(CNN) -- The leader of Pakistan's Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, is dead from kidney failure, sources told CNN. An unnamed Islamabad-based source with connections within the Mehsud tribe in South Waziristan said Mehsud died about 1 a.m. Wednesday. Military officials in the field confirmed to CNN that Mehsud had died. Geo Television of Pakistan and other local stations also reported his death.
But some reports also had the Taliban denying Mehsud's death.
Earlier reports said the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan was ill and was expected to die within a day. Mehsud is said to have succumbed to kidney failure and was believed to be about 34 years old.
The Pakistan government blamed Mehsud for the December 27, 2007, assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, but Mehsud denied involvement. In his first television interview, conducted by Al-Jazeera last year, Mehsud said his ultimate aim was to attack New York and London, England.
He led thousands of militants in South Waziristan, the mountainous region of northwest Pakistan that borders Afghanistan and where the Taliban and al Qaeda are active.
Mehsud's death would leave a power vacuum within the Mehsud tribe and the Pakistani Taliban, analysts say. Since there was no second in command of the Mehsud tribe, tribal splits are expected. Mehsud's death also is expected to spark a power struggle and the appointment of a new Taliban leader in Pakistan, but whoever replaces Mehsud is not expected to have as much influence and control in the region.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/30/2008
18:21 ||
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#1
Worm food? I think of ol' Baitbreath as more like a worm who such bad breath that he attracts stinky fish who think it smells gooood.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev will join forces with Russian tycoon Alexander Lebedev to launch a new political party independent of the Kremlin, the billionaire businessman said on Tuesday.
...
The party will press for legal and economic reform and promote the growth of independent media, said Lebedev, who does not plan to bankroll the party himself but said it should be financed only from "non-state sources."
He said the party favored "less state capitalism," the development of independent media, reform of the justice system and a stronger role for parliament, adding that it would take part in elections.
However, Mikhail Kuznetsov, the deputy chairman of Gorbachev's present political organization, the Union of Social Democrats, said winning seats was not the objective.
"Mikhail Sergeyevich (Gorbachev) is not striving to take seats in parliament, he is going to establish an independent democratic party and its task will be to let young people find fulfillment in new politics," Kuznetsov said.
Posted by: ed ||
09/30/2008
17:20 ||
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#1
Mr. Gorbachev changed the world once, however unintentionally. If he can make this work, both Russia and the world will benefit.
A U.S. pilotless drone fired two missiles at a house in northwest Pakistan killing five people, Pakistani intelligence agency officials said Wednesday.
Frustrated by an intensifying Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, Reuters: the very essence of impartiality
U.S. forces have in the past month carried out seven missile strikes by pilotless drones and a commando raid on the Pakistani side of the border.
In the latest attack, a drone fired two missiles at a house near the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan, at about midnight Tuesday (1800 GMT), two intelligence agency officials said. The area is a known sanctuary for Pakistani Taliban and foreign militants near the Afghan border.
"We have reports of five dead including foreign militants," said one of the officers, who declined to be identified as he is not authorized to speak to the media. ...
Same strike: Suspected US drone strike kills four in Pakistan: officials It happened shortly after Pashtun tribesmen shot at three drones circling the village of Khusali Toorikhel in North Waziristan, a known haunt of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants.
"After the drones came under fire a missile hit a house in the village. We have four dead now and another nine people were injured," a local security official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Thanks for the targeting beacon, Sheiky
Posted by: ed ||
09/30/2008
17:14 ||
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#1
Oh for gosh sakes. Anybody believe this? Next we'll be told Karzai wants the Soodies to smooth things over with the Taliban and offer Mullah Omar a peace deal where he gets to be a minister in the Karzai gov't and gurantees Omar's safety from the USA.
Thousands of pilgrims panicked by false rumors of a bomb stampeded at a Hindu temple in western India on Tuesday, killing at least 168 people in the crush to escape.
Television footage showed dozens of bodies lying on the sidewalk, while nearby frantic people tried to revive unconscious devotees, slapping their faces and pressing on their chests. One child sat on the ground next to the body of a woman, rubbing her forehead and crying "Mother, Mother."
The disaster occurred just as the doors of the temple were being opened for worship at dawn for more than 12,000 people celebrating a key Hindu festival in the historic city of Jodhpur in Rajasthan state.
The chaos began with false rumors of a bomb, said Ramesh Vyas, a pilgrim who was standing in line.
Tensions are high because India has been hit by a spate of bomb attacks. The latest explosions Monday night in the western cities of Malegaon and Modasa killed six people and wounded 45.
Devotees had broken coconuts as religious offerings and so the temple's floors were slick with coconut milk, causing pilgrims to slip and fall as they scrambled to escape, Vyas said. Other pilgrims had crammed a narrow 1 1/4-mile path leading to the temple, leaving little room for those fleeing to escape.
The chaos was made worse by the fact there was a power outage at the time. Some pilgrims slipped on the ramp leading to the shrine, the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Director-General of state Police K. S. Bains as saying.
At least 168 people were killed in the stampede, Naresh Pal Gangwar, the district collector, told The Associated Press. Officials said 100 others were injured. ...
Posted by: ed ||
09/30/2008
17:09 ||
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There is a guy named Dave Ramsey out of Nashville. He does a kind of a layman's approach to the economy. He has posted some simple guidelines to straighten out the economy. He has on his website a way to send the following pdf file to your Congressman. He does not take credit for this approach. He says he has culled this approach from people like Mike Huckaby and others. Ramsey appears on Fox as a economic commentator. Kind of like a Ben Stein of from the South. What do Rantburgers think of this approach? Reasonable or overly simple and naive?
Years of bad decisions and stupid mistakes have created an economic nightmare in this country, but $700 billion in new debt is not the answer. As a tax-paying American citizen, I will not support any congressperson who votes to implement such a policy. Instead, I submit the following threestep Common Sense Plan.
I. INSURANCE
a. Insure the subprime bonds/mortgages with an underlying FHA-type insurance.
Government-insured and backed loans would have an instant market all over the
world, creating immediate and needed liquidity.
b. In order for a company to accept the government-backed insurance, they must do two things:
1. Rewrite any mortgage that is more than three months delinquent to a
6% fixed-rate mortgage.
a. Roll all back payments with no late fees or legal costs into the balance. This brings homeowners current and allows them a chance to keep their homes.
b. Cancel all prepayment penalties to encourage refinancing or
the sale of the property to pay off the bad loan. In the event of foreclosure or short sale, the borrower will not be held liable for any deficit balance. FHA does this now, and that encourages mortgage companies to go the extra mile while working with the borrower—again limiting foreclosures and ruined lives.
2. Cancel ALL golden parachutes of EXISTING and FUTURE CEOs and executive team members as long as the company holds these government-insured bonds/mortgages. This keeps underperforming executives from being paid when they donÂ’t do their jobs.
c. This backstop will cost less than $50 billion—a small fraction of the current proposal.
II. MARK TO MARKET
a. Remove mark to market accounting rules for two years on only subprime Tier III
bonds/mortgages. This keeps companies from being forced to artificially mark down bonds/mortgages below the value of the underlying mortgages and real estate.
b. This move creates patience in the market and has an immediate stabilizing effect on failing and ailing banks—and it costs the taxpayer nothing.
III. CAPITAL GAINS TAX
a. Remove the capital gains tax completely. Investors will flood the real estate and stock market in search of tax-free profits, creating tremendous—and immediate—liquidity in the markets. Again, this costs the taxpayer nothing.
b. This move will be seen as a lightning rod politically because many will say it is helping the rich. The truth is the rich will benefit, but it will be their money that stimulates the economy. This will enable all Americans to have more stable jobs and retirement investments that go up instead of down.
This is not a time for envy, and itÂ’s not a time for politics. ItÂ’s time for all of us, as Americans, to stand up, speak out, and fix this mess.
#5
Congress also needs to repeal the Community Re-investment Act (Or at least the 1995 amendments).
(See the "Burning Down the House" video)
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
09/30/2008 18:07
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Insurance is the same as bailout.
Re-writing the loan provisions will do nothing unless loan balances are reduced or mortgage rates reduced to below market. The core problem in subprime is that people bought homes who couldn't afford them. After Freddie and Fannnie lending rules were loosened up home ownership rates in the U.S. went from 64% to 68%. Those last four percent of U.S. households cannot afford their homes. I don't have any problems re-writing their loans as long as the lenders bear the cost. Taxpayers shouldn't.
Eliminating the mark to market rule is good, but needs to include all mortagages. Even if mark to market is eliminatd for subprime, accounting rules (and common sense) require that they be marked down when they become delinquent. Eliminating mark to market for prime loans and non-delinquent loans is much more important because they are a bigger part of the market and their market values are being hurt by the flight to quality. Moving them back to amortized cost would restore many balance sheets and capital positions.
Waiving capital gains taxes is a good idea. That could be expanded beyond mortgages and offered to purchasers of new equity in financial firms. Many will need to be recapitalized to be able to begin lending again.
#7
DoDo is correct. Insuring the mortgages is won't be cheap, either. At it will cost a helluvalot more than 50 billion.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/30/2008 19:45
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"a. Roll all back payments with no late fees or legal costs into the balance. This brings homeowners current and allows them a chance to keep their homes."
um, these would be the folks who bought homes they couldn't afford? Explain again why we need to save them from their own cupidity?
There's a ticking time bomb underneath the oceans, and it's about to go off, some scientists say.
A Russian research ship trawling the Arctic off Siberia's northeastern coast has found huge amounts of methane bubbling up from the seafloor, according to reports in London's Independent newspaper and the Canadian Press wire service.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, trapping 20 times as much heat as carbon dioxide. While there's little of it in the atmosphere, there are gigantic frozen deposits of it, called methane clathrates, trapped in rocks in seabeds all over the world.
One of the leading global-warming doomsday scenarios involves all that methane thawing out as sea temperatures rise, then rushing to the surface and into the air, creating a runaway warming scenario.
Now there's some evidence that's beginning to happen.
"For the first time, we documented a field where the release was so intense that the methane did not have time to dissolve into the seawater but was rising as methane bubbles to the sea surface," Swedish researcher Orjan Gustafsson, aboard the Russian ship Jacob Smirnitskyi, told the Independent in an article published last week.
"It's a time bomb because, as the permafrost thaws — and we don't know how fast it will thaw — it's going to slowly and maybe catastrophically at some point, release all that methane that's trapped underneath as a solid," Marianne Douglas, head of the Canadian Circumpolar Institute, told the Canadian Press.
#3
When we're still here in 5 years, revoke all these ninnies' academic credentials and turn them out of their jobs. When we're still here in 10 years, banish them to their beloved shrinking (NOT) icecaps...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/30/2008 17:51
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#4
Uh, isn't methane fuel? I think I have a solution...
#5
Methane has been bubbling up from the seafloor for years. In fact, that is one of the possible explanations for ships disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle. A large methane release will cause the buoyancy of the ship to plunge as the displacement effect collapses and it is like trying to sail a ship on air. Instant sinkage.
This means we have a right, nay a moral responsibility, to capture this nasty methane and burn it into CO2 which will make it only 1/20th as deadly for globular warmening.
Police in Middletown arrested a woman Monday night who they said was dressed in a cow suit and seen acting erratically. "Outta the car and putcher hands on the roof, Bossie!"
Michelle Allen of Middletown was arrested on one count of disorderly conduct on accusations of getting in the way of traffic on Wilbraham Road and chasing children in her cow suit, NewsChannel5 sister station WCPO-TV in Cincinnati reported. She also urinated on a neighbor's front porch, police said. Wait'll they find the cow pie in the driveway!
According to officers, Allen talked back and threatened to cause problems in the jail if she was arrested. "The stall ain't been made that can hold me!"
Allen appeared in court Tuesday morning dressed in the suit. "Hi, yer honor! Want some milk?"
It is not clear why she was wearing the costume.
The Dow is up 500 points today. What's going on here? We do better when Congress doesn't meddle in the marketplace? Is there a disconnect between what happens in Congress and the marketplace? Is credit tight or not? Where's the money coming from to buy in the stockmarket today? Well-managed regional banks in the hinterlands seem to be doing OK?
LONDON (Reuters) - World stocks were at near three-year lows on Tuesday but fears of a major market meltdown failed to carry through from Wall Street to Europe as confidence in bank rescue packages persisted.
The U.S. Congress's rejection of a bank rescue plan tore nearly 9 percent off the broad S&P 500 on Monday but European shares and many Asian stock markets clawed back from early losses on hopes the U.S. plan would eventually go through.
U.S. stock index futures also pointed to a higher opening, suggesting belief that Monday's selloff was over-done.
"It's certainly my working assumption that there (will be) some sort of agreement reached in the U.S. and based on that I would expect the market to recover quite strongly from yesterday's sell-off," said Darren Winder, equity strategist at Cazenove.
Angst over the battered financial sector continued, nonetheless, with Belgian-French financial services group Dexia getting a 6.4 billion euro ($9.18 billion) capital boost from public shareholders to help it fight the global credit crisis. Ireland also offered to guarantee all bank deposits for two years to improve banks' access to funds on international markets. It also guarantees covered bonds, senior debt and dated subordinated debt.
Money markets remained on life support with benchmark rates continuing to climb, albeit distorted by the final day of the third quarter. European stocks fell as much as 2 percent in early trading and Japan's Nikkei closed 4.12 percent lower after the deep losses on Wall Street in the wake of Congress's failure to agree a $700 billion plan to buy up toxic debt from the financial industry.
Globally, MSCI's main world stock index, a benchmark for many leading investors, was down 0.7 percent, adding to a 6.84 percent loss on Monday that saw the index's market capitalization plunge $1.73 trillion. But the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares recovered to gain 0.6 percent.
"No one really expected a no vote (in Washington), but it's encouraging that they're clearly going to vote on this again," said one equities trader in Europe.
Earlier, the Nikkei average hit a three-year closing low, shedding 483.75 points to 11,259.86, the lowest finish since June 2005. It earlier lost nearly 5 percent. Other Asian stocks recovered, however. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index closed 0.8 percent higher, while South Korea's KOSPI pared losses to end down 0.6 percent. Both had fallen more than 5 percent early in the day.
We know you are a human being, or at least you believe that matters to us, but sadly, our mailboxes are too small and cannot possibly handle the number of emails you people wish to send. We lose them anyway and we never read them so why bother. Also, when we built the mailboxes, we only anticipated hearing from 0.001% of our constituents, not this whopping 1.02% contact ratio we're experiencing!
We have assessed the situation and believe that you fall under one of the following categories:
1. You are whining about something that we did to hurt your feelings.
2. You want us to do something.
3. You have a complaint.
Here are some generic responses to help you cope:
Category #1: (You are whining about something that hurt your feelings.)
Sorry. Vote for me in 2008!
Category #2: (You want us to do something.)
We are already doing everything we can. KTHXBYE. Vote for me in 2008!
Category #3: (You have a complaint.)
GTFO. Canada is that way -------> Vote for me in 2008!
Therefore, while we will gladly take your taxes from you, we have some bad news. We can't hear you. La la la la la la la la what? can't hear you! la la la la la...
#2
Who's we, white man? The government would do almost all of us ordinary people a favor if it merely refrained from what it's been doing for the past few weeks, and simply let badly managed firms go bankrupt. Capitalism is supposed to be a profit-and-loss system. Too bad the so-called capitalists and their lackeys in the government don't believe in capitalism.
#3
I've suggested that we do a quick analysis of our corporations. Those that deal in real products and services should be protected. Those that deal mostly with leverage and derivatives should be on their own.
But like drug dealers, a priority of bad companies is to buy up good companies, both of them with the intent to launder and protect their assets.
#5
Isn't one Great Depression in living memory enough? No more leverage. That includes no margin accounts, no 20:1 margined futures trading, no 30:1 margined derivatives trading. Operate in the market as one does with their IRA or 401K account. If you don't have the money then don't buy.
Posted by: ed ||
09/30/2008 17:33
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#6
A libertarian webmagazine finds five random libertarian economists I've never heard of to endorse the hard-libertarian hate-on for the bailout.
I'm badly split on the subject, but this article is white noise.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
09/30/2008 17:46
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#7
Suspend the Mark-to-Market accounting rule.
Doing so would allow financial institutions to assert whatever they damn well pleased, more or less, as their balance sheet values. You really trust those guys to give sober assessments of their portfolio values? When lending ratios are based on them?
If you want to slow down the positive feedback loops involved either in bubbles or in negative bubbles i.e. crashes, mandate that for derivatives book value be a rolling average over a couple days or so. But suspending MtoM would have some pretty perverse impacts over time.
#8
But suspending MtoM would have some pretty perverse impacts over time.
How did we live without it for so long?
If a security is to be held to maturity it should be carried at historical value. If it is to be traded M2M is fine. But banks should not be trading securities. That is the problem with repealing Glass-Steagal and adopting M2M for bank loans on bank books.
#9
How did we live without it so long? We didn't have 24 hour markets with computerized trading of esoteric financial instruments 2 or 3 times removed from underlying assets.
#10
And yet, some of the earlier versions of those derivatives helped to fund major entrepreneurial-led economic growth that advanced prosperity across the board in the US and in many other places as well.
However, NS, there's no such thing as holding a derivative without intent to sell or at least without intent to be able to sell when advantageous.
#11
And yet, some of the earlier versions of those derivatives helped to fund major entrepreneurial-led economic growth that advanced prosperity across the board in the US and in many other places as well.
Enlighten me, please.
there's no such thing as holding a derivative without intent to sell or at least without intent to be able to sell when advantageous.
And that's why derivatives shouldn't be on bank balance sheets.
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Accounting Standards Board have just made an announcement that, dry as it sounds, may mean a great deal: "When an active market for a security does not exist, the use of management estimates that incorporate current market participant expectations of future cash flows, and include appropriate risk premiums, is acceptable."
#13
Senate to vote on bailout Wednesday
By J. Taylor Rushing
Posted: 09/30/08 07:55 PM [ET]
Senate leaders Tuesday night announced a Wednesday evening vote on the $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan rejected Monday in the House of Representatives.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced the agreement in a joint appearance on the Senate floor just after 7 p.m. Agreements are in place for a voting procedure and the vote itself is expected sometime after sundown, to respect the Jewish holiday, both leaders’ offices said.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (Ill.) will return to Washington for the vote.
The agreement came together after a daylong effort that involved as many as nine conversations between Reid and McConnell and their lieutenants, as well as calls back and forth from Capitol Hill to the White House.
Tax legislation will be attached to the Senate financial rescue package, which will be considered just two days after the House rejected a bill, causing markets to plunge.
The tax bill would create and extend incentives for renewable energy and will include a one-year patch of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which would otherwise hit about 20 million Americans next year.
Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus the tax incentives would ensure that the bill focused more on "Main Street" and not just Wall Street.
"Adding this tax relief will ensure that regular working Americans get the financial help they need in this time of crisis," Baucus said in a statement.
The bill faces an uncertain path in the House, and Democratic leaders in that chamber gave the Senate news a cool reception.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) both issued statements that pointedly omit any words of support for the plan, although they didn't state opposition either.
The stock market plunged 777 points after Monday's 205-228 vote in the House, sending leaders from both parties scrambling on Tuesday to head off any more political and financial fallout. The bill is believed to enjoy a wide margin of support in the Senate, usually the more difficult of Congress's two chambers for controversial legislation.
"It has been determined, in our judgment, this is the best thing to move forward," Reid said. "This is good for the country."
McConnell called the announcement "one of the finer moments in the Senate."
"We have come together on a bipartisan [basis] and structured a way forward on an important rescue package for our country," he said. "This is an important accomplishment and a way forward to get a result that we need to achieve for the American people."
Reid's office said the final agreement came together very quickly late Tuesday.
Usually, constitutional issues prevent the Senate from acting on legislation that involves tax issues — any such bill must originate in the House. However, the Senate can circumvent the the rules by taking up a pending House bill, stripping it and putting in place substitute language. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) had cast doubt on that scenario after Monday's failed House vote, saying it would only "compound" the situation, but others, such as senior Banking Committee member Robert Bennett (R-Utah), confirmed it was a leading idea.
"Anything that's within the realm of the rules is within the realm of possibility," Bennett said.
Some observers said a successful Senate vote could be an important tool in persuading wavering House members who may be considering changing their vote.
The Burg, like most good Americans, has been discussing the 'Bailout' plan promulgated by Secretary Treasury Hank Paulson. Rantburg University has lived up to its name these past few days as we've all learned about mortgage backed securities, commercial paper, the Libor index and the depths of depravity within the soul of the Democratic Party.
I appreciate what some here have said about how fixing the mess is absolutely required to prevent an economic collapse. I think that's right. I also understand those who are skeptical that we have a real crisis, and if we do, how to fix it.
But I decided to see how bad things really were today in a more personal way. Most investments are continuing the decline that's been going on the last year. Yes, the market is up occasionally, even now, but it could plunge tomorrow. A great depression could on the way. Or not. I can't look at the billions and trillions of dollars being tossed about in this plan or that and not have my eyes glaze over. But I can look at the real world at people like me.
A good test, I thought, would be to see how easily John Q Citizen could get a loan. So I took a look.
To start, I checked eLoan and LendingTree to price rates for a new mortgage for a home in my home county (Will County, Illinois). I put in the median price for a new home here and specified 10% down with an excellent credit rating. No problem. Rates are 5.5 - 6%. I didn't click 'submit' but I'm pretty sure that if I did, a perky eLoan agent would get back to me within the promised fifteen minutes.
Then I looked at auto loans. At Chase, a four year loan is 6.2%. At Bank of America the same loan is 5.8%. Those are reasonable rates by any modern historical standard.
I looked into annunities. Within a half-hour I'd found a dozen annuity offers that would take my hypothetical $100K IRA roll-over and turn it into a perpetual $550 a month for life. That's about 6% a year. Maybe I should retire.
And I threw out, in today's mail, three more unsolicited offers for credit cards.
So in real life, I can get credit, finance things I want to buy, and prepare for the future. I can find banks and investors who are, today at least, more than happy to work with me. So where's the crisis?
To apply the Glenn Reynolds rule: "I'll believe there is a crisis when the people who say that there is a crisis start acting as if there is a crisis."
To their credit, Paulson, Bernanke and Bush seem to be acting as if there is a crisis. But the national banks and lenders that deal with John Q Citizen aren't, at least not yet, the Democrats certainly aren't, and a fair number of Republicans aren't either.
The root core problem of the current panic, as I see it, is that the mortgage-backed securities are illiquid. We know why -- stupid Fannie/Freddie rules, bad, bad Community Reinvestment Act, crooked politicians, con-artists at ACORN and other 'community organizations', greedy investors and bankers, and inadequate oversight by the Fed, pension funds, etc. Okay, that's the problem. Nobody can tell what a typical MBS, particularly the sub-A+ tranches, is worth. So by mark-to-market rules they're worth 'zero', which plainly is stupid -- even if every mortgage in an MBS foreclosed, the homes and land would have residual value. But we have, among other stupidities, stupid accounting rules like that '157B' sucker.
