Canadas federal government has officially backed a private members bill seeking to repeal a controversial hate speech provision that has been used to prosecute Christians and other conservatives for years.
In response to a question on Wednesday by Conservative MP Brian Storseth (Westlock-St. Paul, AB), who introduced the bill to repeal section 13 of the Canada Human Rights Act on September 30, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson signaled what is likely the clauses death knell.
The ruling Conservatives have a sizeable majority in both houses and the bill is also expected to draw some support from the opposition benches.
Our government believes that section 13 is not an appropriate or effective means for combatting hate propaganda. We believe the Criminal Code is the best vehicle to prosecute these crimes, he told the House of Commons during Question Period.
I say to the opposition, get on side with the media, he continued. Macleans magazine, the National Post and even the Toronto Star say this section should go.
Critics have long argued that the clause creates the precise equivalent to a thought crime. The controversial clause prohibits any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt if the person or persons affected are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.
The section has been repeatedly used to target Christians and conservatives, particularly those who hold traditional Christian views on homosexuality.
It has faced a groundswell of opposition in recent years, largely due to the high profile cases brought against conservative publisher Ezra Levant and columnist Mark Steyn, over their criticisms of Islamic extremism.
Politicians derive power from the authority of their office and their access to our tax dollars, and they use that power to enrich and shield themselves. The money-making opportunities for politicians are myriad...This call for real reform must transcend political parties. The grass-roots movements of the right and the left should embrace this. The tea party's mission has always been opposition to waste and crony capitalism, and the Occupy protesters must realize that Washington politicians have been "Occupying Wall Street" long before anyone pitched a tent in Zuccotti Park.
#3
True enuff - the "Spend Spend Spend" never stopped even though the percentage point kept steadily inching closer-N-closer to 100% Debt-to-GDP, i.e. SCREW OUR OWN CEILINGS, SPEND IT WHILE WE HAVE IT JUST BECAUSE WE CAN.
Now that the above ratio is over 100% + steadily climbing, ITS STILL "SPEND SPEND SPEND" BECAUSE WE HAVE NO CHOICE - the answer to spending is more spending, the answer to national bankruptcy is more bankruptcy.
A second experiment at the European facility that reported subatomic particles zooming faster than the speed of light stunning the world of physics has reached the same result, scientists said late Thursday.
The positive outcome of the [second] test makes us more confident in the result, said Fernando Ferroni, president of the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics, in a statement released late Thursday. Ferroni is one of 160 physicists involved in the international collaboration known as OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion Tracking Apparatus) that performed the experiment.
While the second experiment has made an important test of consistency of its result, Ferroni added, a final word can only be said by analogous measurements performed elsewhere in the world.
That is, more tests are needed, and on other experimental setups. There is still a large crowd of skeptical physicists who suspect that the original measurement done in September was an error.
#1
100 years of physics right out the window. My suspicions are confirmed. When they fired up the LHC it created a worm hole to an alternate universe where socialism is acceptable and logic is counter to good order. Now these goings on in life today make sense.
[Al Ahram] In a speech following Friday prayers in Qatar's capital Doha, Egyptian sheikh Yusef El-Qaradawi ...crackpot Egyptian Islamist theologian. He is best known for his program Shariah and Life on Al Jizz, with an estimated audience of 60 million kindred souls worldwide. He is also well-known for IslamOnline, which occasionally advocates things like slavery and thumping the old lady with a rod no thicker than an inch. Joe has published more than 120 books, including Islam: The Future Civilization. Joe has long had a prominent role within the intellectual leadership of the Moslem Brüderbund. Some of Joes's views have been controversial in the West, though not so much in the Mysterious East, and he was refused entry to the United Kingdom in 2008. In 2004, 2,500 Mohammedan academics from Soddy Arabia, Iraq and from the Palestinian territories condemned Qaradawi, and accused him of giving Islam a bad name.... highlighted the importance of quick presidential elections after the parliamentary polls in Egypt, adding that the military council should not prolong the transition period.
Qaradawi stressed in his speech that no one should have authority over the Egyptian people, not even the military council, adding that there should be no supra-constitutional principles and that the parliament has the right to set the constitution, and everyone else should abide with what the parliament decides.
In his speech Qaradawi referred to Egypt's demonstrations in Tahrir Square, describing it as the place where Egyptians go to make their voices heard, adding that "there are some who are deaf so cannot hear and dumb so they cannot understand." He urged Egyptians to vote for those who are just and honest, and not to give their voices to some just because they are rich or famous.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
11:46 ||
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On the eve of the Occupy Wall Street protests, its useful to take a look at its legacy. There are plenty of ways to measure the depravity that weve seen during the past several months, but its simplest to focus on the following themes: arrests, assaults, death and disease plus the financial burden that the rest of the country has to shoulder in order to clean it all up:
Number of arrests: 3,621 (via Occupy Arrests)
Number of deaths: 4 one murder, one suicide, one suspected drug overdose and one mystery.
Number of sexual assaults: At least seven that have been reported to police. And there are signs that many may have gone unreported.
Number of contagious outbreaks: Seven, including tuberculosis, ring worm, Parvo, scabies, respiratory sickness, head and body lice, and fleas.
Cost of Occupation: At least $12,625,000. Thats just including the latest police and/or cleanup estimates from the following cities that have released the information: Oakland, New York City, Portland, L.A., Philadelphia, Seattle, Boston and Denver. The actual numbers from the other cities, public service costs, and business costs not included could, and probably will, end up making this much higher.
Now its up to public officials to make sure those numbers dont continue to rise.
The Cable has obtained the document (pdf) at the center of the "memo-gate" controversy, sent allegedly from the highest echelons of Pakistain's civilian leadership to Adm. Michael Mullen in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden. The memo offered to reshape Pakistan's national security leadership, cleaning house of elements within the powerful military and intelligence agencies that have supported Islamic radicals and the Taliban, drastically altering Pakistani foreign policy -- and requesting U.S. help to avoid a military coup.
The Cable confirmed that the memo is authentic and that it was received by Mullen. The Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani -- the rumored author of the memo -- has offered to resign over what has become a full-fledged scandal in Islamabad. The Cable spoke this evening to the man at the center of the controversy and the conduit of the memo, Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz.
Ijaz alleged that Pakistan's U.S. ambassador, Husain Haqqani, was not only the author of the memo, but the "architect" of the entire plan to overthrow Pakistan's military and intelligence leadership, and was seeking U.S. help.
"Haqqani believed he and the president (Zardari) could redraft the architectural blueprint of how Pakistan should be governed in the future -- with civilians in command of the armed forces and intelligence services and the memorandum's content was geared in that direction," Ijaz said.
Over the past month, the rumors of the memo and its contents have ballooned into a huge political crisis in Pakistan. Islamabad's military leadership has pressed Zardari to start a full inquiry and the president has summoned Haqqani to the capital to explain himself. Haqqani offered to resign from his post on Wednesday, and told The Cable that he will travel to Pakistan on Friday.
#1
Even the general population in Pakistan know The Army/ISI is the problem in their country.(Pak Army/Mullah alliance have been written numerous times!)
Army ideology needs changing from Kayani,Pasha downwards and the Zia mentality extinguished including the types of Gen Gul,Dr(death)A.Khan and Gen Beg who have too much say/power.I dont trust Perv Musharraf either as he is one of Zias ideologues!
Posted by: Paul ||
11/18/2011 12:17
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In his defense of the Energy Department's handling of the $535 million loan guarantee to the now bankrupt Solyndra, Energy Secretary Steven Chu made some bold claims about the overall effectiveness of the department's clean-energy loan programs. He also made the case that the collapse in solar panel prices -- which helped sink Solyndra -- was "totally unexpected" by most financial analysts at the time when the department went forward with the loan in 2009.
There are a number of issues in dispute concerning Solyndra, but these two statements by Chu appear to be the most ripe for a fact check because they get to the heart of the issue about whether the clean-energy program is creating many jobs and whether the Energy Department should have seen the red flags concerning the Solyndra investment.
#2
Talked to him in Western Alaska a few years ago. He and I went to UC Berkeley. That was what we had in common. A few photo ops and then the entourage left.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/18/2011 17:41
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At the end of last month, I wrote about Beacon Power, a green-tech company that received over a hundred million dollars in taxpayer-backed credit but who teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. Yesterday, Beacon tipped over, filing for protection from its creditors -- and potentially taking $43 million in taxpayer dollars with it:
Beacon Power, a Massachusetts-based company that won praise from renewable power activists and loan guarantees from the federal government, has filed for bankruptcy, potentially leaving taxpayers on the hook for $43 million.
The company, which promised to build storage devices for intermittent power produced by wind and solar power facilities, was never able to attract investors. Coming on the heels of the Solyndra bankruptcy and ensuing scandal, the Beacon Power bankruptcy has a growing number of people calling for an end to federal loan guarantees for risky alternative energy start-ups.
Never is the operative word. By the time the Obama administration handed Beacon parent company EnerDel a huge line of credit, its share price had fallen more than half from its peak two years earlier. Three weeks ago, it was trading at eleven cents a share. According to the report from the Heartlander, the share tumble was worse when put in wider perspective:
According to published reports, Beacon's shares traded for $47 in 2005 but fell to $3.44 in February 2011 and less than $1 a few months later. The company was cautioned by Nasdaq it was in danger of losing its listing. In late October, the price per share fell to just under 11 cents, leaving the company with a market value of $3 million.
Thus far, no connections to political donors or bundlers have been found between EnerDel and the Obama administration, which makes it different from the Solyndra scandal. The money loss for taxpayers is much smaller than with Solyndra as well, but the carelessness of the Obama administration's investment strategy is just as apparent with Beacon's collapse. It shows the folly of government investing taxpayer dollars in companies that investors have already fled.
The Pioneer Institute takes that lesson from this collapse:
"We take a pretty dim view of government getting too deeply involved in private companies and picking winners and losers," said Steve Poftak, research director for the Massachusetts-based Pioneer Institute. "When they start to rend away from support at the early stage of development--at the science and research stage--and get into the balance sheets of companies, that's [crossing the line]."
And it's a recipe for failure, too. Congress should start taking a look at how the DoE chose Beacon as a recipient. Has there ever been a choice made by Obama that didn't completely fuck the rest of us?
The Pentagon on Thursday held a successful test flight of a flying bomb that travels faster than the speed of sound and will give military planners the ability to strike targets anywhere in the world in less than a hour.
Launched by rocket from Hawaii at 1130 GMT, the "Advanced Hypersonic Weapon," or AHW, glided through the upper atmosphere over the Pacific "at hypersonic speed" before hitting its target on the Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands, a Pentagon statement said.
Kwajalein is about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii. The Pentagon did not say what top speeds were reached by the vehicle, which unlike a ballistic missile is maneuverable.
Scientists classify hypersonic speeds as those that exceed Mach 5 -- or five times the speed of sound -- 3,728 miles (6,000 kilometers) an hour.
The test aimed to gather data on "aerodynamics, navigation, guidance and control, and thermal protection technologies," said Lieutenant Colonel Melinda Morgan, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
The US Army's AHW project is part of the "Prompt Global Strike" program which seeks to give the US military the means to deliver conventional weapons anywhere in the world within an hour.
On August 11, the Pentagon test flew another hypersonic glider dubbed HTV-2, which is capable of flying 27,000 kilometers per hour, but it was a failure.
The AHW's range is less than that of the HTV-2, the Congressional Research Service said in a report, without providing specifics.
The Pentagon has invested 239.9 million dollars in the Global Strike program this year, including 69 million for the flying bomb tested Thursday, CRS said.
#5
#3, iff multi or all-Missions capable BattleSpace "Motherships" is the new norm, + "peacekeeping" [brush war, "local war"], then the question becomes what kind of Navy, etal. Armed Services will the post-GWOT, OWG USA have 2050-2100.
YOOHOO, US GOVT-DOD, AFAIK RADICAL ISLAM ISN'T GOING NUCLEAR TO ENGAGE IN ISOLATED OR DISPARATE, MINOR INSURGENCIES = "PEACEKEEPING".
The drumbeat continues...
Newly acquired intelligence reports indicate several Arab countries in the Middle East are lobbying the US to strike Iran this year, Israel's Channel 10 reported. According to the report, which is said to be making its rounds in Britain's political circles, Saudi Arabia wants the Obama administration to attack Iran's nuclear facilities before the final withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
US president has vowed to close the door on American military involvement in Iraq by year's end, but Riyadh is reportedly afraid Iran will use the American exit to take over the country. The Saoodis only live there. They can't know more about the region than Bambi does...
Since 2008, officials in the Iraqi interim government have complained to Washington that both Iran and Saudi Arabia were, respectively, funding the Shiite and Sunni insurgencies that have plagued the country since the US-led invasion that toppled late dictator Sadam Hussein.
Security experts say Baghdad's security forces are unprepared to confront the rival insurgencies that hold Iraq in their grip - and that Obama's dogged drive to fulfill his campaign promise will may have disastrous consequences both for the region and US interests.
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies have been locked in a strategic battle with Iran for hegemony over the Persian Gulf - and have accused Tehran of seeking to destabilize the region through its 'Shiite Diaspora.'
Gulf Arab leaders have sought to exert pressure on Iran and its regional allies - most notably Syrian president Bashar al-Assad - by allying themselves with Western powers opposed to Tehran's aggressive posture.
They have also joined western powers in targeting Iran's nuclear program, which they see as targeting them first and foremost - rather than Israel, who Iran has threatened repeatedly with destruction.
