)? Once the inversion is made, he then tries to scrape up ANY evidence of any unintended incidental profit as proof of "guilt".
#11
Rush is only half right, remoteman. I believe there is enough blame to cover both sides of the aisle. Notice how they are all keeping their mouths shut and going along with the bailout.
#12
Except that it was intentional profit, Ptah, and intent precedes and informs action. Or at least it was intended to be intentional profit. :-( I am jointly culpable in that I chased higher returns on my investments, and if I did not know how they were achieved nor whether the AAA ratings were valid, it is because I did not ask.
#13
I will leave it to the forensic financial accountants (yes, there are such animals) to do the reverse engineering on this fiasco but there is one thing that sticks out big time - Congress telling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get more progressive in servicing high risk economic demographics. And if this turns out to be racial so be it. But it is fact and it is traceable. Not that it alone created the short term capital problem but I would love to see a detailed accounting of each "toxic" asset or mortgage that is being bought. I want to know where it is, who applied for it, what documentation was used as to its credit and ability to pay. That is why, my friends, that International ANSWER and the commies and pinkos and their enablers who ignited this mess during the Clinton years don't want a bailout for the holders since it is their paper and too revealing.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/23/2008 16:29
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Congress telling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get more progressive in servicing high risk economic demographics
I'm not certain about other regions, but this is precisely the case in and around Atlanta. And it isn't even close to subtle. Economic barriers had prevented the movement of traditionally lower income, Fulton county residents to the suburbs. Within the last few years developers have broken the code on low and no down-payment, easy qual, flexible interest housing (walk-away) loans and the rush to the $500-$700K 5 bedroom, 4 bath was on. In areas hardest hit, school systems became flooded with diversity and it's accompanying challenges. Schools and communities which were previously highly sought are now avoided and surrounding property values have fallen. Greedy developers, Fannie and Freddie, political kickbacks all working hand-in-hand. Our socialist government at work. It is what it is.
#15
CNBC + CNN this AM > Guest Perts - ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, DIRECTLY OR INDIR, THE US TAXPAYER WILL BE PAYING FOR THE BAILOUT + GIVING/PAYING OUT MORE TO THE USG PER ROUTINE PAYCHECK, ETC. AS A CONSEQUENCE.
What would be the dollar cost of not bailing out Wall Street?
Try a number north of $30 trillion.
What would be the dollar cost of not bailing out Wall Street? Try a number north of $30 trillion. (The awful math is detailed below.) That's why Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke were so scared last week. And, yes, I think "scared" isn't too strong a word. You don't think they convened an emergency nighttime meeting of congressional leaders and then walked out with something close to a blank check for a trillion bucks because they thought we were headed for an outright recession, even a fairly nasty one?
Nope, I think they believed, and got Congress to believe, that the economy was on the verge of something far worse than the worst downturn in a generation. And that is why they went with the so-called nuclear option: the biggest financial bailout in history. In the words of JPMorgan Chase economist James Glassman, "Thankfully, we and our friends around the world who are watching the economic lights come on will never know where events would have led, if the clock had not stopped [last] Thursday afternoon.... Last week's events made the 1987 stock market crash look like child's play."
As plumbers say about pricey repairs, "Sure, it costs money. It costs money because it saves you money." And plumber in chief Paulson had a pretty big pipe, loaded with toxic debt, to unclog.
OK, let's run the numbers. Paulson is asking for $700 billion. But that massive amount doesn't include previous government actions to cure the credit crisis (like propping up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), nor does it take into account money the government may get back from selling the bad assets it will be purchasing. So let's say those situations cancel each other out, and we are really talking about $700 billion. Now that money is being borrowed. So you take $700 billion borrowed for 30 years at prevailing interest rates, and you are talking about $2.5 trillion. But as Paulson said last week, "I am convinced that this bold approach will cost American families far less than the alternative: a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets unable to fund economic expansion."
Now let's do the math on the "alternatives." What would doing nothing cost?
1) Scenario 1: Great Depression "Lite." This is supposed to be the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. So let's assume that the total freezing up of American and global credit markets caused something half as bad as the Great Depression. From 1930 through 1933, the U.S. economy shrank by about 25 percent. Now let's say that by doing nothing and letting Mr. Market do his worst, the $12 trillion U.S. economy shrinks by half that amount (12.5 percent), or around $1.5 trillion over four years. (Also, figure a near doubling in unemployment.) But there's also the opportunity cost of not returning to growth, even at a so-so 2.0 percent a year. Doing nothing costs $1.1 trillion more in lost growth. So now we are down $2.6 trillion.
But wait: There's more. Let's assume the stock market drops an additional 25 percent or so. That's $3 trillion more in lost market capitalization. Plus, we are forgoing the opportunity to gain back what we have lost in the market, about $3 trillion. So, add the $6 million in lost market capitalization to the lost economic output, and we are at $8.6 trillion.
Then there is housing, already down $5 trillion, or roughly 20 percent. Let's conservatively say that we lose another $5 trillion by doing nothing. Plus, we forgo a partial rebound, say, $2.5 trillion. Adding together further housing losses (plus the lost opportunity to recoup some losses), and we are talking about a total cost of doing nothing of $15 trillion in four years for the whole megillah. But it could be worse.
2) Scenario 2: Great Depression 2.0. The economy shrinks by 25 percent over four years, or $3.2 trillion, plus $1.1 trillion in lost opportunity growth. Economic cost: $4.3 trillion. The market falls two thirds from its peak, losing $7 trillion in value from its current level, plus $3 trillion from not getting a rebound. Stock market cost: $10 trillion. Housing falls an additional $10 trillion from current levels, plus the lost opportunity of $2.5 trillion from a rebound. Housing cost: $12.5 trillion. Total four-year financial and economic cost of doing nothing: $26.8 trillion.
Now this is all a very rough guesstimate and doesn't include the costs of all sorts of other ramifications. Here is a fun one: the dissolution of China. Its economy is built for hypergrowth. A dramatically rising standard of living is both keeping the Communist Party in power and keeping the country together. Neither might survive a global economic meltdown. What is the economic impact of that? I don't know. My guesstimator just blew up.
Bottom line: Lots of folks have problems with the bailout. Liberals don't like a government bailout of Wall Street (instead of more homeowner help). Conservatives don't like a government bailout of Wall Street (vs. letting the market have its way). In a commentary on the National Review website, Newt Gingrich shows great skepticism toward the Mother of All Bailouts, advising that Congress "had better ask a lot of questions before it shifts this much burden to the taxpayer and shifts this much power to a Washington bureaucracy." He also presents several other actions government could take: 1) suspend the mark-to-market accounting rule; 2) repeal the Sarbanes-Oxley law; 3) eliminate the capital-gains tax; 4) undertake an "all of the above" energy plan to keep at home $500 billion of the $700 billion we currently send overseas for imported energy.
Count me as "all of the above" for Gingrich's ideas. (Toss in a corporate tax cut while you're at it.) But what would have been a smart, free-market plan in August 2007 or March of this year isn't enough for right now. Just as government created the environment for the credit crisis, it failed to enact quick solutions. The situation has gone critical. It's time for shock and awe.
#1
There are so many assumptions in this estimate that I got lost in them after the 4th or 5th one. If I trusted my assumptions that much, I'd be playing the stock market now rather than reading Rantburg. One thing I'm sure of: housing prices will have to fall to levels matching historical ones, with respect to incomes of creditworthy would-be house buyers -- and there is a very long way to go before that happens, and a lot of pain on the way to that point. No politician can say that without getting lynched -- this is the third rail of this election year. The US will have to get into a line of work different from that of selling real estate to ourselves at ever increasing prices.
#2
This garbage just proves one thing. Having shit for brains gets one nowhere. I don't know how this mess gets resolved, but it is becoming quite clear that a majority of ordinary citizens oppose this bailout. I hope they all rail at their Senators and Representatives. Yesterday I sent some "very hot" emails to mine. Today, when I have time, I'm calling them and I'm even more upset today than I was yesterday.
#3
This is such a garbage article, I simply do not know where to begin. His whole premise is that people who borrow too much money to bet the wrong way should be bailed out, or there will be dire consequences.
The reality is that overleveraged corporations that make wrong-way bets ought to be allowed to fail, as they have been in the past. There will always be other pools of capital available to pick up the pieces. I trust owner investors like Warren Buffett and T. Boone Pickens to run these places, post-liquidation, a lot more than I trust the hedge fund manager-wannabes who currently run them. Note that big chunks of bankrupt Lehman will continue to operate, having already been bought up by other companies. And all this without any cost to the taxpayer. Doing Japan-style bailouts will not only not stop stock market declines, it will ensure Japanese-style multi-decade economic stagnation.
#4
Once again, let me bring in the concept of "real" versus "imaginary" multi-leveraged money. The "core economy" of the US is based in real money industries, and must be protected at all costs. The imaginary money economy is one of speculation and unregulated excess.
Unfortunately, like drug lords, the imaginary economy speculators try very hard to launder their speculation through core industries.
And even though it is not a core industry, the best example of this was when AOL merged with Time-Warner. An "imaginary" company merging with a "real" company.
Knowing better, as soon as the merger was done, the AOL executives dumped every share they had in the combined enterprise, massively looting Time-Warner.
The way to defend against this, as I have recently suggested, is very high-denomination "protected" currency controlled by the US government. Core companies would be issued bills that would be fully backed, from $100k to $10M, but could only be redeemed or transferred with permission from *that company to another authorized company*, not individuals.
Right now, many companies are hoarding cash, and only loaning it at high premium rates. But a company with protected bills could get guaranteed loans up to say 95% of their paper, again with government permission. This would give them the loans they needed to continue to function.
It would in turn provide "safe credit" that could be used for business operations but NOT for leverage or speculation.
Importantly, only a required base amount of protected money would have to be kept by a core industry, so it could still have open play with imaginary money, which while it can be abused is still a very important part of a stable economy.
In turn, this would not immediately kill unprotected industries, yet permit the rather brutal correction they most likely still have to face. The bottom line being to create insulation between them and the core industries.
#8
The guy makes a fundamental mistake: he's computing the lost opportunity costs using numbers based on the pseueo-growth created by the problem he is purportedly solving.
I think his numbers for shrinkage of the economy are correct, so the bail-out is a plus, just not as big a bargain as he thinks.
I think Anonymoose is right and that we should let private enterprise bail us out of this one.
#9
Gee, and I thought the "smartest guys in the room" were at Enron.
You mean they are now in Washington and Wall St.? When were they paroled?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/23/2008 15:07
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"There is a very long way to go before that happens, and a lot of pain on the way to that point. No politician can say that without getting lynched -- this is the third rail of this election year."
Right on AH. And this is just the most recent example of the cowardice of our political class in dealing the truth to the electorate.
The most egregious example is that we've only begun the correction of the public's expectation of lifestyle for a given amount of work as a result of globalizing the workforce - a correction that has been overdue since the 1970's. No politician would address that issue for fear of being run out of office, although most knew dealing with it was inevitable and tried to mitigate it (the wrong way) by turning a blind eye to illegal immigration, instead of being honest with the American public and working through the changes.
In a similar way, it has been evident for a shorter but not insignificant time that the public's expectation of housing was way out of line with what could be realistically sustained. Ditto for the "value" of people's house. And the politicians have been just as cowardly on this issue as they were dealing with the implications of global labor markets, until the bomb was exploding in everyone's face.
Perhaps there is no politician with the stones to tell the American people the truth about issues such as these. Yes, if there were, he'd probably get booted from office, but he'd plant the seed into the public's consciousness, and when they eventually got it, everyone would look back and he'd be heralded as a hero (that legacy thing politicians are supposed to care about so much?). Maybe there aren't any politicians for whom that will offset the money and graft they can get merely by staying in office.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/23/2008 15:41
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#13
Maybe Ron Paul was right and we should return to a medieval barter economy. Keep some sheep in the yard in case you need to go buy a case of beer. Could work.
#14
No bailout necessary. The houses with bad mortgages are still standing, therefore, they wait and sell them for less, which will make the dollar stronger. For the democrats part, they need to get this out of the news before all Americans find who is to blame. Democrats all.
#16
Bright Pebbles is a very good accountant. He even figured out where money was moving in the UK's bloated government system for one of their "Taxpayer Unions".
Keep that in context with his statements.
I have been chatting with him about this very storm brewing for years.
#19
As a citizen I would be much more comfortable with any bailout IF ....
If a requirement is that TAX HAVENS like the Caymen's and Isle of Man open up their books to the US people, government and the FBI...
Like WHO had stashed WHAT MONEY there.
During his Fox News interview with Bill O'Reilly, Sen. Barack Obama responded to one question where the statistics contradicted his position by saying that "there are lies, damned lies, and statistics." He then went on to say that 95 percent of Americans would get a tax break under his economic plan. That's ironic, because his comment on "damned lies and statistics" is the perfect commentary on his own plan. Taken with Sen. Joe Biden's novel definition of patriotism, Team Obama is making an argument that Americans have never bought.
The statistics speak for themselves. Only 62 percent of Americans pay federal income tax, meaning that 38 percent get a 100 percent refund of any taxes withheld. So Mr. Obama's 95 percent that will receive money from the government includes roughly 33 percent of Americans who pay no income tax. One-third of Americans pay no income taxes yet would receive a government check of perhaps $1,000 or more.
That is pure income redistribution. Some pundits argue that this is Keynesian demand-side economics. It is not. Having the government take money from business entities or affluent individuals and giving it to those who pay no federal income taxes is not Keynesian. It's Marxist.
American voters don't buy Team Obama's arguments. A recent Gallup poll shows that 53 percent of Americans believe that Mr. Obama would raise their taxes. A recent Zogby poll shows a majority of Americans understand that raising taxes will hurt the economy.
Energy prices have pounded the U.S. economy. The recent woes on Wall Street have further shaken our weakened economy. Certain pillars of our economy, such as productivity gains and American ingenuity, continue to be powerful economic assets. But the current debt situation, spending trends, the cost of combating global terrorism, along with the energy crisis, leaves our economy in a truly precarious position.
Most credible economists warn that raising taxes during an economic downturn only makes the situation worse. Given our current economic situation, Mr. Obama's tax plan is the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a fire.
Then we come to the Team Obama fantasy that the Obama plan would cut taxes for most Americans. Yes, Mr. Obama says he will cut rates for lower-income Americans, but will more than offset that by raising taxes on dividends, capital gains, higher incomes, corporations, estates, and payrolls. But most Americans own stock, either directly or through their IRA, 401k or union pensions. Dividend and capital gains taxes will take money from all those. Those Americans on Main Street who own a house or have other investments will be punished by a capital gains tax increase.
Businesses and corporations do not pay taxes; we do. Businesses don't have huge piles of money sitting in the closet that they simply turn over to government when taxes increase. For every dollar that you increase taxes on a business, they simply increase their prices by a dollar. Who then pays the tax? We do. We do, when the product that we bought last week for $20 suddenly costs $21.
Mr. Obama's plan for universal health care and increased spending on just about everything costs hundreds of billions of dollars. To keep his promises to provide those things while eliminating the deficit and giving checks to lower-income families, he will have to raise taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars. But if lower-income Americans receive a check for $1,000 under the Obama plan yet have to pay $2,000 more when buying food and clothes, they are worse off.
Affluent Americans have not had a tax holiday during the Bush administration. Most analysts agree that the affluent pay more under Mr. Bush. In 2000, the top 1 percent of earners paid less than one-third of all income tax; now they pay 40 percent. The affluent already carry more of the burden.
The ancient Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder once said, "In wine there is truth." It means that people tell you what they really think once they have a couple of drinks.