That's it in a nutshell. Paulson is right -- the cure is to put a value on the MBS's so as to make them liquid again. If he'd simply come out with that, and had explained why, and told us with some calm what would happen if we didn't -- and if he'd DONE THIS BEFORE FRIGGIN' SEPTEMBER OF AN ELECTION YEAR -- then we could have had a reasonable debate, no more than the usual political skullduggery, and perhaps had a solution.
But Paulson is an investment banker and an arrogant jerk -- I repeat myself, of course -- so he couldn't do that. He said, "gimme the power and I'll decide what's best." Yeah, sure, Hank, we'll give 700 large to the very people who got us into this mess.
So Paulson went public, and Bush had to back him up, and the press and the markets reacted as you might predict. So did the politicians, particularly the Big O, who saw a 2 point deficit in the national polls become a 5 point lead. And clueless people wonder why San Fran Nan behaved the way she did yesterday on the floor of the House. She and the Big O have what they want and they're going to ride that horse all the way to election day if only they can. The Republicans act as if they were forced to suck a very large lemon, which they did, since as is typical for them, they were completely out-played in the political arena. Whoa, that's never happened before.
Now then, the adults in the room, if any are left, might point out that if we don't fix the MBS mess than the entire commercial paper market just might come down, and when it does companies like Boeing, Cat, GM, etc are going to be in big trouble. It is idiocy that Cat can't float its 30 day paper easily, but right now it can't. So Cat and the other big companies, from Boeing to Xerox, will delay plans, slow purchasing, lay-off employees, and in general conserve cash. So will the main street banks over time as the level of mistrust increases. Sure, I have money and you're my best customer, but that doesn't mean I'll loan it to you at any price, even for a month. That thinking will tank the economy.
So for John Q Ciitzen, let me make it clear: I can find an auto loan today. But I might not be able to find one, for any price, in a few months if we don't fix the problem. Not that I'll be able to afford a car if my employer just laid off me and a thousand other people.
The market is in a panic precisely because it is irrational, and you don't fix stupid-crazy by becoming even more stupid-crazy. Behaving that way leads you to goofy people in black bandannas manning the barricades in our urban centers. Our politicians will be even less well behaved. The authoritarian Left will canoodle with the Wall Street cowards which will be easy since many of the latter are already secret admirers of the former. Or not-so-secret, as the Big O's donation list attests. The end result is liberal fascism, a take over of an increasingly big part of the economy by government to be run as government -- that is, the Big O and his friends -- say. Oh, business will still be 'private', they'll just have to do as they're told.
No, not for me, I'll pass.
So here is what you do to fix the MBS problem and stop the liberal fascists (this time). You fix stupid-crazy by grabbing the attention of the panicked people. You might need to clobber them first -- "thanks, I needed that" -- but you then lead them to an orderly resolution. Yes, assets will be written down, some banks and investment houses will go bankrupt, some investors will go broke, some homes will be foreclosed, a few people will need temporary shelter. You can ease the pain for the small players but you make sure the bigger players remember what it was like to touch that hot stove.
Review each MBS, put it up for auction, put a value on each one, and make sure government is there to grease the skids and buy those securities that no one else wants at some price that makes grown people complain but not scream. Government puts a floor under our fall; that's the key feature of any responsible plan. That ensures that people with money can put a value on illiquid securities and buy the ones they want at a price that doesn't in turn break them. You can do it as 'insurance', you can call it a 'bailout', whatever you like, but you make sure that there is a market for that which can't be marketed today.
And do it now. The longer you wait, the worse it gets. The preferred alternative of conservative purists seems to be to let the markets sort it out amongst themselves. Sure, they'll do that, after a while. A long while. That's called a 'recession', and the sorting could take a few years or more of really painful consequences for John Q Citizen, and in the meantime the liberal fascists are always pointing out to John how they could do it better if he would just gave them more power. That's what they always say, and that's how we got into this mess in the first place.
You fix stupid-crazy by stripping what is irrational out of the problem. You save the economy, and perhaps our country, by doing it quickly. That's being responsible. That's what adults do when confronted with panic. Are we that responsible?
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/30/2008
15:23 ||
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#1
You hit the keys Steve..."insurance and mark-to-market." It is NOT penicillin, but if we can convince congress to suspect mark-to-market and provide some FDIC type of mortgage insurance. we'll see some relief and breathing room. Watching Hank Paulson run in and out of the White House with a blank check that no one will sign is disgusting.
Paulson is not the person to put values on anything. That's for the market to do. Right now the Market is staying away because they are overpriced - "illiquid" means unable to sell, and as you have pointed out even the land has value.
This could get bad, but this isn't 1929. We have safety nets that didn't exist back then.
The best answer is bankruptcy. Let the fed govt manage the closure and sale of assets, do it quickly so we can get past this crisis.
#4
I don't know what the answer is. I am, however, extremely reluctant to give a 700 billion dollar check to anyone.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/30/2008 19:51
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#5
My only comment for now is that your test, Dr. Steve, is misleading.
You will not see consumer credit dry up *first*.  First you will see banks failing and indicators such as LIBOR (the London interbank lending rate) rise.  Check the financial news for the last two days on those fronts -- it isn't good.
#6
I agree, LIBOR is more important in the world of finance. But the reason John Q. Citizen doesn't care -- yet -- is that HE can still get a loan. That's one of the reasons why the polls show the public is against this whole package. They see it as Wall Street welfare and don't yet see the connection between LIBOR and an auto loan. If the credit market locks up they will, but then it will be too late.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/30/2008 21:01
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#7
Yes, it will be too late. Yesterday/today the LIBOR rate averaged 6.88%. Banks cannot do a whole lot of lending at 5-6% income interest (before the cost of operations) on longterm loans if they have to borrow shortterm at two percentage points more than that.
#8
The root core problem of the current panic, as I see it, is that the mortgage-backed securities are illiquid.
That's it in a nutshell. Paulson is right -- the cure is to put a value on the MBS's so as to make them liquid again.
It is not just that mortgage backed securities are illiquid. In fact, I'd bet the Fed would accept them at par at the discount window. But I understand that bankers are afraid to discount notes at the Fed because it would be a sign of weakness.
And that is what this is really all about, fear, not securities. Fear is now as out of control as greed was two years ago. And it is as malevolent.
As lotp notes, the fear is expressed in banks unwillingness to lend to eachother, even over night. That is why LIBOR set a new all time record today. That is what really set the panic off two weeks ago, when the LIBOR market seized. Note that the LIBOR today was higher than the rate for your mortgage and just a tad lower than your car loan. For an overnight loan between banks.
And note that LIBOR applies to banks all around the world, not just US banks. The problem is not limited to the US mortgage backed securities. European banks are failing because of European mortgages. If this were strictly an American problem, the dollar would be falling against the Euro,
#11
Would that "someone" be named Soros, Tranquil?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/30/2008 23:03
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#12
Steve
Thanks for taking the time to write your informative and well-written essay. And thanks to everyone at Rantburg U, who shares their own perspective and gives us alternative takes for us to investigate and compare to what different economists are saying.
#13
Soros already made $4 billion betting against derivatives.
Posted by: ed ||
09/30/2008 23:09
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#14
Steve,
Well-written and reasoned argument. I'm not sure I buy all of it but it's a cogent defense of a pretty sound position. Agree or not, it's an excellent contribution to Rantburg U.
U.S. European Command (EUCOM) has deployed to Israel a high-powered X-band radar and the supporting people and equipment needed for coordinated defense against Iranian missile attack, marking the first permanent U.S. military presence on Israeli soil.
More than a dozen aircraft were required to transport an AN/TPY-2 X-band radar to Israel. (U.S. Missile Defense Agency) More than a dozen aircraft, including C-5s and C-17s, helped with the Sept. 21 delivery of the AN/TPY-2 Transportable Radar Surveillance/Forward Based X-band Transportable (FBX-T), its ancillary components and some 120 EUCOM personnel to Israel's Nevatim Air Base southeast of Beersheba, said sources here and in Stuttgart, Germany.
Among the U.S. personnel is at least one representative from the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), though officials said the agency had little to no say in the deployment decision. MDA involvement has been confined to providing equipment and advice on technical aspects of its deployment, one official said.
The Raytheon-built FBX-T system is the same phased-array radar that was deployed to northern Japan with the U.S. Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) in 2006. The high-powered, high-frequency, transportable X-band radar is designed to detect and trackballistic missiles soon after launch.
Its ancillary gear included cooling systems, generators, perimeter defense weaponry, logistics supplies and dozens of technicians, maintenance specialists and security forces to operate and defend the U.S. installation.
EUCOM has repeatedly deployed troops and Patriot air defense batteries for joint exercises and Iraq-related wartime contingencies, but has never before permanently deployed troops on Israeli soil.
A EUCOM spokesman declined to comment. MDA officials referred questions to the U.S. State Department, which did not provide comment by press time.
An Israeli military spokesman said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) enjoys long-standing strategic cooperation with all branches of the U.S. military.
"This cooperation is varied and comes in multiple forms, and it is not our practice to discuss details of our bilateral activities," he said.
Nevertheless, in previous interviews, U.S. and Israeli officials confirmed that the X-band deployment plan was approved in July, first by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his Israeli counterpart, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi; and then by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
The radar will be linked to the U.S. Joint Tactical Ground Station (JTAGS), which receives and processes threat data transmitted by U.S. Defense Support System satellites. According to U.S. and Israeli sources, JTAGS will remain in Europe, but its essential cueing data will stream into the forward-deployed X-band radar, where it instantaneously shares information with Israel's Arrow Weapon System.
Once operational, the combined U.S. and Israeli system is expected to double or even triple the range at which Israel can detect, track and ultimately intercept Iranian missiles, according to Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.
During a visit to Israel in early August, Obering said the X-Band radar could add precious minutes to the time in which Israel has to respond to incoming missile attacks. "The missile threat from Iran is very real, and we must stay ahead of the threat ... that's why we're working so hard with all our allies to put the most optimized, effective, anti-missile capabilities in place," Obering said. "In the context of Israel, if we can take the radar out here and tie it into the Arrow Weapon System, they'll be able to launch that interceptor way before they could with an autonomous system," he added.
Ilan Biton, a brigadier general in the Israel Air Force (IAF) reserves and former commander of the nation's air defense forces, could not comment on the latest developments associated with the X-band radar. However, he said that an IAF air defense brigade established during his 2003-06 tenure has continuously demonstrated its ability to interoperate well with American forces.
"We advanced tremendously on multiple levels and have developed very impressive cooperation," Biton said at a Sept. 22 conference in Herzliya. Referring to bilateral Juniper Cobra air defense exercises and the 2003 deployment of Patriot batteries prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Biton noted: "At the human level, we've developed a common language and at the technical level, we've put in place the interfaces that allow our systems to speak to one another."
The end result, according to Biton, is a combined ability "to manage battles, execute debriefs and implement corrections, all in real time."
As U.S. public affairs officers last week mulled whether to publicly disclose the Israel deployment, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, continued to defend his country's nuclear enrichment and missile development program.
"Iran's [nuclear] activities are peaceful," Ahmadinejad said Sept. 23, adding that in Israel, "the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse."
A U.S. government source said the X-band deployment and other bilateral alliance-bolstering activities send parallel messages: "First, we want to put Iran on notice that we're bolstering our capabilities throughout the region, and especially in Israel. But just as important, we're telling the Israelis, 'Calm down; behave. We're doing all we can to stand by your side and strengthen defenses, because at this time, we don't want you rushing into the military option.'"
But in Israel, frustration is mounting at what is roundly perceived as a lack of international resolve to halt Iran's nuclear weapons drive. At a Sept. 21 meeting of the Israeli Cabinet, an Israeli military intelligence officer reported that Iran is accelerating the pace at which it enriches uranium, and that Tehran already possesses possibly half of the fissionable material needed to produce its first nuclear warhead.
Reflecting Israeli concern about the ineffectiveness of sanctions against Tehran, Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, head of Military Intelligence's research department, reported: "The international front against Iran is weak and not consolidated, and isn't putting enough pressure on the regime to stop enriching uranium."
According to selected excerpts from the briefing released by the Israeli Prime Minister's office, Baidatz warned that Iran is "galloping toward a nuclear bomb." He added, "The sanctions have very little influence and are far from bringing to bear a critical mass of pressure on Iran."
#2
These systems offer Israel early warning of preemptive Iranian attack as well as warning of an Iranian counterstrike. I suspect EUCOM has just bought Ahmadinejad a little time.
Early this year, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announced the completion of an inventory of Islamic books and videos in Muslim chapel libraries in the 105 federal correctional institutions. The inventory, which runs to 399 pages, shows a marked predominance of Wahhabi and other fundamentalist Sunni literature among the Muslim holdings of federal prison chapels. The collections also contain plentiful materials from the Nation of Islam, the extreme black nationalist movement headed by Louis Farrakhan, but Shia and Sufi works are generally absent, as are texts on broader aspects of Islamic history and culture.
This finding is significant in light of two other facts: Muslim extremists' openly stated intent to spread their ideology in prisons, and the Bureau of Prisons' own past reliance on Muslim chaplains trained in Wahhabi Islam. While no major acts of terror have been traced to recruitment in U.S. prisons, the tools necessary for extremist indoctrination remain, unaccountably, in place.
Among the authors available to inmates in federal prisons, contemporary popularizers of Islamism, including jihadist radicals, are well represented. More encouraging is the discovery that the inventory includes only half a dozen copies of the infamous Wahhabi edition of the Koran, printed in English in Saudi Arabia with interlineated extremist commentaries (see "Rewriting the Koran," THE WEEKLY STANDARD, September 27, 2004).
But the inventory shows at least 280 copies of works by Abdullah Hakim Quick, a Wahhabi-oriented fundamentalist from South Africa. These include videos of Quick preaching hateful attacks on Baha'is, as well as Ahmadis, a heterodox Muslim group, and titles like Muslims Under Siege and The Importance of Da'wa in Times of Crisis. (Da'wa is Islamic missionary activity. Islamists pursue da'wa aggressively, sometimes with the explicit goal of establishing a worldwide Islamic state or caliphate.) Quick is also known for his pseudo-historical claims for an early Muslim presence in the Americas. The inventory further lists 250 items by another South African extremist, the late Ahmed Deedat, notorious as an anti-Christian preacher, with such piquant titles as Da'wa or Destruction, as well as ferocious attacks on Salman Rushdie.
Federal prison chapel libraries offer some 200 volumes by the Pakistani jihadist Abul Ala Mawdudi (1903-79) and approximately 200 copies of works by the eccentric Turkish Islamist Harun Yahya, who is known for donating books printed in numerous languages around the world, many of them expounding anti-Western conspiracy theories. It also lists 185 copies of offerings by a prominent North American fundamentalist, the Egyptian-born Jamal Badawi; 175 copies of titles by Imam Siraj Wahhaj, the preacher best known for spreading Wahhabism among black Americans; and 125 by Jamal Zarabozo, a white American Sunni radical. Zarabozo is the compiler of a retrograde 1996 collection of Islamic fatwas on the status of women.
#1
The article may well be crap, but the comments afterward are gold.
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats ||
09/30/2008 15:24
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#2
Comedy Gold indeed - EU telling us to vote again until we get it right; Japan saying that government interference always works...and that is just the article! Comments are great.
NEARLY nine out of 10 Americans believe Congress' failure to pass a financial system rescue package has worsened the crisis, and 44 per cent blame the Republicans, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released today.
Fully 88 per cent of Americans said the collapse of the bailout bill took the country even deeper into crisis, and 51 per cent said they were very concerned. Forty-four per cent of those surveyed blamed the Republicans while 21 per cent put the blame at the Democrats' feet.
See folks, propaganda does work ...
In scenes of suspense and shock rarely seen on the House floor, Republican conservatives and rebel Democrats, many fearing a vote for the $US700 billion ($879 billion) bailout could cost them their seats, joined to doom the bill yesterday by 228 votes to 205.
Americans were deeply divided on the content of the plan: 45 per cent said they support it while 47 per cent were opposed, the poll showed.
Sixty-one per cent of those surveyed said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan did too little for ordinary Americans. President George W. Bush was blamed for the current financial morass by 25 per cent; while 18 per cent blamed financial institutions themselves; eight per cent the government; and eight per cent the Democrat-led Congress.
#1
So ... the crisis deepens because a poll of people *think* it did?
Also ... 88% felt that not passing the bill made things worse, but only 45% supported it passing? There is some weirdness at play ... mainly using a poll's results as if it's reality.
If there's still room under the bus where Barack Obama throws his discards - his white granny, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, William Ayres, Bernadine Dohrn and even Hillary Clinton - that's the right place for Nancy Pelosi.
The congressional bailout of Wall Street, as unpopular as it is, was nevertheless headed for grudging acceptance Monday until Mzz Pelosi, the dowager queen of the San Francisco Democrats (where there are many queens), killed it with a particularly mean-spirited attack on the Republicans whom the Democrats were counting on to join them for just this one bipartisan vote.
"$700 billion is a staggering number," she told her caucus just before the vote was taken, "but only a part of the cost of the failed Bush economic policies to our country." If only she had waited until the vote was safely taken before she began biting the ankles of the Republicans she needed, there might have been a successful vote, and no record 700-point tanking of the market on Wall Street.
This morning, millions of Americans could have taken a half-breath as everyone moved a half-step back from the edge of the abyss.
Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, whose state is perhaps the most crucial of the must-win states for both John McCain and Barack Obama, was disbelieving after the vote: "I do believe that we could have gotten there today, had it not been for this partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House." Mzz Pelosi "poisoned the debate," the House Republican leader said.
Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the chief Republican whip, said many of his colleagues were ready to find a clothespin to hold their noses while voting "aye," but not after Mzz Pelosi's bizarre remarks. There were no clothespins big enough to repel the speaker's partisan stink.
Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida, one of the Republicans hustling bailout votes, said her speech "set the partisan tone and cost us votes." About a third of the Republicans finally joined the 60 percent of the Democrats who voted for the measure, which had been worked out over the kind of desperate weekend Washington hadn't seen since, well, nobody remembered when. Pearl Harbor?
Mzz Pelosi's near-death experience didn't teach her much. After the vote, she said merely that the bailout package had been written on "a bipartisan basis" - indeed correct - and that she had produced the Democratic votes, just not enough of them. What she didn't say was that there were probably enough Republican votes to save the day but for her insistence on taking victory laps before a victory.
Sarah Palin
Perhaps her tantrum was not a tantrum at all, but a carefully orchestrated two-step to pay back John McCain for his attempt to get Barack Obama back to Washington, even if it meant postponing the Ole Miss debate (that neither man won), where together they could have twisted enough Republican and Democratic arms to win passage of the bailout that nobody wanted and nearly everybody agreed was necessary. If Mr. Obama had made common cause with Mr. McCain even after the debate in Mississippi, there might still have been enough time to make the difference.
Maybe that's what the Obama campaign wanted to avoid. The tears the Anointed One shed after the vote looked a lot like the tears of a crocodile. He even tried to be lighthearted, to show a little insouciance if not actual wit. (An insouciant Barack Obama? Who knew?) He's "confident" of a "solution," but "it's sort of like flying into Denver. You know you're going to land, but it's not always fun going over those mountains."
This sets up an opportunity, maybe the last good one, for John McCain to start burning barns. Who better to start it than Sarah Palin, the stubborn mom with true grit who so terrifies the Democratic left, to debate - in her own voice, unrestrained by the Nervous Nellies and Willie Wimps of the McCain camp who don't understand her Everywoman appeal - Joe Biden about what's real, about the prospect not of a recession but a depression, and the tough decisions ahead and the need for a maverick president with the experience of persuading partisan foes of making painful decisions.
Merely voting "present" won't do it. The people in all 57 states, clinging bitterly to God, guns and now to their life's savings, deserve nothing less.
#6
Thank you. Now, what are REOs (other than speedwagons) and ATVs, and what is the significance of a change in Adjustable rate Mortgage? They didn't explain this in Econ 105 thirty years ago.
#7
Sorry, couldn't resist. REO is "Real Estate Owned". Basically the bank owns it now.
LTV is Loan-to-Value: a ratio of the loan amount to the value of the house. (Lower is better.)
ARMs adjust. It is what they do. However many loan originators were qualifying people for a loan based on a) a possibly inflated appraisal of a home's worth and b) there ability to squeeze into a payment at a low, initial interest rate. The hope--and I consider it a "hope"--is that the value of the property would increase, and so would the purchaser's ability to pay. In many cases, when the rate adjusted upward, the buyers were not able to make the new payments. In many cases they also couldn't refinance out since they suddenly discovered there house worth less than they thought up front.
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats ||
09/30/2008 15:50
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#8
When did they change it from Other Real Estate Owned, i.e. real estate the bank had foreclosed on as opposed to the branches and building the bank owned to conduct its business, the true Real Estate Owned? Were they worried calling it OREO would confuse it with someonething else?
Lending money to people who probably won't pay it back isn't good business. If you wrap crummy loans in a clever package, they're still crummy loans.
Your typical Wal Mart shopper understands this. But the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street and in Washington evidently didn't.
There are a lot of people to blame for the subprime mortgage crisis. The Federal Reserve Board under Chairman Alan Greenspan (1987-2006) pursued what seems in hindsight clearly to have been way too loose a monetary policy. Banks were awash with money to lend, and got careless in how they lent it.
Ostensibly to aid the poor, the Clinton administration and Congress encouraged lenders to give mortgages to poor credit risks. The combination of easy money and the expansion of the number of borrowers by extending loans to poor credit risks sent housing prices through the roof, creating the bubble whose bursting has led to this crisis.
Congress in 1999 repealed the law (the Glass-Steagall Act) that established a bright line between commercial and investment banks. This meant bad investments by banks could jeopardize depositors. Wall Street created "derivatives" which multiplied profits in good times, but which also multiplied risk if there were defaults.
Most important was corruption and mismanagement at the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), which together controlled 90 percent of the secondary mortgage market.
Once your bank has lent you money to buy a house, it can't lend the money again until you pay it back. But if your bank sells your mortgage, it can make another loan right away. Without the secondary market, most of the funds for home mortgages would dry up.
Fannie and Freddie went broke because they had bought billions of dollars worth of subprime mortgages, on which borrowers defaulted when the housing bubble popped. Fannie bought most of its bad mortgages from Countrywide Financial, whose CEO, Angelo Mozilo, gave sweetheart loans to senior executives of Fannie Mae.
Fannie and Freddie cooked their books so senior executives would be paid millions of dollars in bonuses to which they were not entitled. Inadequate regulation kept the book-cooking from being discovered until the crisis had become a catastrophe.
President Bush proposed regulatory reforms in 2003, but Congress took no action. In 2005, John McCain and three other GOP senators proposed a strong reform bill. It died when Democrats threatened a filibuster. When the bill was reintroduced in this Congress, Sen. Chris Dodd, the new Democratic chairman of Banking Committee, refused even to hold a hearing on it.