Suadia Arabia has also said, should Iran obtain nuclear weapons, Riyahd will seek them as well - raising the specter of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Analysts say this may be a lever to spur Obama to alter course from his current passive, sanctions-driven posture towards Iran.
Despite this, Arab powers have been reticent to publicly call for an Iran strike - which has been a high profile part of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's diplomatic agenda. Instead, observers say, they have sought to work behind the scenes to avoid being seen as working in concert with Israel.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/18/2011
09:03 ||
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#1
Someone should explain to them that the strike, like the Iraq withdrawal, will be made on a timetable dictated by strictly domestic considerations. I'm thinking September.
Yep, typical Democratic thinking, everything is about elections, do anything and say anything to gain or hold power, pillage the country and give vast sums of money to family and cronies.
The Pelosi/Reid/Obama triumverate is turning the Democratic party into the PRC and the US into Mexico.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/18/2011 10:04
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I don't disagree with the assessment but the September time frame is really questionable. It would be a foolish move to send his base packing right before an election, he'd have to be sure the center would roll his way and I don't think he can depend on that.
#4
The Saudi want to spend our blood and treasure? They have a military. They have planes we sold them. Let them give us carte blanche to their oil fields. Dissolve OPEC. Maybe we will think about it then.
#5
The Soddies need to get up off their asses and do this on their own. But then Obama will probably bow down to the king and get some of America's finest killed doing the deed for His soddie master.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
11/18/2011 10:52
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#6
The Saudis can't do the hit on Iran.
1) they don't have the military. They have a lot of arms and equipment, and they have a bunch of bodies wearing uniforms, but they don't have a military that can plan and execute a coordinated air and missile strike on an enemy hundreds of miles away.
2) they don't have the support. Their own people won't go along. The Shi'a (~15 to 20% of the population) will blow up. The various prince-lings will scheme as to how they're going to come to power. The average Saoodi on the street will duck for cover.
3) they don't have the courage. It takes courage, moral and intellectual, to go after an enemy that you know is going to hit you but hasn't actually swung the first punch. The Saoodis don't have that courage.
No, it's up to Uncle Sucker.
As usual.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/18/2011 11:03
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#7
No, the want Uncle Sucker to play the hooded executioner so they can play both sides, both clamoring for the act, but thereafter denouncing the one they expect to carry out the deed. Time to force 'them' to public sign the warrant before anything happens or forget it. They're the first within strike distance of the threat.
Who's stopping them? They've got my permission. Strike away.
Posted by: Barbara ||
11/18/2011 16:50
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#10
OK. Let's make a deal. Saudis pay for the hit. We get to calibrate and full rehearsal of the operation on Syria. That works OK, then we do a critique and go for Iran with the methods we (and the Israelis) choose.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/18/2011 17:19
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#11
They know Israel's vaunted IDAF can bomb Iran, + Israel can certainly send in crack Commando teams, but ultimately only the US-NATO can do everything + espec invade + occupy Iran, as Maha-Rushian Limbaugh "Histoire'" says the pesky Persians will keep sending their Armies + Intrigues oer the borders until its done.
Again, "IRAN [either]GETS ITS NUKES; OR ELSE IRAN GETS INVADED".
---------
* CHINA DAILY FORUM > IRAN + IRAQ INTEND TO INTENSIFY MILITARY COOPERATION.
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > IRAN MASS BUILDS REMOTE-CONTROLLED [mini] SUBS.
Warm Welcome - NOT - for the US Nimitz-class CVNS [Gulf of Aqaba]+ Fifth Fleet [Bahrain] + any NATO/Allied + Base-Too-Far Qatar.
We call on you today to hold Attorney General Eric Holder accountable for Operation Fast and Furious and urge you to ask for his immediate resignation, the letter reads.
In intentionally letting over 2,000 firearms walk across the border into Mexico, it continues, the [ATF] under the leadership of Attorney General Holder carried out an operation that left a U.S. Border Patrol agent dead, broke federal law and attempted to build a case for gun control. Operation Fast and Furious has proved to be one of the most serious errors in judgment carried out in recent history by a federal agency.
#5
That would be entertaining; as pretzel-like as Harry Reid has been to ensure that the Senate doesn't pass a budget, he'd become an outright contortion artist to deep-six a Holder impeachment trial and make sure the juicy tidbits stayed quiet.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/18/2011 16:13
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#6
ailing to prosecute ACORN or the New Black Panthers in the coming voter fraud?
That, plus working it in the opposite direction.
Imagine the following scenario: DOJ receives anonymous tip of election irregularities in a critical district where vote count gives advantage to O's opponent. DOJ (which is meanwhile being staffed with O's loyalists, while the professionals get kicked out/moved to nonsensitive spots) investigates. Does it really matter whether they "discover" evidence of wrongdoing, or just tie the results in a lengthy investigation?* After all, it isn't as if 90% of the votes have to be faked. Obama already has the votes of public employees, big labor, welfare recipients, majority of Afro-Americans, a lot of Hispanics, etc....
*While this never happened before in USA, it's SOP in a lot of places.
#7
Holder is what needs to be toppled, that's first priority. This is the most corrupt Justice Department in our Nations history.
And yes Grom, this is third world activity, as is most of what the President uses in tactics seeing as he is always pushing the envelope with the way he conducts lawfare. The is a third world leader right there in the White House.
[Al Ahram] A blow-by-blow account of the largest Tahrir protest since July, as Islamists dominate a rally by forces from across Egypt's political and ideological spectrum demanding a swift transfer of power.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
08:47 ||
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Everybody knows that Californias economy has struggled mightily since the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession. The states current unemployment rate, 12.1 percent, is a full 3 percentage points above the national rate. Liberal pundits and politicians tend to blame this dismal performance entirely on the Great Recession; as Jerry Brown put it while campaigning (successfully) for governor last year, Ive seen recessions. They come, they go. California always comes back.
But a study commissioned by City Journal using the National Establishment Time Series database, which has tracked job creation and migration from 1992 through 2008 (so far) in a way that government statistics cant, reveals the disturbing truth. Californias economy during the second half of that period2000 through 2008was far less vibrant and diverse than it had been during the first. Well before the crisis struck, then, the Golden State was setting itself up for a big fall.
What is behind Californias shocking declineits snuffed-out start-ups, unproductive big cities, poorer jobs, and tinier, weaker, or fleeing companiesduring the 20002008 period? Steven Malangas Cali to Business: Get Out! identifies the major villains: suffocating regulations, inflated business taxes and fees, a lawsuit-friendly legal environment, and a political class uninterested in business concerns, if not downright hostile to them. One could add to this list the states extraordinarily high cost of living, with housing prices particularly onerous, having skyrocketed in the major metropolitan areas before the downturnthanks, the research suggests, to overzealous land-use regulation.
#1
The unemployment rate is BS pure and simple. When you look at the way that it is calculated, it uses rolling averages, correlation factors and a ouiji board. The true measure is the employment index. The employment index is computed by taking the number of people with a job and dividing it by the total number of able bodied people available for work in a region. The employment index captures all of the people seeking work that have fallen off the unemployment rolls.
In Riverside County, for instance, the official unemployment rate is 13.5%, the employment index is 63.25% That means, to me, that the true unemployment rate in Riverside County is about 36.75%!!! It is worse in the Central Valley where the EPA killed the farming industry to save a non-native fish from "extinction".
Nationally, the true unemployment is at Depression levels.
Why does everyone dance around the fact we are in a full blown depression?
I bet that 10.5 milliseconds after the Republican replacement for Obama is sworn in, the MSM will ask him what he is going to do about the DEPRESSION and the 35% unemployment in this country. Numbers they have squashed for over a year and a half.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/18/2011 10:19
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#2
California leads the western world in a lot of things. Over regulation would simply be par for the course. The surprise is that the economy hasn't collapsed before now.
#3
Why does everyone dance around the fact we are in a full blown depression?
Because the ruling caste who in their self worship believe themselves to be the best and brightest can't face their abject failure. They'd rather drag us all down in denial than face facts and resolutions that would remove them from power.
Sorry. I don't buy that. They've been building vast housing tracts as fast as they can for decades. The mayors and city council members take money from the developers and they let the developers do whatever. Democrat, Republican. It doesn't matter. They all do it. Look at LA. Go ahead, just look at it. Then look at Riverside/San Bernardino. It's a frickin' mess and that's the reason.
Now, if you wanna talk about airports, waste dumps, industrial parks and power plants that's another matter. Nobody wants them in their back yards. You want an airport in your back yard? How about a power plant? A solid waste landfill? Be my guest. The trouble is they've been building so many houses for so long that you can't find any place that isn't somebody's back yard.
Unemployment? We don't have jobs for all of the people who want to live here. Sorry. That's just tough. People have been flocking to California since 1849. We don't have jobs for them all and we don't have room for them all. The reason the cost of housing is so high is because the demand is so great. Maybe it looks like a big state on the map but a lot of it is undesirable desert or mountains where the terrain is unsuitable for many uses. Those of us who live along the coast don't want to look like Hong Kong or Mexico City. We don't want to look like LA. Do you? You like smog, traffic jams, noise, and unruly crowds wherever you go? Do it in your own state.
I will admit, I am the first to say, that our politicians are mostly crooked morons. Liberal, looney, crooked morons. But overzealous land-use regulation is not their biggest sin. Quite the opposite is true. They have failed to regulate well enough.
I've lived here for almost 35 years and the libs have wrecked this place. They have conservancies that buy up available land to prevent development.
The coastal commission fought home construction in the bay area to a standstill. Land use regulations in Orange county add $100K to the cost of a house in a development.
Some cities have been pro development and lots of housing has been built in the wrong places..Riverside, Temecula, Murrietta, and Ontario instead of LA and Orange county.
Taxes are among the highest in the nation and the schools are awful.
I'd move but I no way to sell my house since I am underwater by about $300K.
There is has been a net loss of almost 900,000 citizens in the $50 to $100K per year income bracket to other states.
We don't have mass transit because the politicians cowtow to the automobile/petroleum lobbies back in the 50's and 60's.
The state has been upside down on the budget to the tune of $20B per year for the last 10 years and balances the books by cutting everything except union salaries and pensions. The fiasco in Bell is the tip of the iceberg. There is a school district in the desert that pays their superintendent almost $875K per year.
And to make it worse, the assembly continues to pass more and more regulations and taxes.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/18/2011 14:31
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"Ironically, it was this attempted turn to port in order to avoid the iceberg that doomed the Titanic."
#7
I get depressed when I drive through Temecula because it is so drab and dull. Red tile roof tops and brown stucco as far as you can see and cars, cars, cars. Really? Is that the best they can do? I've been known to badmouth Texas on this blog but I seriously believe I'd rather live in Texas than in Temecula. The pols in Temecula were happy to get all that "growth". But there are no jobs out there. Just houses and cars. They all have to drive to San Diego or Orange County to work. Pure idiocy. A failure to regulate. I remember when there were farms out there. Here's a bit of advice to anybody who is considering moving to California: If you think it's too expensive, don't.
There is has been a net loss of almost 900,000 citizens in the $50 to $100K per year income bracket to other states.
Like I said, it's too crowded here. Have you ever heard of a concept known as "carrying capacity"? Sure, we could carry more. We could end up looking like India. I'd rather not.
We don't have mass transit because the politicians cowtow to the automobile/petroleum lobbies back in the 50's and 60's.
This is a problem all over the country, not just California. Let your congress critter know.
Land use regulations in Orange county add $100K to the cost of a house in a development.
You want water, sewer, electricity, roads, schools, hospitals? Somebody has to pay. I know the schools report bad test scores. But you try teaching a class where half the kids speak no English.
#8
Failure to regulate? I don't get it: is there, or should there be, a law requiring people to live within a certain distance of work and must take public transport when available?
Thanx and a tip o' the Rantburg hat to Walid Phares... [Al Ahram] Soddy Arabia's Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, known as Haia, the kingdom's inquisitors religious police, has decreed a stricter dress code for women in the province of Ha'il.
Motlaq Al-Nabit, spokes thug person for the Haia in Ha'il, said Wednesday that "the Haia men will intervene to force women to cover their eyes, especially tempting ones." So much for the 'liberalization' of Saoodi life you might have heard about.
The Haia enforces Sharia (Islamic law) in Soddy Arabia and is responsible for supervising public spaces to ensure the separation of sexes, following strict dress codes, and other conduct claimed to be ordered by Islam.
A strict translation of the authority's name from Arabic would be the Committee for the Ordering (not promotion) of Virtue.
Known to be the kingdom's second most powerful political body after the ruling Al-Saud family, the Haia's coppers are feared in Saudi streets.
Due to the nature of their job, Haia men may approach and arrest anyone they deem as breaking their rules, even if they are as ambiguous as inciting "fitna," or temptation.
In 2010, Saudi citizen Atallah Al-Rashidi clashed with a Haia member in Ha'il when the Haia member insisted Al-Rashidi's wife cover her eyes. The scuffle ended with the policeman stabbing Al-Rashidi twice, leading to his hospitalization. The case was taken to court and after five months the Haia member was declared innocent and Atallah sentenced to nine months in jail and 350 lashes for "arrogance".
It is not clear if any standards will be established to separate tempting or provocative eyes from normal ones, nor whether the decree will be implemented on a national level or in Ha'il alone.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
08:29 ||
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This crap won't be mitigated until the average man decides to start randomly shanking these brown shirts. They are an inherently cowardly lot, so once a few of them have met their maker, the rest tone it down a lot, and a lot of them start looking for a new job.