I don't think Mr. Biden was drinking on the campaign trail last week, but it was a rare moment of complete candor when he told ABC News that people who are well-off have a patriotic duty to pay higher taxes. That perfectly states the liberal Democratic philosophy that those who do the right things in their personal life to make more money have an obligation not only to pay more taxes (which they do even under a flat tax because 17 percent of higher-income is more than 17 percent of lower-income), but that they should pay an ever-higher additional percentage on top of that. Liberal Democrats consider it patriotic to pay more taxes, and have a consistent record of voting to help nurture our patriotism for us.
That reveals what is really going on here. The statistics don't lie. Team Obama's plan is not economically prudent, and it's not a patriotic tonic for what ails our economy.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/23/2008
06:32 ||
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Posted for my friend, Edd, an occasional lurker.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/23/2008 6:39
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#2
giving checks to lower-income families, he will have to raise taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars. But if lower-income Americans receive a check for $1,000 under the Obama plan yet have to pay $2,000 more when buying food and clothes, they are worse off.
More imperialist dogma. Comrade Obama will provide food, clothes, government mandated forgiveness from Discover Card and Amex debt. Free housing will also be provided seperately. The periodic $1000 cash payments will be provided for Escalade lease payments and gas.
#3
Both candidate's economic plans will be rendered moot by January 20th due to the current unfolding crisis. Obama's plans are already irrelevant & getting more so daily.
#4
Just because you are lowering taxes does not mean that you increase the amount of money returned. In Obama's plan it probably does, but it doesn't necessarily mean so.
#5
I'm waiting for a politician to say, okay, IRS is gone. Flat tax has worked wonders in Chile and the Baltic States so we'll start at 15% (or whatever the economists decide). We believe this will unclutter the economy and a year from now (or two) we'll further fine-tune. Also we're planning an across the board budget cut. Everything gets cut 10% except the military. Other programs are just gonna have to go because we can't pay off Social Security the way we're going and those cute little old people, well we promised them long before we promised the piss-Christ artist he'd get cash.
#6
Word RJ. I want to see Congress actually have some balls. No way it is going to happen, at least on the Dem side. But it would be nice to see the Republicans actually step up and put forth a plan that would introduce fundamental change. Of course some groups would be pissed off. So what. They are going to be a whole lot more pissed off if the economy goes deep into the tank due to Obama/the dems mismanagement.
If Obama does win, you know he is going to screw things up so badly that there won't be another democrat elected president for a generation. But that screw up is going to cost us all dearly.
#7
I want to see Congress actually have some balls.
Ain't going to happen. At least not the way you're hoping, Remoteman.
The key problem here is that we have lawyers making our laws. They have a vested interest in creating complex, weasle worded wonders that they or their ilk can bypass at will. Until we fix that, we're not going to have law for the common man, and the legal profession will continue to screw us into the ground.
#10
Every once in awhile in the US a third party replaces one of the existing parties. I think that time is overdue. If Obama loses it's likely the Greens will gain in strength. If Obama wins the Libertarians (or the Libertarian wing of the Republicans) will gain strength.
I just think too many people are pissed off right now. I mean Bush's numbers are low. Congress is even lower. Both candidates are trying to campaign as outsiders and reformers. Everyone knows the system is screwed but the boys and girls in Congress just can't control themselves long enough anymore.
#11
When you allow kids in the candy store they're bound to make a mess.
Congress on both sides of the aisle is exactly that and has been for a long time.
There are programs in this country that I think are vital (the military, NASA, maybe the Dept of Energy which funds a LOT of long-term research which has direct benefits, maybe a few others). A 10% across-the-board budget cut would kill NASA and lot of DOE programs, but you could easily eliminate a few dozen other government departments and programs - the IRS, the Dept of Education, HUD, and others just to start. Getting rid of the nearly 2-dozen government police agencies and forcing the FBI to do its job would be another. Restructuring the Dept of State and the CIA would also be a start.
Inevitably, you're going to have to force the tes of thousands of government workers and lawyers out of their comfy do-nothing government jobs out into a labor force where a lot of them will have the skills only to dig ditches (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).
One can dream, but as long as it's kids minding the candy store there's going to be a mess.
#12
We can save a ton of money just by getting rid of HUD and Education - there's nothing in the Constitution that authorizes them at the federal level anyway.
Not that that stops the politicians....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/23/2008 18:37
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#13
Don't leave out the CDC: they're the medical DEW line for the entire planet. We give them way too little money for what they do.
Having now reviewed the ad, it is even more clear to me that given the disgraceful tenor of Senator McCains ads and their persistent falsehoods, his campaign is in no position to criticize . . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
09/23/2008
06:26 ||
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#1
Biden probably feared that seniors would be offended by the ad, then later saw the polls indicated the social security scare smears were doing their work with seniors so he reversed his opinion.
#4
maybe its all part of the staging for his removal from the ticket. he also is credited for publicly taking an opposite tack from The One on the bailout, so it may jsut be that in the next few days he is asked to step down due to severe differences with Zeroman.
#6
My earlier comment has been disappeared. I hope I didn't say anything out of line. Biden HAS had multiple brain surgeries (1988, I believe) to save his life. If McCain's skin cancer can be talked about, why not Biden's medical history. Especially in light of Biden's comically erratic cognitive functioning.
If the above subject matter is taboo and verboten here, please let me know.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
09/23/2008 20:35
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Secret negotiations in Indonesia with separatist sympathisers at the weekend were aimed at isolating the terrorists insurgents operating in the deep South, not at striking a deal with them, a Defence Ministry source insisted yesterday. The talks followed a strategy proposed by former prime minister Samak Sundaravej to handle external factors affecting the violent situation in the deep South. ''This [dialogue] is to cut the lifeline and support given to the militants in the South,'' said the source.
The talks, mediated by Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla at the presidential palace in Bogor, involved five representatives from the deep South and negotiators from Bangkok. Indonesia's Secretary of State Hatta Radjasa said the five members of the separatist Pattani Malay Consultative Congress were led by Wahyuddin Mohammad, Antara news agency reported yesterday. The talks were inconclusive and will resume in November.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono met the Thai Muslim delegates at the presidential palace yesterday. He had met the Thai team led by Gen Kwanchart Klaharn on Saturday. ''Do not say it was our initiative to play a role. This is the wish of the two parties as part of their efforts to end their conflict,'' Mr Radjasa said. ''Indonesia is considered an experienced mediator and is the largest country in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.''
The talks on Saturday and Sunday ''produced several points as reference for making a framework for their next meeting'', Antara reported. ''They had also signed notes on the meeting's results,'' it said. The two sides resolved to meet again in Bogor, about 50km south of Jakarta, on Nov 1-2 and Nov 14.
The Defence Ministry source said that under Mr Samak's directive, teams were sent to countries believed to be home to insurgent supporters, including Malaysia, Indonesia and the Middle East. Gen Kwanchart, a former Fourth Army commander, was tasked with getting help from Indonesia. Southern militants received training in Indonesia, particularly jungle survival and bomb making, the source said. Gen Kwanchart would make no comment yesterday. ''I have no idea ... I cannot talk now,'' he said. A source close to the general said he was surprised the news leaked and he felt he had been stabbed in the back.
Defence Ministry spokesman Lt-Gen Peerapong Manakij and army spokesman Col Acra Tiproch distanced the army from the talks in Indonesia, saying Gen Kwanchart had made a personal trip. The Fourth Army had no knowledge of Gen Kwanchart's actions, Col Acra said.
A father and a son on their way to gather forest produce were shot dead by insurgents, and the father was beheaded, in a presumed terrorist insurgent attack in Narathiwat. The gunmen beheaded the father, leaving it next to his body and took the dead man's two firearms.
The police teaming up with soldiers and local administration personnel investigated the crime scene, where the two villagers were ambushed, their bodies lying in the middle of the road. Prateep Sombat, 38, lay next to his 17-year-old son, Siripong, a 9th grade student. Some 35 M16 assault rifle shells and shotgun shells were scattered at the scene, and were collected as evidence.
The victims were believed to be going to collect forest fruits and herbs for selling, but were attacked before arriving at their intended destination by at least four terrorists insurgents.
GEORGIA says it has shot down a small Russian reconnaissance drone over Georgian territory just south of the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
The drone was downed yesterday morning near the town of Gori, some 30km from the de facto border with South Ossetia, Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said.
There was no immediate response from the Russian authorities.
A SHOOTING has taken place at a vocational school in the town of Kauhajoki in northwest Finland. It was possible that a number of people had died, the police told the Finnish News Agency.
The shooter is apparently still in the building, police said.
DUBAI: A top security official in the United Arab Emirates warned Iran yesterday not to drag its Arab neighbors in the Gulf into any conflict with the West.
"Our strong relations with Iranians don't mean that governments in the GCC will not react strongly to any work that will endanger social stability and economic prosperity," Dubai police chief Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim said in remarks posted on the Gulf News website.
His remarks came one week after the same Dubai-based paper quoted a senior Iranian defector as alleging that Iran runs a network of agents in the six Gulf states that could be used to destabilize the region.
Iranian Defense Minister Mustafa Mohammad Najjar dismissed the claim as "lies and provocative remarks from enemy Western media." And Kuwait's defense minister yesterday called the defector's reported comments "mere rumors."
"Lies! All lies!"
According to Gulf News, Dubai's police chief acknowledged that Iran might have sleeping agents in the region. "My advice to them (is to) keep them sleeping because it is not in the interests of Iranians in the region to destabilize host countries," he was quoted as saying.
Tamim said Iran's conflict with the United States over its controversial nuclear program should not involve the Gulf Cooperation Council states. "We are in favor of a peaceful resolution... This doesn't mean that they can cut the life vein of the region just because they can't confront the US directly," he said. He was referring to Iran's warnings that it will retaliate militarily or close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil route, if it comes under US attack.
Adel Al-Assadi, who was Iran's consul general in Dubai before defecting in 2001, said last week that Iranian Revolutionary Guards began setting up sleeper cells in the GCC states after the 1979 revolution.
Kuwait's defense minister, also in remarks published yesterday, dismissed as "mere rumors" the claim that spies from neighboring countries are operating in the emirate. He did not specifically name Iran. "Reports about the presence of spy networks from neighboring countries in Kuwait are mere rumors," Al-Sheesh Seyassah newspaper reported Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah as saying. "We have good relations with our neighbors."
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pakistan and Afghanistan are discussing a possible joint force to combat militants on both sides of their border near Pakistan's tribal region, which has become a safe haven for al Qaeda and other groups, a senior Afghan official said on Monday.
Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak told reporters that such a force would include U.S. troops and address soaring insurgent violence that he said has stretched the capabilities of U.S., NATO and Afghan forces inside Afghanistan.
"We should have a combined joint task force of coalition, Afghans and Taliban Pakistanis to be able to operate on the both sides of the border," Wardak said at the Pentagon during a visit to Washington to discuss a Kabul plan to nearly double the size of the Afghan army.
Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he had not heard the details of Wardak's proposal but said any effort to improve security in the border area was welcome.
"I think anything that impacts better security on that border is a good thing," he told reporters in Los Angeles.
"I am encouraged that a leader in Afghanistan has spoken out with this kind of idea," he said. "As in all these things, the devil will be in the details."
Mullen told Congress this month that he had ordered a new U.S. military strategy for the region that would for the first time encompass Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Wardak said the Afghan government had discussed the task force with Pakistani officials within the past several weeks. "They say they're looking at it," he said.
Speaking two days after a truck-bomb attack on Islamabad's Marriott hotel, Wardak said that given recent events in Pakistan, "everyone should realize we have a common threat, a common enemy and a common objective to achieve."
He noted that insurgent violence in Afghanistan rose three-fold from 2005 to 2007 and said, "2008 is going to be the highest among all."
INSURGENCY EXPANSION
The core of the insurgency consists of 10,000 to 15,000 fighters in Afghanistan, he said, not including those who operated outside the country in areas such as Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, on the Afghan border.
"Now I think they're operating geographically in more areas and more provinces than before, and I think they have stretched the capability of the combined forces of ISAF, the coalition and Afghans," the defense minister said.
ISAF, NATO's International Security Assistance Force, totals about 47,000 troops including 13,000 Americans. An additional 20,000 U.S. troops operate in Afghanistan under a separate U.S. command.
U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have asked for three more combat brigades totaling around 10,000 troops. Washington, strapped by commitments in Iraq, plans to send one Army combat brigade and a smaller Marine force by February.
U.S. and Afghan officials blame the rising tide of attacks in Afghanistan partly on safe havens in Pakistan where they say militants are recruited and trained and cross-border actions are planned.
But there has been frustration in Washington over Pakistan's slowness to act against militants on its soil.
U.S. commandos crossed the border into Pakistan on September 3 to attack a suspected al Qaeda target that officials said was contributing to violence in Afghanistan. The operation raised an outcry from Pakistani officials who said women and children were among the 20 people killed.
"A terrorist does not recognize any boundaries," Wardak said when asked about the raid. "We have to deal with the sanctuaries and the real hide-outs of the terrorists, wherever they are." I wonder where "wherever" is.
(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
#1
ION WAFF > CATHOLIC NEWS - seems INDIA's CATHOLIC LEADERS are finally formally belabeling recent bloody HINDU violence agz local Catholics and Christians as a "CLEAR CONSPIRACY" INVOL LOCAL POLICE AND PRO-HINDU PUBLIC AUTHORITIES???
DATU PIANG, Philippines: Moro fighters in the southern Philippines trained foreign militants and recruited child soldiers while engaged in peace talks with the government, according to documents seen by AFP.
Military intelligence officials said they recovered training manuals and bomb-making paraphernalia from a Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) camp on southern Mindanao island last week.
Among the evidence were books with details on bomb making, evasion and attacks, as well as fake identification cards of foreign militants, some from the Middle East, the officials said.
We are trying to determine who these people are but clearly it shows you that the MILF has never stopped taking in foreign militants into its camps on Mindanao, one intelligence officer who did not want to be identified told AFP.
While we have been talking peace to them the past five years, they used the lull in fighting to continue recruiting, and establishing connections to foreign militants, the officer said. The bomb making technology is obviously imported. The MILF has for the past 40 years been fighting for a homeland for the minority Muslim community on Mindanao. Fresh violence erupted on the island last month when the groups negotiations with the government were officially scrapped after 11 years.
One of the training manuals said MILF recruits were taught to have an aggressive spirit and the will to close and kill or capture the enemy. The lectures, written in a mix of English and Arabic, include military instructions on map reading and on assembling fuses and powerful homemade bombs using cigarette lighters. There were also step-by-step instructions on securing a given area using advanced grid systems, planting a bomb and maintaining a safe distance at the time of explosion.
The purpose of combat-training is to mold you into a tough, self reliant fighting man, capable of performing effectively as a member of your team, according to one of the instruction manuals. The army also retrieved pictures of what appear to be induction ceremonies for boys in their early teens being trained to join the MILF. The youngsters appear to be holding high-powered automatic rifles as they listen to an address by MILF commander Americal Umbra Kato.
#4
Typical MSM bullshit, the AK-47 is classed as a medium power weapon.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/23/2008 19:27
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#5
A number of local Guam Filipinos I've talked to wold prob agree wid #2 CRAZYFOOL's post - while no one favors giving Filipino Muslims = MILF/MOROS independence or potent local autonomy, at the same time A MAJORITY DOUBT MANILA'S LONG TERM ABILITY WIDOUT US ASST. TO RESIST AND PREVENT A PARTITION OR BREAKUP OF THE PHILIPINES TO ISLAM WITHIN 10-15 YEARS [2018-2023/2025 r.o.]???
GUAM's PERCEIVED NEED FOR FOREIGN LABOR VEE THE MARINE RELOC FROM OKINAWA IS ONLY THE "TIP OF THE ICEBERG/BEGINNING" FOR GUAM AS PER POST-2010 INTERNATIONAL GEOPOL, ECON, + WARMING-INDUCED ENVIRO PRESSURES.