Democrats opposed reform in part because they feared it would mean fewer loans to poor people.
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis," Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, told the New York Times when the Bush bill was introduced. "The more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."
Democrats and some Republicans opposed reform because Fannie and Freddie were very good at greasing palms. Fannie spent $170 million on lobbying since 1998, and $19.3 million on political contributions since 1990.
The principal recipient of Fannie Mae's largesse was Sen. Dodd. Number two was Barack Hussein Obama.
Sen. Dodd was also the second largest recipient in the Senate of contributions from Countrywide's PAC and its employees. The number one senator on Countrywide's list?
Barack Hussein Obama.
Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines was forced to resign in December, 2004, because of "accounting irregularities." The Washington Post reported July 16 the Obama campaign has called Mr. Raines "seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."
Sen. Obama appointed Mr. Raines' predecessor, James Johnson, as head of his vice presidential search committee, until he was also implicated in "accounting irregularities," and it was revealed he'd received cut rate loans from Countrywide.
Chicago billionaire Penny Pritzker, chairman of Sen. Obama's finance committee, cooked the books to conceal losses from subprime mortgages at her now defunct Superior bank. The holding company her family owned collected $200 million in dividends on phony profits.
The trouble with crony capitalism isn't capitalism. It's the cronies.
Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
I had thought the argument that Nancy Pelosi and various other Democrats tanked the bill because they think they'll benefit from the horrific economic consequences of inaction were too far-fetched, too conspiratorial, to put much stock in. These people aren't quite so cynical to push for a deep, lengthy recession to gain a few extra House seats, would they?
A Campaign for America's Future release that quotes Bob Borosage saying:
The bail out will take place simply to avoid that depression. But depressions have some salutary effects - the scoundrels go belly up, the weakest get purged. And, in the wake of the disaster, people demand strict regulation of the money lenders to keep their greed in check, and government spends money on the real economy to put people back to work.
These people are gleeful over widespread economic misery if they can get some agenda items enacted. This is who you're about to give power to, America.
(Ezra Klein disapproves of Borosage; but in the comments, one of the first responses is, "Let the whole damned system burn to the ground. Whatever their ideological leanings, left or right or in between, the elites of our society have proven themselves corrupt, craven, foolish, brutal, heartless, anti-democratic, and anti-human. Yes, let the whole damned society burn to the ground, sweep away the pathetic ashes of the malevolent, disgusting, warped edifice the elites have erected to imprison the people, and build a new, better America atop the grave.")
I'm reminded of that line from The Dark Knight:; "Some men just want to watch the world burn."
Posted by: Mike ||
09/30/2008
14:07 ||
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#1
Geraghty is a little overwrought and so much of a Bush fanboy that he would swallow socialism if it emerged from Bush's lips. The reality is as these liberals have stated - business failure teaches prudence. Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. Liberals hope for all kinds of things all of the time. We had the worst recession since the Great Depression during Reagan's era. Did that result in the enactment of a new New Deal or Great Society? No. Reagan cut taxes and deregulated America.
#3
The axiom of a shakedown is correct, but the means to reform the system is not. We might be in for a humdinger of a correction, but the biggest purge should be in government itself--and that's the irony.
The Democrats always assume that it takes a legion of bureaucrats and a gawdawfully huge government to make and enforce a rule. It doesn't. A small handful of SEC personnel can enforce strict derivative and leverage controls on the market.
But the government itself must to a great extent be reduced to both a surplus budget and constitutional size. Doing that one thing will solve the vast majority of our economic problems.
#1
Dow is up 350 points and climbing today at 2 p.m. So much for all the pin-headed economists. Is it possible the economy is correcting itself? I may have to add economists to the list of the reviled--along with Congresscritters, lawyers, MSM, investment bankers.
#2
Meh. I suspect this is one-half people expecting a passed bill via the Republican hold-outs crawling back or a partisan Democratic version with all the ACORN bennies et all included, and the other half automated purchases by trade-bots buying 'deals' based on obsolete percentage-drop scripting.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
09/30/2008 18:08
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DES MOINES, Iowa - Republican presidential nominee John McCain is urging the Treasury Department to intervene aggressively to limit damage from the financial meltdown, action that McCain says President Bush can take with the stroke of a pen.
Opening a business round-table Tuesday in Des Moines, Iowa, McCain said he has urged the Treasury to use its exchange stabilization fund "as creatively as possible" to backstop the market crisis. He says officials also should use the authority granted in a housing bill to purchase up to a trillion dollars in mortgages.
McCain decried the defeat of the financial bailout measure in the House, and he warned that the nation's political leaders will have to take risks even though solutions to the crisis may be unpopular.
it's not the majority opinion here, I know, but I'm with McCain on this myself. I really think people aren't in touch with how far south our economy and the global economy can go if this tips over into a full credit crunch.
#1
I can't wait to see Obama inaugurated so we can see McCain back in the Senate where he belongs. Carter was just like Obama. Was Carter able to set up a new New Deal or Great Society? No. Our finances just weren't in any shape for it back then. And we weren't running record deficits at the time or borrowing from China either. I am sick and tired of McCain's dictatorial tendencies. This guy's a maverick in the sense that he thinks we work for him and not the other way around.
#2
On a separate note, if this handout bill actually materializes, buy gold. Note that gold used to be worth $25 an ounce. Until the dollar got the heck inflated out of it during and after WWII. If you have any savings at all, you need to prepare for the dollar to be worth 1/4 what it's worth today two decades from now. Not quite hyper-inflation, but not a lot different from what happened from the 40's till the 70's.
#3
You're with McCain for what, LOTP? Yesterday's bill? Tomorrow's bill? Any bill? Action now? I'm pretty sure these guys don't know what they're doing. I'm pretty sure FDR, et. al.'s meddling made the Depression far worse than it need have been and that we are still paying for their intemperate actions.
You'll need to convince me that their actions won't do more harm than good. Because I'm pretty sure there is a world of hurt coming down the pike with or without the plan, whichever one it is. And government action will only make it worse because they don't know what they're doing.
#5
Khomeini accepted a peace treaty with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. He could have continued fighting until martyrdom. But he did not. These guys talk a good game but always back down in the face of superior firepower. The stuff about nukes against nukes is right. Iran's leadership won't survive a nuclear attack against this country. And let's face it - the best time for the Soviets to launch a first strike was probably against Carter. But they never did. Because payback would have been a bitch - even under Carter. Remember, Muhammad said defeat the infidels. He never said get your people exterminated while trying to defeat the infidels.
#7
As big of an asshole as Carter was, he had a couple of things going for him. First off, he had military experience. Secondly, he had some executive experience as a governor. Thirdly, he had a hostile Congress full of neo-con Democrats like Scoop Jackson and Moynihan to stymie him at every turn.
As many and manifold were Carter's faults - pathological liar, moralizing blue-nose, raging anti-Semite, purblind, infantile, incompetent as a commander-in-chief - he still wasn't the worst of all possible presidents. He wasn't a coward; he wasn't a Marxist; he wasn't a community organizer.
If we're lucky, Obama will just crawl into a hole on January 20th and refuse to come out & commit himself until the storm passes. Three and a half years later, there should still be some semblance of a country left for the 45th president to start re-building.
If we're not lucky, the polls will be staffed by Obamajungend in 2012.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
09/30/2008 18:04
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#8
Khomeini didn't have nukes, we had. That is why he recoiled; thanks to Obama Ahlmedinad will. Or more exactly thanks to you.
You're not making a lot of sense here. During the Iran-Iraq War, Khomeini had two choices - he could fight on until he defeated the Iraqis, which he had the option of doing, or he could sue for peace. He did the latter. He was not under any kind of nuclear threat from the Iraqis. But he opted to go for a peace treaty - in a war that Iraq started.
Note Bush has had plenty of opportunities to prevent Iraq from going nuclear. We have enough infrastructure in place to completely destroy the Iranian military's physical plant. And yet Bush has not acted. Why do you think McCain would do any different? The fact is that Republicans have decided that a bombing campaign in Iran isn't worth the political flak.
A private enterprise company, funded by a California internet entrepreneur, has successfully boosted a payload into orbit:
"Fourth time's a charm," said Elon Musk, the multimillionaire who started up Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, to make space launches more affordable.
The Falcon 1 rocket carried a 364-pound dummy payload designed and built by SpaceX for the launch. Musk pledged to continue getting rockets into orbit, saying the company has resolved design issues that plagued previous attempts.
[Â…]
Falcon 1, a 70-foot-long rocket powered by liquid oxygen and kerosene, is the first in a family of low-cost launch vehicles priced at $7.9 million each.
Besides the Falcon 1, SpaceX is developing for NASA a larger launch vehicle, Falcon 9, capable of flying to the international space station when the current space shuttle fleet retires in 2010.
Although upfront development costs were undoubtedly substantial, $7.9 million for an orbital launcher does not seem much of an obstacle. The implication is that orbital payload capability would seem to be within reach for a long list of both state and non-state actors.
Such a prospect results in an immense challenge for defense planners. Although the U.S. has made great achievements over the past several years on missile defense, this progress was aided by being able to make certain reasonable assumptions about the enemyÂ’s launch locations. Missile interception with kinetic kill vehicles is an exercise in physics and geometry. Locating interceptors in Alaska and California takes care of the North Korean threat, while interceptors in central Europe cover the future Iranian threat. But the interceptors at these sites cannot cover threats from other locations, due to the limitations of physics.
If non-state actors can establish intercontinental ballistic missile-range launch sites in any direction, the current U.S. missile defense scheme would become untenable. Pentagon planners would need to design an entirely new approach to the problem.
And the threat of proliferating ICBM capability makes the menace of an electro-magnetic pulse attack especially worrisome.
Naturally, potential terror adversaries still have many technical hurdles to overcome. Nuclear warheads are very complicated and very difficult to miniaturize. Rocket science isnÂ’t easy. It would be very difficult for an adversary to keep secret his testing program and missile-basing projects.
But the lesson from the SpaceX success is that the barriers to entry for many dangerous technologies are falling rapidly. ICBMs used to be available to only the most wealthy and technically sophisticated nation-states. Soon, it seems like anyone will be able to get them.
#1
One can only hope DoS is on this and watching for any potential sales. This is already on the Arms Control List for ITAR and if a fraudulent shipping document is discovered these guys need to be hammered and hard. and if the good have already left the US, then they need found and hammered, hard also.
#6
We cannot keep nukes, ICBMs, etc., out of the hands of others forever woth present social structures. DarthVarder is right. We need to develop effective defenses against these these weapons as soon as possible after getting the offense weapons developed. Defensive lasers now!
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/30/2008 14:54
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#7
Tranquil Mechanical Yeti welcome aboard.
Rather interesting & facinating name BTW...
Is this your first incarnation here at Rantburg?
or is it your current iteration's first visit to Rantburg? >:)
#12
No, I'm not new. Apparently there was starting to be confusion between Abdominal Snowman and AutoBartender, since one abbreviated to AB and the other to AS.
I switched to this one to avoid having him blamed for my catastrophic posts.
(Although if you believe I'm mechanical I guess I have a shot at making you believe I'm tranquil.
The Falcon 1 is sized halfway between a Trident C4 and D5. Pricing says:
LEO (185km)
Falcon 1: 420kg $7.9M
Falcon 1e: 1010kg $9.1M
That's less than 1/2 the often quoted $10,000/lb commercial rate but the altitude is also a lot less than an LEO orbit of 250-300km. More interesting is the Falcon 9 launching 4-5000kg to geosynchronous orbit for $47-57M. That's the price range the Russians used to charge in the early 2000's with their decommissioned ICBMs. If Space-X can meet that then it is probably 60-80% what the Russians/Ukrainians are now charging.
Posted by: ed ||
09/30/2008 17:01
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#14
cue the Far Side, "now the Hendersons have the Bomb!"
#2
Just one more reason why I haven't watched an NBA game since 1998. I used to be a big fan, but I got tired of all the rapists, drug thugs, bad actors and fixed games.
Too late, NBA. You're done as far as I'm concerned. Stick a fork in yourself.
Let me go on the record today with an opinion I've held for a while, but hadn't yet expressed publicly: Nancy Pelosi needs to go as Speaker of the House.
Some Republicans suggested yesterday that her highly partisan speech just before the bailout vote was the reason the bill failed - because it offended some GOP members so much that they switched their "yes" votes to "no." This is absurd, of course, as no one was going to base a decision on this historic, monumentally important issue at a moment of national crisis on whether Nancy Pelosi had irritated them that day. Pelosi's speech had nothing to do with the ultimate outcome of the bill.
However, the speech was incredibly inappropriate. At a moment when the Speaker should have been rallying the entire membership of the House to pull together as Americans and solve the crisis before them, Pelosi chose instead to use her pulpit to lay blame and point fingers. There is certainly plenty of blame to go around, and some finger pointing is going to have to occur as we decide what specific mistakes were made and how we can avoid repeating them. But yesterday was not the time.
Yesterday was a time for statesmanship and gravitas, qualities that are critical in the individual who is only a few degrees away from the presidency, and who is vested with representing the entire body of the House of Representatives. In our two party system, there is no way to leave partisan politics out of the Speaker's role, but Pelosi acts more like a House majority or minority leader, or a whip - or even like the DNC Chair - than she does like the great Speakers of yore, like Sam Rayburn and Tip O'Neill. . . .
It demeans the role of Speaker for Pelosi to use her position to take every possible opportunity to aggressively bash the GOP, no matter how inappropriate the setting or context. And I say this as a voter who likely agrees with Pelosi on specific policy issues 95% of the time.
If Americans really want change in Washington, and improvement in the mean-spirited and debilitating partisan malaise that seems to have settled over our Congress, then we need to start with working to get rid of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Our House of Representatives - and we - deserve better.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/30/2008
12:54 ||
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#1
AGREED.......Fire the BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
She should have never been put in that position
The court decisions were a victory for Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat who was criticized by Republicans for telling county election boards to allow same-day registration and voting through Oct. 6.
"This ruling is a victory for all Ohio voters," Brunner said in a statement. "It should send a message to the forces of confusion and chaos that our top goal must be protecting Ohioans' voting rights."
(CBS/AP) A battle over early voting in Ohio has brought a law passed by that state's Republican-controlled legislature three years ago to be challenged by the GOP before a federal court, while a separate lawsuit brought before the Republican-dominated Ohio Supreme Court is expected to be decided Monday.
The prize could be thousands of traditionally elusive voters in hard-fought Ohio who would have the chance to register and vote on the same day.
The one-stop voting Tuesday through Oct. 6 would be especially convenient for those Democratic-leaning voters who have traditionally had more trouble getting to the polls.
This is an invitation to recruit the homeless and the dead. This basically means people can vote absentee the same day they register. There had been a 30 day period previously. I doubt there is much checking the legitimacy of the voter. So now I know what "Community Organizer" means. The ACLU is involved. I wonder if ACORN is also involved.
It's a reality not lost on two parties locked in a tight race four years after President Bush's 118,000 vote victory in Ohio gave him a second term.
Ohio is one of more than 30 states that allow registered voters to cast an early ballot. Eight states allow voters to register and vote on Election Day, while North Carolina allows the practice during early voting.
On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio filed a lawsuit asking a federal court in Cleveland to declare that newly-registered Ohio voters must be allowed to vote absentee. The ACLU is concerned about the lawsuit before the Ohio Supreme Court, and filed the federal suit as a backstop measure in case the court rules against Brunner.
This can be called the resurrection of the dead ruling. Maybe I will go to Ohio to pick up some "walking around money."
#1
Its primary target is college students. Large university population in Ohio. I believe Ohio State is the largest university in America. It allows them to register and vote on same day even if they are paying out of state tuition. So, all those kids from out of state get to vote today in Ohio. Obama 96% vs. McCain 4% as of now.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
09/30/2008 13:34
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....Ohio had more than 4.7 million initial applications and recertifications for Food Stamps (each of which should have been accompanied by voter registration services), and that is just one of many public assistance programs at which voter registration services must be offered.
#4
I don't know, I've lost all faith/trust in our government. The "Chicago Machine" goes national.
I could only hope that there are more votes cast than population of the country. (snark)
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
09/30/2008 14:41
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#5
Is it even possible to check if people have voted at home and also at their out-of-state home? I see shenanigans, hijinks, stuffed ballot boxes, voter fraud, and lawsuits. After all the donk party is the home of Kos Kids, William Ayers, Code Pink, MoveOn.org, George Soros, Barney and Nancy, etc, etc.
Instead of the fluffy little creatures seen today, these big birds boasted 'teeth', a 16ft wingspan and once flew over Britain.
Today, scientists announced the discovery of fossil skulls of these birds buried in clay on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. It is not the first time fossils of these duck have been found, but the experts believe this find is among the best-preserved.
The enormous birds, known as Dasornis, soared over the wetlands of prehistoric southern England when the land which now covers London, Essex and Kent was underwater.
Related to present-day ducks and geese, 50 million years ago these giants once skimmed the waters, snapping up fish and squid with their bony-toothed beak. Their massive wingspan - the length of a family car - also meant they could cover huge distances. Dasornis was in many ways similar to the modern albatross.
Dr Gerald Mayr, from the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, who described the find today in the journal Palaeontology, said: 'Imagine a bird like an ocean-going goose, almost the size of a small plane.
'By today's standards these were pretty bizarre animals, but perhaps the strangest thing about them is that they had sharp, tooth-like projections along the cutting edges of the beak. Like all living birds, Dasornis had a beak made of keratin, the same substance as our hair and fingernails, but it also had these bony "pseudo-teeth".
'No living birds have true teeth because their distant ancestors did away with them more than 100 million years ago, probably to save weight and make flying easier. But the bony-toothed birds, like Dasornis, are unique among birds in that they reinvented tooth-like structures by evolving these bony spikes.'
The fossil is in a collection at the Karlsruhe Natural History Museum, Germany.
Musicians and tour organisers have told The Daily Telegraph that a series of significant performances have been affected amid a tightening of political control over the arts and Christianity.
Among the victims are the Academy of Ancient Music, one of Britain's leading orchestral and choral groups, which was invited to sing The Messiah at the Beijing International Music Festival in October. The performance will go ahead but has been made "by invitation only" to get round the ban.
Ironically, among the invitees are members of the Politburo and other senior government leaders.
The Sinfonica Orchestra di Roma has dropped plans to play Mozart's Requiem in the Sichuan earthquake zone in honour of the dead and to raise money for survivors. It will play a programme of smaller, mostly non-religious works instead.
At least one other performance of The Messiah has been cancelled and one of Verdi's Requiem is under threat.
No-one was available from the ministry of culture to comment on the reasons for the ban. But an official said: "It is not a black and white issue, and there is nothing written on paper or in the regulations. A smaller piece as part of a bigger programme might be OK, but a big work like Mozart's Requiem would definitely be out."
Although the official said the ban was longstanding policy, Western choral classics have been performed regularly in the last decade as China's cultural scene has opened up. With a growing middle class, many of whose children learn western classical instruments, the big names of international music have followed business and sport in eyeing the Chinese market eagerly.
Until recently the government seemed to give its backing. The China Philharmonic Orchestra played Mozart's Requiem for the Pope in Rome earlier this year as proof of Beijing's sincerity in seeking to win the Vatican's diplomatic recognition.
But attitudes in the top leadership to religion and western culture in general are thought to be divided. Some regard an explosion in evangelical Christianity across the country as having social benefits, while others regard it as an alien threat to Communist Party control.
Stefano Palamidessi, the Rome orchestra's general manager, said he had been advised to drop Mozart's Requiem from an open-air performance in the main square in the city of Dujiangyan, part of a China-wide tour. Dujiangyan, north of the Sichuan capital Chengdu, lost thousands to the quake.
Simon Fairclough, marketing director of the Academy of Ancient Music, said it had been the Beijing Festival's idea for them to perform The Messiah. A spokeswoman for the Festival said the presence of senior leaders had made it necessary to exclude the public.
Cai Jindong, a Chinese-born conductor and professor of music at Stanford University in the United States, was asked to drop a section from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, an arrangement of raucous Latin and German medieval songs, which he conducted in Shanghai in August.
He said he thought the reason was most likely the Icelandic singer Bjork, who embarrassed the leadership by linking her song Independence to Tibet at a concert in Shanghai before the Olympics. All performers were subsequently subject to much tighter checks. "I don't know how many people in Shanghai know Latin," Mr Cai said. "But officials get into a position where they can't not say something."
#3
Of course, all these same people demanding this will also denounce The West for its lack of spirituality and morality, even as they prohibit the expression of our traditional religions in their country.
#5
I wrote to my sis in Peking. She's concerned about their annual performance of the Messiah. It has been a sell-out success for a number of years. This is a step back for intellectual freedom for the Chinese, I'm afraid. And really, quite unexpected.
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The Atlantis hotelÂ’s grand opening party is at the centre of a terrorism scare after British spies uncovered plans to target the lavish event in Dubai, to be attended by 2,000 VIPs. There are fears Al-Qaeda is planning to bomb the event on Nov. 20 because it is seen by Islamic extremists as a symbol of decadence in a Muslim country, according to the UK's Sky News television.
Business leaders, politicians, actors, musicians and members of the Dubai royal family have all been invited to the grand opening, which is estimated to be costing $28 million and will be headlined by pop princess Kylie Minogue.
British spies are reportedly monitoring talk of an attack in internet chatrooms and have a number of suspects who pose a credible threat under surveillance. Neither Atlantis or the British embassy in Dubai were immediately available for comment when contacted by Arabian Business.
The resort, located on the Palm Jumeirah, officially opened on Sept. 24, despite a recent fire on Sept. 2 that destroyed the hotel lobby roof and caused smoke damage to the outside of the main hotel building.
The launch of Atlantis has become one of the most talked about events on the Dubai calendar, with several global superstars linked with the grand opening, including Michael Jackson and Madonna. The 1,539-room resort encompasses a 46-hectare site with 17 hectares of water-themed amusement parks, an open air marine habitat, beaches, boutiques and restaurants.
The UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in June raised its terrorism threat level in the UAE to "high", warning that terrorists could target places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers such as residential compounds, military, oil, transport and aviation interests. "We believe terrorists may be planning to carry out attacks in the UAE," the FCO said. "Attacks could be indiscriminate and could happen at any time," it said. The FCO said people should "maintain a high level of security awareness, particularly in public places".
#2
You know, after all the stuff that happened to the _first_ Atlantis resort you'd think they'd stop using the name. Kinda like naming a cruise ship the Titanic.
#5
The Arabs won't like their playground being bombed. They might regret they funded these AQ in the first place. They might just say pull all the stops out.
People will have to be rationed to four modest portions of meat and one litre of milk a week if the world is to avoid run-away climate change, a major new report warns.
The report, by the Food Climate Research Network, based at the University of Surrey, also says total food consumption should be reduced, especially "low nutritional value" treats such as alcohol, sweets and chocolates... How about we stuff a rat in a duck, in a chicken, in a turkey, and in these researchers, and deep fry them?