#5
Have they not thought that perhaps it might be better for men with self-control problems to wear blinkers, rather than force all women to wear sacks?
#6
Put some outside agitators inside those black bags & then start terminating some of the religious policemen with extreme prejudice. I imagine a pretty good weapons stash could be easily concealed. Who knows what evil lurks within?
#10
Really. Red on the cuff and what is that, a watch? Naughty naughty.
(is it me or are they checking out the gal in the dress too?)
Really, the best is that video of the two gals I assume, in the full nosetackle gear, trying to eat pasta and the guy in the background trying not to wet himself.
THE EU was ridiculed last night after it took three years to issue a new rule that water cannot be sold as healthy.
In a scarcely believable ruling, a panel of experts threw out a claim that regular water consumption is the best way to rehydrate the body.
The bizarre diktat from Brussels has far-reaching implications for member states, including Britain, as no water sold in the EU can now claim to protect against dehydration. What's bizarre about a diktat from Brussels? They live for this stuff...
Any producer breaching the order, signed by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, faces being jailed for up to two years. It took the 21 scientists on the panel three years of analysis into the link between water and dehydration to come to their extraordinary conclusion.
Last night the decision of the European Food Safety Authority's panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies was labelled "beyond parody". Ukip's deputy leader Paul Nuttall, who sits on the European Parliament's Public Health Committee, said: "I had to read this four or five times before I believed it.
"It is a perfect example of what the EU does best and makes the bendy banana law look positively sane."
Conservative MEP Roger Helmer said: "The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are, highly paid, highly pensioned officials trying to deny us the right to say what is patently true.
The EU has a long history of passing bizarre regulations, the most infamous being 1995 rules setting out dimensions for fruit and vegetables which led to excessively curved bananas and ugly carrots being banned. And last year attempts to regulate the use of root vegetables in Cornish pasties sparked chaos.
Okay I take back what I said about Hariri and his Migraines.
Does the Rantburg hall of fame have a category for completely stupid things said with a straight face by an EU bureaucrat?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/18/2011 10:21
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#3
We'd have to build a new wing. Hit the tip jar...
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/18/2011 11:05
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#4
As a registered Pisces, I want to put on record that I am SHOCKED, SHOCKED, I tell you at this world class decision of idiocy.
The first order of business is to establish a blue ribbon commission and investigate the so-called panel of experts. We need background information on every one of the individuals on the panel.
In order to establish the commission, we need to decide how to select the members of the commission. That is where things get sticky. You see, it is getting harder to find people with common sense to serve on commissions like this.......
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/18/2011 13:20
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#5
use Di-Hydrogen Monoxide, while it has known risks, it's safer than water
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/18/2011 13:56
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#6
AFAICT, none has published a meta-analysis of several double-blind randomized controlled trials which even attempt to confirm whether the ingestion of water in any form or in any amount is necessary to human life.
Therefore water is an unproven (and probably unnecessary) treatment for anything.
#7
Frank---Be sure to read the MSDS before you use it. It can kill you.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/18/2011 17:33
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#8
I just want to point out that beer contains electrolytes and water-soluble vitamins, in case any of you guys are dehydrated and don't want to look like a girlie-man by drinking Pedialyte.
#9
I don't want to live on this planet any more. Sarc/off. Yes, we have truly gone through the looking glass as per my comment on Beavis's post on the faster than light particles.
#10
Steve No way, Jose!. Pedialyte results in such a foul body odder!. I pick door number two for the beer please. I prefer the six pack ripped abs. They may look like one ab but I'll know there in there somewhere.
...With its carbon tax, Australia is buying the ability to feel good about itself...To the extent that the carbon tax will have any impact it will mainly shift production to areas with fewer restrictions (say, China) and where production is less efficient, likely leading to larger emissions....
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
11/18/2011
08:05 ||
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An article in a British paper last month by Mansoor Ijaz, a Pakistani-American businessman with political connections in Washington, has taken a toll of the civilian government of President Asif Zardari in Islamabad. The irony is that it was written to strengthen Mr Zardari against encroachments by General Ashfaq Kayani.
Mr Ijaz claims that shortly after the US Navy Seal raid to extract OBL from Abbottabad on May 2, the Zardari government felt threatened by General Kayani and sought out Mr Ijaz to convey its insecurity to Admiral Mike Mullen, the then Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff and avowed "friend" of General Kayani, to fend off a possible coup. Accordingly, with the help of a top Pakistani diplomat close to President Zardari, Mr Ijaz drafted and dispatched a secret "memo" portraying the Pakistani military as being part of the problem rather than the solution to America's dilemma in Afghanistan. Interestingly, the "article" also paints the Pakistani military in negative light and exhorts the Obama administration to start wielding the stick instead of offering carrots to it.
One might have expected the Pakistani media to focus on several critical questions raised by the memo. First, what was the nature of the threat faced by President Zardari from his army chief that compelled his diplomatic envoy to seek American help in warding it off? Second, what was the Pakistani government's need to specifically seek out Mr Ijaz to do the needful when direct and confidential contact already exists between the two governments? Third, why is the Pakistani military such a "problem" for the strategic interests of both governments?
But these issues have largely gone begging. Instead, such is the poverty of philosophy, the Pakistani media has trained its gun sights on the Pakistani diplomat and elected government who are both charged with "conspiring against the state". This is an extraordinary statement that reverses the established order of the Pakistani constitution. The civilian government is duly elected and all organs of the state are constitutionally subservient to it. But in this formulation "one" organ of the state, the military, has been substituted for the "whole" of the state and an elected and legitimate civilian government has been made subservient to it! Instead of the military conspiring against the elected government, it is the government that is charged with conspiring against its own military.
In the event, it isn't surprising that the military has turned the tables on the civilians once again. Mr Ijaz has been compelled to reveal all in order to prove his credibility but the irony is that he will never again be taken as a credible and confidential interlocutor by anyone. The finger is pointed at Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, as the diplomat in question and the military has demanded his head. But the irony is that President Zardari will only weaken himself further by cutting his most articulate and friendly link with Washington.
The military has been gunning for Hussain Haqqani for over a decade. He ran afoul of General Musharraf in 2002 for his critical newspaper columns in Urdu and English. So he decamped to the US where he wrote his seminal book on the unholy historical nexus between the Mosque and Military in Pakistan. After he was appointed Ambassador to Washington in 2008, the military embarked upon a campaign to defame him. He was accused of acting against the "national interest" by manipulating the insertion of "pro-democracy" clauses in the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation that committed $7.5 billion to Pakistan over five years as a "strategic ally." He was blasted for enabling CIA operatives to get visas despite the fact that authorization for over 90 per cent duly came from the Pakistan Foreign Office/ISI or the Prime Minister's secretariat. He was criticized for pledging an impartial and public investigation into how OBL came to be lodged in Abbottabad when the military was insisting there would be no more than an internal secret inquiry at best. And he was painted as an "American agent" for recommending a pragmatic and responsible Af-Pak and US-Pak foreign policy.
The writing on the wall was clear when Imran Khan thundered against Mr Haqqani in Lahore last month and Shah Mahmood Qureshi demanded an inquiry against him for "conspiring against the state". Both are inclined to do the military's bidding.
The core questions remain. Was the military complicit or incompetent in "L'affaire OBL"? What was the nature of its disagreement with, and threat to, the Zardari government following "Operation Geronimo"? How was Mansoor Ijaz manipulated by various Pakistani protagonists? A third series of questions has risen for the umpteenth time. Is the constitution subservient to the military? Is an elected government answerable to the "state"? Should an unaccountable military or elected civilians define the "national interest"?
The fate of Asif Zardari's PPP and also that of Nawaz Sharif's PMLN, the two mainstream parties that majorly represent the Pakistani voter, hinges on answers to these questions.
His near--$1 trillion stimulus begat a stagnant economy with 9 percent unemployment. His attempt at Wall Street reform left in place a still too-big-to-fail financial system as vulnerable today as when he came into office. His green-energy fantasies yielded Solyndra cronyism and a cap-and-trade regime not even a Democratic Congress would pass.
And now his signature achievement, Obamacare, is headed to the Supreme Court, where it could very well be struck down, just a week after its central element was overwhelmingly repudiated (2--1) by the good burghers of Ohio.
So what do you do when you say you can, but, it turns out, you can't? Blame the other guy. Charge the Republicans with making governing impossible. Never mind that you had control of the Congress for two-thirds of your current tenure. It's all the fault of Republican rejectionism.
Hence: "We Can't Wait." We can't wait while they obstruct. We can't wait while they dither with my jobs bill. Write Congress today! Vote Democrat tomorrow!
We can't wait. Except for certain exceptions, such as the 1,700-mile trans-U.S. Keystone XL pipeline, carrying Alberta oil to Texas refineries, which would have created thousands of American jobs and increased our energy independence.
For that, we can wait, it seems. President Obama decreed that any decision must wait 12 to 18 months -- postponed, by amazing coincidence, until after next year's election.
Why? Because the pipeline angered Obama's environmental constituency. But their complaints are risible. Global warming from the extraction of the Alberta tar sands? Canada will extract the oil anyway. If it doesn't go to us, it will go to China. Net effect on the climate if we don't take that oil? Zero.
Danger to a major aquifer, which the pipeline traverses? It is already crisscrossed by 25,000 miles of pipeline, enough to circle the Earth. Moreover, the State Department had subjected Keystone to three years of review -- the most exhaustive study of any oil pipeline in U.S. history -- and twice concluded in voluminous studies that there would be no significant environmental harm.
So what happened? "The administration," reported the New York Times, "had in recent days been exploring ways to put off the decision until after the presidential election." Exploring ways to improve the project? Hardly. Exploring ways to get past the election.
#1
Pipeline has been under construction, that is out of planning and approval, for years now. Suddenly, it is under scrutiny? If any of these people can find the aquafir on the map they would know it is huge, and it isn't like there are a number of safety procedure in place nevermind natural and artificial filter in place; it's not some Roman aquaduct that will tip over and then nobody notices. I call BS.
#2
Please do not flame me as this is an honest question and I do not know the answer. I am sure I am missing something. But I do not see it.
Instead of building a pipeline across the nation why not build a refinery in place then sell the products?
It seems that it would cut off the objectors off at the knees. Might be tough to resist buying cheap gasoline(?) and they could use existing pipelines maybe with some additions.
Posted by: kelly ||
11/18/2011 11:51
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Tried to answer, if multi-posts apologies.
There are a number of by-products, refining there would require individual transport of each product.
Refinary would require a large enough workforce a mini-city would also need to be built, as well as transport.
Pipeline is very safe, rather than a fleet of trucks or new rail needing to be built.
Weather considerations, if the weather is bad the transport out would be affected.
Facilities, expertise, emergency response, distribution hub already in place.
Is it more efficient to refine in warmer climates, similar to launching space vehicles closer to the equator?
#4
Instead of building a pipeline across the nation why not build a refinery in place then sell the products?
The same consideration might apply to the oil & gas boom in western North Dakota. None has proposed a locally built refinery. Maybe there's a good reason for the missing proposal.
[Dawn] At least seven people -- five snuffies and two coppers -- were killed in what appeared to be a suicide kaboom at the Bloody Karachi sea front on Wednesday night.
Investigators said the terrorist who went kaboom!" appeared to be of Central Asian origin. They did not rule out the possibility of a woman among the terrorists.
The incident took place at a desolated spot reclaimed from the sea neighbouring a park and a popular restaurant.
DIG South Commander Shaukat Ali Shah said the bodies of three snuffies were intact while two were beyond recognition.
"Two of our men riding a cycle of violence followed a suspicious looking hi-roof van which drove towards the reclaimed piece of land, almost at the dead end of the sea. The van stopped there and three men came out. The fourth one apparently went kaboom!" in the vehicle," SSP South Naeem Ahmed Sheikh told Dawn.
The two coppers who had followed the suspects were also killed in the blast.
However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... Sherlocks were still not sure if the blast took place accidentally or the terrorist detonated the bomb after seeing the two coppers. About the motive and presence of the snuffies at the sea front, an official told Dawn that a senior military official was supposed to visit the nearby restaurant.
However, if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... a police official linked the blast to the upcoming Urs of Hazrat Abdullah Shah Ghazi. The van turned into a heap of twisted metal, but the bodies of three snuffies were in an identifiable condition. "The three snuffies died of pellet wounds," SP Raja Umar Khattab said.
Police found three AK-47 rifles, seven hand-grenades and a suicide belt at the blast site. The registration book of the vehicle and NIC of a suspected terrorist were also found.
A team of ACLC retrieved the chassis number of the hi-roof -- a Bolan vehicle of 2004 made. The bodies of the coppers were taken to hospital while the bodies and remains of the snuffies were kept at the scene of the blast. CID and SIU officials collected finger prints from the bodies.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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[An Nahar] Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Wally Jumblat ... Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling... shifted his position, as he is seeking to return to the March 14 Those are the good guys, insofar as Leb has good guys... -led opposition, the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa newspaper reported on Thursday.
"We've budged, we moved to another position and we're waiting for the right time to announce this," March 14 sources quoted Jumblat as saying.
The sources told the daily that Jumblat returned to the stances he used to support.
"He (Jumblat) practically shifted back to the positions that he used to call for before he left the coalition," the sources said.
Al-Anbaa said that Jumblat is holding consecutive meetings with his former allies mainly with MP Marwan Hamadeh.
On Wednesday, al-Liwaa newspaper reported that Jumblat is seeking to revive the "Democratic Gathering."