Many people, includ Guamanians, can of course take the easy route and leave ASIA-PACIFIC for the USA = AMERICAS, except for the fact that CHINA > has already declared 1/2 of CONUS-NORAM OR MORE AS FUTURE CHINESE TERRITORY + LIVING SPACE.
LEAVING "CHINA" [Guam-WESTPAC/Asia] for "CHINA" [CONUS-NORAM]!?
THE GOOD NEWS AFAIK IS THAT RADICAL ISLAM HASN'T FORMALLY DECLARED CONUS-NORAM AS FUTURE ISLAMIC TERRITORY FOR THEMSELVES - Y-E-T???
Click to read the whole story, I'm just excerpting the examples of behavior that I consider outrageous, but that Berkeley residents consider as normal.
As most veteran customers know, it takes a pretty thick skin to successfully navigate the Berkeley Bowl, this strident city's most popular grocery store.
Outside, petitioners seeking signatures for ballot measures have come to blows with opinionated residents. In the tiny parking lot, nicknamed the Berkeley Brawl, frustrated motorists have been known to ram one another's cars. At the checkout, people have thrown punches and unripened avocados at suspected line-cutters.
When one shopper was told she couldn't return a bag of granola, she showily dumped its contents on the floor. Culyon Garrison, who works at the customer-service desk, recently had a loaf of bread thrown at him.
The produce emporium -- one of the nation's most renowned retailers of exotic fruits and vegetables -- creates its own bad behavior. Kamikaze shoppers crash down crowded aisles without eye contact or apology for fender-benders. So many customers weren't waiting to pay before digging in that management imposed the ultimate deterrent: Those caught sampling without buying will be banned for life -- no reprieves, no excuses. (Not even "I forgot to take my medication.")
Store manager Larry Evans says the policy is a fair response to doctors, lawyers and college professors who help themselves to bags of cookies, nuts and vitamins, stick their fingers in pies and guzzle from bottles of sake, assuming the rules don't apply to them.
"There's a sense of entitlement to this town," Evans said. "People think, 'If I want to do it, I'll do it, just try and stop me.' " You mean that The Rules apply to everyone but ME, and I'M a beautiful, precious, unique snowflake?
Seven years on the job, he said, has given him insight into the city's sometimes sharp social elbows. "Berkeley residents are angry -- they're mad at the president, the economy, all kinds of stuff. And this is the place where it seems to get released, the local supermarket." What a bunch of jerks.
Each morning, the early birds wait in line for the Berkeley Bowl to open. Then the rush is on -- the elbowing and scrambling to reach the shelves of reduced-price produce that can be bought in bulk. The scene is so madcap, the store used to play the "Call to the Post" theme used in horse racing. Now management enforces a no-running policy -- because when Berkeley switches into hunter-gatherer mode, things can quickly get out of hand. What the hell is this, pizza day at an elementary school? It is barbarous behavior.
The Internet site Yelp, where customers review restaurants and other stores, has hundreds of entries about the Bowl. One writer said weekends were the craziest, when "you don't wander through the aisles as much as hack through the underbrush of nose rings and cloth shopping bags with a machete, only to count the minutes you creep closer to death at the checkout line." This is just like shopping in a Chinese store, except less civilized. Elbowing people out of the way is NOT the way that normal people behave, it's behavior of savages.
But other things get pointed out too. Your cart is at the wrong angle. You didn't replace that apple where you found it. Tell your child to stop playing with that plastic bag -- it's a choking hazard. One customer said he thinks he's come up with the perfect city bumper sticker: "Welcome to Berkeley: Now please stop doing that!" Surprise, surprise - liberals like to mind other people's business.
Once, caterer Francisco Machado was at the checkout, talking on his cellphone, when he got a shoulder tap. "I made a remark to a friend, 'Dude, this place is a meat market!' And the guy behind me took offense. He started shouting that what I said was really sexist," Machado recalled. "He wouldn't let it go. I finally had to turn around and say, 'Mind your own business.' " Thought police.
On a recent day, shopper Jean Sirius, a local editor, was standing in the produce section explaining the store culture. "There is a goddess Oblivion, and she has many devotees who shop here," she said. But before she could say more, a male shopper in a sweat suit removed his iPod earphones and barked: "Hey, you've been taking up space there for too long! Why don't you move aside so the rest of us can do some shopping?"
Michael Pollan, author of the best-selling book "The Omnivore's Dilemma," is a Bowl regular who calls the store one of his top three places to buy food in the world. Still, he knows there's easier shopping.
One time, Pollan was picking out a box of cereal for his daughter when a fellow shopper interrupted him. "He said, 'I'm watching Michael Pollan shop for groceries,' " Pollan recalled. "There was this note of disappointment that I was buying Fruity Pebbles. Berkeley is full of hall monitors. It's a small town, and people are looking into each other's baskets." This is EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS TO ME IN CHINA. People peer curiously into my basket, to see what the foreigner is buying. These days, it is much less common, and the only people who peer into my basket are HICKS FROM THE COUNTRYSIDE. The ordinary city people couldn't care less - and the Berkeleyites are upholding the same standard of behavior as Chinese people with no manners.
#1
If this was a bar, most code enforcement offices would have put the place on notice and be working to close it down as a blight to the neighborhood.
#5
This is the type of behavior that leftist/marxist/socialist philosophy breeds.
This is a foretaste of what will become of society if Zero is elected with Nancy & Harry running things.
Not overnight, but over time, starting in the bluest areas you will see the "entitled" demanding that they are above any rules. The entitled will include the academic & media & political left as well as all their favored "minorities".
A free for all will ensue.
Just another example of the collision between collectivist ideals and the reality of human behavior.
#13
I wonder if there are actual organic changes in a Liberals brain physiology? A brain scanning experiment would be very interesting. They seem to act similarly different than conservatives, perhaps they have a malformed amigdala or something???
#14
Ya know, every time I go shopping in Walmart, the people are courteous even when the lines back up to the stupid apparel department. I thought *they* were supposed to be the barbarians....
#16
There is a department store in Boston that has a bargain basement. It is at subway station and easy to get to. Don't go there on sale days. Especially the Bridal Sale Day.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/23/2008 13:19
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#19
from what I've read (Here and elsewhere) they behave like undisciplined children, and a good smackdown simply doesn't register as anything except "Assault" no realization that they caused and provoked the situation.
In short this is what happens when they are NOT diciplined as children, and allowed to grow up "Free".
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/23/2008 13:49
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#20
I've been there once. Revolting. The Whole Foods in Mill Valley can be like this on rare occasions, but is nowhere near as bad. You mostly see it there on the complaint board. Some pretty funny stuff actually.
#23
Related:Drudge is reporting that the moonbats that were tree sitting have been slammed with something like 800k in damage reparations and legal fees and they are now in Full Whine Mode.
#24
Speaking as your Cultural Anthropology Advisor, I consider this an exciting opportunity to study free-range hippies in their natural environment. Fascinating, simply fascinating.
#26
I think leftism is a lack of empathy, covered up by a concious attempt at empathy. Hence the contradictions between automatic actions of leftists and their stated aims.
#28
"Berkeley residents are angry -- they're mad at the president, the economy, all kinds of stuff."
--yep, the economy is just so bad but somehow they find a way to tighten their belts and still afford to shop at the bowl....quivering lipped douchebags.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
09/23/2008 18:23
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#31
Related:Drudge is reporting that the moonbats that were tree sitting have been slammed with something like 800k in damage reparations and legal fees and they are now in Full Whine Mode.
In addition to this I would have required a ten years term for tree molesting.
#32
Thanks Alan C. I couldn't remember the name. It has been 16 years since I was there. I remember several women standing in their underwear trying on clothes.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/23/2008 19:44
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#33
Wide applciation of Sarin at the UCB campus would solve this problem.
Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith says the Federal Government is still seriously considering trying to prosecute Iran's President in an international court.
Mahmood Ahmadinejad is due to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York overnight, while Prime Minister Kevin Rudd begins meetings at UN headquarters. When Mr Rudd was opposition leader, he told Australia's Jewish community he would like to take legal action against President Ahmadinejad for inciting genocide.
Almost a year later, Mr Smith says the issue is still being examined. "We are continuing to have that matter under legal and other advice," he said. "It's a very serious matter. We're giving it serious consideration and we'll make an announcement when that consideration has completed."
#1
More grandstanding by the leader of the bunch of amateurs running the country now. OTOH the opposition looks like it has a political death wish with the recent change of leader.
I bet dinnerjacket is just peeing his pants at the thought of the Aussie government taking him to court.
Posted by: Aussie Mike ||
09/23/2008 2:52
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#2
Yeah, especially the Hague. He could die of old age waiting for the mistrial.
#3
I bet dinnerjacket is just peeing his pants at the thought of the Aussie government taking him to court.
Posted by Aussie Mike 2008-09-23 02:52|| Front Page|| ||Comments Top
Must be another Chris Mathews "warm moist feeling going down his leg."
Afghanistan's defense minister proposed Monday creating a joint Afghan-Pakistani-coalition force to operate against insurgents on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said the idea was broached about a month and a half ago at a meeting of senior US, Afghan and Pakistani officials.
The Pakistanis "said they are looking at it," Wardak told reporters during a visit to the Pentagon.
"A terrorist does not recognize any boundaries," Wardak said.
"So to fight them we have to eventually come up with some arrangement together with our neighbor Pakistan that we should have a combined and joint task force of coalition Afghan and Pakistani forces to be able to operate on both sides of the border."
Pentagon officials said the idea of forming a joint force with the Afghan military was not a new one, but in the past had been rebuffed by the Pakistanis because of concerns for their sovereignty.
#1
Pakistan doesn't have any sovereignty in their western terroritory anyway. Nothing to lose, so why not go for it? They would lose little and gain a lot of safety.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/23/2008 1:24
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#1
May need 'em dem dar les forcez truppes back in PARIS' > TOPIX/OTHER -THE END OF THE "LONG LUNCH" IN FRANCE:THOUSANDS OF FRENCH RESTAURANTS FORCED TO SHUT DOWN DUE TO FINANCIAL CRISIS.
D *** NG IT, ITS OFFICIAL - MCDONALD'S = US FAST FOOD HAS CONQUERED FRANCE. EU TO PLAN FOR SURRENDER!
A pair of peeping-Toms hoping to get an illicit look at a group of women at a mosque in Saudi Arabia got a beating instead.
A group of Saudi women beat two young men who sneaked into a mosque in the northwestern city of Hail to watch women praying during the taraweeh, a nightly prayer recited during Ramadan, the Saudi newspaper al-Riyadh reported on Sunday.
A woman noticed that two men had sneaked into the women's section of the mosque and were peaking at the women. She called other women praying in the mosque and they pounced on the intruders. The women beat them with their shoes and water bottles.
The women said they did not report the male intruders to the mosque's imam because they did not want to interrupt the prayers.
The girls then called security. The two men tried to run away but failed. They are currently being interrogated.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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#1
You go, girls!
Posted by: Mike ||
09/23/2008 10:34
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#2
that's nothing, my daoughter can beat me at chess.....
(AKI) - By Hamza Boccolini - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi are among several Arab leaders considered enemies of Al-Qaeda, according to a new video released by the terror network. Their names are included on a list of enemies in the video released by Al-Qaeda's production arm, al-Sahab, on the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Husaini al-Sistani, and leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, are also included on the list.
The video, released by the Arab network, also focuses on relations between Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups. After having accused Iran of complicity in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number two of the group, Ayman al-Zawahiri, focused on Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood for the first time.
"While the muftis of Saudi Arabia ask the mujahadeen to fight and have dialogue with Jews and Christians and make Muslims accept the Jewish presence in the heart of the Islamic world, the leaders of the international organisation of the Muslim Brotherhood come to Kabul in American tanks talking about wanting to liberate it from the Taliban and agents of Pakistan," the video says.
But the former Egyptian doctor has even harsher words for Iran. He accuses Tehran of driving the Islamic Afghan warlord, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is linked to Al-Qaeda, out of his own territory. Ahmadinejad is accused of taking part in the United Nations General Assembly on 25 September 2007 "recognising an organisation that includes countries like Israel and like Spain that occupies (the Spanish enclaves) of Ceuta and Melilla".
The video accuses Iraq's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, of serving American interests and also attacks Lebanese Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Segments of the video had already been released and sent to Al-Jazeera on 8 September. The full 90-minute video was distributed on several Islamic web forums on Friday.
Many analysts have questioned why for the first time Al-Qaeda was so late in releasing a video dedicated to 11 September.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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(AKI) - A leader of the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb has threatened France and Spain in an audio message broadcast on jihadist Internet forums on Monday. "To those that are involved in the war against Islam and have betrayed the Islamic nation, we say to them: Repent before God punishes you with his hands and with ours," said Abdel Malik Droukedel, who uses the name Abu Musab Abdel Wudud. "This is because judgement day is close and punishment is imminent. And whoever among the treacherous apostates thinks that France is in a position to ensure its safety, we tell them they are wrong, because France will not be in a position to do it, and will be worried for its safety."
In the audio message, entitled "Message to our nation in the Islamic Maghreb", Droukedel reminds his listeners about Spain and Morocco's territorial dispute over the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. "Dear nation, it is not conceivable for any Muslim that loves Islam to speak of the Maghreb without remembering Ceuta and Melilla, occupied by Spain without remembering the injustice suffered by our nation," said Droukedel. "The complicity between Spain and international organisations such as the Arab League, the Islamic Conference and the United Nations is clear."
Melilla and Ceuta are autonomous cities administered by Spain and considered by neighbouring Morocco to be an integral part of its territory and of immense political and economic significance. Morocco claims both locations to be "despoiled" territories, calling them by their Arabic equivalents of Sebta and Melillia. The cities have been under Spanish control for over 400 years.
In the message, Droukedel also speaks against new NATO military bases in North Africa and accuses Moroccan King Mohammed VI of having betrayed the prophet Mohammed by having a Danish embassy in his territory. Regarding Tunisia, Droukedel accuses the government of being anti-Islamic and of passing laws against the implementation of Islamic Sharia law.
Speaking about Mauritania, he reminds his listeners about Nouakchott's diplomatic relations with Israel, while he claims that Algeria is suffering from political 'interference' by France. "I assure you all that we do not kill innocent people and we will prevent the spilling of Muslim blood," he said.
The Al-Qaeda leader says he will continue his fight to drive "France and the US from our country" and asks Algerian citizens to stay away from foreign organisations or government buildings because they are targets for attacks. Droukedel's message was aimed at Muslims in North Africa, and was also translated into French.
The Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb evolved from the Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat, initially formed to create an Islamic state in Algeria, but now believed to have more widespread goals.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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#1
blah, blah, blah.
I sometimes wish that this scum actually did something in France & Spain using the Muzzie rabble in those countries as "shock" troops.
Then we could all get on with our lives after seeing whether France & Spain fold like the hollow, stuffed men or after those Muzzies get the beating they so richly deserve.
#2
Both Melilla and Ceuta are attached to Morocco, but are both pretty modern cities and I don't believe the inhabitants would want to go back to living in the 7th century.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
09/23/2008 11:32
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Pakistani officials said Sunday that 21 foreigners, including two Americans stationed at the U.S. Embassy, were among the victims of a massive suicide truck bombing Saturday night that destroyed a luxury Marriott hotel in the capital.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani said the bomber's intended target was Gillani's official residence a block from the hotel, where newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari and other officials were gathered to break their daily Ramadan fast when the bomb exploded about 8 p.m. "The purpose was to destabilize democracy," Gillani said.
As rescue teams combed the still-smoldering five-story building, officials put the death toll at 53, with an unknown number of people unaccounted for. At least 266 people were injured. Most of the victims were hotel workers.
A spokesman for the Pentagon in Washington said Sunday that the two Americans killed in the blast were members of the U.S. defense forces assigned to the U.S. Embassy here. Their names were not released.