#1
Is Soylent Green the next step for Britain? When the Govt. starts rationing you food, not because it is in short supply, but because the want to its time to take up your gun and join the mob.
#1
Put Fannie and Freddie out of business. The government took the attitude that everyone is supposed to own a house right now. There is such a thing as "rental" and saving for a house. That is not a given in this country. We have the "right to pursue happiness" and are not "guaranteed happiness" according to our Constitution. Such a thing cannot be guaranteed anyway. We are not entitled to a welfare state where all our basic needs are guaranteed.
#2
I'd like to apologize to all for my language. I'm just so mad I cannot see straight, and now McCain is pushing "W" and the treasury to....just forget the congressional vote and their constitents and FUND IT!
Ooooooops...
Gaza - Ma'an - Militants in Gaza fired rockets on Monday in what appeared to be a new violation of the truce between Israel and Hamas, according to an Army Radio broadcast on Tuesday. However, the reported rockets never reached Israeli territory as they exploded within the Gaza Strip, according to the station. The attacks came hours before the Jewish holiday Rosh Hoshana, it said. Must've been some kinda super secret Mossad operation I'll bet...
A leading Hamas official told a Saudi newspaper on Monday that the movement would take action against any group or individual that threatened the ceasefire, Israeli newspapers reported on Tuesday. Warty Nosed Mahmoud Al-Zahar said that Hamas would "move against any armed group that attempts to violate the ceasefire with Israel." Ya got your rocket shooting license boys? Ya wanna buy one?
"Any Palestinian group who deviates from the national consensus and harms the interests of the Palestinian people can no longer be considered a part of the Resistance™, but rather as someone who seeks to harm it," he said. Especially if it blows up one of our own guys...
#2
How many houses out there are really in or about to go into default? Is this number known? How much are they worth? Housing (Fannie and Freddie) is where all this stuff started.
If this isn't known, it is just fuzzy math from fuzzy heads in D.C.
Worth isn't intrinsic. It's what people are willing to pay for them, which is very much a function of what credit is available, how well employers are doing etc.
Another Zionist Secret Weapon...
Following are excerpts from a sermon by Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-Arifi, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on September 12, 2008.
Muhammad Al-Arifi: Studies conducted in Tel Aviv and in the Palestinian lands occupied by the Jews showed that they plant Gharqad trees around their homes, because the Prophet Muhammad said that when the Muslims fight the Jews, each and every stone and tree will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. The only exception is the Gharqad tree, which is one of the trees of the Jews, and if they hide behind it, it will not reveal their presence. According to reports of people who went there and saw it with their own eyes, many Jews plant Gharqad trees around their homes, so that when the fighting begins, they can hide behind them. They are not man enough to stand and fight you.
#3
This guy has mentionned Muhammd without telling the mandatory "Peace snd Blessings upon him". What kinds of false muslmims are the Saudis who haven't killed him on the spot?
#2
I'm sure the tin-foil hat people will have a great deal to b***h about concerning this news.
At least the US armed forces are willing to take our civil defense more seriously than our Congress is. Remember how the US Senate stopped doing business at the time of the anthrax attack? They still have no alternate places to assemble to do their business. Still no back up plan in case multiple legislators are killed or put out of commission, etc. etc. When a real crisis hits again, our surviving Congresscritters can be counted on to lie that "No one ever thought this would happen."
#3
Spousal Unit has stated low level, under the radar activity going on here in the Pac NW. includes caches of various medical and food 'stuffs.'(she works at local Navy hospital)
#4
Could be something, could be nothing, check this out:http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/20080928D
Snip:
ADDITONAL INFORMATION: Directives for Islamic terrorist attack in U.S. appear on the Internet
Although this post references a very specific date, it is never advisable to rely solely on open data, or consider a specific date as absolute. Since we published the article containing this information, however, analysts have found additional references to an event (or events) expected to occur on or about October 7, 2008. Such additional information increases the possibility that something appears to be planned around that time, or in the near term. Therefore, it is our consensus that the threat window could be anytime from the present and extend into early November. Terrorists might time an attack or attacks to take place close to our November elections, such as we saw in Madrid.
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It is interesting and quite relevant that certain postings have addressed the likelihood of Arabic language forums being shut down at the time of (or perhaps as a consequence of) such an event. Members of various forums have been asking where they will meet (in terms of a forum location) after Ramadan. Obviously these posters believe something is going to happen and the forums will be taken down or infiltrated by intelligence operatives searching for information.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/30/2008 19:27
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#7
the forums will be taken down or infiltrated by intelligence operatives searching for information.
Will be infiltrated? Even I know the proper tense of the verb in that statement!
Barbara, you've been keeping your pantry and first aid kit stocked, and your cell phone charged, right? I keep hearing that ammunition is in short supply because of that little war we've been fighting, so you may want to consult the AutoBartender in the O Club about refilling used brass (I think that's the proper terminology.. and isn't he going to be glad I mentioned it!)
#10
Nope on the Army/Congress scenario, hellfish. But yes re: accelerated work towards having NORTHCOMM be able to coordinate with civil agencies, Red Cross etc. in case of major emergencies ranging from WMD attacks to pandemic flu etc.
No. Most seems to be coordinating with local authorities for major emergencies. For example, we've the closest medical facility in our area (the next one is 20 or so miles away), and we aren't that far from a little thing called the San Andreas fault. We also get a lot of flash flooding.
But... we're also drilling on other, more, horrific events.
To the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate:
As economists, we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis. We are well aware of the difficulty of the current financial situation and we agree with the need for bold action to ensure that the financial system continues to function. We see three fatal pitfalls in the currently proposed plan:
1) Its fairness. The plan is a subsidy to investors at taxpayersÂ’ expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries systemic risk. The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.
2) Its ambiguity. Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards.
3) Its long-term effects. If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America's dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.
For these reasons we ask Congress not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, and to carefully consider the right course of action, and to wisely determine the future of the financial industry and the U.S. economy for years to come. Signers at the link.
In this exclusive 10-part series, IBD takes a hard look at Jimmy Carter's administration and compares it to that of "W", which Carter has called the worst ever.
This is something you should read whjen you say that an Obama presidencyy would be no big deal Look at the damage made by Carter and multiply it by two or theree. Also, about your answer yeasterday Khomeini didn't continue on terrorism becaus at this time it was his chemical explosives against our nukes. Now it would be nukes against nukes.
#2
Khomeini accepted a peace treaty with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. He could have continued fighting until martyrdom. But he did not. These guys talk a good game but always back down in the face of superior firepower. The stuff about nukes against nukes is right. Iran's leadership won't survive a nuclear attack against this country. And let's face it - the best time for the Soviets to launch a first strike was probably against Carter. But they never did. Because payback would have been a bitch - even under Carter. Remember, Muhammad said defeat the infidels. He never said get your people exterminated while trying to defeat the infidels.
#3
Khomeini accepted a peace treaty with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. He could have continued fighting until martyrdom. But he did not. These guys talk a good game but always back down in the face of superior firepower
Highly doubtful on the 'martyrdom', though they did lose about half a million. Iran was in a stalemate; its economy was faltering, and its population becoming more and more disenchanted with the war.
However, it's interesting to note that Khomeini accepted a cease-fire shortly after Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down.
#4
But 1988 Iran was broke and losing the war. Oil revenues collapsed due to Iraqi raids and Saudi dumping. Their much of the Shah's equipment and almost all their armor was used up, to the extent there were no heavy units between the front lines and Tehran. Iraq on the other had was brimming with new Soviet, Chinese and French weapons.
The last several battles were decisive losses for Iran and casualties were very heavy, including by chem weapons. Iraq recaptured the territory it lost at the beginning of the was and was raiding into Iran at will.
Khomenei signed a cease fire to preserve his regime.
Posted by: ed ||
09/30/2008 22:58
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#5
Khomenei had a do or die decision presented before him in 1988. The UN sanctions were a convenient excuse. On the other hand, the last two administrations have not presented a fait accompli to the mullahs. Instead, Bush has immeasurably strengthened the hand of the mullahs.
Posted by: ed ||
09/30/2008 23:03
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Russia's confrontation with the West is escalating, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accusing the U.N. Development Program of collaborating with the financier George Soros to fund Mikheil Saakashvili's rise to the Georgian presidency.
Russia has long accused Mr. Soros of financing the 2003 Rose Revolution, and Mr. Saakashvili in particular. Yesterday, Mr. Lavrov called for an examination of the ties between Mr. Soros and the UNDP. "At the time, George Soros was sponsoring members of the Georgian government," Mr. Lavrov told reporters, adding that UNDP "funds and finances" were also used to support Georgian officials. "We should clearly check and establish clear rules for controlling the spending by international organizations," he said. "We should not allow that such organizations be privatized."
American officials have raised questions about the relationship between Mr. Soros's Open Society Institute and the UNDP in the past. And as The New York Sun first reported in June 2006, a former UNDP administrator, Mark Malloch Brown, rented a house adjacent to Mr. Soros's estate in Katonah, N.Y., paying the financier what real estate agents in the area characterized as below market rate rent. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Mr. Soros's OSI has concentrated much of its pro-democracy activities in former Soviet republics striving to break with their totalitarian past, with local leaders and their nationalist supporters pledging to sever ties with Moscow.
The program was funded initially by Mr. Soros's OSI, which gave $1 million, while the UNDP gave $500,000. A Swedish government agency later added another $1 million. An "exit strategy" was built into the program, Mr. Dujarric said, and the Georgian government assumed responsibility for the salaries after three years.
Mr. Lavrov's contention that the UNDP must avoid being "privatized" came at the end of a week in which Russia significantly sharpened its rhetoric against America. At a press conference yesterday and in his speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday, Mr. Lavrov repeatedly denounced Washington's disruption of the existing world order by invading Iraq. "The solidarity of the international community fostered on the wave of struggle against terrorism turned out to be somehow privatized," he said in his assembly speech, referring to the Iraq invasion.
Separately, Mr. Lavrov declined yesterday to provide new details about his country's resumption of military cooperation with Syria, amid reports that the Russian navy sent several ships to the Mediterranean port of Tartus. "This cooperation is conducted in the framework of the international law and does not endanger anyone's security," Mr. Lavrov said.
#3
Very "unbiased" article. I am as conservative as they come, but c'mon...
Watch Palin's interview with Katie Couric. Honestly, she's as smart as Quayle. It's wise to limit her exposure to the press. I fear what will happen this Thursday
Peter, I always enjoy hearing Burke's admonition that a member of parliament owes his constituents his judgment rather than a spasmodic jerk to the latest opinion poll. But isn't it the case that we're in this mess because US politicians previously subordinated "the general reason of the whole" to "local interests" and "local prejudices"? That's to say, with their usual casual destructiveness dressed up in the baby talk of "diversity", they chose to turn the mortgage industry into just another branch of the affirmative-action racket. The United States government in effect decreed credit a human right rather than a privilege judiciously granted by one independent contractor to another.
Do those legislators understand the damage they did to "the general interest"? One of my problems with the "bailout" is the way it's presented not as an emergency measure to correct the stupidity of previous political interference but as evidence of the flawed nature of the market, and thus a justification for more must-pass "emergency" measures ahead. Exhibit A - President Sarkozy rejoicing in the end of "Anglo-American capitalism":
The idea of an all-powerful market without any rules and any political intervention is mad. Self-regulation is finished. Laissez faire is finished. The all-powerful market that is always right is finished.
As a general proposition, when told by unanimous elites that a particular course of action is urgent and necessary to avoid disaster, there's a lot to be said for going fishing*. If the entire global economy is so vulnerable that only the stalwart action of Barney Frank stands between it and ten years of soup kitchens, can it, in fact, be saved? Or look at it the other way round: Given any reasonable estimate of the number of headless chickens running around, was the five per cent fall in Asian markets and seven per cent "plummet" on the Dow in reaction to the House vote really the catastrophe some of my pals round here seem to think it was? If fear of seven per cent falls is enough to justify massive unprecedented government intrusion into the private sector, we might as well cut to the chase and go for the big Soviet command economy.
At times like these, it helps to remember the sage words of Boy George: Calmer, calmer, calmer, calmer, calmer, chameleon. You come and go. The market is forever.
[*See, e.g., global warming:
The four major agencies tracking EarthÂ’s temperature, including NASAÂ’s Goddard Institute, report that the Earth cooled 0.7 degree Celsius in 2007, the fastest decline in the age of instrumentation, putting us back to where the Earth was in 1930.
Any "crisis" here seems to be the opposite of the one we were told we needed to act against. Odd that.]
On Friday's "Hardball," Chris Matthews interviewed a number of student members of the group Concerned Youth of America.
One of those students -- Caroline -- is his daughter, a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Did Matthews disclose that fact as he interviewed her?
Nancy Pelosi must be the most ineffective House Speaker of modern times. The Democrats have achieved virtually nothing since taking control of the House and Senate in 2006, and have consistently avoided the responsibility that goes with being the majority party. Which may explain why, until very recently, most Americans were unaware that the Democrats were actually in control of Congress.
Pelosi's ineffectiveness has been due, in part, to her unrelenting and strident partisanship, which brings us to today's vote on the bailout bill: suspicion is growing that Pelosi and the Democrats made no serious effort to pass the bill, and that it failed at least in part because Pelosi tried to misuse it for political advantage.
Everyone has heard about the weirdly partisan and inaccurate rant which Pelosi contributed to the debate on the bailout bill. But that speech did not take place in a vacuum. Public opinion is running strongly against the bill, and it required political courage to vote for it. If you look at the list of those who voted "No" in both parties, it is mostly members who are engaged in tough re-election campaigns. This is true on both sides of the aisle.
That being the case, and given the fact that the legislation was in fact a negotiated, bipartisan compromise, the first duty of the majority party is to line up its members to support the majority's bill. But evidence is growing that the Democrats did no such thing.
As of yesterday, the Democrats' House whip, Jim Clyburn said that he hadn't even begun "whipping" Democratic representatives, and wouldn't do so unless and until he got orders from Nancy Pelosi. Today, Democratic Congressman Peter DeFazio told NPR that he never was "whipped" on the bill. So Pelosi evidently left Democrats to vote their consciences--which is to say, vote against the bill if they thought it was politically necessary--while counting on Republicans to put the bill over the top.
This is a classic Charlie Brown and the football maneuver. Pelosi gives a speech that frames the issue, falsely, as the result of bad Republican policies, then allows her own threatened representatives to do the popular thing while expecting Republicans to take one for the team by casting an unpopular vote. Which, of course, their Democratic opponents would use against them, thereby increasing the Democratic majority in the House.
If this was Pelosi's plan it failed, in part, perhaps, because her over-the-top partisan diatribe tipped off Republicans as to what was afoot. If, as it now appears, it's true that the Democrats made no serious effort to pass the bailout bill, it is just one more example of the failure of leadership we have seen since they took control of Congress.
#2
Of course, the flip side wins the Occam's Razor theory. That is, Bush and Karl Rove set up the Democrats to make a hugely unpopular effort to give money to the rich.
I mean, look what it could cost Bush. He could lose his re-election bid. Ahem. However, it puts the Republican congressmen square beside the typical American. Except the Republican leaders who supported the bill. But they all come from safe districts.
The zinger is that there was no real reason for this vote in the first place, as the Department of the Treasury let slip yesterday that they already have the authority to give the bailout.
#3
Department of the Treasury let slip yesterday that they already have the authority to give the bailout.
WTH?
Where are you getting that?
Anyway... what I wanted to say was that my take on this article is that this is such a debacle that they are getting ready to throw Nancy under the bus. The idea of her eyes bugging out further creeps me out EVEN more than those children singing to Dear Leader Obama.
Anyhoo. I think that the dems are finally getting called on their blatant raids on taxpayer money. As the light switches onto their activities and the connections are being made, I think we will seem them scrambling like cockroaches on linoleum. And not just the dems, but the republicans who are equally involved.
I just have a feelilng that what we are seeing here is a mutiny. Forget the news, forget the polls, those are all bogus crap. The dems are falling apart and the media can no longer cover for their corrupt theft of our tax dollars.
I predict a landslide in NOV - despite the greatest turnout of dead in the history of mankind.
It seems to me that the real problem with her speech was its illogic. She stridently attacked George Bush's "failed economic policies" and then, in the same breath, implored members to support his most controversial, unprecedented policy, yet.
So, her message was George Bush has been an unmitigated disaster for 8 years. He hasn't gotten one thing right and has plunged America into an economic black hole. But in this case, we need to trust him. Why? Because she says so? They had a huddle?
On what political goodwill was she drawing? The public strongly disapproves of the bailout bill. And to make legislative matters worse, voters have a lower opinion of Congress than a used car dealership. Congressional approval ratings have never been lower.
After eight years of relentless partisan attacks on George Bush, Democrats have not only succeeded in sowing distrust of the administration, but of their own judgment, as well. So, now, when our leaders tell us that we have a genuine crisis, they have no credibility to lead us out. Such are the wages of blind, partisanship. We don't trust what they tell us they see.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/30/2008
07:00 ||
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Illogical? or conniving? You decide. Nancy destroys.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/30/2008 8:55
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In response to his support for the bailout, Fox Noise asked Mac this morning what he thought of the massive outpouring of voter disdain for the MOAB. He responded by saying he voted for "The Surge" which was not popular with anyone either.
He appears to never miss an opportunity... to miss an opportunity.
Intentional, I think. The last thing she wants is for a solution to happen that a) is remotely connected to McCain and b) that doesn't entail massive flow of monies to Dem voters.
#6
I just went to this link and let the old girl know just exactly how I felt about her speech. I didn't write anything that would get the FBI after me but if anybody ever bothers to read it they will know that I am unhappy with her.
#9
ed and tu are probably right. It's a form on a web page and the form did require my zip code and that would be the tip off that I don't live in her district. But if enough people send their comments anyway it might at least inconvenience them.
From the outset, the Democrats have failed what I like to call the "Reynolds test" -- "I'll believe that there's a crisis when the people who say it's a crisis start acting like it's a crisis." If you listen to the Democrats, then you might think we're on the verge of another Great Depression. But if you look at what they do, not what they say, then the hysteria fades a bit.
When the bailout package was first being kicked around, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to sneak into law an extension of the ban on developing shale oil. He was hoping that no one would be paying attention to a very innocuously-worded amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Act.
Then, when the bill itself was being crafted, Democrats tried to write in a subsidy to groups like ACORN and help even more people who probably shouldn't buy houses buy houses. Paying off one's allies is a time-honored partisan tradition, the kind of thing that really ought to be set aside when there is a real crisis.
Also, the House Democrats pretty much pissed all over the Republican minority at every opportunity. They set up a meeting to work out details for the bailout package, but pointedly excluded the Republicans from the meeting. Then they denounced them for not showing up to a meeting where they were not invited.
That was the kind of thing that led to John McCain getting personally involved. He inserted himself into the negotiations process and demanded that the House Republicans be given a seat at the table. That led to a lot of compromises (including the ACORN provision that had me -- and a lot of others -- infuriated), and everyone thought would pass.
And then, just before the vote, Nancy Pelosi couldn't control herself. She gave a speech on the House floor and laid the whole blame for the current financial problems on the Republicans, lock, stock, and barrel.
At that point, apparently, enough Republicans said "screw this, we ain't going along if we're gonna keep getting pissed all over" and chose to vote against it.
So, to me, it seems abundantly clear that the Democrats don't see the current situation as a crisis, and are acting like everything is business as usual. To me, that says -- far more clearly than their words -- that they don't think things are anywhere as bad as they say they are.
And that is what convinces me that things are far worse than they think.
Because the Democrats have been consistently wrong on the whole situation, and have been for years. There is no end of videos of leading Democrats praising Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's stability, of their performance, defending the leaders (most notably Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson), and thoroughly denouncing and scuttling numerous attempts to head off the problems that have started to come to a head in the past month or so.
It's a kind of negative evidence, but it's persuasive to me: the Democrats have a solidly established record of being utterly and completely wrong on the whole mess. They are now acting as if the situation isn't so bad, and are still far more interested in playing their run-of-the-mill political games with the whole process. If they are still wrong (and the odds are highly in favor of that conclusion), then we are in real trouble and the bailout that they don't seem to care about whether or not it passes is probably a necessary evil.
Thanks, Democrats. You've saved me at least a couple years of thorough study of macroeconomics and high finance and the nuances of our financial system (which I find incredibly tedious -- serious MEGO territory for me, almost as bad as polling) before I could render a truly informed and educated opinion.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/30/2008
06:47 ||
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#1
I am happy that the bailout bill failed.
I do not agree with the contrarian viewpoint expressed in the article - that if the dems think everything is ok then everything is NOT ok.
However, the "look at what they do, not what they say" point is a good one. So I looked at the dems who voted no and their positions. I was motivated to do this by an audio clip I heard from Carl Rove.
Look at this list:
Filner D CA legislator No chairman veterans affairs
Sanchez D CA legislator No friend of Nancy Pelosi
Sanchez D CA legislator No friend of Nancy Pelosi
Woolsey D CA legislator No friend of Nancy Pelosi
Stark D CA legislator No number 2 on Ways and Means
Jackson D IL legislator No Co-Chair Obama?
Costello D IL legislator No senior democrat
Conyers D MI legislator No committee chairman judiciary
Peterson D MN legislator No chairman agriculture
Clay D MO legislator No senior democrat
Thompson D MS legislator No homeland security
DeFazio D OR legislator No senior democrat
Herseth D SD legislator No friend of Nancy Pelosi
Green D TX legislator No ethics commission?
Jackson-Lee D TX legislator No friend of Nancy Pelosi
Ortiz D TX legislator No senior democrat
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
09/30/2008 7:09
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Add Delahunt, Tierney and Lynch from Massachusett to the list, and the whole thing takes on a vile odor.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
09/30/2008 7:14
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From NRO this morning David Brooks in the New Yuk Times is blaming the House Republicans for the bill's defeat. THE HOUSE REPUBLICANS, for heaven's sake! Hasn't this fool noticed who has been in control of Congress for the last two years?
The Dems have no one but themselves to blame for this. Screw them and the donkey they rode in on. Meanwhile, I'm glad the bailout was voted down. That means the dollar will continue to be worth slightly more than an equivalent-sized sheet of Charmin bathroom tissue.
A village headman was shot to death by presumed terrorists insurgents in Tala's Raman district Monday afternoon, and empty cooking gas cylinders brought an unspecified number of police and other security personnel in a response that proved to be a false alarm in Narathiwat province.
Yala's Raman district village chief Rosa Esawmuso, 47, was gunned down by attackers assumed to be terrorists insurgents as he drove his motorcycle on the Kotabaru-Wangpaya Road to a roadside market.
Two empty cooking gas cylinders, suspected of being homemade bombs in the making, were found hidden behind a tree on a Narathiwat roadside Monday afternoon, but proved not to be bombs. Security closed connecting roads and cut mobile phone signals before inspecting the cylinders, hidden close to the bypass. The cylinders were thought to be made into improvised explosive devices. A cooking gas cylinder bomb was used at the Sungai Kolok police station on August 21, killing two persons and injuring more than 30.