In January 2007, Jumblat announced the end of his Democratic Gathering parliamentary bloc, and named his new bloc the National Struggle Front.
Four MPs Marwan Hamadeh, Henry Helou, Antoine Saad and Fouad al-Saad, were not part of Jumblat's bloc anymore.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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[An Nahar] The leader of Syria's exiled Moslem Brüderbund said Thursday that his compatriots would accept Turkish "intervention" in the country to resolve months of bloody unrest.
"The Syrian people would accept intervention coming from Turkey, rather than from the West, if its goal was to protect the people," Moslem Brüderbund leader Mohammad Riad Shakfa told a presser.
"We may ask more from Turkey as a neighbor," he also said, without elaborating on the nature of the intervention which the Brotherhood might consider acceptable.
On Thursday, pro-government daily Sabah reported that the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC), together with the Moslem Brüderbund, had asked Turkey to establish a no-fly zone on the Syrian side of the shared border to protect Syrian civilians.
Mohammed Farouk Tayfour, political leader of the Moslem Brüderbund and a member of the SNC, declined to comment on the allegations, saying only that discussions were held on "every possible means" with several governments in order to stop violence.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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[Dawn] Chief Minister Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... Ameer Haider Khan Hoti on Wednesday said his government was ready to hold talks with faceless myrmidons provided that they renounced militancy and accept the writ of state.
"Our doors are open to those, who have gone astray by choosing the path of violence and militancy, if they guarantee living in peace in future," he told a public meeting after inaugurating the Bacha Khan Vocational Institute at the district headquarters complex in Tajazai area of Lakki Marwat.
Work on the institute has been completed at the cost of Rs19 million.
The chief minister also unveiled the plaque of the foundation stone of a bridge over river Gambila near Kot Kashmire. The bridge along with an approach road will be built at the estimated cost of Rs100 million.
Criticising his political rivals, Mr Hoti said his government gave identity to Pakhtuns by naming the province as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and securing provincial autonomy through 18th constitutional amendment. He further said under NFC award, extra resources had been collected from the centre and they were being used on development.
He said annual development programme had been increased by 80 per cent, adding that resources of net profit of hydropower generation received from Wapda would be spent on power projects.
The chief minister said he would inaugurate two such projects in power sector in Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... and Chitral next month. He said the expected income/royalty from oil and gas sector had been increased to Rs15 billion from Rs800 million and that the money would be spent on the development of southern districts and start of development projects in the province.
Mr Hoti announced over Rs650 million development package for the district and said the ANP-led government would continue working for the people's welfare.
According to him, under the package, establishment of a cadet college, a boy's degree college in Darra Pezu, up-gradation of a girl's primary school, a 15km road, a bridge over Gambila river, Rs70 million for installation of tube wells, Rs20 million for installation of pressure pumps, Rs15 million for electrification schemes, two buses for colleges, posting of doctors in the district headquarters hospital and reconstruction of Government Higher Secondary School Naurang building has been planned.
Provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain, MPA Yasmeen Zia, provincial president ANP Afrasayab Khattak and district president Sadruddin Khan also addressed participants.
Earlier, the chief minister visited Bannu and addressed people in the circuit house.
He said sacrifices of Bacha Khan followers and ANP workers for peace in the province would not go to waste.
"We won't hesitate from rendering more sacrifices. We are in a state of war and our sacrifices will lead to restoration of peace in the region," he said.
Mr Hoti sympathised with the families of Ihsanullah Wazir and Israel Wazir over the deaths of two ANP leaders.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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[Emirates 24/7] Seven people have been killed in Yemen's north, where Shiite rebel influence is expanding in the wake of a central government weakened by months of mass protests, tribal sources said on Wednesday.
In a separate incident, a government intelligence officer was bumped off in Aden, the largest city in the south, police said.
At least three of the casualties from two days of fighting in the north were Houthis, members of Yemen's minority Zaidi sect, tribal chief Amin al-Ukaimi told AFP.
The festivities erupted Monday between the rebels and gunnies affiliated with the opposition Common Forum, an umbrella parliamentary group that has joined a mass protest movement calling for President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... to resign, he said.
"Six people were killed (in Monday's festivities)... including three from each side," he said.
Separately on Tuesday, one man was killed and several others maimed in the northern province of Hajja where Huthis clashed with gunnies loyal to the opposition, a statement from the rebel movement said.
The festivities took place in Al-Jawf, a province and Huthi stronghold along the Saudi border, scene of repeated fighting since the February 2010 truce between rebels and Saleh's government.
The Zaidis, a minority in Yemen's mainly Sunni population, have for years complained of political and social marginalisation. Their seven-year rebellion against Saleh has already cost thousands of lives.
In recent months, tribal officials say that since the pro-democracy movement erupted in January, Houthis have strengthened their hold on northern provinces as military defections, changing allegiances and months of fierce street battles have crippled the central government.
In March, General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who led the offensive against the Huthis, defected along with his Brigade, leaving a power vacuum in the north.
In Aden, meanwhile, gunnies opened fire on the car of Colonel Abdelhakim Mohammed Ali, head of the local intelligence unit, in the Sheikh Othman district.
The victim was rushed to hospital, where he died.
No one claimed the shooting, but Al-Qaeda regularly carries out attacks against security forces in the south.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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[Iran Press TV] At least 13 people have been killed after US liquidation drones launched aerial attacks in southern Somalia near the border with Kenya, Press TV reported.
Somali tribal elders, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Press TV that the remote-controlled aerial vehicles fired several missiles at Buzar village, which is located close to El Wak city in Somalia's southwestern region of Gedo, on Thursday.
They added that dozens of people were also injured in the strikes.
The aerial attacks came as US liquidation drones had struck Buzar village a day earlier. At least 26 people were killed and dozens more were also maimed in Wednesday's drone attacks.
Somalia is the sixth country where the United States has used liquidation drones to launch deadly missile strikes. Now taking requests for country number seven...
Somebody appears to have taken on Iran, unless they really did drop that experimentall missile.
The US military has also used drones in Afghanistan, Pakistain, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen.
On October 28, the United States admitted to flying the terror aircraft from a base in Ethiopia. Not necessarily the ones that whacked Somalia, mind you. Those might be coming from elsewhere...
"The US has unarmed and unmanned aircraft at a facility there (Ethiopia) to be used only for surveillance as part of a broad, sustained integrated campaign to counter terrorism," said Pentagon front man Captain John Kirby.
The confirmation appeared a day after The Washington Post revealed in a report that the US flies "armed" drones from an airfield in Ethiopia's southern city of Arba Minch.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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#1
liquidation drones Cool Name!
Posted by: Water Modem ||
11/18/2011 10:33
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#2
The Predator
The Hunter
The Reaper
The Liquidator
Indeed, a cool name.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/18/2011 11:06
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#3
Rapid Offensive Unit
Rapid Offensive Units (ROUs) consist of little more than engines, weapons and the ship's Mind. While some ROUs are crewed, the crew complement on such vessels is much smaller than those of the more general purpose ships of the Culture, such as General Contact Units and General Systems Vehicles. ROUs and their demilitarised versions, Very Fast Pickets, are the Culture's fastest ships and have so far been described as having been outrun only once, by a GSV that self-optimised for speed (in the novel Excession). Immediately after the Idiran War, ROUs of the period could also be outrun by the small number (described as a limited edition by the Drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw) of Continent Class, subtype Prompt GSV. Subsequent developments have of course rendered this state of affairs obsolete, though the events involving the Excession give the lie to this assumption.
Known classes are:
Killer Class (200 meters long)[10]
Torturer Class
Psychopath Class
Gangster Class
Thug Class
Inquisitor Class (prototype) Link
[Dawn] Pak intelligence officials say suspected US drones fired four missiles at a house near the Afghan border, killing seven alleged bad boys.
The officials say Thursday's strike occurred in the Ramzak area of the North Wazoo tribal region. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.
North Wazoo is the main sanctuary for al-Qaeda and Talibs in Pakistain and has been repeatedly hit by US drone strikes.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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European diplomatic sources say PA willing to withdraw UN bid if Israel, U.S. hand over aid and tax funds; Erekat: Paleostinians determined to apply for membership.
Paleostinian officials denied Thursday reports claiming that they were willing to freeze their statehood bid at the United Nations ...an organization whose definition of human rights is interesting, to say the least... if Israel handed over tax collection funds it had withheld over the Paleostinian Authority's acceptance into the UN's educational panel.
On Wednesday, a European diplomat said that the PA offered the United States a deal, saying it would freeze all moves to achieve full membership for "Paleostine" in various UN agencies until the end of January, while the United States and Israel would resume transferring it funds.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's special envoy Isaac Molho reportedly met secretly in London on Tuesday with U.S. administration representatives David Hale and Dennis Ross to discuss the suggestion.
However, women are made to be loved, not understood... speaking to Paleostinian news agency Ma'an on Thursday, chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat ...negotiated the Oslo Accords with Israel. He has been chief Paleostinian negotiator since 1995. He is currently negotiating with Israel to establish a de jure Paleostinian state... called the report "nonsense," saying that the Paleostinians were determined to apply for membership."
"We should stop dealing with Israeli propaganda," Erekat said, adding that the "Paleostinian government is still focusing on getting support from the Security Council."
Ma'an also recorded the response of top PLO official Hanan Ashrawi, who called the report "completely untrue, and the Israeli media tools are not the source of information for the Paleostinian positions and decisions."
"The report is a new Israeli maneuver and an attempt to create confusion to stop the Paleostinian bid to the UN," she said.
According to a European diplomat whom the PA had updated about the proposal, the PA plans to complete the process of trying to get full UN membership for Paleostine recognized by the Security Council.
PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... is expected to ask for a vote by the end of December, although the move is doomed to defeat. Even if the Paleostinians muster enough votes, the United States will veto it.
Other than that, however, the Paleostinians are prepared to suspend their efforts to achieve full membership in such agencies as the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization, the diplomat said. Nor will they ask the General Assembly to upgrade their observer status to non-member observer state.
Though the Paleostinians offered to temporarily suspend these UN efforts, if a deal is struck that restores the PA's cash flow, it is thought such moves will be stopped for the foreseeable future.
Israeli sources confirmed that Molcho had met with the U.S. officials in London, while a British source said Molcho also met with a senior Arab figure.
[Dawn] Governor Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... Masood Kausar on Wednesday urged the people of the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas to keep a close eye on the troublemakers, fearing that they might resurface to disrupt peace restored by law-enforcers and political administration after great efforts and sacrifices.
"There is no doubt that tribal people are peace-loving but a handful of elements are there to disrupt peace for their ulterior motives. The people should remain vigilant," he told a 14-member delegation of elders of Orakzai Agency ... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers... during a meeting.Malik Naseer Hussain led the delegation, which called on Mr Kausar at the Governor`s House here.
The governor said sectarian hatred was one of the issues that led to disturbances in some Fata agencies. He said those fanning sectarian hatred must be identified for punishment, adding that the people should promote religious harmony, tolerance and cohesion in the society.
"Peace in Kurram Agency ...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora... has been restored after hectic efforts by law-enforcement agencies and local administration," he said, adding that peace in the agency would be maintained at all costs and no one would be allowed to disrupt it again.
Mr Kausar said Fata had been brought to the political mainstream and expressed the hope that political activities would also help discourage religious extremism and terrorism.
He said implementation of Fata reforms was underway in phases and would be ensured by all means. He said security agencies were taking on bully boyz and destructive elements effectively, while most of the areas had been cleared of such elements. He urged the rustics to play their due role in anti-terrorist activities.
The governor said the lasting peace in Fata could be maintained and development process furthered with the people`s support and cooperation.
"Progress and development in Fata is a priority once peace is restored. We want the development process to continue without obstruction for early completion of public welfare schemes," he said.
Mr Kausar informed the delegation that political administrations of tribal agencies would serve the people in future instead of ruling them as was done in the past.
"From no onwards, the administration will take the people along in development activities and will have to have close liaison with political activists," he said.
The delegates apprised the governor of their problems, mostly related to education, health, communication and water supply schemes, prompting the latter to issue directions to the relevant officials for their early redressal.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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[Iran Press TV] Four Sudanese opposition groups have formed a military alliance in an attempt to topple the Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir.
The military alliance called the Sudan Revolutionary Front consists of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North, Justice and Equality Movement, Sudan Liberation Army-Abdel Wahid and Sudan Liberation Army-Minni Minnawi.
The Sudan Revolutionary Front is an extension to Kauda agreement, which was signed in Kauda town in South Kurdufan on the 7th of August 2011 between Darfur rebel movements and Sudan People's Liberation Movement -North Sector to overthrow the Sudanese government.
Sudan is accusing the Sudan People's Liberation Movement of the State of South Sudan of sponsoring and supporting the recent alliance.
The Sudanese government reacted strongly to the Sudan Revolutionary Front by calling it a hostile act. The spokesperson for the Sudanese foreign ministry said that Sudan is still approaching peace and equality in which all the political parties can share seats in the government. He added, that on the other hand, the Sudan Revolutionary Front is causing more bloodshed leading Sudan to defend and protect its' citizens.
Political analysts also say that this front is very weak, because the dominant parties are not part of it.
Sudan renewed its' call on the South Sudan to stop supporting what it calls rebel movements and to resolve its internal issues. It also urged for establishing good relations between the two countries instead of undermining security and stability in Sudan.
Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement which was signed in 2005 ended the civil war between Sudan and South Sudan, which led to a new born country in Africa after a fair self-determination referendum. The formation of the alliance is causing concern for many in Sudan that all these developments may lead Sudan to a new widespread-armed movement.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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[Dawn] Lawyers and mediapersons entered into a brawl on the premises of the Supreme Court on Wednesday. "Rule of law!"
"People's right to know!"
"A curse on yer mustache!"
"Yer mother wears combat boots!"
Senator Babar Awan and law secretary Masood Chisty were present when the incident took place however they left the spot quietly. "Perhaps we should depart, Chisty Sahib?"
"Perhaps we should, Awan Sahib."
"And make haste, Chisty Sahib!"
"But quietly, Awan Sahib!"
"Quiet but hasty feet, don't fail us now!"
This was not the first incident when lawyers and journalists engaged in such an activity as a TV channel news hound was beaten up by lawyers in Lahore in November 2009. "Newshound!"
"Get 'im!"
Sources in the police said two newspaper news hounds were taken to the bar room of the SC by president People`s Lawyers Forum (PLF) Raja Abdul Rehman. As they ordered for tea, a lawyer, Saifullah Khattak, approached the journalists and asked them to leave the room saying entry of mediapersons was not allowed in the hall. "We don't want your kind here!"
During arguments that ensued, "I don't gotta if I don't wanna an' you can't make me so there!"
"Oh, yeah?"
the lawyer allegedly abused the journalists. "Take that! [WHACK!]"
On this, one of the news hounds slapped the lawyer after which other black coats present in the hall manhandled the journalists. "Hey, Rube!"
Later, the administration of the bar room banned the entry of media into the hall, canteen and another room being used by journalists to take meal. "We don't want their kind here!"
Sources said Mr Khattak had also misbehaved with PML-N`s Khawaja Asif and another news hound for their presence in the bar room earlier in the morning. "Don't nobody be messin' wid Khattak Sahib!"
Talking to Dawn, the PLF president said intolerance in society was the main reason behind such incidents.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Is Pakistan really a country or just a collection of places no one else wanted?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/18/2011 10:24
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#2
Bill, as far as I can tell it's mostly a collection of places that also don't want to be there. Balochistan, for instance, believe themselves to have been kidnapped by force from the beginning.
[Dawn] An anti-terrorism court on Thursday acquitted three sons of Sufi Mohammad , the chief of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) ...Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law) is a Pak bully boy group whose objective is to enforce their definition of Sharia law in Pakistain whether anybody wants it or not. It was founded by Sufi Muhammad in 1992, and was banned by President Musharraf in January, 2002 after Sufi dispatched several thousand yokels to Afghanistan to fight the infidel and ended up with most of them killed or captured and held for ransom. In 2007 TNSM took over Swat, which shows how well the banning worked. TNSM is the Pony League of Islamic militancy.. in a terrorism case, DawnNews reported.
The ATC acquitted Abdullah, Abdur Rehman and Fazlullah during a hearing of the case. Mullah Fazlullah, recall, is the pirate radio holy man who theoretically commanded the Taliban who terrorized Swat and threatened Islamabad. I don't imagine his brothers sat home watching the teevee whilst the festivities were going on.
The court, however, said that it would continue hearing of other cases against the three brothers. They were facing several cases of murder, terrorism and revolt.
The brothers were still languishing in jail.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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[Dawn] Thirty-one snuffies and a military officer were killed in gun-battles and shelling in two tribal regions on Wednesday, sources said.
In upper Kurram, hard boyz launched a three-pronged attack on a check-post in Marghan Kandao area. The forces retaliated and the shootout continued for some time.
The sources said that Major Sikandar of Special Operation Group was martyred and a security man maimed, adding that 20 attackers were killed and several others injured in the fighting.
In upper Orakzai Agency ... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers... , security forces destroyed six myrmidon hideouts and a double-cabin vehicle in Koranchi and Dapar Parari areas. Nine snuffies were reportedly killed.
The snuffies attacked a post in Ghundai Makki.
The security forces in retaliatory fire killed two myrmidons.
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Zim-bob-we President Bob Muggsy Mugabe Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case... has appealed to China and Russia to protect him from attacks by the United States and Europe.
The veteran ruler, who is barred from travelling to the US and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... because of alleged human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. violations, is on an official visit to China. Begging for cash is as official as it gets...
On Wednesday, he met acting Chinese President Xi Jinping where he called on Russia and China to provide a buffer against the "Anglo-Saxon alliance's expansionist agenda given what NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... did in Libya and threats posed to Syria and Iran," his front man told state owned Herald newspaper on Thursday.
"Countries like China and Russia must provide both leadership and protection," President Mugabe's front man Mr George Charamba quoted him as telling the Chinese leader.
"Nature has disbursed its resources in its own ways to different countries with some countries richly endowed while some are not.
"Even us who do not have oil feel no less menaced as these rapacious countries are looking for other resources."
Mr Mugabe, in power since Zim-bob-we's independence from Britannia in 1980, said Western countries were after his country's mineral wealth.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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#2
Let the Han colonial era begin!
Won't be like European colonial era in Africa, because they don't need local labor. More like European colonial era in Tasmania.
The Islamist politician likely to become Tunisia's first democratically elected prime minister has alarmed liberals and secularists by claiming the arrival of the "sixth caliphate", a controversial term for a Mohammedan empire.
Hamadi Jebeli, secretary-general of Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party which romped to victory in last month's elections, told a rally in the city of Sousse: "My brothers, you are at a historic moment in a new cycle of civilisation, God willing. We are in sixth caliphate, God willing."
Party officials, who have spent months insisting they wanted to pursue secular democratic politics rather than an international Islamist agenda, were forced on the defensive after his comments were posted on the internet.
But they may have scuppered the party's hopes of forging a broad-based coalition. The left-of-centre secular Ettakatol, which came third in the vote, suspended talks with Ennahda over forming a government.
"We thought we were going to build a second republic with our partner -- not a sixth caliphate," Khemais Ksila, a senior member, said.
Mr Jebeli was imprisoned under the dictatorship of Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali for his Islamist beliefs. But since the country's revolution in January, the party has argued it wants to work within a democratic political system along western lines.
The stance was enough to see them win 40 per cent of seats in parliament, more even than their supporters expected. But opponents say their moderate public statements hide a more radical agenda -- one more honestly expressed to provincial working class supporters than the middle classes in the capital.
Ennahda's other prospective coalition partner, the likewise centre-left and secular Congress for the Republic, did not follow Ettakatol's lead, perhaps soothed by a deal making its leader Moncef Marzouki interim president.
The term "caliphate" refers to a governance system based on sharia law as formerly used by successive Islamic empires. It is a sensitive term in Arab politics due to its modern associations with Death Eater groups like al-Qaeda and especially in Tunisia where it is promoted by the radical Salafi movement, Hizb-ut-
Mr Jebeli's opponents are now planning a large demonstration to coincide with the opening of the new assembly.
#4
From the article linked by Eohippus (which should probably have its own thread):
"It is not a crime, but it is not the right time for the bodies to be removed, Goaider said in an interview. If the religious council issues a fatwa, an Islamic religious edict, demanding the removal of the bodies, security units will do the work, he said."
Sounds like there could be union trouble ahead as well if the Islamists think they can do their own grave-robbing and re-burying. That's union security men work!
#5
The advantage of a Caliphate is its one entity and leadership to be dealt with (targetted) and should have some kind of survival instincts.
Isolate them with strong visa regulations and open up the oil sands and other non-Islamic oil sources to cut off some of their funds (and contacts with the west) and let them stagnate. Its not as if they'd be a military or economic threat, at least not without the oil.
Let them look back at the days of colonialism as a golden day and you'll see Islamism sink.
#6
All thingys equal, the sign will be iff George Custer + 7th Cavalry + Jefferson AIrplane can defeat the armies of Persia, in Persia.
The Story ...
> Of a OWG Soldier-King named Francis.
> A Valley called the Little Big Horn.
> An Asteroid the size of Texas.
> A Sword called Excalibur.
EXCALIBUR? D **** IT, DOES THIS MEAN IT NOT THE SWORD OF THUNDERRA!?
#7
ION MEMRI.ORG > PROMINENT SAUDI PREACHER [Dr. Ardith Al-Qarni] URGES ARABS TO MANUFACTURE NUCLEAR WEAPONS + GAIN MILITARY STRENGTH - FOR "THE WORLD RESPECTS NO ONE BUT THE STRONG".
and
* SAME > "OCCUPY WALL STREET" REACTIONS + SUPPORT IN THE ARAB + MUSLIM WORLD PART IX: HIZB-E-ISLAMI CHIEF GULBUDDIN HEKMATYR: "OCCUPY WALL STREET" MOVEMENTS [ + Arab Springs] INSPIRED BY AFGHAN JIHAD, "THE UPRISINGS IN EUROPE + US THE EFFECT OF THE AFGHAN JIHAD ON THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL".
* SAME > JAMA'AT-AL-TAWHID WAL-JIHAD IN PHILIPINES ASKS MUJAHIDEEN AROUND THE WORLD FOR HELP IN WAGING JIHAD [in Philippines], SWEAR ALLEGIANCE TO AL-QAEDA [new AQ Chief Ayman Zawahiri], as well the Taliban's MULLAH OMAR + Emirs of other main MilTerr Groups.
and
* TOPIX > INDONESIA WARNS OF [regional = ASEAN] DISTRUST DUE TO US TROOP DEAL [USMC in Australia].
Will say it again, US-VS-RISING-CHINA-VS- NUCLEAR-ISLAMISM/RADICAL ISLAM, in East Asia + Pacific, no longer just the US versus Rising China.
[An Nahar] Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's liquidation. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too. stressed on Wednesday that only Israel, Iran and Hizbullah along with the current government are defending the Syrian regime, reiterating his call on Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... to leave power. This is the sort of thing that passes for "thinking" in the Muddle East.
"Don't you see that now Israel and Iran and Hizbullah and this government are defending the Syrian regime?" Hariri said on the social networking website twitter.
He said that the cabinet will have to collapse eventually, adding that Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah sock puppet... 's warning of a civil war is merely to scare people.
"I think this government should go down, and we will bring it down ... the position given by Berri is to the benefit of the Syrian regime to scare people."
Concerning Hizbullah's arms, Hariri said that only the army should carry weapons urging the party to disarm.
"Weapons have no business being anywhere but in the hands of the Lebanese army," he said.
Asked by a twitter user about the kabooms that hit Tyre on Wednesday, the former PM said: "I think it's a political message and that's why the security forces should be in control of the whole of Leb."
Responding to a question if he might go into an alliance with PM Najib Miqati during the 2013 elections, Hariri said "No."
The former premier has been absent from the country for nearly eight months and has chosen Twitter as a comeback tool to reach out to followers and take on his rivals Syria and Hizbullah.
He left Leb in April after the March 8 forces ... the opposition to the Mar. 14th movement, consisting of Hizbullah and its allies, so-called in commemoration of their Mar. 8th, 2006 demonstration of strength in Beirut ... toppled his cabinet, and popped up on Twitter earlier this month, creating an instant buzz and attracting some 25,000 followers so far.
Since then, he has devoted more than an hour every evening to respond to questions about politics, food, movies or sports, much to the delight of his constituents but also to jabs by detractors.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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#1
This example of logical thinking explains a lot about the problems in that region. /s
#3
Does this man get migraines when he comes up with this stuff.
I take back everything I've ever said about Mr. 10% and his buddy over in P'stan.
This has to be put in the Rantburg hall of fame.
What a whopper!!!
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/18/2011 10:06
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#4
Eohippus Phater7165 (I am so envious of such an impressive name),
There are no delusions about Islam in Washington, they know exactly what they are dealing with and are choosing to ignore that knowledge and are acting with that full knowledge.
When you cancel the National Day of Prayer to "avoid offending anyone" and then attend a National Islamic Prayer day, it is obvious they don't care.
Me thinks there is a lot of ME money in the Donks back pocket paying them to keep us on the sidelines.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/18/2011 10:09
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[An Nahar] Iraq's anti-U.S. Shiite holy manMoqtada Tater al-Sadr ... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010. He spends most of his time in Iran, safely out of the line of fire, where he's learning to be an ayatollah... has expressed support for Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad, Lord of the Baath... while noting that he sympathizes with the "revolutionaries" in Syria. Ahah. That's the kind of reasoning they teach you in ayatollah school back in Qom: run with the hounds and hunt with the hares...
*blink* Clearly I'm not clever enough to be an ayatollah.
Assad ... the same flavor of Baathist dictator that oppressed the Shiites in Iraq before we got there to save them...
has since March been trying to crush a popular uprising against his government, in which over 3,500 people have been killed, according to U.N. figures. Those'd be the "revolutionaries" Tater's busy sympathizing with...
The Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... on November 12 voted to suspend Syria, although Iraq itself abstained, and Arab leaders on Wednesday gave Assad three days to halt his "bloody repression" of protests or face sanctions. Two days to go, I believe...
Twelve plus three equals... wait a minute...carry fourteen if in base three (look -- it's the Arab League, they invented the zero or the decimal point or something, so if they say so, it must be right!)... Yep, two more days to go. My apologies for the digression, do go on.
But there is "a big difference" between what is happening in Syria and the "great revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen," Sadr said in a statement titled "To the Revolutionaries in Beloved Syria". "Syria, y'see, is right next door."
"Be confident that I totally sympathize with your cause," Sadr says in the statement received by Agence La Belle France Presse on Thursday, addressing the Syrian dissidents. "I'm right behind you!"