Pakistani officials said a contingent of 30 U.S. Marines was thought to be staying in the 290-room hotel.
A senior government security adviser, Rehman Malik, pointed the finger at Islamist militant groups based in South Waziristan, a volatile tribal area near the border with Afghanistan. These groups have vowed to retaliate against the government for stepped-up military raids and for a series of U.S. military incursions in pursuit of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
"All roads lead to South Waziristan and Tehrik-e-Taliban," Malik said, referring to a militant group headed by Baitullah Mehsud, who has repeatedly vowed to attack the government after a truce with his forces collapsed last year.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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#1
WAFF.com > WHATDOESITMEAN.com [Russia] > Russ altern news pundit claims that, as per Russ mil sources + analysts inlcud local witnesses, the Paki Marriott attack was carried out by INDIA to inetervene in the COVERT HANDOVER OF SUITCASE NUKES TO ISLAMIST MILITANTS PROXIES VEE PAKI GOVT, in order for the Militants to carry out US-ORDERED PDENIABLE ATTACKS ["False Flag"] AGZ WESTERN, etc. NATIONS. ARTIC > US MARINES WERE GUARDING THE SHIPMENT OF SUITCASE NUKES WHICH WERE SECRETLY DELIVERED TO THE MARRIOTT HOTEL???
#5
The DOD news show last night said that two of the Americans where DOD personnel (maybe Army). God Bless them and their families. Fedayeen - Rot in hell.
Let me take a crack at the goofy tale on WHATDOESITMEAN.COM:
1. Burly US Marines off-load steel boxes from a US Embassy truck into the Hotel bypassing security just before the bomb attack.
2. Pakistan top leaders schedule a late evening Ramadan meal at the hotel, but change plans just before a truck bomber shows up.
3. Al Qaeda claims responsibility for the deed.
What Does It Really Mean?????
1. The steel boxes were filled with GIFTS$$$$$$$$$ from the US gov't to the new Pakistani leadership to allow us unfettered access to Pakistani Tribal regions and Al Qaeda's sanctuaries.
2. Pak security found out the deal was leaked to Al Qaeda, and pulled their people from the hotel meet. I wonder what happened to the gifts$$$$...??
Finally - WHATDOESMEAN.COM is a Russian site, and they talk about the steel boxes being suitcase nukes.
Is Putin and company trying to plant a cover story for something they've already done? That is to say giving suitcase nukes to Al Qaeda or Iran??
Security forces continued pounding Taliban hideouts in various areas of Bajaur Agency on Monday.
The forces backed by helicopter gunships, artilleries and armoured personnel carriers attacked suspected positions of Taliban however, no casualties were reported.
The forces backed by helicopter gunships, artilleries and armoured personnel carriers attacked suspected positions of Taliban at Rashakai, Tang Khata, Baicheena, Zarmandai, Saiwai and Kausar areas of Khar and Mamond tehsils, however, no casualties were reported.
The security forces also started an operation to search for and arrest Taliban in Glokas, Tang Khata, Rashakai, Khazana and Kairala and bombed various houses owned by Taliban militants. Meanwhile, a grand jirga of the Salarzai tribe set a three-day deadline for the Taliban and anti-state elements to leave the tehsil, warning them they would otherwise be shot at sight.
The elders of Mamond tehsil have also convened a grand jirga today (Tuesday) at Khar to announce their support to the security forces in the ongoing military operation to flush out Taliban from the agency.
This article starring:
Baicheena
Glokas
Kairala
Kausar
Khazana
Mamond tehsil
Rashakai
Saiwai
Tang Khata
Zarmandai
Salarzai tribe
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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(AKI) - The Turkish government on Monday submitted a parliamentary motion to extend its authorisation for cross-border operations in northern Iraq.
The motion, cited by Turkish media reports, said that separatists from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) took shelter in the north of Iraq and called for a one-year extension of its authorisation. It said the PKK continued to threaten the peace, security, national unity and territorial integrity of Turkey.
The motion said Turkey also attached importance to the protection of territorial integrity, national unity and the stability of Iraq. The current motion is due to expire on 17 October.
According to the Turkish website Hurriyet, officials from both Turkey's opposition parties, the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), supported the motion, while the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) officials declared their opposition.
Turkey, backed by US intelligence by the United States, has stepped up military action against the outlawed PKK since December. Turkey carried out several air strikes and conducted a week-long ground incursion into northern Iraq in February.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Three days after he was killed by the Delhi Police-- Atif is now being linked to the Jaipur serial blasts as well. Rajasthan Police has disclosed Atif's links to Jaipur blasts saying he not only masterminded the May 13 bombings but also executed the attacks that killed more than 50 people.
DIG Crime of Rajasthan Police, A Ponnuchami said Atif and his team visited Jaipur on May 11 for a reccee--that's two days before the actual blasts and went back to Delhi the same day.
Atif and his team returned to Jaipur with the bombs on the day of the blasts. They travelled by bus to Jaipur bought cycles and planted the bombs in them. After executing their plan they left Jaipur just two hours before the bombs went off.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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(SomaliNet) The Ministry of Defence said a Spanish military aircraft which will patrol the waters off the coast of Somalia to protect ships from pirates left on Saturday from Moron air base in Seville.
The ministry said in a news release that the P-3 Orion plane was accompanied by a Boeing 727 and a Hercules helicopter, carrying 90 personnel including crew.
According to a plan, the patrol operation will run for an initial three months, which could be extended depending on decisions taken on the international stage.
According to a Somali official, the move comes after French commandos on Tuesday freed two French tourists held for ransom on their yacht off the African country's coast. In April, crew members of a Spanish fishing boat were freed by pirates in the area after payment of a $1.2 million ransom.
The Orion will collect information on the movements of pirates to relay to a European Union task force formed on Monday to work against piracy off the Horn of Africa.
Gunmen from Somalia have hijacked more than 30 ships so far this year, making the strategic shipping lanes in the busy Gulf of Aden the most dangerous in the world.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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#1
According to Zapatero doctrine it is an unarmed P3. Pirates are shaking in their boots.
#3
What this whole pirate thing cries out for is a history lesson. I believe in WWII they were called Q-boats. Ships that were disquised as mild mannered merchant vessels yet when the German U-boats would pop up to shell them, portals would swing open and MANY artillery pieces would fire salvos at the offending vessel. Let's face it, a few "bee-hive" rounds not to mention HE vs whatever these scaliwags brought to the party would provide Davy Jones a few new souls......
#4
You really want something in the air as well to figure out which is the pirate mother boat so you can go after that one too. Of course you'd want to keep quiet about your operations, so the rest of us might not notice for a while.
Posted by: James ||
09/23/2008 11:23
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#5
Update: the unarmed P3 has developed mechanical problems and is back to Spain.
#10
I'm beginning to think the best we can do is have a carrier strike group work over one of the "Somali" ports for a couple of days. These are people that only respect the strongest horse. The US has failed miserably at showing how nasty it can be, and these continued snipes around the periphery are the result. Piracy is working like a charm for these idiots, and they're getting rich from it. The only thing that will stop it is to make it far too expensive to even try. The only way the West can do that is to take offensive action against their bases. Bomb one city back to the stone age, with maybe 5% of the population surviving, and there won't be a pirate in all of Somalia the next morning. Too many people think they'll be next. Anarchy is ugly. Whenever it raises its ugly head, it needs to find an axe imbedded in it.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/23/2008 14:58
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#11
A P-3 would be a nice ride for pirate hunting. You've got your surface search radar and with an anti-shipping missile loadout, it would be a great way to spend a lazy afternoon looking for the mothership. Argh, indeed!
(SomaliNet) A border town official said Kenya has tightened security along the border with Somalia by deploying a large number of troops there. Hundreds of Kenyan security forces have been deployed along the border between Friday night and early on Saturday morning, Ahmed Mohamed Yusuf, popularly known as Burkuus, the chairman of Somalia's border town of Beled Hawo, said.
Mr. Burkuus said that this troop movement coincides with two days after when Somali bandits snatched a car from Kenyan border town of Elwaq and crossed with it into Somalia. Mr. Burkuus told APA on Saturday that Somali authorities in the region have succeeded to arrest the militia who robbed the car and were ready to hand it over to Kenyan authorities.
Kenya announced the closure of its border with Somalia in December 2006 to prevent Islamists who were defeated in Somalia from interring Kenya, but crossing has been permitted since.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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At least nine security personnel were killed on Monday in a suicide car-bomb attack on a checkpost in Swat, the military and security officials said. "Nine security personnel were killed and a couple more were slightly injured in a suicide attack," the military's media wing said. A suspected Taliban rammed his explosives-laden car into a small roadside checkpost in Madyan town in Swat, the official said.
Separately, unidentified men blew up the house of Kooza Bandai Nazim Sher Afzal Khan with explosives. However, no casualty was reported, according to Online.
Meanwhile, the Munda station house officer, a constable and three guards sustained minor injuries in a remote-controlled blast in Lower Dir. The security forces halted a search operation in Kooza Bandai after 12 days.
In Darra Adam Khel, the security forces killed three people and arrested 28 others during an operation against Taliban in Abbas Chowk and Sikha Khel. A security forces personnel was also killed while another was injured when their vehicle hit a landmine in Darra Adam Khel.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Intelligence agencies have arrested a close aide of Al Qaeda's number two Ayman al-Zawahiri from Gujranwala and shifted him to Islamabad to investigate the Marriott Hotel suicide attack, Samaa TV reported on Monday. According to the channel, Mursaleen was arrested from a mosque in Gujranwala late on Sunday, where he was living under the name of Jamshed. The channel said Mursaleen was an important leader of the banned militant organisation Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and his arrest carried a reward of Rs 50 million. He was also on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's list of most wanted people, the channel added. According to the channel, Mursaleen masterminded several acts of terrorism, including attacks on former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf at Nishtar Park in Rawalpindi and Maulana Hassan Turrabi in Karachi.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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#1
Ever wonder how quickly they can locate and arrest someone "after" the fact but do nothing preemptively?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/23/2008 8:18
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#2
Intelligence agencies have arrested a close aide of Al Qaedas number two Ayman al-Zawahiri from Gujranwala and shifted him to Islamabad to investigate the Marriott Hotel suicide attack...
Marriott Hotel suicide attack. Oh, and by the way ask him about Zawahiri whereabouts. We'd er, like to talk to him about a number of things.
"Sorry, Abu, headquarters says we need to turn the Americans up sweet, and your number came up. Put 'er up."
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
09/23/2008 16:25
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#5
"Oh, and remember. The Americans may fake it, but they can't torture you. We know where your family lives, and we don't give a damn. You know nothing."
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
09/23/2008 16:26
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#6
They're putting him up at the Marriot, in the undamaged suites. His interrogators didn't like the conditions in Gujranwala, plus it was too far from home. Big discount: Excuse our mess while we're under renovation.
(SomaliNet) A car bomb exploded outside a police station in town of Ondarroa in the Basque Country in northern Spain slightly injuring seven people on Sunday, police said.
A spokesman for the Basque Country police in Bilbao said three police officers were among those injured after the large bomb went off at about 4.30 a.m. (0230 GMT), and the other four were passers by.
None of those hurt was in serious condition, although the bomb badly damaged nearby buildings.
According to the spokesman, about two hours before the blast, another big car bomb exploded near the office of Caja Vital bank in the Basque Country capital of Vitoria, but no one was hurt.
Police had cordoned off the area in Vitoria before the first explosion, after receiving a warning call in the name of Basque rebels ETA but there was no call before the second blast.-
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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(AKI) - Police have arrested six members of an alleged Al-Qaeda cell that claimed last week's deadly attack against the United States embassy in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, according to a ministry of defence website.
Local Al-Qaeda commander, Abu al-Gheith al-Yemeni and head of the alleged cell is among the six people arrested in connection with the attack last Wednesday on the US embassy which killed 19 people, the website said.
The US State Department has said the embassy bombings bore "all the hallmarks" of an Al-Qaeda attack. The attack was the biggest militant operation in Yemen since the attacks on the French tanker Limburg in 2002 and the US warship Cole in 2000. In a message claiming the attack, the cell threatened attacks against Arab embassies in Yemen, the British embassy and British interests in the country.
This article starring:
Abu al-Gheith al-Yemeni
al-Qaeda in Yemen
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Kuwait has ordered local Internet service providers to block online video-sharing website YouTube over clips that could offend Muslims. "Since the website displays the Koran in the form of songs sung with the oud (stringed instrument) ... and publishes offensive pictures of the Prophet Mohammad ... please proceed with immediate effect in blocking the website www.youtube.com," read a copy of a memo from the Ministry of Communications published on websites and blogs Monday.
The Ministry of Communications was not immediately available for a comment. The website could still be accessed in Kuwait on Monday. A search for the keyword "Kuwait" returned about 59,000 videos of all different kinds.
YouTube, a unit of the internet search engine Google, is the third most popular site in Kuwait, according to the internet monitoring site Alexa.
A source at one major telecommunication company in Kuwait, Fasttelco, confirmed receipt of the memo, according to a report published in Kuwait Times on Monday. "It's supposed to be blocked right now. But due to technical preparations the blocking may take until tomorrow [Monday]," the newspaper quoted the source as saying.
Islamist and tribal groups managed to increase their grip on parliament in the pro-Western Gulf Arab state's May elections with some deputies demanding Kuwaiti broadcasters show more religious content.
Website are often blocked in the Gulf, including pornographic ones, VOIP sites that allow users to make free telephone calls and user-generated content sharing sites like Flikr. The UAE blocked the popular photo-sharing website Flickr earlier this summer because its content was "inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates," according to the message that appeared when trying to access the site.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Twelve people, including six policemen, were killed in a shootout between the police and tribesmen in the Imam Bukhsh Jamali police precinct on Monday.
The shootout took place soon after the police and the head of the Jamali-Shahliyani tribe exchanged harsh words at a picket.
The killed policemen included SHO Muhabat Rind, SHO Qamar Rind, constables Ghulam Shabbir, Deedar Maitlo, Manthar Gopang and Sajjad Chandio. The tribesmen who died in the shootout were Akbar Shahliyani and his four bodyguards, Naseer Jamali, Nazir Ahmed, Fida Sheikh, Liaqat and an unidentified man. Large contingents of police from Shahdadkot, Larkana, Jacobabad and Shikarpur rushed to the scene.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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The West has a notoriously bad habit of betraying countries which defend freedom. During President Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, he sentenced the people of Eastern Europe to communist rule following World War II when he connived with "Uncle Joe" Stalin at the Yalta Conference.
When Serbia--an ally of the United States in both World War I and World War II--sought to expel the Islamic invaders who settled in its territory of Kosovo, the United States and NATO launched a military operation to defend the Islamists from the native inhabitants of the Balkans. When Kosovo eventually seceded, the West sanctioned the secession by recognizing Kosovo as a sovereign state. If Charles Martel lived today and tried to expel the Islamic invaders from Europe, it would not be surprising if the so-called leader of the free-world--the president of the United States--held a press conference at which he announced the intention of the West to bring "war criminal" Charles Martel to justice. Excellent article. Balance at the link.
#1
When Soviet-sympathizer and terrorist Nelson Mandela desired to take South Africa away from the Afrikaners...
How great was white-controlled Rhodesia compared to black Marxist-controlled Zimbabwe?
Sorry but millions of black africans weren't going to be ruled by white europeans a fraction their number circa 2008 regardless of what the West did or didn't do during the Cold War.
They didn't have to be "ruled" by whites. They could have been partners in governance and economics.
They could have abandoned their defective (no other word will do) culture and economic system and joined the government as enlightened equals to the whites living there. Had they done so thirty years ago Rhodesia would be a strong, wealth-generating, vibrant country with ecnonomic opportunity for people of all skin color.