#1
I don't think mere video evidence of them saying it themselves will convince the lefties that they did it to themselves. They were probably tortured for this confession.
#2
Fannie and Freddie were managed by thieves who got rich on the backs of poor people who got overcommitted. In fact they were encouraged to get in over their heads. You could get a loan, in some instances, if you were bankrupt.
Barney Franks, Dodd were vote trolling. They were also getting hefty campaign donations from Freddie and Fannie. There were others too. Fannie's and Freddie's books were cooked to make them look good when they were in bad shape because of toxic loans. There is much fraud and corruption going on here.
...And we taxpayers are asked to bend over, grab our socks, be patriotic and like it when we take it once again.
BAGHDAD -- First Lt. Justin John, 6-foot-4 and built like a linebacker, plopped down on a sofa in front of Ibrahim Suleiman al-Zoubaidi, one of the leaders of the mainly Sunni armed groups that have helped the U.S. military quell violence in Iraq since last year.
Zoubaidi, a small man armed with a revolver, had one thing on his mind: This week officials of Iraq's Shiite-led government will assume authority over the groups, which have been backed by the United States.
"They will kill us," Zoubaidi declared. "One by one."
Across Baghdad, leaders of the groups speak about the transition in similarly apocalyptic terms. Some have left Baghdad, saying they fear that the Iraqi government will conduct mass arrests after the handover. Others are obtaining passports and say they will flee to Syria.
#2
It is, after all, the Washington Post, so they must be negative. Read the article, though, and there is plenty to be positive about. It's just that transitions are difficult, and trust must be earnt by both sides. During the process, the American Armed Forces is closely supervising and highly involved.
#3
This is a good reminder to me that we can argue the merits and demerits of this and other moves. First Lt. John will have to live or die with this change. I hope his prophecy is wrong.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/30/2008 10:34
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One thing to remembr is that Arabs tend to speak in appocaliptic terms. Either the sky is falling or the things are going incredibly well.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
09/30/2008 11:27
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Al, are you sure you are not talking about our democratic congress?
TALIBAN supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar today offered international forces a safe retreat from Afghanistan if they agree to withdraw from the war-torn country. If US and NATO troops battling the hardline militia failed to take up the offer, they would suffer a defeat like Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, said the message posted on the Internet.
"I say to the invaders: if you leave our country, we will provide you the safe context to do so," Omar said in the statement marking the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Fitr. "If you insist on your invasion, you will be defeated like the Russians before you."
There was no immediate reaction from the US-led coalition, which invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban after 9/11, or the separate NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
We don't react to every fool out there.
Omar, who has been in hiding since the fall of the Taliban Government in late 2001, said in the message that he offered his support to all those fighting foreign troops in Afghanistan.
"The Americans, with their advanced technology, could not have predicted their defeat but now, with God's help, every day they welcome their soldiers' dead bodies and are facing severe losses of lives and finance," he said. "Several years ago, no one thought that Americans and their friends would face such hard resistance, that today the (Afghan) President and his ministers would beg for money, weapons and soldiers while no one gives a positive answer".
"They came to our country seven years ago and they have not succeeded in their targets - and they will never succeed, even in a hundred years," he added.
This year has been the deadliest yet for international forces in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion, with at least 221 troops dying in the first nine months of 2008, most of them Americans.
#1
Seven years, huh, Blinky? And your Pakistani hosts are beginning to tire of you. And those pesky drones keep knocking off your buddies. Then there's always the chance that somebody will rat you out. You talk a good fight but my guess is you'll be dead before another seven years go by.
#2
Methinks that the fighting is fiercest now because this is becoming the only game in town for AQ and their pals. The party's about over in Iraq.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/30/2008 11:02
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Omar, who has been in hiding since the fall of the Taliban Government in late 2001, said in the message that he offered his support to all those fighting foreign troops in Afghanistan.
I'm with yas all the way, boys. To the last drop of blood! I'll order up room service in honor of you...
BRITAIN'S MI6 intelligence service is investigating how a camera holding sensitive information about al-Qaeda suspects came to be lost by one of its agents, Hertfordshire Police said today.
Media reports said the Nikon digital camera was put up for sale on internet trading site eBay and sold for just £17. Its memory had names of al-Qaeda members, fingerprints and suspects' academic records as well as pictures of rocket launchers and missiles, The Sun newspaper reported.
The camera also had detailed information about an MI6 computer system, while The Sun said 46-year-old Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi, being held at Guantanamo Bay after being captured by the CIA in 2007, was named in material found on the memory.
"We can confirm we seized a camera after a member of the public reported it," said Hertfordshire Police after the camera was handed into Hemel Hempstead police station. "Intelligence services are investigating," the statement added.
The incident is the latest in a series of embarrassing data losses to affect the intelligence services and the Government. Yesterday, prosecutors announced that a senior public official who left top secret intelligence assessments of al Qaeda and the security forces in Iraq on a London commuter train is due to face charges under the Official Secrets Act.
Last year, a civil servant lost computer discs containing the names, addresses and bank details of 25 million people last year, while in January, the Ministry of Defence said it had lost a laptop containing personal data on 600,000 recruits.
The Home Office said in August that a contractor had lost personal details of every prisoner in England and Wales.
#1
Do they not know about VPN networks? I mean wow, we're talking about MI6 here. If the devices were properly secured, you could leave them anywhere you wanted and nobody would be able to use them.
#5
What happened is that somebody had a SD card with all this data and stuck it in the digital camera to take some photos, then it got lost with the card in it.
#1
The financial shudders that we experience are nothing compared to what is happening in weaker markets. We catch cold, they go critical with pneumonia. Nancy's hurting the EU, Australia, OPEC, AU countries, China, Russia worse than she is hurting us. I saw yesterday that the dollar surged. In the midst of a financial hurricane, the dollar is one of the few lifeboats.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/30/2008 8:45
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Posted by: Frank G ||
09/30/2008 8:50
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I've been busy with work . . . .
Checking back, I see some rumblings about the Russian markets . . . . They closed today, they will open tomorrow as has happened in the past. No big deal.
As an aside, I caught a documentary about Litvinenko on TV yesterday (British?). The premise was that Putin is basically a criminal. The whole thing was made to be very depressing, except interview with Lugovoi. It was hillarious to see how Lugovoi was describing Po 210 and its properties denying that he had put it in Litvinenko's tea. Then he politely offered a cup of tea to the Bitish reporter. The poor guy almost choked there: "No, no, thank you!"
At the end they mentioned that sometime before he died, Litvinenko converted to Islam. They explained that he was trying to unify religions or something like that. He probably was not rational by then.
P.S. Interestingly, they showed Berezovsky at his funeral in London.
#5
The premise was that Putin is basically a criminal.
Ya because killing journalist, shutting down dissent and seizing companies is such a good thing, right? Damm commies, God as a special plan for you though, Ezekiel 38/39, Rosh/Magog. Coming soon in your future.
A new posting of "Burning Down the House" has been put up on Youtube. The original post was pulled down and it had to be resubmitted. Send this link to everyone you know.
#11
Youtube keeps pulling it down, claiming a copyright claim by Universal Music Publishing. Does this mean youtube is going to pull down every video that plays music without the appropriate copyright permissions? I call BS.
#12
They should just remove the music as it adds nothing to the message of the video. Then have YouTube put it back up. If they don't (and they won't) they should be called out for the fraudulant, election-steering bastards they are.
U.S. President George W. Bush said on Monday he was disappointed that the House of Representatives voted down a $700 billion plan to rescue the financial system but said he would continue to confront the problem head-on. "I was disappointed in the vote that the United States Congress had on the economic rescue plan," Bush told reporters after a meeting with Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko. "We put forth a plan that was big because we've got a big problem."
As the markets plummeted after the House voted down the rescue package negotiated between the administration and lawmakers, Bush said he would meet with his economic advisers and work with congressional leaders to plot a way forward.
The Dow Jones industrials suffered its worst single-day point decline ever Monday, losing some 738 points, after US lawmakers rejected the rescue of the financial system. "Our strategy is to continue to address this economic situation head-on and we'll be working to develop a strategy that will enable us to continue to move forward," Bush said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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Sorry, Mr. President. I'm not. We'll just have to disagree.
#3
Please invite Newt over for lunch and discussions today Mr. President. You may want to have Mac & Sarah sitting quietly in the room as well. If I may suggest a starter topic, let it be Mark-to-Market economics.
#4
How long is Wall St. going to hold out before they have to go back to work? All those loans arent worthless, they're just worth less than they expected. They are still backed by physical real estate, something tangible, but they'd probably prefer to deal in imaginary money, like futures, or options, where no product ever changes hands.
#5
Gee, Mr. President, when the generals screwed around for a tie in Iraq, you were smart enough to get a man who really understood the situation. Fire the Secty of Treasury like you fired the SecDef. Get yourself people who can explain the fundamental issue and apply the action(s), if necessary, to that and not a 'bailout'.
Credit crunch - recharter the Bank of the United States [that shouldn't be hard with 700B] and become the Lender of First Choice forcing the other lending institutions to follow or fall.
Solidify the value of housing - give direct relief to mortgage holders who have real equity in their homes, not speculators who are riding a float. Don't add value to paper.
#6
#4: How long is Wall St. going to hold out before they have to go back to work?
They'll want to drag this "Manufactured Crisis" out as long as there's any hope of free Government cash to be had.(It also increases the chance of their making a boodle on this "PANIC scam)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/30/2008 11:07
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Would that President George W. Bush, master of conservative economic policies?
Leaving your money in the stock market during an election year is risky in and of itself.
#8
I read the text last night of that little speech that Nancy Pants made before the vote on the bailout. It was bitterly partisan and totally inappropriate. She blamed the whole crisis on Bush's "failed economic policies" and then went on to praise Barney Franks. She was like some spoiled brat who curses her dad and then asks him for money. No matter how I felt about the bailout there is no way in hell I would have voted for it after having to sit through that speech. She slapped their faces, rubbed their noses in her own $h!t and then expected them to bail her out? They slapped her back so now she's acting all surprised and hurt. No deal, bitch.
#10
Well, folks, just keep hammering on your congress critters to keep voting this crap sandwich down until the nation examines the origins of this problem in the light of day.
DON'T F**K WITH THE TAXPAYER. That's the message we need to send.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/30/2008 16:15
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Called mine from Asia right after they opened for business in DC this A.M. Told his aide I was very proud of him for voting the bailout down and to tell him I said "stick to your guns." I also mentioned that my absentee ballot was on its way and he'd have my vote for sure.
The guy I talked to seemed pretty pleased to have the call for some reason...
(SomaliNet) One person was killed when gunmen in speedboats raided a coastal city in south-west Cameroon, and robbing four banks. The incident was at least the third sea-borne raid in less than a year on banks in Gulf of Guinea countries.
A police officer said the raiders on Limbe, described as "suspected pirates" by Cameroon state radio, arrived in six speedboats under cover of darkness early on Sunday. "Residents were awakened from sleep at about 1am by sustained heavy gunfire that lasted about 30 minutes, followed by sporadic firing into the air for over one hour," he said.
The attackers shot dead a hotel driver taking customers to a nightclub. Using explosives, they blasted their way into four banks in central Limbe, seizing large sums of money. They barricaded roads leading into the town and repelled a group of soldiers.
State radio added that a sack marked "Port Harcourt Flour Mill Ltd" was left behind in one of the banks.
Port Harcourt is one of the main cities in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta where militants this month stepped up attacks on oil installations. In the past they have raided ships and rigs far out to sea in the Gulf of Guinea.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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A bomb blast killed a man outside a compact disc (CD) shop near a federal minister's house on Monday. According to details, the blast occurred outside Maqsoud CDs shop in Chatto Chowk near the residence of Federal Minister Khawaja Muhammad Khan Hoti. The blast also destroyed the CD shop and two other shops nearby. Police later found a mutilated body near the spot. It was beyond identification.
It has not yet been ascertained whether the explosion was a result of a bomb planted near the shop or that it a suicide attack. Law enforcement agencies surrounded the area after the blast and security was tightened.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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(SomaliNet) The official MENA news agency said Saturday that Somali pirates have released an Egyptian ship with 25 crew on board which was hijacked earlier this month off Somalia's Puntland region.
The pirates, who had demanded a ransom before releasing the hostages and ship, allowed the vessel to set sail late on Friday, MENA reported, adding that the ship is in international waters on its way back to Egypt. According to MENA, the release came after weeks of negotiations between the pirates and Egyptian intelligence officials. No details were available on whether a ransom was paid.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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is that the ship with the poison/radiation/ deadly something in it's hold?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/30/2008 10:04
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Absentee democratic Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida voters, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them.
The Ukrainian cargo vessel, Faina which was hijacked by Somali pirates on Thursday has been surrounded by US warships and helicopters.
The US government believes that the Faina, which is transporting military equipment, including 33 T-72 tanks, munitions, grenade launchers and other armaments is intended for Sudan and not Kenya as previously thought.
Lieutenant Nathan Christensen, a deputy spokesman for the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet says US destroyers and cruisers have been deployed to within 16 kilometers of the Faina. Helicopters were also circling the vessel. Christensen says that although initial reports indicated that the ship was headed for the Kenyan port of Mombasa, further information leads them to believe that Sudan is the final destination.
There is currently a US arms embargo in place on weapons headed to Sudan's Darfur conflict region. The embargo does not cover sales to Khartoum or partially independent Southern Sudan, however.
Press TV's Somalia correspondent reports that the US government has accused Kenya of knowing the final destination of the shipment. Meanwhile, Kenyan officials have declined to discuss the matter.
Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman, Valentyn Mandriyevsky, said the ministry was not trading in weapons and is not privy to the final destination of the cargo.
The ship-jackers, who have already reduced their ransom demand from 35 million dollars to 20 million are in standard bridge-to-bridge communication with the US navy.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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I wonder what the SEALs are up to beneath the surface of this situation.
(SomaliNet) A spokesperson for renegade officer Laurent Nkunda's group said fresh fighting broke out on Sunday in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo between the army and rebel militia. "The FARDC (government troops) attacked our positions early this morning in Rugari," 45 kilometres north of Nord-Kivu provincial capital Goma, Bertrand Bisimwa said by telephone.
"They attacked with heavy material. We had warned the UN mission to the DR Congo (MONUC) about it," added the senior official of Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP).
The rebel group also reported fighting near the northeastern town of Kanobe.
Meanwhile the head of a refugee camp in Tongo, a town some 60km north of Goma, said on Sunday that CNDP rebels fired shots from their positions in the hills two days after losing control of Tongo to the FARDC. "Gun shots resumed. If fighting spreads to the town, we will withdraw to the MONUC camp for protection," Benjamin Seburu said.
Residents in the town of Sake, 25km west of Goma, also said they were beseiged by gun fire lasting three hours on Saturday evening by rebels wanting to reclaim the town from the army.
The FARDC has not confirmed any of these attacks, while a press conference organised by the head of the army, General Dieudonne Kayembe, scheduled for Sunday afternoon in Goma, was postponed until Monday.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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Local Goma economy, banks and citizens will soon suffer. Urgently needed....33 Russian T-72 tanks. Urge congress to sign and fund off-shore tank bill NOW!
Pakistani military reiterates it will not allow any incursions by the US-led NATO troops into its volatile tribal region near Afghan border. There has been no change in the rules of engagement with the US forces and the Pakistani military will not permit any aerial or ground incursions by foreign troops, the security officials said at a briefing on anti-militancy operations in the North West Frontier Province and adjoining tribal belt.
The security sources said also the civilian government wanted the anti-militancy operations to "continue till the end".
The military assertion coincides with President Asif Ali Zardari's comments that Pakistan will not allow US forces to violate the country's sovereignty through cross-border raids. Zardari, in an interview with CNN broadcast on Sunday, said that Pakistan's military is capable of quelling militant elements on its border with Afghanistan, adding that Pakistani troops "can do a better job than anybody else."
Pointing out that such attacks are counter-productive, Zardari said the US should share intelligence so that Pakistani forces could act against militants on the country's soil.
Pakistan has angrily protested the missile strikes in recent weeks, which have resulted in the killing of innocent civilians, including women and children.
Zardari and army comments came after Pakistani and US troops exchanged fire along the Pak-Afghan border last week during which - according to Washington's claims - two US military helicopters came under fire.
Anger in Pakistan has been rising since the US began conducting cross-border commando raids as well as stepping up the number of attacks from unmanned Predator drones in the tribal region. Pakistani leaders including the president and premier have lashed out at the United States over alleged violation of its air and ground space and killing of innocent civilians.
The political analysts believe that though there's no war going on between the US and Pakistan yet, but recent exchanges involving American and Pakistani forces are sounding like a sputtering fuse that's growing ever shorter.
Washington's unilateral strikes inside Pakistan in the recent time have triggered sovereignty debates within the corridors of the parliament in Islamabad. Pakistan has gone on to make official complaints that their backing to the US during trying times has not been reciprocated.
The media quoted a Pakistani diplomat saying, "We expected we would be abandoned once again - but we never imagined it would happen so soon."
Some experts are seeing Pak-US alliance to be under significant strain for the first time in the last six decades.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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The U.S. Navy bolstered its force of warships off Somalia on Monday, intensifying its watch over Somali pirates holding a hijacked Ukrainian-operated vessel with crew members, arms and tanks aboard.
Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy 5th Fleet, said "there are now several U.S. ships" within eyesight of the hijacked ship, Faina, which according to the Kenyan government was bound for Kenya when it was seized last week. The pirates are negotiating for ransom with the vessel's owner.
Speaking by telephone from Bahrain, Christensen declined to say how exactly many other U.S. warships had joined the USS Howard, a guided-missile destroyer, off Somalia. The U.S. ships were staying in international waters off Somalia, Christensen said, while the Somali pirates kept the Faina within the 12-mile territorial bounds of Somali waters. U.S. sailors remained close enough to see the ship and had established bridge-to-bridge contact via radio, he said.
Somali pirates hijacked the Faina on Thursday, seizing its 21 Ukrainian, Russian and Lithuanian crew members and an arms cargo that included 33 T-72 tanks. Kenya said the tanks and weapons were for its military. Pirates have anchored the hijacked vessel a few miles off the Somali town of Hobyo.
The U.S. Navy intends to maintain "a vigilant, visual watch of the ship" to make sure pirates don't try to unload the tanks, ammunition and other arms aboard, Christensen said. "We're deeply concerned about the cargo and we don't want it to go into the wrong hands," he said.
Russia has said it is sending a warship as well.
Radio France International said Monday it had spoken, apparently by cellphone, with a pirate aboard the Faina, who said at least three warships were near the hijacked ship. "Ships and troops have surrounded us," said a man identified by RFI as pirate Sugule Ali. He spoke in Somali. "There's a lot of unusual movement surrounding us and planes are flying overhead. I warn anyone who might be tempted by any military operation or use of force, if we're attacked, we'll defend ourselves, until the last one of us dies."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#2
WTF is this 12-mile territorial boundary crap????!!! Somalia is a non-state, harboring pirates. May Russia will show some stones in dealing with this pestilence.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/30/2008 0:47
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#4
#2 WTF is this 12-mile territorial boundary crap????!!! Somalia is a non-state, harboring pirates. May Russia will show some stones in dealing with this pestilence.
Posted by: Alaska Paul 2008-09-30 00:47
#7
let them try too offload the tanks 12 miles out. couldn't be too easy too do . or better yet just blow their ass out of the water and say it was work related accident
#10
Now, now, you guys. There are hostages on board that ship. They may only be Russians but it's still not our way to endanger them. Keep the ship in sight and let the Russians figure out what to do. It's bound to be fun to watch.
#11
But after the Russians are finished sink every ship, boat and dinghy in every Somali port. Even if they're not pirates it's what they get for harboring pirates and living in a failed state. It's what they get for being Somalis.
The pirates were sickened because of their contact with the seized cargo, according to Hassan Osman, the Somali minister of Minerals and Oil, who met with the pirates to facilitate negotiations. "That ship is unusual," Osman told the Long War Journal, an online news source that covers the War on Terror. "It is not carrying a normal shipment."
The pirates reportedly were in talks to sell the ship back to Iran, but the deal fell through when the pirates were poisoned by the cargo, according to Andrew Mwangura, director of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Program. "Yes, some of them have died," he told the Long War Journal. "Our sources say [the ship] contains chemicals, dangerous chemicals."
Iran has called the allegations a "sheer lie," and said that the ship "had no dangerous consignment on board," according to Iranian news source Press TV. Iran says the merchant vessel was shipping iron ore from a port in China to Amsterdam.
The ship's contents are still unclear, but the reported deaths and skin abrasions have raised concerns that it could be more than meets the eye.
The massive shipping company that controls the vessel, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line (IRISL), was recently designated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury over nuclear proliferation concerns. IRISL, which is accused of falsifying documents to facilitate the shipment of weapons and chemicals for use in Iran's missile program, is blocked from moving money through U.S. banks as well as from carrying food and medical supplies as part of U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. "IRISL's actions are part of a broader pattern of deception and fabrication that Iran uses to advance its nuclear and missile programs," said Stuart Levey, Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
The U.S. government has made no accusation against IRISL regarding the Iran Denayat; the State Department would not comment on reports of its suspicious cargo. "I don't have any information on that case," said State Department spokesman Curtis Cooper. "We're aware that there are currently 12 other hijacked ships off the Somali coast. This is obviously something that is disturbing."
Experts on Somalia are dubious of claims made by the country's provisional government, whose president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, reportedly has family ties to the pirates. "I'm not saying it's impossible that this has happened, but I'd take anything they say with a great deal of salt," said J. Peter Pham, director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University. "They have made fanciful claims before in the hopes of attracting U.S. and other international attention."
Pham said that the 14 provisional governments that have ruled Somalia since 1991 have all relied on foreign aid for support and profit and could be trying to attract attention by inflating the current crisis."Would it be beyond them to raise the specter of WMDs in order to attract resources and international assistance? The only source of revenue for this government is foreign aid," he told FOXNews.com.
Chemical experts say the reports sound inconsistent with chemical poisoning, but may reflect the effects of exposure to radiation. "It's baffling," said Jonathan Tucker, a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "I'm not aware of any chemical agent that produces loss of hair within a few days. That's more suggestive of high levels of radioactive waste." Tucker, a chemical and biological weapons expert, said that Chinese companies have been implicated in selling Iran so-called dual-use chemicals, legal ingredients that can be processed into chemical weapons.
The U.S. government says that Iran maintains facilities to process those chemicals as part of a chemical and biological weapons program. "Iran continues to seek dual-use technologies that could be used for biological warfare," said Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell in testimony before Congress in February.
But while Iran has purchased and shipped such chemicals in the past, it remains unclear whether the Iran Deyanat contains any illegal chemicals or harmful agents. "A number of Chinese companies have been implicated in this illicit trade, but I've never heard of extremely toxic chemicals being shipped," Tucker told FOXNews.com. "It's very rare it's very unlikely that a country would ship manufactured weapons from one country to another."