"One of the reasons behind this difference is that Bashir al-Assad is against the American and Israeli presence and his attitudes are clear, not like those who collapsed before him, or will collapse," said the statement released by his office in the city of Najaf, reiterating points Sadr made in August. "Some of your lands are still occupied," Sadr said, referring to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which the Jewish state seized from Syria in 1967. ... after being attacked by Syria, among others...
Sadr also warned against throwing Syria into "an abyss of terrorism and fragmentation in the event of a vacuum in power." "Better to maintain an iron-fisted dictatorship that maintains a single family and its cronies in power..."
"We support your demonstrations to show your opinion," Sadr said of the anti-Assad camp. "But when you get thumped you're on your own!"
"But there are large groups that ... are with keeping the government," he said, calling for dialogue and an end to the conflict.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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#1
Oh oh. The ayatollahs are gonna take away his Gameboy.
[An Nahar] Rebel troops hit offices of Syria's ruling party on Thursday, a day after a daring raid on an intelligence base that prompted Russia to warn that its longtime ally risks "full-scale civil war."
The rocket-propelled grenade attack in northwestern Idlib province, near Turkey, came as security forces killed eight people, including two children, despite an Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... ultimatum that Syria halt the bloodshed or risk sanctions.
"A group of dissident troops attacked regime youth offices, where security agents were meeting, with rocket-propelled grenades and festivities broke out," said the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
On Wednesday, fighters of the Free Syrian Army, a rebel group formed by army deserters that has inflicted mounting losses on the regular army in recent months, raided an air force intelligence base in Harasta, outside the capital.
On the ground, security forces killed a nine-year-old girl and a man in the eastern oil hub of Deir al-Zour, the Observatory said.
Two non-combatants were killed in the central city of Homs and another four, including a young boy, in Idlib, the watchdog added.
The deaths came after at least 23 people were killed on Wednesday, even as Arab League foreign ministers, who had suspended Syria at the weekend, met in Morocco and gave Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... three days to halt the bloodshed or risk sanctions.
Ankara, a onetime Assad ally that has become one of its most outspoken critics, joined the Morocco meetings.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stepped up the rhetoric on Thursday, saying more would be heard from the international community if Syria had rich oil resources like Libya.
"The silence and unresponsiveness of those who have an appetite for Libya to the massacres in Syria is creating irreparable wounds in the conscience of humanity," he charged.
Erdogan is due to meet French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe on Thursday to discuss Syria.
In Istanbul, the leader of Syria's exiled Moslem Brüderbund said his compatriots would accept Turkish "intervention" in the conflict.
"The Syrian people would accept intervention coming from Turkey, rather than from the West, if its goal was to protect the people," Mohammad Riad Shakfa told a news conference.
On Thursday, Turkish pro-government daily Sabah reported the opposition Syrian National Council, together with the Brotherhood, had asked Turkey to establish a Libya-style no-fly zone in areas of northern Syria where there have been deadly festivities between troops and runaway dissidents.
Brotherhood leader Mohammed Farouk Tayfour declined comment, saying only that discussions had been held with several governments on "every possible means" to stop the bloodshed.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Background:
Erdogan was the 2010 winner of the Al-gaddafi Human Rights Award. Erdogan was initially supportive gaddafi but by the middle of the summer of 2011 had come around to be supportive of the opposition.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
11/18/2011 7:50
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#2
What is the world coming to when the only governments with a moral compass are the Turks and the French.
Is the empty suit taking any calls or did he just get out of town to avoid having to do anything?
BTW, with all of the crap flying in the ME, why is the SECSTATE in Mynamar? Of course, her being in Mynamar would explain that completely assinine comment that idiot at DOS made yesterday about the Syrian opposition. Does anyone have a brain? Does everyone in STATE think that holding hands and endless memos and sharply written letters will fix this?
We have a potential civil war/Sunni vs. Shia/Moslem vs. Jew/End of the ME as we know it about to erupt and everyone is on vacation???
At least George would have gone to Crawford and said SOMETHING. Geez, they are all incompetent.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/18/2011 9:59
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#3
Everyone is VERY busy distancing themselves from the most important political issue of several generations:
The democratization of a cultural hegemony and the collapse of regional fiefdoms with Iran working to establish itself as the predominant power.
I'm viewing it thru the lens of the 20th century development of the USSR. This one however has a strong spiritual basis unifying it's constituents.
[Dawn] IT is encouraging that the Anti-Women Practices (Criminal Law Amendment) Bill was finally passed by the National Assembly on Tuesday. Twice last month, the bill was stalled over what many observers saw as trivial objections. The social practices that the bill criminalises include that of women`s `marriage` to the Koran. This method of keeping inheritance limited to male family members is also quite common amongst the country`s feudal elites, some of whom are parliamentarians. The politicians` failure to take the bill seriously had exposed them to criticism on the grounds of class self-interest cutting across political divides. Now, though, once approved by the Senate, the progressive five-clause bill ought to prove important in Pakistain`s struggle to protect women`s rights. Defining a `marriage` to the Koran as an "oath by a woman on the holy Koran to remain unmarried for the rest of her life or not to claim her share of inheritance", the bill spells out hefty punishment for depriving women of their inheritance through this or other deceitful means, and for giving women in forced marriages to settle civil disputes or criminal liabilities -- another detestable practice that has for decades tarnished Pakistain`s human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... record.
The role that targeted legislation can play in discouraging archaic and regressive practices must also be highlighted. Using women as currency for settling disputes, forcing them into marriages against their will, giving jirgas the power to settle their futures or taking punitive action if they marry against their family`s or clan`s wishes are acts of coercion. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... these are defended by many as being part of tradition and seen as legitimate since they have been practised for centuries. Apart from raising awareness, the only tool the government has in its arsenal against such a mediaeval mindset is to develop legislation that specifically criminalises certain sorts of behaviour.
This government`s record in this regard has been fairly reasonable, with the formulation of crucial pieces of legislation such as the Protection against Harassment of Women at the Work Place Act 2010. However, it was a brave man who first ate an oyster... other, long overdue laws remain to be achieved. Notable here is the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Bill which was passed unanimously by parliament in August 2009 but that lapsed after the Senate failed to approve it. Resultantly, those subjected to a pervasive yet invisible form of violence are not protected by the law. While this bill must be revisited, the Senate must also ensure the prompt passage of the Anti-Women Practices (Criminal Law Amendment) Bill. Now that the first tier of parliamentary approval has been achieved, it must be given the attention it merits.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Save for the day when a future OWG American = Amerikan LADY SIMPSON becomes de facto Queen of England.
D *** NG IT, MADONNA, DOES THIS MEAN THAT HEATHER GRAHAM GETS TO BE GOVERNOR OF GUAM ONE DAY???
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Kenyan troops on Thursday took up positions outside a key Al-Shabaab ... successor to the Islamic Courts... stronghold as they prepared to launch a fresh offensive to capture Kismayu.
After weeks of relative inactivity, residents reported that troops in the central sector of the operation had reached the edge of Afmadow Town. If the town is taken, the soldiers will then push south towards Kismayu and link up with others approaching from Bur Gabo in the south.
Military front man, Major Emmanuel Chirchir, said the troops had encountered pockets of resistance from the Orcs and similar vermin as they positioned themselves outside Afmadow.
Some resistance
"We have now gone beyond Busar where we received some resistance from Al-Shabaab and are heading to Afmadow. As we speak, our men are at a place called Hayo, a short distance of about seven kilometres from Afmadow," Major Chirchir said.
Kenyan troops had engaged in a fierce shootout at Busar on Wednesday, he said.
"Our troops and the TFG fighters attacked Al-Shabaab bases in Busar yesterday. We killed 12 of them and did not suffer any casualties," he said.
Afmadow's capture will open the way for a march on Kismayu port, a key objective of the Kenyan operation. m mThe Orcs and similar vermin generate millions of shillings every year from the port, which they use to sustain their bloody campaign in the Horn of Africa.
Kenyan troops in the southern sector were on Thursday believed to have taken control of Kolbio, a town a few kilometres inside Somalia along one of Al-Shaabab's transport corridors.
Major Seif S. Rashid, the second in charge at this sector, told Nation there had been "major developments" in the area, where the troops have been concentrated over the past three days.
"We believe the trading centre has been taken by Kenyan forces. We are yet to get proper details on that so it would have to be confirmed after some time," said Major Rashid.
The capture of Kolbio will set the pace for movements of the troops towards Baddada, a town about 60km away and is understood to have been the destination for Al-Shaabab fleeing Ras Kamboni and Bur Gabo. Reports quoting locals in Lower Juba and Gedo regions in Southern Somalia indicated that Kenyans troops had been seen moving from Dobley and Tabto towns towards Afmadow.
"Kenyan forces in armoured vehicles occupied new positions outside the town of Qooqani," said a resident who refused to be identified for security reasons. "They kept on engaging in military manoeuvres," he added.
An aid worker in Afmadow, who spoke to Nation, said the troops were at Hayo. "Al-Shabaab are all over this place. There is no tension in the town and people are going about their businesses peacefully.
"I think the heavy rains have really curtailed any movement at the moment," said the aid worker.
Somali media quoted residents saying the Kenyans set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock an unidentified number of youngsters in Beles Qooqani and surrounding areas.
An Al-Shabaab official in Busar claimed his Orcs and similar vermin had killed eight soldiers from the Kenya Defence Forces and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and captured three others.
This was immediately denied by Major Chirchir, who reconfirmed 12 Orcs and similar vermin had been killed.
On Wednesday night, a position held by Ras Kamboni Brigade, a group allied to the TFG at Kulbio near Dobley, was also attacked by Al-Shabaab fighters.
Meanwhile, ...back at the fist fight, Jake ducked another roundhouse, then parried with his left, then with his right, finally with his chin... the whereabouts of Al-Shabaab's spiritual leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys remained unknown four days after Arclight airstrikes hit a building in Afgoye where the thugs' commanders were holding a meeting.
Amisom military front man Lt Col Paddy Ankunda said it was not clear whether Sheikh Aweys had been killed or injured in the attack.
"We do not know the condition of Sheikh Dahir Aweys who is said to have been seriously injured during the Sunday attacks; the other two, Godane and the front man Mohamud Rage have spoken, but Aweys has not," said Lt Col Ankunda.
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[Emirates 24/7] Soddy Arabia is pressing for a UN vote Friday on a resolution condemning an alleged plot to assassinate its US envoy and calling on Iran to cooperate with the investigation.
The United States has said Iran was behind the plot to kill Adel al-Jubeir in Washington, but the Saudi resolution, which was distributed at the 193-member UN General Assembly on Wednesday, did not directly accuse Iran of involvement.
The draft resolution, which is backed by the United States, "deplores" the plot and calls on Iran to "comply with all of its obligations under international law."
It says the Tehran government should "cooperate with states to bring to justice all those who participated in the planning, sponsoring, organization and attempted execution of the plot to assassinate the ambassador of the Kingdom of Soddy Arabia."
Saudi UN mission front man Abdulmohsen Alyas said many countries would co-sponsor the resolution, but declined to name them.
"Many countries understand our position and they agree with us by co-sponsoring this resolution," Alyas told AFP.
Iran has strongly denied No, no! Certainly not! being involved in the alleged plot against the Saudi envoy, possibly through the bombing of a Washington restaurant.
The United States has charged an Iranian-American used car salesman over the plot and said Iranian officials planned to hire a Mexican narco mob to kill the Saudi ambassador.
Iran's UN ambassador, Mohammad Khazaei, called the proposed resolution "dangerous" and "unacceptable" in a letter to UN leader the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... , according to Iranian media.
Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi called on Soddy Arabia to delete references to "the recent US scenario" of Iranian involvement in the plot, the state IRNA news agency said.
Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Tuesday that the Saudi allegations are "a signal that American policy is falling apart" in the Middle East.
He said the Saudis feared the spread of pro-democracy Arab Spring uprisings to their own country.
"The wave of changes are reaching the Saudi border," Larijani told news hounds at the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... , where he is due to make the Iranian case at votes on human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. resolutions.
Washington's UN Ambassador Susan Rice called the Saudi resolution "a measured and focused response to the chilling Iran plot."
"I urge my colleagues in the UN General Assembly to support" the resolution, she added.
And State Department deputy front man Mark Toner said the United States "welcome Saudi leadership on this (resolution) and on marshaling international recognition and condemnation of ... the threat posed by Iran's actions in this regard."
Meanwhile, ...back at the desert island, Bert was realizing to his horror that he'd had only one bottle for one message, and he'd forgotten to include a return address... the Saudi-owned Al-Hayat newspaper reported that Saudi authorities have formed a security force to protect Saudi envoys abroad and foreign missions inside Soddy Arabia.
On Saturday, the Saudi embassy in Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... came under attack from demonstrators who broke in. Soddy Arabia was among Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... members who voted to suspend Syria from the bloc over the crackdown on opposition protests.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
HMMM, HMMMM, the KSA getting the Ball = UNSC Mandate for war agz Iran a'rollin for POTUS Bammer???
#1
srael has been assembling a multibillion-dollar array of high-tech weapons that would allow it to jam, blind, and deafen Tehran's defenses in the case of a pre-emptive aerial strike.
No. Actually Israel is going to use a combination of Kabbalism & Voodoo to neutralize Iran.
Be especially careful in the comments section, folks, and remember the Rantburg rules for civilized discourse.
[An Nahar] A 21-year-old Hispanic man tossed in the calaboose after shots were fired near the White House was charged Thursday with attempting to assassinate President Barack My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it Obama, a justice department official said.