But instead they took the worst concepts the West has contrived - collectivism and hyperregulatory central planning and cultural Marxism - and combined it with the worst Africa contrived - tribalism and thuggish autocracy - and everyone in the country is worse off.
In the end, it wasn't "rule by whites" that rankled them, it was participation in democracy and capitalism that was too daunting for the native African leaders and their sympathizers amongst leftists living in the West - people who wanted some form of communism to flourish somewhere, so they consigned third world countries throughout the world to live like that as though they were science projects designed to find a way, some way, for communism to work.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/23/2008 6:04
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#3
They didn't have to be "ruled" by whites. They could have been partners in governance and economics.
You do realise that the entire political system of post-colonial Rhodesia was based on resistance to Majority Rule, wherein 95% of the population of Rhodesia were effectively disenfranchised?
#4
One thing cannot be argued: both whites and blacks were better off under the white-run Rhodesian Government than they have been under a black-run Zimbabwean Government.
This isn't surprising, as most of Africa was safer and more productive under colonialism than it has been since. Africa had more of a presence in the world economic system in 1960 than it has today, largely due to the abysmal decline in the quality of governance from colonial rule to independence. Hell, even the Italians were orders of magnitude better for Somalia than Somali governments have been.
That said, J.S. Mill said history is replete with examples where people have decided it's better to be ruled badly by themselves than well by others. Africa is the poster child for that statement. Maybe the coming imposition of Chinese colonial rule will straighten Africa up. It couldn't get much worse.
#5
The West has a notoriously bad habit of betraying countries which defend freedom. During President Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, he sentenced the people of Eastern Europe to communist rule following World War II when he connived with "Uncle Joe" Stalin at the Yalta Conference.
Oh stuff it. The friggin Red Army was sitting on the damn terrain. The Western allies were struggling in Italy and elsewhere just to make headway when Yalta occurred without anyone having any real idea of where their forces would be by VE day, if there was going to be one. Normandy was so iffy, that Ike wrote a prepared statement in case of failure. By the time the armies met along the Elbe it was pretty much set by physical presence who'd end up occupying what afterward. Short of going to war directly with the Soviets, no one was going to dislodge them from the land they sat on. And in 1945 the boys at the newly built Pentagon were busy trying to move the Army in Europe to the Pacific for the forthcoming assault upon the home islands of Japan. Only a few knew of the bombs or even knew what the ultimate effect would be. War with the Soviets wasn't on the planning table either then or after Japan, rather it was demobilization.
When Serbia--an ally of the United States in both World War I and World War II..
The Serbs were a major player in starting WWI in 1914 [giving us the world we'd live and die in great numbers for next 80 years]. The US joined the French and British in 1917 because of German submarine warfare and the Zimmerman telegram, not for Serbia. And Serbia didn't exist in WWII, it was Yugoslavia. And all players in Yugoslavia worked both sides of the conflict for their own interests.
#7
One problem was throughout the cold war we only seemed to have two options. Capitalism and Communism. If the Capitalists were in charge the Soviets pumped money in favor of rebellion and vice-versa.
What we needed was a third way. Some good old Swedish Socialism coming in. Who cares if they have a nanny state that makes them economically unviable as long as they are peaceful and free from European dominance.
#8
Sorry but millions of black africans weren't going to be ruled by white europeans a fraction their number circa 2008 regardless of what the West did or didn't do during the Cold War.
Ya know, the whole 'minority rule' thing doesn't seem to have stopped Mugabe.
#9
What we needed was a third way. Some good old Swedish Socialism coming in. Who cares if they have a nanny state that makes them economically unviable as long as they are peaceful and free from European dominance.
Back when Chavez was just another candidate running for office in Venezuela (after the government had given him whatever sort of amnesty for the coup attempts he had made) he said he wanted to find a third way.
So yah, the capitalists and westerners are always convenient suckers for that. It works for the communists every time.
#10
A third way that is just redressed Communism is not a third way. I'm talking more about the third way from Labor in the UK. I wouldn't want to live under it myself, but it's better than Communism and more acceptable after European imperialism seems to have soured many Africans on Capitalism.
The third way truly should have come from a neutral non-European like India, but they happily sidled up to the Soviets when we didn't give them enough attention.
#11
It is also possible a third way could have come from the US if things had gone differently during the Suez crisis and the French and British hadn't given up, voted labor in and closed shop.
#12
Swedish Socialism requires a wealthy and orderly society to support the expenses. Nowhere in Africa is or has been that kind of society, ancient Egypt included. (The Egyptians worked or starved except for the tiny aristocracy, almost all of which worked as hard as the peasants. The pharaoh and his chief wife were as much active heads of the priesthood as the pharaoh was ruler of the country, from what I can gather.)
#14
I agree, blacks werent going to accept white minority rule. The nominal policy of giving the franchise to a small minority of wealthy blacks (while any poor illiterate white could vote) wasnt going to change that. And no, being ruled by a minority political party or military isnt the same, cause it doesnt mean you are excluded by the very conditions of your birth, in ways that constantly humiliate you.
and Zimbabwe isnt condemned to communism (even if you want to call what exists there now communism, though IIUC there is still private property there in sectors other than agriculture) There is political change happening there right now.
Odd too that teh above is a sympathiser with Slobo, who WAS a communist. BTW, there was no invasion, albanians had lived in europe since Roman times. They CONVERTED to Islam. Well mostly. Many didnt. The ones who were still Christians ALSO opposed Serb rule, and ALSO were subject to ethnic cleansing.
and most the ones who were muslim were not Islamists.
#15
Mugabe had lots of choices of how to rule after gaining power. He chose poorly, nay almost perversely.
He either killed or ran off most of those who had the expertise to actually produce wealth in the country (black and white). He has been eating the seed stock ever since.
This did not have to be a black-white thing. Mugabe, however, chose to base his governance on that ethnic tension, thus making him no better and for the average man on the street far worse than the leaders of Rhodesia.
#16
As a minor academic point, one of ZANU-PF's predecessors was backed by China.
And no, being ruled by a minority political party or military isnt the same, cause it doesnt mean you are excluded by the very conditions of your birth, in ways that constantly humiliate you.
The Zimbawean regime (ZANU-PF) is controlled by the Shona. Not a minority, but it does mean exclusion by conditions of birth.
by Jed Babbin of Human Events, link found thanks to Red State.
This is an outrage. If the bailout is going to be used to stifle the energy plan and as a Christmas tree for earmarks, let it fail and let Wall Street explain it to the Democrats.
House Democrats are bypassing renewal of the offshore oil drilling ban by including the entire Pelosi "drill nothing" energy bill in a draft of a Continuing Resolution. HUMAN EVENTS obtained a copy of the most recent House draft CR this morning.
The Pelosi bill, HR 6899, fails to open more than a miniscule part of the available offshore drilling areas and -- even worse -- it establishes permanent bans on development of most other domestic energy sources (natural gas, oil shale, etc.) and does nothing to develop nuclear power. It passed the House earlier this month and is now languishing in the Senate as a separate measure.
As one member of Congress said last week, it's got more incentives for bicycle riding than for nuclear power.
...Senate sources tell HUMAN EVENTS this draft is dead on arrival.
However, there is every reason to believe that this maneuver will be repeated later this week, and that the House and Senate Democrats will make it a part of any deal with the President on his financial bailout package.
Stay tuned. This is getting uglier by the moment. Welcome to the vise, do you want a heart attack or cancer today?
#2
Take your sweet time. Mercy, if it was not for you democrats, I would feel safe at the bank. I am so happy you paid both the security guard and the thief at the same time in my interest.
#3
Anybody who can post at Rantburg can compose a brief letter to your Congresscritters and President Bush here. I, myself, copied some of the text from the article, to save time.
Just type in your zip code, select 'Federal Officials', compose your message, fill in your name and address (you can un-select the 'send me stuff' box), and you're on your way!
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/23/2008 6:26
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#4
Interesting. I get an electronic version of a railroad trade press magazine, and it included an article about HR 6899:
Congress is preparing to adjourn for the year but has a few things left on its agenda. This week, congressional leaders are expected to give final consideration to legislation that would address the high cost of energy and stimulate the economy and public transit agencies could benefit.
The House recently passed The Comprehensive American Security and Consumer Protection Act (H.R. 6899), which contains the Saving Energy through Public Transportation Act legislation that passed the House as a stand-alone measure earlier this year.
The bill would authorize $1.7 billion for public transportation agencies in fiscal years 2008 and 2009. Agencies could use the funds to cover operating and capital costs to reduce fares, expand existing service, avoid service cuts or fare hikes caused by high fuel prices, acquire facilities or equipment to support the use of clean fuel or alternative fuel vehicles, and establish or expand rideshare or commuter match programs that provide alternatives to single occupancy vehicle use. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) has introduced a similar bill in the Senate.
The House and Senate also are developing an economic stimulus package that would appropriate immediate capital funds for "ready-to-go" infrastructure projects, including public transportation initiatives. Senate leaders are advancing a proposal that would provide up to $1.3 billion in capital funds for public transit infrastructure. The bill also would authorize an additional $400 million during the next two years for public transit agencies to invest in green facilities and vehicles.
Although the House and Senate are developing separate energy and economic stimulus bills, the two items may be combined into a single legislative package that would include elements of both proposals.
So San Fran Nan certainly knows how to play the transit crowd. The bill's title - Comprehensive American Security and Consumer Protection Act - how could anyone not support that?
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/23/2008 10:23
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(SomaliNet) A maritime official said Somali pirates hijacked another Greek ship off the lawless Horn of Africa nation on Sunday in the latest of a wave of attacks.
Head of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, Andrew Mwangura, said the MV Capt Stephanos had 17 Filipino crew, one Chinese and a Ukrainian on board. However, no other details were immediately available.
So far this year, heavily-armed pirates from Somalia have seized more that 30 vessels off the coast of their country, making its waters the most dangerous in the world.
Last Wednesday, Somali gunmen hijacked another Greek ship, the Centauri. The pirates are holding more than a dozen vessels and more than 200 crew members for ransom.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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They sure like bunking up with the Greek sailors, don't they.
(PTI) Scrambling to track down militants responsible for the devastating suicide bombing of the Marriott hotel here, Pakistani security forces today arrested three men during an operation from Kharian city of the Punjab province. Among those arrested was Qari Muhammad Ali, imam of the main Jamia mosque in Kharian, Dawn News channel reported. There was also no official word on the arrests and no further details were available.
The security forces have launched a massive manhunt in the capital as well as adjoining provinces to trace militant cells responsible for the suicide bombing, which killed 53 people, including two US marines and the Czech Ambassador to the country.
As part of the drive, investigators are looking into the possibilities that the bombers constructed a 600-kg bomb in a safe house in the capital itself, as transporting such a heavy bomb load could not pass the numerous checks on the highway leading to the capital.
Reports said Pakistani authorities had launched a crackdown over the weekend on leaders and members of banned organisations. In another operation at Gujranwala in Punjab late last night, two alleged terrorists were arrested by security forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Police resumed control of Pir Qila area in Shabqadar tehsil of Charsaada after a clash with Taliban that killed a policeman and left 27 injured on Monday.
The clash started soon after a peace march, arranged by the district police and the local Amn (peace) Committees in Aranda area of Shabqabdar. The Taliban, who arrived from Michni area after the end of the peace march, took control of the Pir Qila Chowk.
Helicopter gunships targeted Taliban positions, as both sides used heavy weapons, including rocket launchers. Heavy contingents of police, the Frontier Constabulary and the Frontier Corps were moved to the area. By the evening, the Taliban withdrew and the Peshawar-Bajaur Highway was opened for traffic.
The police also arrested at least 10 suspected Taliban during the operation.
Taliban spokesman Dr Asad claimed that 20 policemen, including a deputy superintendent of police, were killed and five others were taken into custody.
The Shabqadar DSP said that nine Taliban were killed, while 13 were injured in the clash. Police sources said that five civilians also sustained injuries in the exchange of fire.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Palestinian security forces raided the office of a Hamas legislator in the West Bank on Monday, in an ongoing crackdown against the Islamist group.
Samira al-Halayka of Hamas' Change and Reform bloc said security forces seized computers and documents and arrested her guard.
A security official in the West Bank city of Hebron said officers confiscated leaflets and other documents that he said incited violence against Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.
Abbas has recently stepped up a campaign against Hamas Islamists in the West Bank city, arresting some 15 activists and closing down four organizations which Hamas said were purely charitable.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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(SomaliNet) In the latest kidnapping of Westerners in Somalia, gunmen seized a German man from Puntland semiautonomous on Saturday beating him as he drove with his vehicle and his wife that was traveling with him when they were stopped by the abductors, officials said.
The incident occurred just in days, after a lull in such abductions in recent months in Puntland that are relatively calm compared with southern Somalia.
According to eyewitnesses, the man whose name was not identified and his local wife were taken to the east of the Bossaso town. "It is (clear) that they were kidnapped at gunpoint and driven away, their schedule was to come back to the hotel before 4:00PM in the afternoon and we don't have their whereabouts", official told Shabelle.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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WTF?! Wifey must be better looking than Imaan, no clitorectomy and kinky. I mean did they travel from Germany to visit the family? This knucklehead live in the portal to Hell(aka Somalia)? He went a long way to get his ass kicked, murdered by jihadis.
The NWFP government postponed the enforcement of Nizam-e-Adl Regulations 2008 in Malakand division for two to three months, the Awami National Party (ANP) central information secretary said on Monday.
Earlier, the government had said informally that it would announce the enforcement of the law by September 26.
ANP Central Information Secretary Zahid Khan told Daily Times that a two to three months period was sought for the implementation and it 'does not mean that there is any delay' on the government's part.
"This is a new structure with some new appointments and new offices and the whole process needs some time," he added. Khan said the chief minister would meet a Dir jirga to thank them for expelling Taliban from their areas.
Talking to a 25-member jirga from Dir district, NWFP Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti said shariah would be implemented in Malakand in two to three months.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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French lawmakers are to vote on whether to keep troops in Afghanistan, as oppositions to the French presence in the region increase. The vote comes after 10 French soldiers were killed and 21 others wounded last month near the Afghan capital Kabul in France's worst military loss since a suicide bomber killed 58 paratroopers in Lebanon 25 years ago. The August deaths brought the number of French troops killed in Afghanistan to 24.
Reports say both houses of parliament, dominated by President Nicolas Sarkozy's party, are likely to support maintaining the French presence.
But a stormy debate was in store after a report at the weekend in Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper said the Taliban fighters who ambushed the French soldiers on August 18 were better armed than their enemy. "The French did not have enough bullets, radios and other equipment. The troops were forced to abandon a counter-attack when the weapons on their vehicles ran out of ammunition only 90 minutes into a battle that stretched over two days," the paper said, quoting from the report.
"One French platoon had only a single radio and it was quickly disabled, leaving them unable to call for help," it added.
France currently has around 1,500 troops in Afghanistan as part of a 2,200-strong contingent serving in the region with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission and the US-led operation. Although Sarkozy insists that France is fighting a battle against terror in Afghanistan, a poll published after last month's ambush showed 55 percent of the French feel they have just been sucked into America's war.
French lawmakers voted Monday to extend their country's mission in Afghanistan with additional troops and materiel, despite popular opposition and French military casualties in the region. Lisa Bryant has more for VOA from Paris. French deputies voted 343 to 210 in favor of maintaining the country's 2,600 soldiers in Afghanistan, overcoming opposition by the opposition Socialist party. The senate, which also is dominated by the ruling UMP party, approved the measure later in the day.
And Monday, Prime Minister Francois Fillon announced plans to reinforce France's presence in the volatile country. Fillon said the government would deploy not only 100 more troops, but helicopters, drones and other equipment. France currently has 3,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of the 70,000-strong international force there.