In a 45-minute-long interview, Mr. Sugule expounded on everything from what the pirates want — “just money” — to why they were doing this — “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters” — to what they eat — rice, meat, bread, spaghetti, “you know, normal human-being food.”
He said that so far, in the eyes of the world, the pirates had been misunderstood. “We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits,” he said. “We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard.”
When asked why the pirates needed $20 million to protect themselves from hunger, Mr. Sugule laughed over the phone and said: “Because we have a lot of men.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There you have it..
One Human Being's Pirate is a Muslim's Sea Scout!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Heh, Ima stinking now that the Muslim Pirates Invented the entire Toxic Contamination story up...
Muslim Pirate Logic:
An insurance policy to keep the USA-West from firing up the ship and spreading some of the so called "Toxic Trash" up.
If the ship were full of Toxics no pirate would stay aboard even in port!
Posted by: Total War ||
09/30/2008 14:03
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#18
Re: MV IRAN DEYANET
"The ship set sail from Nanjing, China, at the end of July. According to its manifest,it was heading for Rotterdam where it would unload 42500 tons of iron ore and "industrial products" purchased by a German client."
Were there "cargo stops" along the way??
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
09/30/2008 14:07
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#19
Time for a good old fashioned "Q Ship".
Foreeeee!
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/30/2008 19:27
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#24
20: My guess is rocket oxidizer.
Hadn't thought about that one, most rocket/missle fuels are poison, many are very nasty poisons.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/30/2008 19:31
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#25
How many Seals can dance under the hull of a Ukranian freighter?
If they can get the ship-layout plans, they can board it. The crew gets rescued and the Faina then becomes evidence (likely one reason why the Russians have an interest).
But with rehearsals, clearances, orders from national authority, etc. that may take a bit longer than most Rantburgers seem to want.
At least 52 Somalis died after smugglers abandoned them on a boat in the dangerous waters of the Gulf of Aden, the U.N. refugee agency said Sunday. Seventy-one people survived the 18-day ordeal.
The boat broke down within hours of leaving Somalia on Sept. 3, bound for Yemen and carrying more than 100 Somalis, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said in a statement. The crew abandoned the boat for another craft and never returned for the refugees, who threw bodies overboard as fellow passengers died, the UNHCR said.
The boat eventually drifted close enough to southern Yemen that three passengers tried to swim ashore. Two alerted rescuers; the third never made it. The Yemeni coast guard rescued the survivors Sept. 21, the statement said.
Hundreds of Africans die every year trying to reach Yemen, with many drowning or being killed by pirates and smugglers in the waters separating Somalia and the Arabian peninsula. Those who survive the journey register with the U.N. refugee agency and stay in refugee camps in Yemen, while others take jobs in the cities as laborers for less than a $1 a day.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#1
how bad could it be too try and escape too Yemen
?
Tamil Tigers have suffered heavy losses in a major Sri Lankan government push into their northern fiefdom, with the latest clashes leaving 30 rebels dead, the defence ministry said yesterday.
The ministry said 17 rebels were killed in air and ground attacks against the guerrilla's northern capital of Kilinochchi on Sunday. The ministry said three soldiers also died in the fighting, while 80 were wounded. Troops also killed 11 rebels and lost one soldier during fighting elsewhere in the north on Sunday, the ministry said, adding two more rebels died in the eastern town of Ampara.
There was no immediate comment from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who were too busy dying. The pro-rebel Tamilnet website, however, said the guerrillas killed six soldiers during a confrontation in the eastern coastal district of Batticaloa on Sunday.
The separatist rebels were pushed out of the east last summer, but continue to infiltrate the area.
According to the government, some 7,013 rebels have been killed in combat since January, when Colombo pulled out of a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire. The defence ministry has acknowledged the loss of 686 of its soldiers over the same period. The tolls cannot be independently verified since the ministry blocks independent journalists from travelling to the front lines.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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Security forces have lifted the curfew in Swat whereas a unilateral ceasefire has also been announced by the Taliban for Eid. An army spokesman said the curfew had been lifted to help the population over Eid, APP reported. The Taliban ceasefire will end on the third day of Eid. Unidentified people torched a bank after looting gold worth Rs 50 million from its safes early on Monday, police sources said. The Taliban stole an Edhi foundation ambulance in the Allahabad area of Swat's Charbagh tehsil. The ambulance was answering an emergency call at the time, Edhi officials said. Sources at WAPDA said electricity was being supplied to Swat at regular intervals, but that a large part of the district was still without electricity. Three shops were blown up in Upper Dir. No casualty was reported. NWFP Chief Minister Haider Khan Hoti said basic amenities had been provided in aid camps established for the people of Bajaur who have left their homes following the military operation. Hoti said a new relief camp for 7,000 people has been established in Kacha Garhi, Peshawar with the co-operation of the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#1
well i guess all the shooting better stop immediately since it is yet another muslim holiday. bad thing is the pakis will go by the "cease fire"
(AKI) - The 19 hostages, including five German and five Italian tourists, who were abducted in southern Egypt over a week ago were freed on Monday and flown to Cairo. The hostages who were kidnapped in Egypt's Western Desert ten days ago arrived in Cairo aboard a military aircraft following their rescue. Egyptian officials and foreign diplomats welcomed the 11 tourists - five Italians, five Germans and a Romanian woman - along with the eight Egyptians from their tour group, after their arrival at a military airport in the capital.
Italy's Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, confirmed Egyptian media reports that the hostages were freed on Monday morning. Their captors allegedly took them to neighbouring Sudan. The minister said the hostages' release was the result of "international collaboration".
The five Italians, five Germans and a Romanian - and their guides were kidnapped on 19 September on the Gilf al-Kebir plateau, close to the Libyan and Sudanese borders. Since then, they have reportedly been moved around a lawless desert region touching on the borders of Egypt, Sudan, Libya and Chad. There were reports that six of their captors were shot dead on Sunday.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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(AKI) - Three suspected members of Al-Qaeda, including a leading operative, were killed in a raid conducted by Iraqi army forces outside Baaquba, north of Baghdad on Monday. The raid, reported by the news agency Voices of Iraq, came after a dramatic resurgence of violence in Iraq at the weekend.
"Troops from the Iraqi army's 5th Division in Diyala raided some strongholds of Al-Qaeda in the area of Anjar, 45 km east of Baaquba, killing three members, including an emir (leader)," Brig. Khaled Jawad told VOI.
Meanwhile, at least 27 people were killed and another 84 were wounded when five bomb attacks struck Baghdad on Sunday. Iraqi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Qassim Atta said that the attacks included a car bomb and a homemade roadside bomb.
The worst of the bombings centred on a market in the central Karada district where people were preparing to celebrate the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq
Between the Maoists, the Islamicists and the Anarchists here at home, we've got all the troubles in the world .. identified.
Raipur —Suspected Maoist insurgents triggered a landmine to blow up a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) vehicle in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh on Monday, hours before President Pratibha Patil was scheduled to visit the area. A CRPF deputy commandant and a driver were killed, while five other troopers were injured.
“Insurgents blew up a Bolero vehicle at about 12 noon at a forested area near Mardum in Bastar. The driver and a CRPF deputy commandant were killed instantly,” Girdhari Nayak, chief of the state’s anti-Maoist operations, told IANS by phone.
The deputy commandant, of the 41st CRPF battalion, was identified as Diwakar Mahapatra. All the victims are from the 41st battalion who were returning after a road-opening assignment in the area, some 340km from state capital Raipur. Patil was in Bastar on Monday to visit the famous Chitrakote waterfall on Indravati river, just 27 km from the blast site.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/30/2008
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(AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - International efforts to strike a peace deal with the Taliban collapsed late Sunday when militant leaders rejected any attempt to engage in negotiations. The Taliban emphatically denied a British media report that suggested that its leadership was engaged in talks with the Afghan government to end the war and reiterated their determination to rid the country of all foreign troops.
The British weekly, The Observer, said on Sunday that the Taliban had been engaged in secret talks about ending the conflict in Afghanistan in a 'peace process' sponsored by Saudi Arabia and backed by Britain.
Nice going boys, it was supposed to be a secret ...
"The mainstream media is reporting a 'peace process' between the Taliban and the Kabul puppet administration which is being sponsored by Saudi Arabia and supported by Britain," the statement said.
Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta had previously announced at a media conference that there would be "good news" in a few days regarding a deal with Taliban leaders.
But the statement issued by the Taliban from Kabul in Pashto and later in English on Monday categorically denied any such negotiations. It rejected claims that that there were "unprecedented talks" involving a senior ex-Taliban member who is travelling between Kabul and the alleged bases of the Taliban senior leadership in Pakistan.
"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan rejects all these false claims by the enemy who is using this propaganda campaign," the statement said. "The aim of this propaganda is to create an atmosphere of disunity among Muslims in order to weaken the Ummah (Muslim faithful). Our struggle will be continued until the departure of all foreign troops."
The statement was signed by the pseudonym of 'Dr Talib' on behalf of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
It also said that former members of the Taliban who had surrendered or were under surveillance were not associated with their organisation.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#1
Gee, they've been working with the Saudis for the past two years, and it sure hasn't seemed to help much. I wonder why that is:
http://www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com
At least they're going to the right place.
Posted by: Bill in Chicago ||
09/30/2008 20:35
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The alleged terrorist-trainer arrested in the Baldia Town encounter, Raheemullah alias Naeem alias Ali Hasan, was remanded to the custody of investigators till October 6, in connection with the kidnapping of Shaukat Afridi, who was abducted from Clifton on May 9.
The accused was produced again before the Anti Terrorism Courts Administrative Judge (AJ) Justice Khawaja Naveed Ahmed on Monday. The accused was booked under section 365, 365-A/34/302 P.P.C, read with section 7 of ATA. The police sought remand of the accused from today till October 6 and the AJ granted the request.
Inspector Qamar-uz-Zaman of Clifton Police Station is investigating the case. According to the police, Shaukat Afridi, who was supplying oil to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was kidnapped and a ransom of Rs 50 million demanded. He died when the terrorists blasted their hide out in Baldia Town on Friday afternoon, after a shootout with a joint raiding party. The body of the victim was recovered with his hands and legs chained.
Accused remanded in murder of cousin: The same court also remanded Jahanzaib Hussain to judicial custody for the kidnapping for ransom and murder of his cousin, Ali Nawaz, son of complainant, Iftikhar Ali. The accused had called his cousin to the Clifton area and killed him by throttling him using a piece of cloth. He later demanded a ransom of Rs10 million but was arrested after the police tracked phone records.
The Investigating Officer (IO), seeking further remand, produced the accused before the court and submitted that the cloth used for the murder has been recovered and that there were no accomplices. The AJ, noting that that the investigation into the case has been closed, remanded the accused to judicial custody till October 6 and directed the IO to submit a charge sheet against the accused by that date.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
Israeli police on Monday denied claims that Jewish settlers shot a Palestinian shepherd, saying the teenager found dead in the West Bank was killed by shrapnel from a grenade that he was handling. "The autopsy showed the shepherd was killed from shrapnel from an explosion and not from gunshots," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP. "Investigations at the scene confirmed that the young man was killed by the explosion of a rifle grenade which he handled and that he either found there or was given to him," he said.
Rosenfeld ruled out the possibility that the grenade, of the type used by the Israeli Army, was fired by residents of a nearby Jewish settlement.
Palestinian security officials said Sunday the shepherd, identified as Yehia Apa Riham, 18, was shot dead by Israeli settlers. The young man was among a group of shepherds grazing flocks south of the city of Nablus and near Itamar settlement on Saturday when they were attacked by settlers, the security sources said.
Several violent attacks by settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank have been reported in recent months. -
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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Balochistan Chief Minister (CM) Nawab Aslam Raisani on Monday notified the dropping of eight cases pending against Baloch nationalist leaders Nawab Khair Baksh Marri and his son Nawabzada Harbiar Marri, Dawn News reported.
The channel said that the move was in accordance with the government's policy of reconciliation in the province. According to the channel, the CM issued an official notice stating that all cases, except one murder case, against the Baloch leaders had been dropped.
The channel said the move was a part of the Pakistan People's Party-led government's efforts at reconciliation in the province. The government has dropped eight of the nine cases registered against the Baloch leaders. The only case still being pursued is the murder case of Balochistan High Court judge Justice Nawaz.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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Members of the notorious Mujahedin Khalq Organization have been arrested in France and Switzerland on charges of money laundering. Ten people close to the MKO were in police custody on Monday on both sides of the border, Reuters reported without citing any sources.
Swiss and French officials jointly conducted the arrests on the request of Swiss judges examining the funding of the group.
The group, which has been listed as a terrorist organization in Iran, the European Union and the United States, has a long and bloody history of targeting Iranian civilians and government officials. It also reportedly assisted the deposed Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, in the massacre of thousands of innocent Iraqis and is responsible for several acts of terror in Iran including the 1994 bombing of a revered Shia shrine in Mashhad, eastern Iran.
In 2003, French anti-terrorist police arrested 165 members in Paris, including Maryam Rajavi one of the leaders of the group, for 'associating with wrongdoers in relation with a terrorist undertaking.'
In a recent move, Britain removed the banned MKO from its blacklist of terror organizations. According to the Iranian Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Britain has been provided with ample evidence of MKO involvement in terrorist operations against the Iranian nation.
"They have even met with some of the victims of the MKO terrorist acts. Still, the London Appeals Court has permitted a dangerous terrorist group to operate in Britain," reads a letter by the Head of the Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi to his counterpart in the British parliament, Mike Gapes.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#1
Wow! We are on the same side as the Ieanian government against these guys! They are some bad****s.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/30/2008 10:39
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#2
Maryam Rajavi one of the leaders of the group, for 'associating with wrongdoers in relation with a terrorist undertaking.'
By that kind of reasoning/law, BO would be in a lot of trouble.
(AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Afghanistan's kidnapped ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Khaliq Farahi, has been released, informed sources told AKI. Farahi returned to the northern city of Peshawar late on Monday, the sources said. No further details were available as Pakistani Government officials declined to comment on Farahi's release.
Farahi was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen a week ago in Peshawar, in volatile North West Frontier Province. His driver was killed in the ambush. No group claimed Farahi's abduction, which took place in the upscale Hayatabad area of Peshawar.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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Israel's interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel must give up virtually all the occupied West Bank including east Jerusalem, insisting in an interview published on Monday this was key to achieving peace with the Palestinians.
Olmert, in a caretaker role since quitting on Sept. 21, said he was breaking new ground in calling for a broad pullback from the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians hope to establish a state, and in the annexed Golan Heights, which Syria wants back. "(I am saying) what no previous Israeli leader has ever said: we should withdraw from almost all of the territories, including in East Jerusalem and in the Golan Heights," Olmert, who resigned over corruption allegations, told Yedioth Ahronoth.
"We will leave a percentage of these territories in our hands, but will have to give the Palestinians a similar percentage, because without that there will be no peace," he said.
"Including in Jerusalem," he said in reference to the predominantly Arab eastern part of the Holy City which Israel occupied and annexed after the 1967 war and which Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.
The Israeli daily called it a "legacy interview", published on the eve of the Jewish new year, in which Olmert went further in making offers for peace than he ever did publicly when he was in active office, with greater power to see them carried out.
The statement is expected to stir deep controversy. Israel officially considers Jerusalem its "eternal, undivided" capital, a view Olmert -- a former mayor of the city -- said he shared for many years.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority
#1
Olmert doesn't get it. The so-called Palestinians don't want peace or even a state, they just want to eradicate the jews (from the earth). Olmert just needs to shrivel up and go away.
#4
Obama Ehud Olmert is businessman, community organizer and politician.
Olmert purchased a home on Cremieux Street in Jerusalem for which he is thought to have paid well below market value. In return, Olmert is suspected of using his position as mayor of Jerusalem to extend favors for the contracting company "Alumot," the firm which built his home. The prime minister has denied any wrongdoing in the matter.
#5
Hopelessly naive. Much like many American Democrats who have never studied, and in fact abhor studying history. The very old rationale they use is that history is the greatest enemy of socialism. The few that engage the study do so only in the effort to corrupt it and destroy its credibility.
In turn, this is why Democrats are so arrogant and ignorant about things like foreign policy and economics. They convince themselves that all their ideas are new and untried, and they are filled with trust of the untrustworthy.
“When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, ‘look, here’s what happened.’”
-- Senator Joe Biden, to Katie Couric
BAGHDAD - US authorities have freed 2,404 detainees in the four weeks of Ramadan, the American military said on Monday, still short of the 3,000 they promised to release during the Muslim fasting month. Releases accelerated in the past week as 955 were freed, compared to a total of 1,449 for the first three weeks of Ramadan, the military said in a statement.
At the begining of the fasting month, the US military promised to free about 3,000 detainees during Ramadan which ends this week. However, the US military said they expected more people to be released in the next few days.
"The projections for the final few days of the Ramadan release period are ambitious and assume no delays or unexpected interruptions to the release process," the statement added.
The US military, however, warned against haste. "These are not mass releases, but fair releases," US military spokesman Brigadier General David Quantock said in a separate statement. He added they have speeded up the process of reviewing cases against detainees.
With the latest releases, the number of detainees in US custody has dropped to 17,900, the statement said. Since the start of 2008, some 14,200 detainees have been freed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/30/2008
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#1
I hate that they tie releases to Ramadan. It smacks of the whims of the Caliph rather than equal treatment under the law. That whole mills of justice thingy ought to mean that as soon as someone is known to be innocent of a charge they are released -- neither held back to make a bigger number during Ramadan, nor released before a proper determination is made, again just to increase the Ramadan number.
A Ukrainian vessel seized by Somali pirates off Somalia last week, which was carrying tanks and other weapons, was destined for Sudan and not Kenya as announced by Nairobi, a U.S. military spokesman said on Monday. "We have a report indicating that the cargo and the shipment was headed to Sudan," Nathan Christensen, spokesman for the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet, said, declining to speculate on the intended recipients.
A Kenyan defense ministry spokesman denied the US navy claim that the cargo of tanks and military supplies was in fact destined for Sudan and not Kenya. "The Kenyan and Ukrainian governments have all the documents to prove that this cargo belongs to the Kenyan government and not some unknown buyers in Sudan," defense ministry spokesman Bogita Ongeri told AFP.
Sudan is rife with potential clients, including the Sudanese army, numerous rebel groups active in the restive Darfur province as well as former southern rebels from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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In a major reshuffle in the Pakistan Army, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director General Lt Gen Nadeem Taj has been replaced by newly promoted Lt Gen Ahmed Shujaa Pasha.
According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the corps commanders of Karachi, Gujranwala, Bahawalpur and Rawalpindi have also been changed.
Taj has been appointed Gujranwala Corps Commander.
Lt Gen Muhammad Yousaf has been appointed Bahawalpur Corps Commander and his predecessor Lt Gen Raza Muhammad has been appointed Joint Staff Director General at the Joint Staff Headquarters.
Lt Gen Shahid Iqbal has replaced Lt Gen Ahsan Azhar Hyat as Karachi Corps Commander, while Hyat has been appointed Inspector General (IG) Training and Evaluation at the General Headquarters (GHQ).
Lt Gen Muhammad Zaki has been appointed IG Arms at GHQ and Lt Gen Javed Zia has been appointed Quarter-Master General at the GHQ.
Lt Gen Mohsin Kamal has been appointed Military Secretary at the GHQ while Lt Gen Tahir Mehmood has been appointed Rawalpindi Corps Commander. Lt Gen Muhammad Zahid has been appointed the Adjutant General at the GHQ.
Lt Gen Muhammad Mustafa has been appointed as Chief of General Staff at the GHQ. Lt Gen Tanvir Tahir has been appointed as IG Communication and IT at GHQ. Lt Gen Ayyaz Salim Rana has been appointed Chairman of the Heavy Industries Taxila in place of Lt Gen Israr Ahmad Ghumman, who will retire in November.
Promoted: Earlier, Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kayani recommended the promotion of seven major generals of the Pakistan Army to the rank of lieutenant generals.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#1
That sounds like a lot of Lt. Gens. How big is the Pak army anyway - top heavy?
#5
LINKY: Taliban chief offers safe exit to allied forces : Karzai seeks Saudi help for talks with Mullah Omar
* Afghan president denies reports of negotiations with Taliban
* Assures protection to Taliban if they come back for talks
KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has made a call for peace to Taliban leader Mullah Omar and has asked the king of Saudi Arabia to help in talks with the group responsible for a surge in violence.
(AKI) - A suicide blast in an Algerian village has killed at least three soldiers and wounded six others, reported Algerian state media on Monday.
A suicide car bomber allegedly struck a checkpoint in the village of Dellys, following 'iftar', the meal that breaks the fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan is scheduled to end in the North African country on Tuesday.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but previous attacks have been claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb organisation.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil prices tumbled more than $10 a barrel Monday, dropping back below $100 as a U.S. financial bailout failed to win legislative approval, raising fears of a prolonged economic downturn that could drastically erode global energy demand. Light, sweet crude for November delivery sank $10.52, or 9.8 percent, to settle at $96.36 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier dropping as low as $95.04.
The dramatic sell-off capped a week of frenzied volatility in oil markets.
A week earlier, prices shot up over $16 to $120.92 a barrel in the biggest one-day dollar gain ever. But as disagreements over the government's $700 billion bailout plan intensified over the last several days, oil market traders began moving out of their positions at a rapid clip; Monday's decline was the second largest ever in dollar terms and the biggest percentage-wise since 2001. Crude has now fallen almost $25, or 20 percent, in the last seven days.
Monday's nosedive came as House lawmakers defeated the emergency measure, which would have absorbed billions of dollars in banks' bad mortgage-related debt and other risky assets in a bid to steady the teetering economy. Democratic and Republican lawmakers pledged to try and work out another deal, but oil markets traders viewed the defeat as another bearish weight on oil.
"This is an acknowledgment that the global slowdown is here and energy demand is not going to be what it was," said Phil Flynn, energy analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago.
Oil market traders were skeptical before the plan was voted down. Many doubted it would go far enough to unfreeze credit markets and restore calm to the financial system. If the economy worsens, analysts say businesses could be forced to lay off workers, leading Americans to cut back on driving and other energy use in the world's largest consumer.
Energy consumption overseas is also expected to drop, even in fast-growing developing countries such as India and China, where booming demand for cars and other goods helped drive the oil bubble earlier this year.
"With demand falling at the pace it is, nothing can support crude at levels above $100," said James Cordier, president of Tampa, Fla.-based trading firms Liberty Trading Group and OptionSellers.com. "There's no underlying demand from any pocket."
Highlighting weak U.S. appetite for energy, pump prices kept falling Monday. A gallon of regular slipped about a penny overnight to a new national average of $3.643, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. Prices peaked at $4.114 on July 17. Gasoline could get cheaper as U.S. Gulf Coast energy output ramps up following the passage of Hurricanes Ike and Gustav. About 57 percent of crude oil production and 53 percent of natural gas output remained shut-in Monday after shutdowns prompted by the storms, according to the U.S. Minerals Management Service, meaning more supply has yet to come on line.