Oscar Ortega-Hernandez was tossed in the calaboose by Pennsylvania state police on Wednesday following last week's shooting incident. Obama and his wife Michelle were in Caliphornia at the time of the incident, and no one was injured..
Ortega-Hernandez -- from the western state of Idaho -- was charged in a U.S. federal court in Pittsburgh, where a judge ordered that he remain in police custody, the official said. He could face life in prison if convicted.
According to court filings obtained by Agence La Belle France Presse, one of the suspect's friends said Ortega-Hernandez saw Obama as the "devil" and was "preparing something."
The witness said the suspect had said Obama "needed to be taken care of" and had pledged he would "not stop until it's done."
Ortega-Hernandez was due to be transferred "within a few days" to Washington, federal prosecutors said.
He was tossed in the calaboose by state police at a hotel near Indiana, Pennsylvania, shortly after noon on Wednesday, Secret Service special agent Edwin Donovan said.
"Ortega-Hernandez is currently in the custody of the Pennsylvania State Police," he said.
Donovan had said earlier that Ortega-Hernandez was being sought after gunshots were heard Friday night near the White House, about 600 to 700 meters away on Constitution Avenue.
Within five minutes of the shooting, authorities located an abandoned vehicle on Constitution Avenue, which runs along the north border of the Washington Mall.
"Evidence in the vehicle led to U.S. Park Police obtaining an arrest warrant for Oscar Ortega-Hernandez," Donovan said.
From Constitution Avenue, a shooter would have a clear line of sight to the White House, across the Ellipse and the South Lawn of the presidential mansion. Traffic is not restricted on Constitution Avenue and members of the public can approach the wrought iron fence at the bottom of the South Lawn on foot.
Because the gunshots were heard so near the White House, the Secret Service launched an investigation and on Tuesday morning found damage to an exterior window of the White House. "A round was stopped by ballistic glass behind the historic exterior glass. One additional round has been found on the exterior of the White House," Donovan said.
"This damage has not been conclusively connected to Friday's incident, and an assessment of the exterior of the White House is ongoing," he said in a statement late Tuesday.
Ortega-Hernandez was described as a 21-year-old Hispanic male with a medium build, brown eyes, and black hair. But officials provided no other information about him, and how he was linked to the shooting.
Donovan would not comment on details of the incident, either, including the caliber of bullet found, the type of weapon used, or even which window was struck.
The White House's southern facade has three levels. On the ground floor are offices, the Map Room and rooms where the White House china is on display.
On the main floor several rooms have south facing windows, including the East Room, where presidential pressers are held; the Blue, Red and Green Rooms, named after their dominant color schemes; and the State Dining Room.
On the top floor are the private living quarters of the president and his family. The residence's main bedroom, a dining room, a reception room and the Lincoln bedroom all have windows facing south.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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#1
How soon until the press finds out his political views?
#5
My guess is he was brainwashed by evil right wing anti-obama rhetoric and only harsher gun laws will prevent such acts in the future. Bonus points if theycantie evil republicans to illegal immigration blame into the shooting as well.
#6
I strongly suspect schizophrenia. He is in the age window, and his police records indicate he is a frequent flyer.
"Police believe the suspect, 21-year-old Oscar Ramiro Ortega of Idaho, is mentally ill. Ortega has an extensive record, ranging from domestic violence to drug charges. Sources say a police investigation has uncovered evidence suggesting Ortega has a fixation on the White House.
"Authorities suspect Ortega has been in the area for weeks, coming back and forth to the Washington Mall. Before the shooting, he was detained by local police at an abandoned house. U.S. Park police say Ortega may have spent time with Occupy D.C. protesters."
#7
He's a straight up loony. (fit right in with the occupy group)
Evidently, his beef was something about the Mayan calendar, "Obama's plan to implant GPS tracking chips into all children" and then it just kind of lost focus from there.
Still, if he did make a 600-700 yd shot with a bloody AK he had something going on.
#8
According to the Idaho Department of Corrections, there is both an Oscar Hernandez and Oscar Ortega in their system, so some clarity may be needed about the perp's name, as both names are being reported.
#9
I have to take issue with the "Assassination" Charge, Obama's Out of town, and he knew it.
All he did is shoot AT the WhiteHouse(And from a considerable distance).
Charge hin with "Defacing a Monumeent" and get on Wirh it.
THAT has a chance of sticking.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/18/2011 10:26
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#10
I have to agree with RJ, dangerous loony. Anyone can make a distance shot, now putting it on target is a whole different deal. Guy shot for five minutes as it says, that is a long time, and have only found 2 rounds of bullet, what isn't adding up there.
#11
I got something for Obama, something that needs to be taken care of. I'm a 27 year vet and I have just what it takes! I am a registered voter and I will cast that vote!
Send this nut job to prison and leave the removal of the president to the vote...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
11/18/2011 11:16
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[An Nahar] Syria said it has issued a warning to its citizens that they would be locked away and prosecuted if they took part in further attacks on embassies.
"Ahmed, leash the hounds!"
"The interior ministry will take all necessary measures, including the arrest and trial, of any person seeking to attack diplomatic missions," the state news agency SANA reported.
Pro-Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... protesters attacked the Moroccan and UAE embassies on Wednesday, officials said.
Ambassador Mohammed Khassasi told Agence La Belle France Presse between 100 and 150 demonstrators pelted the Moroccan embassy with eggs and stones and stripped it of its flag, angry at Rabat's hosting of Arab meetings that proved so critical of the Assad regime.
Morocco later recalled its ambassador from Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... "to protest against a system that fails to renew itself," Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri said.
"The regime of Bashir al-Assad does not seem to listen, notably to outside efforts including those by the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... to settle the problem of violence."
The violent protests came despite a pledge by Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad to Arab ambassadors on Tuesday that there would be no repetition of the attacks on embassies.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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[Iran Press TV] Iran's envoy to the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh has called on the nuclear agency's chief to make corrections to his latest report on Iran's nuclear program.
In a November 16 letter to IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, Soltaniyeh said that the UN body's chief is required to amend his latest report on Iran's nuclear program on the grounds that he had violated the IAEA staff regulation and the agency's Statute by distributing confidential parts of the report to a number of countries prior to its official release.
On November 8, Amano released a report claiming that Iran was engaged in activities aimed at developing nuclear weapons.
The report was circulated among the 35 members of the IAEA Board of Governors last Tuesday, ahead of the seasonal meeting of the board, scheduled to be held in Vienna on November 17-18.
In his letter, Soltaniyeh pointed out that Amano's "report (GOV/2011/65) dated 8 November, 2011, has been categorized as 'Restricted Distribution' document."
The Iranian envoy pointed out that Amano had "already distributed the confidential text of the annex days before 8 November, 2011, to certain countries including the United States of America, La Belle France, and the United Kingdom."
"This is a clear violation of the staff regulation, the oath taken by Director General upon his assumption of the post, as well as the spirit and letter of the Statute of the IAEA since all Member States are recognized equal and have to be treated equally," Soltaniyeh noted.
Soltaniyeh added, "In this context I remind you that according to the rules and procedures including that of the Board of Governors, reports of implementation of Safeguards in Member States, categorized as confidential with restricted distribution, cannot be disclosed or delivered to selective countries prior to authorization by the Board of Governors or the General Conference."
Soltaniyeh further said that "there is only one option left to prevent further damage to the credibility and integrity of the Agency and my country: You declare in your introductory statement to the Board of Governors on 17 November 2011 that the report (Gov/2011/65) requires corrections and modifications following discussion with Iran therefore it could not be the basis of any decision."
In his report, Amano claimed Iran had engaged in activities related to developing nuclear weapons before 2003, adding that these activities "may still be ongoing."
Iran has dismissed Amano's latest report on its nuclear program as "unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure by mostly the United States."
The US, Israel and their allies accuse Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program and have used this allegation as a pretext to convince the UN Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran.
Tehran has categorically refuted Western allegations, saying that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the IAEA, it has the right to acquire and develop atomic technology for peaceful purposes.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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[Iran Press TV] At least six people have been killed and 25 others were maimed after Somali government forces opened fire inside a camp for famine refugees in the capital Mogadishu, Press TV reported.
Witnesses told Press TV that Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) troops stormed Rajo refugee camp in Wadajir district of southern Mogadishu on Thursday, and shot six people dead and maimed 25 others as they stole aid portions for famine-hit Somali families.
The assailants later decamped the scene, and their whereabouts are unknown.
The injured, mostly women and kiddies, were rushed to a medical center in southern Mogadishu to receive treatment.
The International Committee of the Red Thingy (ICRC) warned on September 28 that the humanitarian situation remains "highly critical" in Somalia.
"The situation in Somalia remains highly critical. Hundreds of thousands of Somalis are still displaced from their homes in search of security and food," the ICRC said in a statement.
The Geneva-based humanitarian institution added, "Although humanitarian aid has started to reach the drought- and conflict-affected people, many are still struggling to survive."
"Much of the livestock has been decimated and there is no hope for an improvement in the situation until the next harvest in December," it added.
Boilerplate follows...
Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Strategically located in the Horn of Africa, Somalia remains one of the countries generating the highest number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the world.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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#1
Propaganda coup for Al-Shabaab..
Posted by: American Delight ||
11/18/2011 9:57
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Whether they were "Somali government forces" or not...
[Dawn] Bloody Karachi remains constantly under the threat of terrorism and the police are playing a significant role in thwarting attacks, Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Hussain Wasan said.
"Policemen are doing their best and sacrificing their lives in the line of duty," he said.
Wasan was speaking to media representatives after offering funeral prayers at Police Lines Garden for the two coppers who were killed in an encounter with alleged snuffies late on Wednesday night.
He said the police had successfully thwarted a major act of terrorism as the five alleged snuffies were well equipped and had a huge quantity of explosives.
Wasan said that on the lead from the registration plate number of the van, the police had managed to arrest two accused and a probe had been initiated against them.
He said the arrests had been made after raids in Hyderabad and later in Bloody Karachi.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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I put this under Seedy Politicians since Obama and the Democrats (and Unions) Own these terrorists Lock, Stock, and Barrel. Feel free to move this elsewhere (WOT for example)
They were caught in the middle of madness.
Some grade school students were forced to walk a gauntlet of screaming Occupy Wall Street protesters just to get to school on Thursday.
It was a wild day in lower Manhattan for most everyone involved, including elementary school children who had to brave the mayhem just to get to class on the other side of Wall Street.
These guys are terrorists, yelling at little kids, one father said.
For them its horrible. Theyre afraid of all the crowds. Were not even able to get through. Theyre just, hes very afraid now, a mother added.
One protester followed a father and his little daughter all the way down the block.
The guy would have followed me into an alley... but not out of it....
As the school day ended just after 3 p.m. children trickled out of Leman Manhattan Prep on Broad Street. Smith heard a 4-year-old boy telling his mom he was scared. He told Smith it looked like a parade.
There was a parade. It was scary crowded with school, the boy said.
After a while it got so bad some parents couldnt get their children through and they had to go late, said Gary Goldenstein of Tribeca.
[Dawn] At least 22 faceless myrmidons were killed in festivities between Pak security forces and Talibs in a remote district of the Orakzai Agency ... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers... in the northwest, local government officials said.
There was no word on casualties from government forces.
There was no independent confirmation of thug casualties, and faceless myrmidons often dispute at an official accounts.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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Seven people were injured in Cairo on Thursday when residents clashed with thousands of Christians marching through the capital to demand an end to what they see as discrimination by the state.
The Coptic Christians were marching from Cairo's northern Shoubra suburb towards the landmark Tahrir Square in the city center.
"But the locals in the neighborhood of Bulak attacked the group on their way to the square and threw stones at them," a security source said. "Until now we have seven people injured and the clashes are still going on," he added.
Some grade school students were forced to walk a gauntlet of screaming "Occupy Wall Street" protesters just to get to school on Thursday. So this is "Peaceful"?
It was a wild day in lower Manhattan for most everyone involved, including elementary school children who had to brave the mayhem just to get to class on the other side of Wall Street.
In the middle of thousands of protestors yelling and chanting -- some kicking and screaming -- CBS 2's Emily Smith found little school kids trying to get to class. Nervous parents led them through the barriers on Wall Street. The NYPD helped funnel the children, anything to ease their fears while some protestors chanted "follow those kids!"
"These guys are terrorists, yelling at little kids," one father said. Not exactly terrorists, but acting like childre throwing a tantrum. They can't have everything just given to them. Despicable.
These children will grow up to trust the police and distrust protesters -- future conservatives in the making. Well done, OWS-ers!
"For them it's horrible. They're afraid of all the crowds. We're not even able to get through. They're just, he's ... very afraid now," a mother added.
One protester followed a father and his little daughter all the way down the block. As the school day ended just after 3 p.m. children trickled out of Leman Manhattan Prep on Broad Street. Smith heard a 4-year-old boy telling his mom he was scared. He told Smith it looked like a parade. That's no longer a protester, it's called harrasment. Should be prosecuted.
"There was a parade. It was scary -- crowded with school," the boy said.
"After a while it got so bad some parents couldn't get their children through and they had to go late," said Gary Goldenstein of Tribeca. And Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Far Left Democrats approve.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
11/18/2011
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#1
Remember: Obama, Pelosi, The Democrats and the Unions *OWN* these people.
#2
I think that maybe the parents should exercise their 2nd amendment rights and begin Open Carry on the school escorts. or maybe even some super soakers now that it is getting a bit nippy out....