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09/23/2008
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Viva la France! Meet force with greater force. Having a Pole for president seems to have given them a backbone? A little one anyway. More than what they had.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/23/2008 1:34
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The HTML's a little scrambled here, Fred.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
09/23/2008 7:25
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Errr... sarko's father was hungarian, not a pole, and he's been born & raised in spoiled french, parisian upper class, by his (french) mother I seem to recall.
It's not backbone, it's sticking up to one's engagement & alliance, something the let's-retreat-from-afghanistan-it's-an-unjust-and-illegal-US-war deliberately forget, because they think being allied to the USA, even through Nato, is BAD - some sovereignty, neo-gaullist guy had a very successfully spread viral email that basically asked "what is treason?", when France talked about fully re-entering Nato a while back.
I'm really no fan of sarkozy, not at all, but on this front at least, he's not idiotarian.
(PTI) Labelling the suicide attack on the Marriott hotel as "Pakistan's 9/11," leading newspapers here said the nation must take up the fight against terror on its own, no mater the reservation about American actions in Afghanistan or elsewhere.
The papers also said that the new civilian government must immediately craft a new policy to fight the growing threat from terrorists.
"Pakistan is fighting its own war against terrorism and not America's," the country's leading newspaper Dawn said in an editorial today.
Pakistan's oldest English daily pointed out that the target may have been "western" in Islamabad's carnage but the timing shortly after iftar ensured that that the majority of victims were Pakistanis.
"In the days ahead, the bombing will take to a fever pitch the debate about whether Pakistan is fighting its own war against terrorism or America's. The debate will miss the point: it is an internal war, and it goes to the heart of what we want Pakistan to be," the paper said in the lead editorial Dawn titled "Defeating Terrorism".
"... Yet virtually no one in the country is aware of who we are fighting and why. Worse yet, it's not clear who is responsible for the operation: the political government, the military or both?" it added.
Another leading daily, the News said that the attack has created horror even in a nation that has become "resilient to shock" and "accustomed to terrorist violence". "It is being described as the worst suicide bombing yet to take place in the country - Pakistan's very own 9/11... The act has proven too that terrorism is an evil that Pakistan must fight. It is not a war that involves the US, or other powers."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Was the target western? I mean the only thing that saved a bunch of Pakistani politicians was a last minute change in schedule if I read the news reports right. That would seem to indicate to met that they might have been the targets and they got lucky.
#4
interesting difference from our own media. Ours would be interviewing the bombers and pointing out how it was all our fault. Never thought I'd say this about Pakistan, but maybe we can swap?
Posted by: Nautae cum puella in concubitu sunt ||
09/23/2008 13:59
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That's an interesting nym, Nautae cum puella in concubitu sunt.
(SomaliNet) A court in Sudanese capital Khartoum heard on Sunday that four Sudanese men accused of killing a U.S. aid worker and his driver in a New Year's Eve attack were plotting to murder another foreigner when they were arrested.
According to press reports, the four are charged with murdering John Granville, a 33-year-old officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development, and his driver Abdelrahman Abbas Rahama, 39, in Khartoum in the early hours of Jan. 1.
Granville was the first U.S. government official to be killed in Khartoum in more than three decades in a crime that sent shockwaves through the capital's expatriate community.
The Sudanese court watched pre-recorded videos of the four admitting to their part on the crime, two of them saying they fired the fatal shots with a 9mm pistol and a Kalashnikov rifle. The four men had said in an earlier hearing that the video-taped confessions were made under police torture.
In the videoed statements, one of the defendants Abdel Basit al-Hajj Hassan, 29, said they had spotted Granville in a U.S. embassy vehicle, drove up alongside him and opened fire. "With the help of God we killed the American infidel," he said in the statement.
He said he fired six rounds with the Kalashnikov. "It all took 12 to 15 seconds.".
After the killing, the four took refuge in the northern town of Atbara, before returning to Khartoum to plan the killing of another foreigner, the court heard him say on the video.
Abdelrahim Ahmed Abdelrahim, police's chief investigator in the case, told the court officers arrested the men in Khartoum after tracing e-mails they sent to each other after the attack.
In earlier hearings, prosecuting lawyers said the men were religious extremists who had decided to attack foreigners in Sudan. The men had originally planned to attack Americans gathered at New Year's Eve parties in the capital. But after finding the venues either empty or heavily guarded they decided to target individuals driving home from celebrations.
A fifth man facing the same charge admitted in his video-taped statement supplying the four others with weapons, but denied knowing anything about their plans.
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09/23/2008
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A French court heard an appeal Monday into the case of a Muslim couple whose marriage was annulled on the grounds the bride was not a virgin, sparking a national uproar. Public outrage at the ruling, handed down in April, forced the government to order the appeal against the wishes of both spouses.
Neither the woman nor her husband, a Muslim engineer in his 30s, was present for the hearing in the northern French town of Douai. Both were due to ask the court to release them from their marriage vows.
A spokesman for the prosecution said Monday it was not against granting an annulment, but would need to replace the "discriminatory motive" of virginity with a "legitimate" one. The bride's lawyer, Charles-Edouard Mauger, said before the hearing his client was "very fragile" as a result of the scandal, and wanted to find a "way out of this marital bond that no longer has any meaning."
"We need to take the general interest into account, and not annul the union for questions of virginity, but we still need to find a motive to annul this marriage," he told reporters.
The man sought the annulment after realizing his bride was not a virgin on their wedding night in July 2006. His wife subsequently said she accepted the annulment, insisting she wanted to move on.
The ruling handed down in the northern French city of Lille did not mention the couple's religion but said the man's belief in the woman's virginity was a "determining factor" in his decision to marry her.
France's Muslim-born justice minister, Rachida Dati, though she finally ordered an appeal, had continued to insist the ruling was legally sound, based on a breach of trust between the pair, not the issue of virginity itself.
The case drew furious protests from women's rights groups while some 150 European parliament members wrote to Dati in June denouncing it as an unacceptable encroachment of religion in the public sphere.
France is home to Europe's largest Muslim community, estimated at five million people.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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I'm trying to understand how the French are viewing this. Trying but not succeeding. Not enough wine, perhaps?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/23/2008 1:28
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Muslim couple walking out of the divorce court, the wife is crying her heart out. Husband says 'Oh for fu*k's sake stop crying, you're still my first cousin'
(SomaliNet) The Alliance of Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) based in Djibouti has slammed the Al-shabab fighters for threatening to close Somalia's international airport.
The ARS led by Sheikh Sheriff Shekh Ahmed condemned the threat because the international airport is one of the key economic outfits for Somalia, according to a statement released Saturday afternoon.
I really, really hate the fact that Ahmed looks like the sane one in this argument ...
The Islamist group, Al-shabaab, warned last week that airlines should stop flights to the Mogadishu airport from 16 September, arguing that the airport was helping Ethiopians military occupation of Somali.
This article starring:
Sheikh Sheriff Shekh Ahmed
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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#1
This will piss people off. How else will they get the khat in?
AUSTRALIAN Federal Police (AFP) have raided the home of a parliamentary press gallery journalist in the wake of a story about defence intelligence. It is believed seven AFP officers arrived at the home of Canberra Times journalist Philip Dorling about 8.30am (AEST) today.
"The AFP confirms that it executed a search warrant at Braddon and on a vehicle,'' a police spokesman said.
It is understood the raid follows a story Mr Dorling did for the newspaper on June 14 in which he wrote that Australian spies were targeting key nations, including Japan, China and North and South Korea. Mr Dorling cited his source as "classified briefing papers'' prepared for Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon.
The raid was continuing and police would not provide any further information, citing "operational'' matters. Comment was being sought from The Canberra Times and Mr Dorling.
#1
Hopefully this "journalist" will eventually be able to write a book about his many long years as a guest of the state in one of their finer penal institutions. To be published posthumously.
#3
State authorities always tend to get these things wrong. Raiding the home of a journalist is jusdt going to make him a martyr (without much suffering) and lends credibility to what he writes.
"he wrote that Australian spies were targeting key nations, including Japan, China and North and South Korea"
All you do is a snark remark that he forgot New Zealand and let the matter rest.
What are spies supposed to do anyway? Spying on Tasmanian devils?
Posted by: European Conservative ||
09/23/2008 9:14
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European Conservative, Did you just lecture us?
<:|
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
09/23/2008 20:49
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(AKI) - The Italian government may send troops to reinforce the streets of Caserta outside the southern city of Naples after the slaying of six African immigrants by suspected Mafia hitmen last week. The massacre took place last week in the town of Castel Volturno, in the province of Caserta, which is home to the Campania region's Mafia or Camorra.
The Italian cabinet is due to meet on Tuesday to discuss the need for security reinforcements after the massacre provoked violent street demonstrations.
A Camorra-linked suspect was arrested on Monday in connection with the Castel Volturno shootings. Besides the six who died, two other people were injured in the attack. A total 89 percent of participants in a survey by Italy's Sky News said they think the army should be deployed in the Campania region surrounding Naples to fight the Camorra.
The Italian government in early August deployed some 3,000 troops to support police officers in major Italian cities as part of the government's campaign to combat crime and boost security in these cities. The deployment, authorised initially for six months, drew criticism from Italy's opposition parties.
Critics of the move said it sends a message that Italy is swamped by crime and that the police cannot do their job. Opposition politicians also argued it will deter tourists.
It is not the first time that troops have been deployed in Italian cities. In 1992 soldiers were stationed on the streets of Sicily after the Mafia assassinated two judges in bomb attacks. Soldiers in 1994 also patrolled the border with Slovenia in the north east to tackle illegal immigration. In 1995 the army was sent to Naples to tackle the Camorra or local Mafia.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Um, why would mafia "hitmen" massacre African immigrants?
Were the Afros trying to muscle in on the drug trade?
#2
The african guys buddies went on a rampage afterward, as described by this article, shouting anti-italians slogans; drug business or human traffiking issues to blame? Shooting execution style six guys at once is a rather big deal, outside of mexico, I guess.
Israel's President Shimon Peres asked Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Monday to form a new government, a day after scandal-plagued Prime Minister Ehud Olmert officially stepped down.
Livni, 50, a former Mossad spy who replaced Olmert as head of the centrist Kadima party in a leadership vote on Wednesday, is hoping to become Israel's second woman prime minister after Golda Meir, who served from 1969 to 1974. "After consultations with the political parties, the president has asked Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni to form a government", public radio quoted an official statement as saying.
Livni now has 42 days to form a governing coalition in order to avert snap elections that polls indicate would bring the right-wing Likud party of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to power.
Livni on Monday urged the leader of the right-wing Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, to join a unity government. She said she would call a parliamentary election if she did not succeed in securing support for a new government.
Livni on Monday urged the leader of the right-wing Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, to join a unity government. She said she would call a parliamentary election if she did not succeed in securing support for a new government.
Traditionally, the task of forming a government goes to the party with the most seats in the Knesset, in this case Kadima, which has 29 MPs in the 120-member parliament. Livni has already begun talks with parliamentary factions that could be included in a future coalition, while at the same time pressing members of her own party to close ranks. But in the rough and tumble of shifting allegiances in Israeli politics, there is no guarantee that she will be able to come up with the numbers to form a coalition government and thus avoid an early election.
The Labor party, the main partner in the current coalition, has sent mixed signals, having met Netanyahu over weekend and called for either early elections or a "national emergency government." Livni met Labor chief Defense Minister Ehud Barak hours after Olmert formally submitted his resignation and offered to make the party a "full partner" in a new coalition, according to Haaretz newspaper, quoting unnamed Livni aides.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Zippy in the hot seat. I think AQ's "October Surprise" may have something to do with Israel.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/23/2008 8:39
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Valerie Plame, observe the former clandestine intelligence agent.
#3
Is anyone concerned that the two leading candidates are nicknamed "Zippy" and "Bibi"? Reminds me of Ayn Rand's rant in "Atlas Shrugged" against trusting US Gov't officials with names like "Chip".
A shadowy group calling itself "Fedayeen of Islam" has claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel in a telephone call to Al Arabiya television, the channel said on Monday.
The Dubai-based station's correspondent in the Pakistani capital said he received a text message on his mobile phone showing a telephone number, which he called and then heard a recording in which the group admitted launching Saturday's attack. The speaker on the recording, who identified himself as Ahmad Shah Abdali, spoke in English "with a south Asian accent," he said.
The phone number belonged to no one, of course.
A suicide bomber rammed a truck packed with more than half a ton of explosives into the security gates of the luxury hotel, killing at least 60 people and wounding more than 260 in a massive fireball.
Al-Arabiya said Abdali listed several conditions for "halting attacks against US interests in Pakistan." These included "an end to cooperation" between Washington and Islamabad, "an end to operations (by the Pakistani military) in tribal areas," and the release of all militants held in US prisons. The speaker alleged that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber while 250 US Marines and American and NATO officials were in the hotel.
Pakistan has blamed al-Qaeda militants and their Taliban allies based in Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan for the attack. Pakistani investigators are hunting an al-Qaeda cell based in Islamabad that is believed to have carried out the bombing of the Marriott Hotel, security officials said Monday. Pakistan's president and prime minister were to have had dinner at the Islamabad Marriott hotel when it was bombed but the venue was changed at the last minute, the interior ministry said.
Investigators said they believed the attackers constructed the massive 600-kilo (1,300 pound) truck bomb at a safe house in the capital, since all lorries entering the heavily-guarded city are searched at checkpoints.
Dramatic footage of Saturday night's attack showed the attacker failed to get through a barrier when he crashed his explosives-laden truck into the hotel's security gates. At least 60 people were killed. It was likely, however, that the explosives were smuggled into Islamabad in small consignments from militant strongholds in the rugged tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, the official added. A Pakistani security official said the explosives used in the bombing were like those used in two other major militant attacks, including one on the Danish embassy in Islamabad in June.
One of al-Qaeda's leaders, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, said that the Danish embassy attack, which killed six people, was "in revenge" for Danish newspaper caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed (ptui).
This article starring:
AHMED SHAH ABDALI
Fedayeen of Islam
MUSTAFA ABU AL YAZID
al-Qaeda
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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It was well over half a ton of explosives. How many groups in Pakistan could make and execute that big of a boom? 5? 50? more?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/23/2008 1:53
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How many groups in Pakistan could make and execute that big of a boom?
Of course, the one that comes immediately to mind is ISI.
Morocco's top body of Islamic scholars condemned on Sunday a Muslim theologian for issuing a religious decree that girls as young as nine years old can marry. Why not? Moh used to like 'em before they were weaned.
Morocco's High Council of Ulemas "denounces the utilisation of religion to legitimise the marriage of nine-year-old girls", it said in a statement. Sheikh Muhammad Ben Abderrahman Al Maghraoui said earlier this month that Islam allowed the marriage of nine-year-old girls. Sheikh Maghraoui derided criticism of his claims as "part of a secular attack against the Islamic nation and its theologians". The High Council of Ulemas, which is presided over by Morocco King Muhammed VI, called Sheikh an 'agitator and mystificator'. A Rabat-based lawyer, Mourad Bekkouri, has filed a complaint against Sheikh Maghraoui and his fatwa, which he said damages children's human rights, and the family and criminal code by increasing the risk of rape.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Investigators on Monday scrambled to track down an Islamabad-based Al Qaeda cell believed to have carried out the devastating bombing of the Marriott Hotel, security officials said.
Investigators said they believed the attackers constructed the massive 600-kilogramme truck bomb at a safe house in the capital, since most lorries entering the heavily guarded city are searched at checkpoints. "Our focus at the moment is to track down the network in Islamabad which must have facilitated the movement and construction of the bomb," a senior official involved in the investigation told AFP.
It was likely, however, that the explosives were smuggled into Islamabad in small consignments from militant strongholds in the Tribal Areas, the official added. Explosives used in the bombing were like those used in two other major militant attacks, including one on the Danish embassy in Islamabad in June.