But analysts say the rough economic conditions will make $3.50 gasoline feel like $4 for many consumers. "In a falling economy like this, that's going to seem very expensive and is not going ot jolt the consumer to spend more or drive more," Cordier said.
In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures fell 22.89 cents to settle at $2.7885 a gallon, while gasoline futures dropped 26.81 to settle at $2.397 a gallon. Natural gas futures lost 40.7 cents to settle at $7.221 per 1,000 cubic feet. In London, November Brent crude fell $9.56 to settle at $93.98 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/30/2008
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#1
...We have still been seeing gas shortages due to refinery outages from Hurricane Ike - but prices have been falling consistently for the last few days, and the shortages have almost disappeared, even though the dealers are still being told that the supply situation has NOT changed. Gotta love the free market.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/30/2008 7:59
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#2
It's partly the dollar strengthening on the chance that the "socialism for wall street billionaires" plan isn't accepted
Crude oil prices were down on Tuesday ahead of WednesdayÂ’s weekly report on US inventories. Analysts believe that crude oil stockpiles will increase by 900,000 barrels, while gasoline inventories are expected to be up by 1.8 million barrels.
Brent crude for May delivery dropped 89 cents to $65.95 per barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange. Meanwhile, May contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude lost 94 cents to $65.80 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Nymex gasoline futures for May gained 18 cents to $1.8650 per gallon after a warning from Merrill Lynch that gasoline prices in the US could reach $2.40 per gallon, or $100 per barrel, by summer due to higher demand in the face of low domestic output and dropping inventories and imports.
#7
Atlanta is under an EPA edict to have special blends "cleaner" fuel because of air pollution. Get away from Fulton County and the prices and availability are better.
#8
You've got to get way away Besoker. Lake Oconee area is dry. Now I had no problems last week when I had to travel to Savnnah once I made it to Macon.
#12
No gas in Atlanta, plenty gas in Wilmington NC, where it arrives by sea. Apparently there are no spare gas tanker trucks or rail cars that could make up a bit of the shortage. Pity.
(SomaliNet) In just over a week, a third Greek ship has been hijacked off Somalia, it was reported on Saturday, as the surge in the activity of pirates in the Indian Ocean continues.
A Greek chemical tanker with 19 crew on board was seized on Friday after being ambushed, chased and fired upon, according to the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Center. The ship, which was not named, was carrying refined petroleum from Europe to the Middle East.
Last week, the Merchant Marine Ministry asked the Foreign and Defense ministries to send a navy ship to the Indian Ocean to patrol waters as part of an international force already operating off Somalia after two Greek-flagged tankers were taken over by pirates.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#1
seems the Greeks have been paying too many ransoms. Looks like the shipping industry would kinda strt=ay around somalia coast
Iraqi Premier Nuri al-Maliki said Monday that the government was ready to compromise to reach a security accord with the United States, saying the country still needs US troops despite the recent drop in violence. The speech came after a deadly spate of attacks took the lives of 35 Iraqis Sunday night.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Maliki said neither he nor Iraq's Parliament will accept any pact that falls short of the country's national interests. A poorly constructed plan would provoke so much discord inside Iraq that it could threaten his government's survival, he said.
Maliki said, however, that he was firmly committed to reaching an accord that would allow US troops to remain in the country beyond next year. "We regard negotiating and reaching such an agreement as a national endeavor, a national mission, a historic one. It is a very important agreement that involves the stability and the security of the country and the existence of foreign troops. It has a historic dimension," he added.
Supporters of popular cleric Moqtada al-Sadr oppose the accord, arguing that US forces should leave Iraq as soon as possible. Neighboring Iran has also been speaking out vociferously against a long-term US presence in Iraq.
Maliki also noted with gratitude the high cost paid by American taxpayers and by the US military and the forces of other coalition members to secure Iraq's freedom and liberty over the past five years.
Maliki also said the government would be offering a compromise on the thorny issue of legal jurisdiction for US forces in the country involving some limited immunity for US forces. "We have proposed that the legal jurisdiction would be ... with the Americans ... when the troops are performing military operations," he explained. "When they are not performing a military operation, they are outside their camps, the legal jurisdiction would be in the hands of the Iraqi judiciary."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#1
Once again, enlightened self interest, reasonableness and largesse rear their ugly heads.
The Germans finally begged the US to keep at least some military presence in Germany, because the total loss to their economy if the US pulled out all at once was estimated to be around $500B a year, about 1/6th of their GDP.
An Afghan ex-diplomat says the US supplies arms to the Taliban to jeopardize the security situation and have an excuse to stay in Afghanistan. Vahid Mujda, a former official with the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told IRIB that during the past two years there have been reports indicating that NATO-led forces have been helping the Taliban in some troubled areas.
On December 2007, Michael Semple, the deputy head of the EU mission in Afghanistan, and Mervyn Patterson, another EU official, were ordered out of the country after reports showed that they had offered aid and development incentives to tribal elders in the Taliban heartlands.
Mujda said the US invaded the country on the pretext of fighting terrorism but Washington actually wanted to create a base in the area to exercise pressure on its rivals and on the surrounding countries. He continued that as the next Afghan presidential election is due next year, there are reports that Washington has started direct talks with the Taliban to secure the event, adding that some meetings have been held in the UAE who is mediating the process.
Mujda did not dismiss the rumors that the US would give the Taliban an important role in the next Afghan administration. He said that the US has faced many problems in Afghanistan in fighting terrorism and drug trafficking. Moreover, the Bush administration has faced financial problems at home, thus it is possible that Washington is seeking another solution to the Afghan problem, namely through dialogue.
Meanwhile, both Afghan and Pakistani Taliban have repeatedly said that they would agree to initiate peace talks on the condition that the foreign forces leave Afghanistan.
The diplomat added although, Pakistan has disappointed Washington in brokering a peace deal with the insurgents, the US needs to remain friends with Islamabad for it is the only way logistic supplies could reach the coalition forces in Afghanistan. Furthermore, one way to jeopardize the security situation in Afghanistan is for the US to encourage more cross border attacks by the Taliban from Pakistan's territory, Mujda concluded.
This article starring:
Vahid Mujda
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#1
US supplies arms to the Taliban to jeopardize the security situation and have an excuse to stay in Afghanistan.
Yeah, cause its so nice, and you got all that oil. And the women are such babes.
#2
I wouldn't be surprised if the US is providing the Taliban with some arms. Like "special" bullets, where every 7th bullet has C4 instead of propellant, and fuses. Lots of fuses.
#3
The picture is a good analysis of the diplomats brain.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/30/2008 10:10
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#4
Notice the careful wording: "NATO-led forces have been helping the Taliban" & EU officials were ordered out of the country after offering incentives--this could be true, may even include a few select US tranzis with ulterior motives to keep us mired down there, and still not be the official US policy. Follow the money.
(AKI) - About 20,000 people have fled fighting in Pakistan's tribal areas and sought refuge in eastern Afghanistan in recent months, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said on Monday. "In the last two weeks alone, over 600 Pakistani families have fled into Afghanistan," Mohammed Nadir Farhad, the UN refugee agency's spokesman, told the media in Kabul. "The majority are living with their relatives and friends, but there are some 200 families who live in the open air." Think about the implications of that...
An estimated 4,000 families started arriving in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province as fighting intensified across the border in Bajaur Agency in Pakistan's tribal areas in recent months. They include 2,120 families in Kunar's Shigal district, 748 families in Marawara district, 706 in Dangam district and smaller numbers in other districts. About 70 percent of the recent arrivals in Shigal, Marawara and Dangam are Pakistanis.
Kunar's provincial authorities are working closely with the UN and other international organisations to coordinate and monitor the humanitarian response closely. The agency believes that the majority of the displaced families will return to Pakistan as soon as the situation in the tribal areas improves.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#1
When your people flee to Afghanistan, that's a new low.
#3
Looks to me like the squeeze is working. The terrorists need these human shields but are losing the ability to keep them. Things must be unseasonably hot there.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/30/2008 10:26
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#4
Between the civvies heading out and the gunsels heading in, must make for some helluva traffic jams.
Adds detail to yesterday's story...
A car bomb blast ripped through a bus carrying soldiers in northern Lebanon on Monday, killing four people, including three soldiers, and wounding 30, an army official said. "Three of those who died were soldiers and among the wounded 24 were soldiers and the rest civilians," the official said. Earlier, a security official had put the death toll at six.
Lebanese troops cordoned off the scene of the explosion at the southern entrance to the city of Tripoli during the morning rush hour and ambulances ferried casualties to hospitals. The blast hurled the mangled remains of the explosive-laden car several meters (yards) away, shattered windows of nearby buildings and damaged several cars.
Military target
Local politicians denounced the attack, saying it targeted the army. "This is a direct targeting of the military institution," former Prime Minister Najib Mikati told a local radio station. No group claimed responsibility for the attack. My guess would be that they're associated with the guys who boomed Damascus...
Six weeks ago a bomb blast hit a bus in the city, Lebanon's second largest, killing 15 people, including 10 soldiers. That attack was the deadliest against the army since a 15-week battle last year against the al-Qaeda-inspired Muslim militants of Fatah al-Islam at a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli that left 400 people dead, including 168 soldiers.
Continuing sectarian violence
Tripoli has been rocked by deadly sectarian violence in recent months. In June and July, 23 people were killed in battles between Sunni Muslim supporters of Siniora and their Damascus-backed rivals from the Alawite community. The fighting focused on the Sunni stronghold of Bab al-Tebbaneh and the mainly Alawite Jabal Mohsen district which are both a short distance from Masarif Street.
There has been tension between the two communities ever since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. Alawites are an offshoot of Shiite Islam and straddle the border into Syria, whose President Bashar al-Assad is a follower of the faith.
Monday's explosion came as Lebanon's rival factions have been working toward resolving their differences following a long-running political crisis that brought the country to the brink of civil war in May. It also took place amid heightened tensions in the region following a weekend bombing which left 17 people dead in the capital of neighboring Syria, Lebanon's former powerbroker.
The official news agency SANA said the attack was the result of a suicide attack by a "terrorist" with links to an Islamist extremist group.
Comments
1 - HASSAN NASRALLAH AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SUNI,DRUZE,CHRISTIANS=LEBANESE [ Monday, September 29, 2008 ]
HASSAN NASRALLAH AGAIN HE JUST WANNA GIVE UP THE LOVE TO SPLIT THE LEBANESE PEOPLE IF HE WANT TO SPLIT SO PLEASE TO TO HELL HASSAN! TO HASSAN NASRALLAH!!!!!WE ARE 4 MIO IN LEBANON WE HAVE ALMOST ALL OF OR COUNTRY SO WHY WILL YOU HAVE ISRAEL/PALÆSTINA??? ISRAEL IS NOT LEBANON LEBANON IS ALL THE 10.452 km2 WE HAVE UR COUNTRY ISRAEL/PÆLASTINA IS THE PÆLASTIANS AND ISRAELS PROBLEM NOT THE LEBANESE PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Some sort of Bizarro Lebanese Joseph Mendiola seems to have inserted a comment into the article itself. Of course, once the mods take it out, this comment will look awfully foolish.
The High Court (HC) yesterday rejected a bail petition filed by Awami League President Sheikh Hasina in an extortion case filed by businessman Noor Ali.
Posted by: Fred ||
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SomaliNet) Witnesses said on Monday that Somali Islamist insurgents attacked African Union peacekeepers and government forces in the capital Mogadishu, and at least four people were killed in the clashes.
According to the witnesses, two civilians and a soldier died in an attack overnight near the presidential palace, Villa Baidoa. "Three people, one of them a Somali government soldier, died near Villa Baidoa when two mortar shells struck buildings," said Hamad Ali Ahmed, a witness.
Meanwhile, another civilian died in crossfire in southern Mogadishu's Holwadag district, bringing the death toll to four. At least seven others were wounded, residents said.
Islamist rebels confirmed they first attacked the base hosting African Union, Somali and Ethiopian troops. "We attacked the bases of Ugandan forces, Ethiopians and the Somali stooges. Five of our men were wounded, but they sustained heavy casualties," Islamist commander Mohamed Mohamud Dulyadeyn told AFP.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Ecuadorans approved by a wide margin Sunday a new constitution that would expand the powers of President Rafael Correa and open the possibility that he could serve a decade in office.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#1
It worked so well for Venezuela. The milk lines there are only because of the global milk shortage.
#2
I don't think that voting to take away money from the middle class and wealthy, to give to the poor, works when the middle class and wealthy don't want to have their money taken away.
#3
How come, without exception, politicians who pander to the poor rip them off the worst? You'd think the poor dumb bastards would wise up after a while. But they don't, they fall for it every time. I'm beginning to think liberals have a different brain physiology than conservatives.
#1
Interesting --- our current Sec of State is an attractive women (who can ever forget that pic of her in "These Boots are Made for Walking" moment) who has been meeting with these guys for years....
Could it be, that Sarah is already into their OODA loop?
#6
Well, Zardari looks like a typical dirty old man to me. These guys from over there see all women as objects--meat for their own moral decadence. OF COURSE they don't see her as an equal or statesman. And they never will. It's a cultural thing. No Judeo-Christian influence, so they do whatever. Their criticizers are correct. He was inappropriate. And we expected something different from Pakistan. THANK GOD he didn't actually hug her--both for her sake and for the payback of the crazies. But I still think he's a dirty old man, and he doesn't even TRY to hide it.
At least six people have been killed and 80 others injured in two suspected bomb blasts in two neighboring states of western India. Two mysterious blasts on Monday night at around 9.30 pm killed four people and injured 70 others near a mosque in Malegaon town of the Maharashtra state, local media reports said. The explosion took place when Ramadan special prayers were being offered in all mosques across the town. The wounded were rushed to the nearby Noor and Faran Hospitals, witnesses said.
The situation was tense around Malegaon after the blasts and police had to fire in the air to control the situation, sources said. Curfew was imposed in the eastern part of the town after the blasts and stone-pelting by a mob.
This is the second time that Malegaon has been hit by explosions. Earlier, on September 8, 2006, four bombs had been planted on bicycles and went off in the textile town, killing 31 and injuring 297 others.
In a separate incident, two were killed and ten others injured in an explosion in Modassa town in the neighboring state of Gujarat. Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah told NDTV that there has been no prior intelligence about the blast. Gujarat's commercial capital Ahmedabad had been hit by a string of 16 bombs on July 27 that killed 45 and injured over 160.
Police in Ahmedabad had also announced Monday they had found 17 "crude explosive devices" dumped in rubbish. The incidents come after Indian government recently unveiled new security measures to tackle what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said were "vast gaps" in intelligence gathering on home-grown militancy.
Several other Indian cities -- Jaipur, Bangalore and New Delhi -- have been hit by serial bombings since May, also claimed by the Indian militants.
India has been hit by several waves of bombings in recent years. Targets have ranged from mosques and Hindu temples to trains and courthouses. More than 450 people have died in separate attacks since October 2005, according to an official count.
Posted by: Fred ||
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An Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) investigation into the Tk 2.10 crore embezzlement case against BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, her elder son Tarique Rahman and five other people has found enough evidence against the accused.
Posted by: Fred ||
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A crew member aboard a hijacked Ukrainian ship has died, as Somalia pirates who seized the vessel transporting weapons to Kenya said the vessel has been surrounded by three foreign warships.
Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the East Africa Seafarers' Association, said the crew member died of natural causes but confirmed that the remaining 20 others are safe. "One of the crew members died on Sunday. We confirmed that he was sick but the remaining crew are safe," Mwangura told Xinhua by telephone on Monday.
Somali news portals quoted Abdi Salan Khalif, commissioner of the coastal town of Harardhere, Somalia, as saying the pirates told town elders the man died of problems relating to high blood pressure.
Khalif said the pirates, who were communicating with the elders and the U.S. Navy by radio, reported they were holding the crew in a hot part of the ship.
Mwangura said the weapons in the Belize-flagged MV Faina vessel carrying an authorized Ukrainian government arms shipment appear to belong to south Sudan, which is barred from arms sales under a 2005 U.N.-brokered peace deal. "One of the cargo arrived at the port of Mombasa in October last year, two in February this year. The seized load of 33 Russian-built T-72 tanks and some ammunition was the fourth cargo with military equipment for southern Sudan," Mwangura said.
But the Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua said pirates are spreading what he called "alarming propaganda" that the seized weapons do not belong to Kenya's armed forces. "There have been alarming propaganda by the pirates to media that the weapons are not for the Kenyan military. This, is a tactic by the terrorists to try and fend off reprisals against them," said Mutua.
"The Kenyan government will not engage in answering back to terrorists who have hijacked important military equipment paid for by the Kenyan tax payer for use by the Kenyan Military," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Was the ship carrying a load of toxic paper from Wall Street?
(Xinhua) -- At least three civilians were injured in an explosion happened in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, the military said on Monday. Military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said that a minor explosion occurred in a public car park in the Colombo fort at around 12:30 p.m. local time (0630 GMT). A small quantity of explosives placed in the rear of a stationary van had caused the explosion, the military spokesman said, adding that six vehicles were also partly damaged.
He said that Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels was blamed on the attack. Hector Weerasinghe, the Director of the National Hospital, said that all three admitted after the explosion were having minor injuries.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#1
Sugule Ali: "It is true we are surrounded by three foreign military vessels and there are some others we can see [in the] distance," he said.
"We are not afraid of their presence that will not make us to abandon the ship or to refrain from asking the money.
"There is no shortage of food supply and all the crew members are healthy and well including ours."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*You Little Rag Head Are Living On Borrowed Time.!*
#3
Keep 'em concentrating on those warships, while we slip in a dozen or so BUFFs making a run across their home port. Let's see how popular they are after that.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/30/2008 11:56
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#4
Old Patriot
Oh How I wish we could FOR ONCE really show these pecker-woods what sheer terror is..
AND VIDEO TAPE THE WHOLE THING WITH AT LEAST 5 CAMERAS;
1) 1 camera: aerial overhead,
2) 2nd camera: 1/2 mile away on the ground,
3) And every other camera twain the two!
If Muslim Terrorists are, as they are quick to whine about now, loosing sleep in Wazoo Country because of a few Predators flying overhead..
then..
These Somali Pirate's future ancestors will still be shaking in their sandals over that BUFF STRIKE IN Somali!
:)
The Iraqi government on Monday said it will allow doctors to carry guns in self-defense, pledging that they will not be detained during security operations. "Stick 'em up!... Higher!... Now stick out your tongue!... Further!... Now say 'aaaah'!"
The cabinet agreed to grant weapons permits to doctors in the light of the killing by insurgents of a large number of professional people since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. "The cabinet decided to allow each doctor to carry one weapon to defend himself," the statement said. Doctors will not be detained during security operations unless the health ministry has been informed.
In a move seen as an attempt to prevent the emigration of skilled people, the government is also offering better housing for doctors and a review of taxes imposed on professionals, the statement said.
In July, Iraqi doctors in the southern oil city of Basra staged demonstrations demanding better protection for them after a colleague was kidnapped in the region.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
How do you tell the difference between Dr. Death and Dr. Good at a checkpoint? In Basra, it seems to me that anyone not having self protection is vulnerable to kidnap and slaughter. How about carry licences issued to people who pass background checks? It might shake up the bad guys to know that they could get killed by anyone in a crowd. Works in our cities. Might work in Basra.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/30/2008 10:05
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#2
i thought everyone in Iraq carried weapons anyway
Israel on Monday condemned the renewed Iranian-backed Arab effort to isolate it at a UN atomic watchdog assembly. Arab League states prepared to table a resolution called "Israel's nuclear capabilities" urging all Middle East states not to test or develop atom bombs and not to stand in the way of a regional nuclear-free zone.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#6
Yes. Thanks Fred. We owe you a debt of gratitude. This does help get the non-stop pictures of those other two gals Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank out of my head.
#7
Going to a funeral, Martha? No? Just like to wear black, huh? Well, black looks good on you. 'Course, most anything else or even nothing much at all would look good on you, too.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/30/2008 10:59
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(AKI/Dawn) - Pakistan's Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani visited the troubled Bajaur tribal region bordering Afghanistan, where 15 militants were killed on Sunday.
Troops backed by helicopter gunships and air force planes targeted militant hideouts in Rashakai, Tang Khatta, Bicheena, and other locations at the weekend. There were no immediate reports of military casualties.
Officials said that over the past month, up to 1,000 militants, including some top Al-Qaeda and Taliban 'commanders', had been killed in battles in Bajaur. Clashes were reported in Charmang, Bicheena and Delay areas where the militants had regrouped and hundreds of them attacked a number of military posts on Saturday. Troops repelled the attacks using artillery and mortar fire.
Early on Sunday, the militants attacked some security outposts but were forced to retreat. Helicopter gunships and planes shelled militant hideouts, destroying their key positions, sources said.
The army chief visited the region and met commanders and troops engaged in the operation. He also met a 30-member jirga or tribal meeting of Tarkhani and Utmankhel tribes in Khar.
Kayani praised the role of tribal elders who had opposed the militants and said that the tribal people had always fought shoulder to shoulder with the army to protect the borders of the country. Addressing the jirga, Kayani expressed satisfaction with the tribesmen's support for the troops in their operation to root out militancy and eradicate them in their region.
The army chief said the militants were enemies of Islam, Pakistan and the people, adding that they were against the economic development of the region. The militants, he said, were attacking not only security forces and government installations but were also attacking girls' schools and health centres.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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An Afghan policeman opened fire on US troops inside a police station in eastern Afghanistan, killing an American soldier and wounding several other people, officials said on Monday. US soldiers subsequently killed the policeman. The shooting took place on Sunday in Paktia province. Paktia provincial police chief Gen Esmatullah Alizai confirmed that a policeman had shot an American soldier.
A statement from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) issued on Monday said that an 'altercation' took place in the station. "While at the district centre, there was an altercation during which an ANP (Afghan National Police) officer and one ISAF soldier were killed," the statement said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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(PTI) New Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has said that he intends to "go after Taliban and other radical forces in his country" as well as "handle" powerful bodies like the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). "It is my decision that we will go after them (Taliban), we will free this country," Zardari said, asserting that this will be his first priority, "because I will have no country otherwise. I will be President of what?"
Labelling Taliban and other radical forces as a "cancer in the society", Pakistan President minced no words to say "I will suck the oxygen out of their system so there will be no Talibs."
Asked if the assassination of his wife was motivating him to confront Islamic militancy, he said, "Of course. It is my revenge. I take it every day." "I will fight them because they are the cancer to my society, not because of my wife only but because they are cancer, Yes and they did kill the mother of my children, so their way of life is what I want to kill."