"We are collecting evidence. The explosives were similar to those used in the Danish embassy, which was claimed by Al Qaeda, and the attack on the ISI camp in Rawalpindi last year," the official said.
The intelligence agencies and not the police would arrest the suspects, an intelligence official told Daily Times.
Forensic report: Sources privy to the developments said the forensic report was likely to be delayed as experts determine the nature of the explosives used in the attack, and that might create problems for the investigation team. The team might submit a report in two days however, they said.
US team: A three-member team of US experts visited the crime scene along with Pakistani investigators on Monday, and took photographs and collected samples.
Meanwhile, a team completed the search and rescue operation in the hotel and said the building was not likely to collapse.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Lebanese delegation sources said that although Suleiman's agenda is not yet complete, the president plans to meet with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Brazil's head of state Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Islamist insurgents pounded Mogadishu on Monday in attacks that brought the death toll in the last 24 hours to at least 30 people, witnesses said. The Somali rebels attacked two bases of African Union (AU) peacekeepers, shelled the city's main airport and also struck government targets in the bustling Bakara market area.
Despite U.N. efforts to broker a peace deal, fighting has worsened this month in Somalia, where Islamists are battling the interim government and its Ethiopian military backers.
Merchants in Bakara market said they had counted 11 corpses from Monday's latest fighting. Shells also landed in the morning around Mogadishu airport, where a commercial flight defied a ban by the militant al Shabaab group to land.
Residents also said at least a dozen people had died in fighting on Sunday. "A missile hit a neighbor's house and killed 9 people in the same family," one resident, Farhiya Abdullahi, told Reuters of the worst incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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All 19 hostages seized on a safari in a remote desert border area of Egypt have been released and are safe, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said on Monday. "They have been released, all of them, safe and sound," he told reporters ahead of a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. The captives were released near the Libyan-Sudanese-Egyptian border, he added.
Masked kidnappers in Egypt have seized 19 hostages including German, Italian and Romanian tourists as well as Egyptians in a remote desert area near the Sudanese and Libyan borders, Egyptian officials said. Egyptian security sources said the kidnappers may have been from Sudan or Chad. The hostages were on a desert safari in southwestern Egypt when they were kidnapped.
The kidnapping was the first of foreign tourists in Egypt in living memory, although Islamic militants have hit the country's tourist industry in recent decades through bomb and shooting attacks that have killed hundreds. "This is an act of banditry not of terrorism," the tourism ministry said. Security sources said there was no indication militant Islamists were involved.
Egypt's army scoured the border area on Monday for signs of the tourists, who were believed to have been seized on Friday by four masked men while on a desert safari in a remote area where the borders of Egypt, Sudan and Libya meet. Tourism Minister Garrana said authorities learned of the kidnapping after a tour operator called his wife and told her he was being held hostage with the group. Egyptian state television said those held included an Egyptian border guard officer.
Militant Islamists launched a series of attacks on tourists in the Nile Valley in the 1990s. But the Gamaa al-Islamiya, or Islamist Group, halted attacks amid popular uproar after six of its members slaughtered dozens of foreign tourists at Queen Hatshepsut's temple in the southern town of Luxor in 1997.
The most recent attacks occurred between 2004 and 2006 in popular Red Sea resorts in the Sinai. In April 2006, 20 people were killed in bomb blasts in Dahab, 70 were killed in Sharm el-Sheikh in July 2005 and 34 people were killed in Taba in October 2004. In November 1997, 62 people including 58 foreign visitors were killed in an attack on a popular tourist site in the southern Nile resort of Luxor.
More and more foreign visitors are visiting the remote southwest of Egypt near its borders with Sudan and Libya to see priceless rock art preserved for millennia in one of the most-isolated reaches of the Sahara.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Egyptian Tourism Minister Zoheir Garana said the tour company that organized the trip was mediating negotiations with the kidnappers, who were demanding up to $6 million in ransom. He said the German government not the Egyptian was involved in the talks. Germanys Foreign Ministry would not confirm, saying only that it has formed a crisis team on the abduction.
(PTI) At least 58 Tamil Tigers and seven soldiers were killed in intensified clashes between security forces and LTTE cadres in Sri Lanka's restive northern region.
"It is confirmed through intercepted LTTE communication channels that at least 36 LTTE cadres were killed, injuring 18 others during fierce gun battles ensued between security forces and LTTE in the Kilinochchi front yesterday," the Defence Ministry said.
Quoting sources, the ministry said troops of 57th Division had confronted with LTTE militants in West of Akkarayankulam, East of Akkarayankulam, South of Kokavil and West of Mankulam areas in Kilinochchi yesterday.
Seven bodies of LTTE cadres killed in these clashes were uncovered along with few other military hardware, in subsequent search operations conducted in these areas, the ministry said.
"Seven army soldiers laid their lives for defending the motherland while 24 others sustained injuries during these clashes," the ministry said quoting reports.
At least one tiger rebel was gunned down and three others injured after troops captured two LTTE bunkers including two huts and a partially destroyed building located in Andankulam in North-east Welioya during a clash yesterday, the military said.
Later, two tiger militants were shot dead and as many injured in two separate incidents in Andankulam, it said, adding that two LTTE cadres were killed in Kilinochchi in clashes with the security forces yesterday.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Residents of Shabqadar on Monday formed a lashkar to counter the increasing influence of Taliban in the area. The lashkar would co-operate with police in combating militants. Hundreds of armed locals marched with police from Shabqadar Bazaar to Aranda Chowk. People from the Sarikh, Katozai, Mandozai, Battgram, Jehlar and Kot areas participated in the march. Charsadda District Police Officer (DPO) Waqif Khan and Charsadda Amn Committee Chairman Younas Katozai led the march. Addressing the participants of the march at Aranda, Katozai said criminals in the guise of Taliban wanted to create anarchy in Shabqadar. The elders of the area said those behind incidents of kidnapping for ransom and other acts offensive to Islam were abusing the name of Islam and would not be allowed to operate in the area. The DPO told the assembly that establishing peace in the area was impossible without the active co-operation of the locals. He said those who wanted to wage jihad should go to Afghanistan, Iraq and Kashmir instead of waging war on their countrymen. The locals told Daily Times they were fed up with the militants who have made their lives hell in the name of Islam, and wanted to get rid of them.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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#1
I hope the natives continue to rebel against the Talibunnies!!!!
Posted by: Paul ||
09/23/2008 9:58
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(AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Pakistan's Tehrik-i-Taliban has denied any involvement in the devastating bomb attack at the Marriott hotel in Islamabad at the weekend. "Nope. Nope. Wudn't us."
But sources close to Adnkronos International (AKI) reveal that particular Pakistani groups linked with Al-Qaeda, such as Fidayeen-e-Islam, may have been behind the attack as Pakistan is about to embrace a new partnership with US forces.
The suicide bomb that targeted the hotel in the heart of the capital, killed at least 53 people and injured more than 266 others, a short distance from the country's parliament building. There were conflicting reports that Pakistan's political and military leaders were expected to dine at the hotel on Saturday night and changed their plans at the last minute.
Former Pakistani spy master, Retired Lt. General Hamid Gul said that the militants had watched their target for days and then selected a vehicle carrying construction materials and loaded the vehicle with over 600 kilogrammes of explosives.
There could be a variety of reasons for the selection of Hotel Marriott as a target. No one is certain whether political leaders were the targets.
Pakistan's advisor for interior Rehman Malik said that the Speaker of the National Assembly Dr Fahmida Mirza planned to host a dinner for President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani at the hotel, but the venue was changed at the last minute.
However, there is no precedent of any such high profile dinners being hosted at the Marriott or any other hotel. The hotel's management also denied any booking, which has raised questions about whether the government is trying to cover up its incompetence for failing to provide security to its citizens and to the foreign nationals and also failing to arrange effective firefighting to extinguish the fire.
According to reports, it took two hours for firefighters to charge their batteries so that they could use power hose. In addition, authorities did not have snorkels to reach the upper floors of the building and rescue people.
Sources said that militants took their action, not simply because of conflict in the Bajaur agency near the Afghan border, but broader US plans in the region against which militants carried out a pre-emptive strike.
Only 20 kilometres from Islamabad lies Tarbella, headquarters of Pakistan's Special Operation Task Force (SOTF) and 300 US officials recently arrived here to offering training to their Pakistani colleagues. However, highly placed security sources confirmed that this is not simply a training programme.
In the mid-1990s, during the government of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a special CIA unit was located at the same place in a bid to catch Osama Bin Laden but due to a military coup in 1999, the unit could not achieve its targets and was asked to abandon the facility.
There is speculation that the preparations are setting the stage for a war theatre in Pakistan's troubled North West Frontier Province and is aiming to setup a powerful push from all four side around the sanctuaries of the militants belonging to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Much of this is a rehash of the last few days of gibbering threats and such ...
A senior Iranian military official has said that despite all shortcomings, the nation will be ready to defend against any act of aggression. Our youth will be prepared to 'carry weapons' to protect our sovereignty should any form of danger threaten the country, Major General Yahya Rahim-Safavi said on Monday.
"Strategic calculations show that if Israel wants to take the smallest measure against Iranian interests - either independently or with the US - all areas under Israeli control would instantly become unsafe," Maj. Gen. Jafari responded in late August.
Dismissing the possibility of renouncing its uranium enrichment rights in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has begun making major military preparations to counter any act of aggression on its soil.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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#1
They trust the "youth" with weapons. No bullets, but weapons.
#2
The continuing shrillness of their statements suggest that they are having trouble keeping control of the country. Anything we can do to make things less stable?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/23/2008 1:37
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the last few days of gibbering threats and such
It is like monkeys flinging poo, but with better punctuation and goose-stepping.
Israel said 15 people were injured when a driver drove his car late on Monday into a group of people at a busy West Jerusalem intersection, wounding at least 15 people in what police described as a "terrorist" attack, before the Arab driver was shot dead, an Israeli police spokesman and medics said.
One of those struck by the car was seriously injured, a spokesman for the Magen David Adom ambulance service said of the incident at Kikar Tzahal which overlooks to the Old City of Jerusalem. "A man in a vehicle struck a number of people in Kikar Tzahal," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. "We can confirm it was a terrorist attack. The man was shot and killed."
It was not immediately clear who shot the driver. One Israeli television report said he was killed by a bystander. The area would have been busy on a warm evening with people going to the area's bars and restaurants in the heart of the Jewish western side of the city.
The attack revived memories of two previous incidents in Jerusalem this year when Palestinians driving construction vehicles have attacked Israelis.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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The terrorist who rammed his BMW into a group of soldiers at a central Jerusalem thoroughfare late Monday, Qassem Mughrabi, 19, from Jebl Mukaber in east Jerusalem, was a member of Hamas, according to the Palestinian Ma'an news agency.
Mughrabi, a resident of the same village as the Mercaz Harav terrorist who killed eight in March, wounded fifteen people before being shot dead by an off-duty IDF officer. The assailant had no previous security record, police said Tuesday.
The 19-year-old had wanted to marry his cousin, and when she refused his offer, he decided to carry out a terror attack, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.
On Monday night he left his east Jerusalem home with the car that his parents had bought him and which was to be his when he got his driver's license, and went on the rampage.
Jerusalem police chief Aharon Franco said Monday night that the attacker was shot dead "within seconds" by an off-duty IDF officer who was touring the city with his unit. He added that there was no intelligence information ahead of the attack, but noted that Jerusalem was under heavy security alert due to Ramadan.
And the obligatory...
The driver of the black BMW was identified as Qassem Mughrabi, 19. Mahmoud Mughrabi, 49, his father, said his son did not have a driving licence and apparently lost control of the car. "My son was murdered, they killed him. He did not carry out a terrorist attack. This was a car accident."
A soldier was lightly to moderately wounded on Monday, when a Palestinian woman threw acid in his face at the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus.
The terrorist was arrested by security forces, and the soldier was rushed into surgery because doctors fear he may have lost vision in one eye as a result of the attack.
IDF troops in the area have been on high alert since last week's infiltration of Yitzhar by a Palestinian militant, an incident which sparked a settler rampage in the nearby Palestinian village of Assira al-Kubliyeh.
During the infiltration last Saturday, a 9-year-old boy was lightly wounded when he was stabbed in the hand.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Palestinian sources identified the woman as 19-year-old Sanabil Braik, a student at An-Najah University in Nablus. Sanabils father, owner of a local TV station, was shocked at the news. He said that Sanabil left home as usual at 7 a.m. on her way to university, and I am still surprised to hear what she did.
Israeli security sources believe Sanabil is the same person who poured acid on an Israeli soldier at the checkpoint about two weeks ago. The soldier was lightly injured.
#4
#2: Ah ha! Evidently, the Paleos do not read the Geneva Conventions. Posted by: Jack is Back!
The Geneva Conventions are only for "civilized warfare", Jack. That requires the combattants come from a civilized society, and practice halfway-civilized religion and politics.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/23/2008 20:50
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This comes pretty close to conspiracy theory which we ordinarily don't do here at the Burg.
A conspiracy stratagem was openly presented by Maurice Strong, a godfather of the global environmental movement, and a former senior advisor to Kofi Annan, the U.N. Secretary-General. In 1972 Strong was a Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which launched the world environment movement, and he has played a critical role in its globalization. In 1992 Strong was the Secretary-General of the "World Summit" conference in Rio de Janeiro, where on his instigation the foundations for the Kyoto Protocol were laid.
In an interview Strong disclosed his mindset: "What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group's conclusion is "no." The rich countries won't do it. They won't change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about? This group of world leaders form a secret society to bring about an economic collapse." (Wood,1990)
#1
It is pretty easy to imagine utterly loony conspiracies emanating from the UN. UNESCO has declared 47 parts of the US to be international property, enforced by the US Dept of Interior, as "biosphere preserves", with no US citizens, other than authorized environmentalists, allowed to enter. They have also made it clear that these areas are intended to be enlarged.
To make matters worse, some years ago, some UN twit prepared a map showing most of the interior of the US depopulated, the population moved to the coasts and just a few interior cities, so that the vast majority of the US could "environmentally recover" from humans living there.
Hopefully, if there is an economic catastrophe, control and jurisdiction of most of the western US will be returned to the States it was stolen from.
#2
Isn't this anti-Global Warming stuff played out? Nowadays President Bush, John Howard of Australia, Rupert Murdoch and almost every former sceptic of any significance in the political arena has come on board with the reality of climate change, the real debate is over what should be done to combat it, and how far to go.
#4
You, and the individuals you named, are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own reality.
No REAL scientists who don't have a socialist act to grind or who don't receive government grants to study the "problem" are on board with AGW, little man, for the simple reason that there is not sufficient evidence to prove it.
Now go back to your humanities and social "science" world and leave real science to the grownups.
It's played out alright - and your side lost.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/23/2008 5:35
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#5
Previous comment for CT, not you, Excalibur.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/23/2008 5:50
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#6
Excalibur, I realise that, which is why I didn't refer to John Howard as Prime Minister.
However both Kevin Rudd (PM and leader of the Labour Party) and Malcolm Turnbull (Current leader of Howard's Liberal Party) hold the same opinions on climate change.
As do both Barack Obama and John McCain for that matter.
The point I was making was that there is almost universal agreement amongst the political leadership of both the left and right (including former high profile sceptics), throughout the developed world on this issue, so it would seem that arguing climate change is just a conspiracy is pointless, as the 'facts on the ground' in terms of political debate have already reached consensus and moved on.
So it would appear more likely that "your side" has lost.
#8
You're wrong, CT. Kyoto is dead as is most of the rest of that GW crap. If you truly believe in AGW, you're too deeply into the leftie Kool-Aid for reality to reach you. If you've still any sliver of an open mind on the issue, I suggest you google Steven Den Beste on the matter. You'll learn a lot.
#9
I don't buy the conspiracy theory -- the lefties have never been that good at working together or at keeping secrets. I do believe that way too many of our mostly-scientifically-ignorant politicians have either fallen for the idiocy or simply decided that giving it lip service gets some votes. Example: McCain. I don't know who advises him, but he needs some knew advisers. He has also fallen for the autism-vaccination nonsense that has been disproved in study after study. It's a shame.
#10
Let me ask C&T how many of the scientists on the UN's panel on global warming/climate change are either climate scientists, astrophysicists (sun), hydrologists or meteorologists? Now compare that total to the overall total of so-called scientists on the report. In other words, if, lets say Avian bird flu was a real threat to the world, would you believe that if all the scientists proclaiming that were mostly chemists instead of veterinarians or cellular microbiologists?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/23/2008 8:31
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#11
It doesn't matter. Scientific facts are what they are, no matter who is polled.
#12
And the martian polar ice cap? Is it still shrinking? Would that be related to solar output, or MMGW?
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/23/2008 10:26
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#13
I don't believe it is a coincidence that Global Warming became a religion not long after Communism failed. Most western Communists didn't truly love communism, they loathed capitalism, so global warming gave them a life-raft to keep up the fight with "pure" motives.
#14
Almost every person who is an avid believer of MMGW that I have talked to is totally deficient in even basic high school science. I have never met or talked to a single educated person with a science background that threw in with it. Not a single one.
There are changes going on in our climate patterns, but there always have been and always will be. The question is are WE doing it? If so I say we drastically scale back CO2 emissions. But lets wait till the data is in before we start shutting down the power plants and capping off the oil wells. It is at best contradictory and at worse showing a great deal of cooling in our future. We may be at a pivot point between cooling and warming right now.
#15
The point I was making was that there is almost universal agreement amongst the political leadership of both the left and right...
Posted by Cherelet and Tenille1095
And which of them are scientists? Zero, none, nadda, zilch, zippo.
Man made climate change has been debunked in the scientific community, follow the link in my sig for more info.
The basic question, aside from the other planets in our solar system having the same issue, is how does mankind's contribution of less than 1/3 of 1% of the so-called "greenhouse gasses" can possibly have any meaningful effect on our mean global temperature?
The next problem with this "global warming" hypothesis is that CO2 is a nutrient, not a polutant.
And the list of scientific evidence against this folly continues.
Politicians, unfortunately, have to cater to the uninformed as well as the informed. And they are human, so when they are given enough disinformation they may start to believe it.
Let me close with these two quotes.
"A lie told often enough becomes the truth." Vladimir Lenin
"Where all think alike, no one thinks very much." - Walter Lippmann
#16
CT: Why are the advocates of Global Warming changing the buzzwords to Climate Change? And now some are changing to Climate Crisis. Because the facts on the ground are starting to point to global cooling.
South Africa just recorded the coldest temps in it's recorded history, New Zealand lost a great deal of their wine crop last summer to cold weather. Last winter China recorded the coldest temps in 50 years, frost in the upper Midwest in August, etc. etc.
Think Sun Spots. Their are much larger forces at work than man. The world has warmed and cooled long before the invention of the automobile.
As an aside, man should strive to clean up his act in an orderly fashion, without subcoming to the GW hysteria.
#17
I'm sorry but I don't know how anyone could deny the global climate is changing because of human behavior. To totally discredit it without trying to know more seems to be the pattern. The same thing with evolution-deniers.
At least most scientist continue to test and experiment while these deniers just do everything they can to not find out anymore.
Climate change is more accurate term.
So the earth get's a little cooler here and there, that doesn't mean the earth is not warming up! It means the melting ice is pushing cold air down to warmer regions, but the poles are a lot warmer now and this the change in balance of earth's climate. Hurricaines, stronger winds, and droughts.
Just assume the worst and have an open mind to fixing the problem, just like cancer. We can't wish it doesn't exist! If we really find there is no problem, good!
#18
The problem with your approach is that you want to begin the cancer surgery before there's a conclusive diagnosis of where the cancer is located if it exists at all. And you are willing to eviscerate the United States and ignore any potential cancer in China and India.
#19
I disagree, there is no "surgury" taking place, no proposal to fix the problem only reduce the effects of emissions which directly threaten profits of many businessmen, thus the conflict of interest.
Lowering emissions is more like making sure you have a healthy diet by eating the proper foods and reduce smoking.
There is no excuse with China or India either but if even in America we can't agree it's real then nothing can be done to put pressure on those nations anyway.
America has to lead by example. If the problem really is we are worried about up and coming countries not adhering to emission standards, then let's declare that the issue and face it instead of going cheap by denying there is any climate change.
Evolution is science open to scientific debate, Creationism is religion not open to debate.
Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Crisis has become a religion.
Global Warming brought Earth out of the Maunder Minimum (Little Ice Age). There was a brief period of relapse in the Dalton Minimum (cost Napoleon an Army in Russia), but then the earth continued to warm up until the early 2000s.
The Global Climate has always changed. No more glaciers in Yosemite or covering Long Island.
Follow the Sun Spots on the graph and their relationship to the Earth's temperature. Currently they have dropped to zero.
Just for the record melting ice does not push cold air. Air moving over vast frozen areas with little sunshine generates cold air. There is a difference between melting and sublimation.
#21
"America has to lead by example." Glinetle McGurque6029
I suggest you look at the carbon numbers for the US compared to Europe in the last decade. Despite failing to sign Kyoto the US did better if I remember correctly.
What most Global Warming advocates want is not just restrictions but a real hobbling of the US economy. That is why the US is targetted and India and China ignored.
#23
It doesn't matter who believes it. Because the earth is cooling, the entire global warming panic is a stack of wet cow poop. And, the 'science' behind GW is taken out of context. It's a slice of data relative to nothing but stupidity.
A banned outfit operating under a different name is 'giving calls for jihad' against the United States to worshippers at different mosques in posh areas of Peshawar, eyewitnesses told Daily Times on Monday.
"A young, bearded and long-haired activist of the Jamaatud Dawa stood up after the Fajr prayers and began calling for jihad against infidels," said a University of Peshawar professor after returning from the Madina Mosque.
Daily Times learnt that such extremists had begun operating in posh residential districts such as Hayatabad and University Town, and that they 'spoke for a long time' to underline the importance of jihad and support to the displaced people.
"Under what law can I stop them from doing so? There is no law, both governmental or Islamic."
"The extremists first speak about geopolitics, dangers to Pakistan from both eastern and western borders and then urge the importance of jihad," said Mumtaz Khan, a Hayatabad resident who came across one such extremist at Bilal Mosque.
A caretaker of one of the mosques confirmed that 'charity organisation' Jamaatud Dawa was using mosques to invite people for jihad. "Under what law can I stop them from doing so? There is no law, both governmental or Islamic," said the caretaker requesting anonymity. "These callers come at different prayer times and are peaceful and appear to be pro-Pakistan," he said.
The caretaker said the number of such extremists had increased recently with the US drone attacks in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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#1
This is a problem in various Muslim countries. As soon as you introduce 'law' into the argument you head straight into the debate about the intersection between State, Koran and Sharia. Where does one start and the other stop.
See www.skynews.com/foreignmatters
Posted by: Tim Marshall ||
09/23/2008 6:58
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#2
I've read enough history to know that "Religious (Church) Law always is both arbitrary and unjust"
It matters NOT, just WHAT religion manages the "Church "Law""it's always the same, NOT GOOD, NOT FAIR, AND NOT "LAW".
(One set of rules for Thee, and another set for Me.)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/23/2008 12:19
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MARIGOT--A well-known French charter boat skipper who operated his business from St. Martin for most of the year has been murdered by pirates in the province of La Guaraia, Venezuela, close to the capital of Caracas, Venezuelan authorities have reported.
St. Martin resident Philippe Leudière was shot by pirates some time during the night or early morning of September 14-15 while his Lagoon 410 catamaran Chrysalide was at anchor in the port of Caraballeda.
The Venezuelan Prosecutor's Office confirmed Leudière had died from four gunshot wounds following a raid on the boat by "several armed individuals." It was reported the pirates had escaped with an undetermined amount in bolivars and US dollars.
Leudière and his family had left St. Martin to go South, as many cruisers do in the summer to escape the hurricane season. He had been operating his charter business for four years and was based at Marina Fort Louis.
He leaves to mourn his wife Catherine and an 11-year-old son. A close friend said he had been chatting with Leudière on Skype only a week ago and the family had been very pleased to find "a quiet and agreeable anchorage."
According the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this is the fourth act of piracy against French nationals cruising in the region since the beginning of the year. Its travel advisory strongly cautions against cruising the coast of Venezuela or visiting the island of Margarita, because of an increase in attacks.
The management of Marina Fort Louis and many friends have extended their condolences to the family.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Another important job for the Russian navy. Hugo is so prescient.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/23/2008 8:13
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Four militants and two jawans were killed in a fierce gunfight that broke out on Sunday along the LoC in Poonch with security personnel foiling an attempt by ultras to infiltrate into Jammu and Kashmir. The Four militants were killed on Monday as firing resumed after a brief lull.
Two jawans, Naik Tape Ajo of Nagaland Regiment and Sepoy Chiba of One Assam Regiment, had died in the shootout.
The armed militants entered the Indian side "from Kabaristan post of Pakistan and were trapped by troops between Zeroline and border fencing along the LoC in Poonch district at 0830 hours yesterday", a senior army official said. The infiltration bid by militants was preceded by heavy firing from the Pakistani side on Indian positions along the LoC.
The encounter is taking place in a heavily mined area. "We cannot lift the bodies as militants might have laid a mine-field trap," an official source said.
Security forces have seized four AK rifles along with eight magazines and 72 bullets and some eatables and medicines from the site of the shootout, the source said.
Meanwhile, there was an exchange of fire between police and terrorists in Rai Nallah in Udhian area of Doda district yesterday but no one was hurt, the source said. The terrorists managed to escape but left behind one AK magazine, four bullets, seven detonators, a UBGL shell, a hand grenade, a wireless set, one antenna and a tape recorder along with a cassette.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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(AKI) - The Lebanese army claims 10,000 Syrian troops have been deployed on the border of Lebanon to prevent cross-border smuggling. The troops are part of a special unit trained to stop smuggling across the border between both countries.
"We asked the Syrians for clarification and they told us it's an internal situation, inside Syrian territory and not directed against Lebanon," a Lebanese army spokesperson told local network LBC.
Syrian troops were stationed in Lebanon for over 30 years and withdrew in 2005 following the murder of former premier Rafik Hariri. His death was widely believed to be the work of the Syrian government and currently the subject of a United Nations inquiry.
Since then the country has been deeply divided along sectarian and political lines.
Recent clashes in the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli have raised fears among politicians and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad asked Lebanese President Michel Suleiman to send more troops to Tripoli. Some politicians considered the request foreign interference in Lebanese affairs and believed that the clashes could be used as a possible excuse by Syria to return its troops to Lebanon.
Tripoli is dominated by supporters of the anti-Syrian Sunni ruling coalition. Alawites - members of a small offshoot of Shia Islam allied to Syria - are allied to the Lebanese Shia opposition.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
Sounds like they are going to preven cross border smauggling by eliminating the border altogether.
A Somali Transitional Federal Government official and two of his guards have been gunned down by four masked men in the town of Baidoa. Eyewitnesses told Press TV correspondent that the TFG official and his escorts were attacked on Monday by unidentified gunmen who then fled the scene taking the guards' weapons with them.
The small southwestern Somali town is quiet now, with markets and businesses shut down in the wake of the violence.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2008
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Top|| File under: Islamic Courts
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.
AT least five Palestinians were killed and four others were wounded today when Egyptian forces blew up two smuggling tunnels beneath the Egyptian-Gaza border, medical workers and residents said.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden stepped out of sync again Tuesday, as the Democratic presidential nominee criticized his running mate for voicing opposition to the government bailout of American International Group early last week.
US intelligence analysts are putting the final touches on a secret National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan that reportedly describes the situation as "grim", but there are "no plans to declassify" any of it before the election, according to one US official familiar with the process. 
The market storm that brought down Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., American International Group Inc. and other pillars of U.S. finance may have also blown holes in the portfolios of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator John Kerry and more than 50 other members of Congress. 
``Lawmakers, like everyone else in America who has any kind of retirement portfolio or stock holdings, are going to be suffering,'' said Gary Kalman, a lobbyist for the Boston-based U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer-advocacy organization. ``This is a serious issue. We need to have a serious response.'' 
They're blinding them with science.
A couple in South Africa who were having sex on a railway track in Mpumalanga Province have been killed by a goods train, police say. 
You have to understand how things work in a closing society in order to understand "Palin Power." A gang or cabal seizes power, usually with an affable, weak figurehead at the fore. Then they will hold elections -- but they will make sure that the election will be corrupted and that the next affable, weak figurehead is entirely in their control.
Secret negotiations in Indonesia with separatist sympathisers at the weekend were aimed at isolating the 
(AKI) - A leader of the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb has threatened France and Spain in an audio message broadcast on jihadist Internet forums on Monday. "To those that are involved in the war against Islam and have betrayed the Islamic nation, we say to them: Repent before God punishes you with his hands and with ours," said Abdel Malik Droukedel, who uses the name Abu Musab Abdel Wudud. "This is because judgement day is close and punishment is imminent. And whoever among the treacherous apostates thinks that France is in a position to ensure its safety, we tell them they are wrong, because France will not be in a position to do it, and will be worried for its safety."
At least nine security personnel were killed on Monday in a suicide car-bomb attack on a checkpost in Swat, the military and security officials said. "Nine security personnel were killed and a couple more were slightly injured in a suicide attack," the military's media wing said. A suspected Taliban rammed his explosives-laden car into a small roadside checkpost in Madyan town in Swat, the official said.
Intelligence agencies have arrested a close aide of Al Qaeda's number two Ayman al-Zawahiri from Gujranwala and shifted him to Islamabad to investigate the Marriott Hotel suicide attack, Samaa TV reported on Monday. According to the channel, Mursaleen was arrested from a mosque in Gujranwala late on Sunday, where he was living under the name of Jamshed. The channel said Mursaleen was an important leader of the banned militant organisation Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and his arrest carried a reward of Rs 50 million. He was also on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's list of most wanted people, the channel added. According to the channel, Mursaleen masterminded several acts of terrorism, including attacks on former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf at Nishtar Park in Rawalpindi and Maulana Hassan Turrabi in Karachi.
(AKI) - Police have arrested six members of an alleged Al-Qaeda cell that claimed last week's deadly attack against the United States embassy in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, according to a ministry of defence website.
(SomaliNet) A maritime official said Somali pirates hijacked another Greek ship off the lawless Horn of Africa nation on Sunday in the latest of a wave of attacks. 
(PTI) Scrambling to track down militants responsible for the devastating suicide bombing of the Marriott hotel here, Pakistani security forces today arrested three men during an operation from Kharian city of the Punjab province. Among those arrested was Qari Muhammad Ali, imam of the main Jamia mosque in Kharian, Dawn News channel reported. There was also no official word on the arrests and no further details were available.
Palestinian security forces raided the office of a Hamas legislator in the West Bank on Monday, in an ongoing crackdown against the Islamist group. 
Israel's President Shimon Peres asked Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Monday to form a new government, a day after scandal-plagued Prime Minister Ehud Olmert officially stepped down. 
A shadowy group calling itself "
Morocco's top body of Islamic scholars condemned on Sunday a Muslim theologian for issuing a religious decree that girls as young as nine years old can marry. 
MARIGOT--A well-known French charter boat skipper who operated his business from St. Martin for most of the year has been murdered by pirates in the province of La Guaraia, Venezuela, close to the capital of Caracas, Venezuelan authorities have reported. 