Asked if he was afraid, 53-year-old Zardari, in an interview to the New York Times, said, "I'm concerned. I'm not afraid. Because I don't want to die so soon, I have a job to do." The paper said that Zardari had a tough job ahead as "if Pakistan was the most dangerous country in the world, its Presidency is one of the world's least enviable post."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#1
Revenge, that's a motive the Pastuns can understand.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/30/2008 10:18
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BJP's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani on Monday condemned attacks on Christians and churches in Orissa and Karnataka.
"I strongly condemn such acts of violence and vandalism. It cannot be justified. The law must take its course and culprits brought to justice," he told reporters in Guwahati.
Advani pledged to ask the BJP-ruled states to ensure there were no more attacks on Christians. Advani, who was in the Pine City to address a rally, assured this to Archbishop of Shillong Dominic Jala during a meeting with Christian leaders in Shillong.
"I had a fruitful meeting with Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Buddhist leaders in Shillong. I utilized the opportunity to comment on the recent incidents (killing of Christians and attacks on churches) in parts of Orissa and Karnataka," Advani said in Guwahati.
He said inter-religious dialogue should be initiated to strengthen the bond of "Indianness". "The inter-religious dialogue should be frank and constructive. Let people belonging to all religious groups consciously strengthen the bonds of Indianness that tie us together," he said.
"Advani promised us that he would persuade the BJP-ruled states to stop the violence against Christians," Jala told reporters after his meeting with Advani in Shillong.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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Here is documentation that irrefutably chains Barack Obama to the most odious leftist movements in the United States today. Furthermore, it presents conclusive evidence that Obama not only knows of, but has participated in promotion of the Left's apocalyptic strategy of destruction for the United States: the Cloward-Piven Strategy of manufactured crisis. Don't miss the flow chart!
In an earlier post, I noted the liberal record of unmitigated legislative disasters, the latest of which is now being played out in the financial markets before our eyes. Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress - with substantial majorities most of the time. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?
#4
You know better than that, lotp. Remember your friends in the U.S. military. We don't have any better friends--and those who wish our country ill, be they foreign or domestic, have no worse enemy. We'll come through this and be stronger for the experience.
To use a science fiction term, think Butlerian Jihad. It may be a hell of a fight but when it's over there will be no hiding for the enemy. They've been hiding in plain sight for decades. That's coming to an end.
#5
The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" is the kind of thing that starts a Rwanda style massacre. The far left WILL drive us to ruin if they are not subdued. I cannot believe that ~50% or more of the country stands ready to make it happen on Nov. 4th. Truly astonishing.
#6
ACORN is very, very busy working their voter strategy in the highly contested states. The early "absentee" program, concentrated on college students in Ohio may reap a hundred thousand votes for The Messiah.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#1
Rescue plan for you and your Goldman pals, or for the rest of us? Please tell us why Goldman and Morgan Stanley should not go the way of Lehman, again?
Posted by: tep ||
09/30/2008 6:49
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#2
Don't think, just sign?
Is that what he's saying?
Just like a car dealer.
#4
yeah - we need a rescue plan before the market recovers and shows the 'end-of-the-world crisis' to be a simple(and oh-so-badly-needed) 'correction'.
#8
Washington mandated "affordable housing" with Fannie and Freddie repurchasing the resulting sub prime loans. It is good and proper that Fannie and Freddie have been bailed out. The issue today is that investment banks, powered by their own greed, who retained some of the high yielding but ultimately worthless paper are also going under.
To hell with them. But I do worry about the follow on cascade of those who invested in those who invested in them.
Is the bailout of Fannie/Freddie in addition to the Federal Reserve(remember them?) pumping liquidity into the market enough to keep a total meltdown from occurring? I don't think ANYBODY knows.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
09/30/2008 10:48
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#9
Ya know, I hear y'all. But if in fact the credit markets seize up for months there may well be a whole lot of small businesses that go under as a result, jobs that go away and families that lose the results of decades of hard work.
#11
If money can be made from loaning money, money will be made. Been that way for quite some time. The... to whom is the only question. If you are not CONFIDENT in your ability to get a loan, the system may not be the problem.
#12
Why is it that the presidential race had three polls per day, but the only marker on the popularity of the bailout is Representatives - both d and r - in contended districts overwhelmingly voted against the bailout?
CrazyFool, that is my feeling exactly. I lack confidence in a congress which could not see this crises coming (or did and didn't care) is going to within a week fix a decade of bad decisions; wall street and congress - Many of these companies actively lobbied to not fix the problem like someone diagnosed with emphysema and chooses to keep smoking as to sue the tobacco business and does not quit smoking. Throwing money at a problem without fixing the reasons for the problem makes as much sense to me as fixing a cracked bathtub by just adding more water.
What was that story, oh maybe a year ago or something, about the economic professor volunteering his time in order to teach econ 101 to all members of congress?
End the requirement of banks to make bad loans and the small and medium banks who have had to make smart business decisions in order to compete with the larger banks fill in the gaps.
We got a running pool out here for how much it will cost (if a bailout passes). I have five bucks on $2 trln by end of 4th quarter. Unfortunately if I'm right that $5 bet will only seem like a $3 bet.
#13
"End the requirement of banks to make bad loans and the small and medium banks who have had to make smart business decisions in order to compete with the larger banks fill in the gaps."
It is my understanding that Washington, though Fannie and Freddie, repurchased the sub prime paper from small and medium banks, but that large investment banks retained some of the bad paper for their own portfolios, attracted by the high yield note rates.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
09/30/2008 11:07
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#14
Bullshit.
SOME bailouts may be needed, but we sure as hell don't need to save every twit that bought their way to bankruptcy. $700 billion is way to much, and not targeted enough.
#16
I can see where your coming from lopd - we cannot forget the human aspect of the problem.
But I think that perhaps a lot more business might end if the market is not _allowed_ to correct itself - if we just slap on yet-another-patch on yet-another-crutch to prop up a seriously ill market. And if we don't fix the stupid 'you must use preditory lending practices ' Act (otherwise known as the 'Community Reinvestment Act').
In short the market might just have to vomit to get better...
#17
if in fact the credit markets seize up for months there may well be a whole lot of small businesses that go under as a result, jobs that go away... Those businesses & jobholders might be worthy recipients of a bailout from the Fed -- which is already authorized to do that in an emergency.
#18
Correct Besoeker. This was driven first and foremost by the CBC desire to provide affordable housing to their constituents. (Welfare without the name) But the original legislation was passed back in 1995 when, IIRC the REPUBLICANS held majorities in congress. As such, the affordable housing/sub prime mortgage bubble was the ultimate fault of Washington as a whole. We elect the fools and now it's time to pay the piper.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
09/30/2008 11:37
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#19
Bloomberg Radio just reported both McCain & Obama want the FDIC to increase its coverage on deposits to $250,000. Sounds like a winner to me. Also make sure there is no doubt on full funding for the FDIC for the bank failures & closures which will be happening. Many banks are insolvent & have been shuckin' & jivin' about it.
#20
So let me see. The government has already injected billions into the market to help bailout AIG, Fannie and Freddie. There are probably others not included on the list. Additionally, the FBI is investigating failed bank IndyMac Bancorp Inc. for possible fraud. Countrywide Financial Corp., formerly the nationÂ’s largest mortgage lender and now owned by Bank of America Corp., is also under scrutiny. Bush's Secretary of Treasury injected another 150 B into the market in the last couple of days.
We are asked to trust all these people. Congress is largely the problem. Time to clean house in Washington. All House members are up for re-election and so is part of the Senate.
Dow is up triple digits today. It seems like the markets do pretty well if not meddled with by Washington. Manufactured crisis?
#22
Providing "affordable housing" was just a placebo motive for the Housing Bubble. The bubble's real effect on housing was to make it less affordable, and it succeeded in that very well. The sub-slime mortgages ginned up in the Housing Bubble were really not affordable, as shown by the home loaners so affected being foreclosed on. 30-year fixed rate mortgages to creditworthy buyers was what FNMA provided for between 1938-1998, and that worked quite well to provide truly affordable housing.
#23
True but irrelevant Anguper. Congress responded to a constituent need. All the problems are just the MAN keeping you down. And the media has their back on this. Fully.
*spit*
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
09/30/2008 12:03
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#24
Some reasons why Democrats voted against the bailout.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/30/2008 12:59
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#25
Sen Tom Coburn, not exactly a flaming liberal, issued a statement today saying
Taxpayers deserve to know that there is no guarantee this plan will work, but there is a guarantee that we will face a financial catastrophe if we do nothing. If banks continue to fail and stop lending the average American could lose their job, be unable to secure a loan for a car, home or college education, and find their life savings and retirement in jeopardy. Our economy depends on having liquid assets available for credit and lending just as an automobile engine needs oil. If those liquid assets stop flowing, our economy will be seriously damaged and will require far more costly and lengthy repairs.”
“This bill does not represent a new and sudden departure from free market principles as much as it represents an emergency response to congressional actions that have ignored free market principles, and our Constitution, for decades. If anyone in Washington should offer their resignation it should be the members of Congress who peddled the fantasy of free home ownership without risk. No institution in our country is more responsible for the myth or borrowing without consequences than the United States Congress.”
I'm not sure everyone here is sensitive to just how bad things could get quickly.
#27
I just checked my bank's loan rates, which as of this afternoon were quite reasonable. I'm sure that if their liquidity was tapped out they'd charge what the market could bear. It may be that with the Fannie/Freddie bailout, FDIC protections, Federal Reserve pumping liquidity and a trillion in SS checks going out each year etc, the underpinnings are already in place to support the American banking system.
The benefits of the Paulson rescue plan (as opposed to the overall government lending) may be mostly psychological at this point. A "we're in charge and we will take care of you" while the heavy lifting (and most of the expense) have already been done.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
09/30/2008 14:31
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#28
So there's 2,000,000 houses about to be foreclosed on ready to tank the price of housing. How to deal with this problem? Find 2,000,000 new home owners.
Where do we find 2,000,000 new home owners?
I suggest an auction of 2,000,000 green cards to college educated adults who promise to move to the US and buy a house within 12 months without respect to country of origin, minimum bid $100,000.
#30
Here is my issue - if the engine is busted adding more oil not just deals with the symptoms and not the actual problem, it could cause more damage by covering up the symptom and creating false belief that everything is ok. They want a bailout, then fix the underlying problem and dissolve every entity and congressional power associated with this trespass of government power and spending then talk liquid cash bailout options (pouring oil on top of the engine dont help either, which knowing this congress is what they are going to do - "see I added oil!"). Otherwise its just gobs of bluish smoke coming out the tailpipe.
What nobody has been able to clarify to me is that if nothing is down the economy takes it for a couple of years; if something is done the economy takes if for a couple of years - so why get more of this omnipitant government interference. To me, Wall Street et al whoever spent lobby money on congresscritters are just as responsible as the a-holes who took the money so now they pay for their dishonesty. I probably will not be immune to the market forces (just started own business 2 weeks ago, yippee!) but I want to know what I will be dealing with after 6 months is for real and not some cushioned economy which collapses again.
Coming down the pipe is SS and Medicare so maybe somebody should start dealing with this now instead of after the barn catches fire, hmmm? (I know President Bush already tried to get people's attention on this)
#32
Simple answer to Paulson: DON'T DEBASE THE CURRENCY! If the bailout doesn't get passed, some institutions are going to take a hit. So are some innocents. That's bad for the folks who didn't deserve it. Debase the currency and WE ALL take a hit. A HUGE ONE. For me there's no question which is worse.
#34
Anybody here know why the banks gained soo much today?? Wachovia was up 90%, over 400mil shares and AIG was up about 33%, over 100mil shares.
All 25 NYSE top gainers were banking categories..
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
09/30/2008 19:56
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#35
#34 Anybody here know why the banks gained soo much today?? Wachovia was up 90%, over 400mil shares and AIG was up about 33%, over 100mil shares. All 25 NYSE top gainers were banking categories..
(1.) Hank Paulson's nose is growing daily and the scare tactics are failing.
(2.) Banks are crawling out from under the Gov't pressure to lend to risky, undeserving borrowers.
#36
Conspiracy theory here, fellow R'burgers, please comment. The oligarchists run this country. Just suppose all this recent activity has been staged.
Pelosi was to make sure the bill didn't pass so she made that blame speech on R's, GWB. What's GWB care anyway, he's lame(duck). The bailout is really a tax inrrease on those who can afford it.
I'm not so sure what is in the bill, but I'm sure its totally unfeaseable given the lack of time given for review. I think Nancy, amongst others, got her AIG losses back today. Thanks, Hank, your a genious.
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
09/30/2008 20:44
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#37
Wachovia was up 90%, over 400mil shares
Strokes chin: "interesting"
(AKI) - Syrian authorities said on Monday that a suicide bomber with links to a militant Islamist organisation was responsible for the bomb attack that killed 17 people and injured 14 others in Damascus. Oh, y'mean it wasn't the Mossad and the CIA? Don't tell me we have someone competent manning the Middle East desk at Langley ...
The bomber entered Syria in a vehicle from a neighbouring Arab country the day before the blast, said the state-run news agency SANA on Monday. The report did not state from which country he had come. My guess would be Iraq, maybe possibly Jordan. What would yours be?
Syria shares borders with Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel. The 220 kilogrammes of explosives were reportedly packed in a large sports utility vehicle and detonated by the suicide bomber who had links to the 'Takfiri' ideology of Islam, some members of which were arrested earlier, claims SANA. The Takfiri ideology reportedly urges Sunni muslims to kill anyone who is thought to be an infidel or one who renounces his faith. My guess, on no more evidence than that, would be remnants of Zarqawi's al-Tawhid...
The explosion took place at the junction between Damascus international airport and a popular Shia shrine frequented by Iranians, Iraqis and Lebanese, called Sayyida Zeinab. The blast was the deadliest in Syria since the 1980's by Islamist militants and was the third major attack this year.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2008
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#1
Red on red. Looks good to me.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/30/2008 9:57
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#2
Feel free to have a Pan Arab war. But keep it to yourselves.
#2
Don't worry, the Dhimmicrats will modify the Community Reinvestment Act to include any distressed areas in Somalia. That will let the pirates apply for a 0% down, seller-financed mortgage on the ship. Fannie Mae will guarantee it. Lehman Brothers will securitize it. AIG will insure the security. I mean, what could go wrong?
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/30/2008 0:25
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#3
What goes wrong is they do not have lending power. Old wolves demolish the pittance, Moral Hazard ensues, The US Government has an immediate bill to pay for it's reckless use of regulation.
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Pirates holding a Ukrainian ship laden with tanks and weapons claimed Tuesday they were celebrating the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr despite being surrounded by American warships and helicopters. They also denied a report of a shootout aboard the seized ship.
"We are happy on the ship and we are celebrating Eid," pirate spokesman Sugule Ali told The Associated Press by satellite phone. "Nothing has changed."
Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program said there was an unconfirmed report that three Somali pirates were killed Monday night in a dispute over whether to surrender, but he said he had not spoken to any witnesses.
But the pirate spokesman insisted that was not true."We didn't dispute over a single thing, let alone have a shootout," Ali told the AP.
There was no way to independently verify either account. The U.S. 5th Fleet also said it had no new information to report Tuesday on the six-day standoff.
#5
"We are happy on the ship and we are celebrating Eid," pirate spokesman Sugule Ali told The Associated Press by satellite phone. "Nothing has changed."
#11
Pray they aen't smart enough to fire a tank main gun, if yes, they're all smart fish food.
(Chum, if that large, more like a fine mist mixed with steel chunks.)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/30/2008 19:36
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"Some supporters of the package are of the view that the package is necessary in order to prevent economic disruptions. They mean by this that various phony activities should be kept alive by wealth generators for a little bit longer until a proper system is established. By "proper," they mean more controls.
For a while, the government's package can appear to be working; this is because there is still enough real savings to support both profitable and unprofitable activities. If, however, savings and capital are shrinking, nothing is going to help, and the real economy will follow up with further declines.
Hence the rescue package cannot prevent so-called economic disruptions. If anything, government intervention would make these disruptions much worse. Again, a better alternative is to let the market do the job. The market's ability to make swift adjustments without much drama was vividly illustrated only a few weeks ago when the very large investment bank, Lehman Brothers, was allowed to go belly up. The world did not come to an end. Instead, this was a healthy development. A money loser was eliminated from the market. This freed up resources to promote growth.
One could have made the case that when Lehman was on the brink it was too big to fail -- assets of $639 billion and employing over 26,000 people. Yet in a few days the market, once allowed to do the job, reallocated the good pieces of Lehman to various buyers and the bad parts have vanished. It was poetry."
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
09/30/2008
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#1
An interesting post at Instapundit by Glen Reynolds and also on KnoxNews.com
Posted by Katie Allison Granju on September 30, 2008
If Americans really want change in Washington, and improvement in the mean-spirited and debilitating partisan malaise that seems to have settled over our Congress, then we need to start with working to get rid of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Our House of Representatives - and we - deserve better.
...and a few more should go too. Well there is Nov. 4th!
#2
Seen government handle natural disaster relief.
Seen government handle finances.
Ain't no way I want to see how government handles health care.
Like a bunch of monkeys got into the grape juice plus and trying to fly a helicopter. "Hey, hows the collective stick?" "Pretty good schtick made lots of money - pass that barrel back around!"
#1
The bar owner seems like a typical liberal piece of foulmouthed trash. Think a minor-league Larry Flynt and you've got the idea. He admits he painted the picture of Palin using his adult daughter as the nude model.
I'm fairly certain that not ALL Democrat Party members are criminals and perverts. The problem is that all of them I encounter are one or the other, or both. It's truly worrisome to think there are so many depraved people in the U.S.
#2
Let's see if he helps or hurts the Palin vote in Chicago. My guess is that some of the bums will vote for her. Can't help themselves. Probably good for business, though. Makes me rethink our libel laws for public figures.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/30/2008 8:37
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#3
Look at the picture, it's not exactly what I'd call a masterpiece.
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.
Thousands of pilgrims panicked by false rumors of a bomb stampeded at a Hindu temple in western India on Tuesday, killing at least 168 people in the crush to escape.
A Russian research ship trawling the Arctic off Siberia's northeastern coast has found huge amounts of methane bubbling up from the seafloor, according to reports in London's Independent newspaper and the Canadian Press wire service.
If there's still room under the bus where Barack Obama throws his discards - his white granny, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, William Ayres, Bernadine Dohrn and even Hillary Clinton - that's the right place for Nancy Pelosi. 
Katie Allison Granju, knoxnews.com
BAGHDAD -- First Lt. Justin John, 6-foot-4 and built like a linebacker, plopped down on a sofa in front of Ibrahim Suleiman al-Zoubaidi, one of the leaders of the mainly Sunni armed groups that have helped the U.S. military quell violence in Iraq since last year. 
BRITAIN'S MI6 intelligence service is investigating how a camera holding sensitive information about al-Qaeda suspects came to be lost by one of its agents, Hertfordshire Police said today.
A bomb blast killed a man outside a compact disc (CD) shop near a federal minister's house on Monday. According to details, the blast occurred outside Maqsoud CDs shop in Chatto Chowk near the residence of Federal Minister Khawaja Muhammad Khan Hoti. The blast also destroyed the CD shop and two other shops nearby. Police later found a mutilated body near the spot. It was beyond identification. 
The Ukrainian cargo vessel, Faina which was hijacked by Somali pirates on Thursday has been surrounded by US warships and helicopters. 
The U.S. Navy bolstered its force of warships off Somalia on Monday, intensifying its watch over Somali pirates holding a hijacked Ukrainian-operated vessel with crew members, arms and tanks aboard. 
At least 52 Somalis died after smugglers abandoned them on a boat in the dangerous waters of the Gulf of Aden, the U.N. refugee agency said Sunday. Seventy-one people survived the 18-day ordeal. 
(AKI) - The 19 hostages, including five German and five Italian tourists, who were abducted in southern Egypt over a week ago were freed on Monday and flown to Cairo. The hostages who were kidnapped in Egypt's Western Desert ten days ago arrived in Cairo aboard a military aircraft following their rescue. Egyptian officials and foreign diplomats welcomed the 11 tourists - five Italians, five Germans and a Romanian woman - along with the eight Egyptians from their tour group, after their arrival at a military airport in the capital.
(AKI) - Three suspected members of Al-Qaeda, including a leading operative, were killed in a raid conducted by Iraqi army forces outside Baaquba, north of Baghdad on Monday. The raid, reported by the news agency Voices of Iraq, came after a dramatic resurgence of violence in Iraq at the weekend.
BAGHDAD - US authorities have freed 2,404 detainees in the four weeks of Ramadan, the American military said on Monday, still short of the 3,000 they promised to release during the Muslim fasting month. Releases accelerated in the past week as 955 were freed, compared to a total of 1,449 for the first three weeks of Ramadan, the military said in a statement.
In a major reshuffle in the Pakistan Army, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director General Lt Gen Nadeem Taj has been replaced by newly promoted Lt Gen Ahmed Shujaa Pasha.
(AKI) - A suicide blast in an Algerian village has killed at least three soldiers and wounded six others, reported Algerian state media on Monday.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil prices tumbled more than $10 a barrel Monday, dropping back below $100 as a U.S. financial bailout failed to win legislative approval, raising fears of a prolonged economic downturn that could drastically erode global energy demand. Light, sweet crude for November delivery sank $10.52, or 9.8 percent, to settle at $96.36 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier dropping as low as $95.04.
An Afghan ex-diplomat says the US supplies arms to the Taliban to jeopardize the security situation and have an excuse to stay in Afghanistan. 
(AKI) - About 20,000 people have fled fighting in Pakistan's tribal areas and sought refuge in eastern Afghanistan in recent months, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said on Monday. "In the last two weeks alone, over 600 Pakistani families have fled into Afghanistan," Mohammed Nadir Farhad, the UN refugee agency's spokesman, told the media in Kabul. "The majority are living with their relatives and friends, but there are some 200 families who live in the open air."
At least six people have been killed and 80 others injured in two suspected bomb blasts in two neighboring states of western India. Two mysterious blasts on Monday night at around 9.30 pm killed four people and injured 70 others near a mosque in Malegaon town of the Maharashtra state, local media reports said. The explosion took place when Ramadan special prayers were being offered in all mosques across the town. The wounded were rushed to the nearby Noor and Faran Hospitals, witnesses said. 
An Afghan policeman opened fire on US troops inside a police station in eastern Afghanistan, killing an American soldier and wounding several other people, officials said on Monday. US soldiers subsequently killed the policeman. The shooting took place on Sunday in Paktia province. Paktia provincial police chief Gen Esmatullah Alizai confirmed that a policeman had shot an American soldier. 
Here is documentation that irrefutably chains Barack Obama to the most odious leftist movements in the United States today. Furthermore, it presents conclusive evidence that Obama not only knows of, but has participated in promotion of the Left's apocalyptic strategy of destruction for the United States: the Cloward-Piven Strategy of manufactured crisis. Don't miss the flow chart!
(AKI) - Syrian authorities said on Monday that a suicide bomber with links to a militant Islamist organisation was responsible for the bomb attack that killed 17 people and injured 14 others in Damascus.