Posted by: no mo uro ||
11/18/2011 5:43
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#5
As long as funding is provided in this country and outside. Same thing with King. Anyone who wishes this country harm will send in the money. With so many out of work and the numbers look to increase this will not go away. Here till elections. This is the only way the media, Democrats and Unions can hope to win for themselves. The difference today is we have so many in power who think like occupy.
#7
Donks, home of the new Klan/Red Guard. Night riders out to terrorize. "These guys are terrorists, yelling at little kids," one father said. Yes we can - OWS/OB.
#11
re #8 ...an excuse to cancel the 2012 elections.
There is no provision anywhere in the Constitution for canceling elections. Since military officers take an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, Obama would be risking inward-pointing tanks surrounding the White House. I really doubt he would ever attempt it.
Far more likely is simply stealing the election through blatant fraud, which the MFM will happily ignore.
[Emirates 24/7] A woman who claimed that Justin Bieber was the father of her infant son has dropped a paternity suit against the pop star, amid reports he was preparing to file a counter suit.
Celebrity gossip site TMZ.com reported that plaintiff Mariah Yeater, 20, who last week quietly revoked her suit against the singer, also had been abandoned by her legal team.
Bieber earlier this month said he would take a DNA test to prove that he did not father Yeater's son, and then would countersue once the results come back, according to reports.
Sources said Bieber, 17, and his legal team planned to make an example of Yeater as a deterrent to others who might be tempted to make similar claims in the future.
Yeater, who gave birth to a baby boy in July, had claimed that she and Bieber met backstage at a concert in October last year in Los Angeles, where they had sexual relations that left her pregnant.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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Somebody told her that, since he was underage, she can get accused of rape?
#2
Apparently she was 19 and he was 17 at the time of the claim. California is cool with that. I think he story fell apart on other issues. I haven't tracked the story beyond the age claim because I thought the same thing initially.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/18/2011 8:47
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In the old days in the West [and still today in Muzzie country] bearing false witness usually was penalized with stoning [as with rocks not drugs]. Reduced recidivism.
[An Nahar] Iraq has executed a Tunisian man convicted of involvement in a 2006 attack on a revered Shiite shrine that unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodshed, a justice ministry front man said on Thursday. Good idea. Never forgive, never forget, never 'understand.'
The ministry "executed 11 people on Wednesday, including a Tunisian convicted of involvement in the bombing of al-Askari shrine in Samarra in 2006," the front man said, asking to have his name withheld.
The 11, who also included an Egyptian and nine Iraqis, among them a woman, were all convicted of terrorism offences, the front man said.
The Tunisian, 27-year-old Yusri al-Tariki, had been jugged in Iraq since 2006, after travelling to the country in 2003 to participate in the insurgency against U.S. forces, his father Fakher al-Tariki said.
He was condemned to death in Iraq for involvement in the killings of "hundreds" of Americans and Iraqis, including a journalist from the al-Arabiya satellite station, as well as the Samarra shrine attack.
His father said his son was tortured and forced to implicate himself.
Tunisia's interim president, Fouad Mebazaa, had appealed to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in a November 10 message to pardon Tariki.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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#1
I guess Iraq would not much like the Occupy Wall Street crowd.
A pity. They were literally doing something meant to be constructive rather than destructive.
(Ma'an) -- A teenager and his relative were killed Thursday after a bridge they were building collapsed in central Gazoo.
Four other workers were maimed in the incident, one seriously, medical officials said.
The bridge, near al-Nuseirat refugee camp, was under construction when it caved in, locals told Ma'an.
The accident killed Zayed Subhi Abu Reyala, 31, and Suleiman Muhammad Abu Reyala, 15, front man of Gazoo's medical services Adham Abu Salmiya said.
Workers injured in the incident were taken to Gazoo's Shuhada al-Aqsa hospital after police and ambulances evacuated the maimed, he added. He named those injured as Hassan al-Nahhal, Khaled Abu Hammam, Nabil Abu Reyaleh and Bassam al-Arqan.
#5
Back to your room, Frank. There is an iphone app for calculating the loads on the bridge. Insh'Allah Development Co. Word on the street is that it is a Mossad plant.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/18/2011 20:45
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#6
PUBLIC WORKS DEPT. OF THE ISLAMIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF GAZOO ...
versus
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > WNY PALESTINIANS [35% = East Jerusalem] WANT TO BE ISRAELI CITIZENS.
[Iran Press TV] Police in the United States have attacked protesters who are marking the second-month anniversary of the 'Occupy' movement, with reports of 200 people tossed in the calaboose.
The morning's demonstrations were part of an Occupy Wall Street "Day of Action" planned for Thursday, which began with a march from Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan to the New York Stock Exchange a few blocks away.
The day of action also comes two days after coppers attacked the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park, arresting nearly 500 protesters and dismantling their tents.
Demonstrators also plan to take the protests to the city's subways and major bridges later in the afternoon.
The Occupy movement owes its name to 'Occupy Wall Street' (OWS), which emerged on September 17, when a group of demonstrators gathered in New York's financial district to protest social inequality and top-level corruption in the country.
Despite police hindrance and mass arrests, the Occupy movement has now spread to major US cities.
The movement has also inspired similar pushes across the world, including places such as Australia, Britannia, Germany, Italia, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Embattled President Barack I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money Obama's re-election bid, weighed down by the sour economy, got a shot in the arm on Thursday as a powerful US labour union announced it was endorsing him.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which boasts 2.1 million members, backed Mr Obama's bid for a new term in the November 2012 elections in a move that could stiffen the spine of disaffected or demoralised Democrats.
SEIU, which contributes millions of dollars and a robust get-out-the-vote effort to Democratic causes, had endorsed Mr Obama's historic first White House run in February 2008 and had been expected to do so again in this race.
"This early endorsement is to make crystal clear what kind of country we want," said SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry, citing the need to create jobs, safeguard the social safety net, and overhaul US immigration.
"We think President Barack Obama is the leader who is going to help make that vision a reality," she said.
The fast-growing union's endorsement came amid worry among some Democrats that the coalition that powered Mr Obama's 2008 White House win has fractured, lengthening his odds of holding the White House for four more years.
Meanwhile, ...back at the sea battle, the Terror of the Baltic's career had come to an abrupt and watery end... President B.O. signalled a pivotal US shift to Asia on Thursday, pledging not to let Washington's budget crunch compromise his expansive vision and military presence in the region.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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Mehhh, call me when its the SIU, Teamsters or Longshoremen.
#3
"This early endorsement is to make crystal clear what kind of country we want," said SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry...I guess that means the only people with jobs, homes, cars, and money are government employees?
Just another useful idiot in the march to total collapse.
I personally think that government employee unions should not be allowed to make campaign contributions or endorse a particular candidate. It smacks of deliberate sabotage of the leadership if the opposition is elected...
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/18/2011 10:58
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#4
...or if they do contribute, the party that receives the most, becomes the unit for collective bargaining on the legislative floor. No need for other paid representation.
[An Nahar] The Syrian National Council opposed to the regime of Bashir al-Assad needs to be better organized before any official recognition of it, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Thursday.
"The SNC must get organized," Juppe told RMC radio, excluding immediate official recognition of the confederation of most anti-Assad groups protesting Assad's regime in Syria.
"We have contacts with them, I saw Mr. Burhan Ghaliun in Gay Paree, who's the president. We help them, we have contact and we encourage them to get organized," he added.
The CNS has so far only been officially recognized by the new post-Qadaffy ...a reminder that a single man with an idea can change an entire nation, usually for the worse... Libyan authorities.
Juppe hit out again at the Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... regime, saying that "the brutal, savage repression being carried out for months cannot continue."
He hailed the "turning point" of "neighboring countries realizing that you can no longer trust Bashir al-Assad" after the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... voted to suspend Syria over the bloody suppression of protests.
Given permanent U.N. Security Council member Russia's opposition to sanctions on the Syrian regime, Juppe said La Belle France was trying to get a resolution passed by the U.N.'s General Assembly.
"We've drawn up a draft resolution at the United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involves making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... General Assembly calling for an end to the repression and the beginning of a reform process," he said.
La Belle France on Wednesday said it was recalling its ambassador to Damascus after French and other nations' diplomatic missions were attacked by pro-Assad mobs.
Arab leaders on the same day gave Assad three days to halt his "bloody repression" of anti-regime protests the U.N. says has killed more than 3,500 people, or risk sanctions.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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#1
Gee Alain, already picked out the Al Qaeda affiliated group to take power?
The Gingrich Group took in between $1.5M and $2.0M over an eight year period (about $25K per month over many months).
Newt says all he offered was strategic advice. Others say it must have been more than that given the amount of billable hours.
Newt's former chief of staff was a corporate officer there.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
11/18/2011
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#1
Newt has problems. I really do not like Romney. Cain has issues. Paul is too radical. Perry is done because of his brain fart. Etc.
Obama wins.
I do not see the subtlety of the plan.
Could someone please explain.
Posted by: kelly ||
11/18/2011 11:43
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#2
That's the kind of thing I mean when I say "baggage". And yet, somehow, I still like the guy. Maybe it's that rapier whit that he displays in the debates. But I think the best "advice" he could have given Fannie and Freddie would have been to shut it down.
#3
OTOH, you know of course that Obama has a few extra bags of his own. It should be just a matter of finding a GOP candidate with the balls to talk about it.
#4
The entire country has 'baggage' but I guess its arms aren't yet tired enough of carrying it around. Maybe when the pain is bad, the electorate will become more interested in getting out of this mess than running down any individual candidates.
#5
The amount of money Gingrich brought in over 8 years is not that much; $250 K per year max. He has a small firm of about a dozen people. The nature of the consulting is more important. I hope it's not another dumb thing like pitching Climate Change with Nancy Pelosi.
I like Newt. He could probably chew Obama up in the debates. That would be fun to watch. He seems like an idea and policy guy. Whether he can win the election and govern, I don't know.
Newt is much better than what we got. I don't by any means think it's inevitable that Obama wins. There is a lot of discontent in the electorate over the economy as well as many other issues.
#9
Call me shallow, but one of my problems with Mr. Gingrich is that his nickname is "Newt" and his last name is "Gingrich". For the life of me I just can't see a U.S. president named "Newt Gingrich".
If he just changed his name to something like "Neil Grandman" I would consider him much more electable.
Even better would be my all-time macho name: the pulp author "Manly Wellman"!
I'd talk candidates but not registered r, so don't know if that's cool or not. So I'll leave the old words of wisdom, "Every hands a winner, and every hands a loser."
#12
All these guys need to realize in the debates that, while they have different ideas than the guy standing next to them, their real target is the Imposter-In-Chief; until they start playing the game the same as the left, we will get fo' mo' yeahs of Bammy and Company.
[An Nahar] Hundreds of Coptic Christians marching in Cairo on Thursday came under attack by assailants throwing stones and bottles and 25 people were lightly injured in subsequent festivities, a security official said.
They were marching to demand justice for the Christian victims of a clash with soldiers in October that left at least 25 people dead, most of them Christians.
The official said the Copts were attacked in the northern Shoubra neighborhood with stones and bottles, and that some among them responded in kind.
He said supporters of an Islamist candidate for upcoming parliamentary election joined in the attack on the Copts.
An Agence La Belle France Presse correspondent on the scene said hundreds of riot police were deployed to the area and that the festivities had eventually subsided.
Copts, who make up roughly 10 percent of Egypt's 80 million people, complain of discrimination in the Moslem-majority country.
There has been a spike in sectarian festivities since a popular uprising ousted president Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... in February.
The deadliest took place on October 9, when thousands of Christians protesting an attack on a church clashed with soldiers.
Witnesses said the soldiers fired on the demonstrators and ran them over with military vehicles, which the military denies.
The military said a number its soldiers were killed in the clash.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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Twenty-nine people were maimed in Cairo on Thursday when residents clashed with a group of Christians marching through the capital to commemorate those who died in confrontations with the army on Oct. 9, state news agency MENA said.
The Coptic Christians were marching from Cairo's northern Shoubra suburb towards the landmark Tahrir Square in the city center when the festivities broke out.
"The locals in the neighborhood of Bulak attacked the group on their way to the square and threw stones at them," a security source told Rooters.
Another attack took place as the protesters were regrouping in Shoubra where residents and protesters threw stones, glass and Molotov cocktails at each other.
The marchers scattered after the attack. Riot police arrived and a priest asked the protesters to disperse, saying the army had sealed off the city center near Tahrir and the march could not go ahead.
Mike Ledeen pulls together various threads of information about the recent kabobs in Iran, and concludes that it wasn't the eeeeevil Zionist Juices but rather the internal opposition that is revving up operations. Worth a read.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/18/2011
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#1
Any opposition that could carry out something like this could, easily, take over.
#2
Yup, tip o' the hat to the internal ops group if they did it. This is the sort of thing that one does easily blame on those eeeeevil Joooz.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/18/2011 8:53
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#3
The mullahs in Iran are not mad enough to render parts of their country uninhabitable from fallout from a nuke on Israel.
I say they won't / don't intend to use it on Israel. That is a bunch of misinformation nonsense. Anyone with two brain cells would understand the true target for one of their devices is the US.
The cast of players, Pakistan, NORK, and Iran plus Russia, all lean toward identifying the common target. The NORK really have no beef with Israel, nor do the Paks (really). The common opponent is the US.
I swear if we don't do something soon, we'll lose a city here.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/18/2011 10:47
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[An Nahar] Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah sock puppet... on Thursday called on his supporters to endorse the approach of "peaceful resistance" in the domestic arena.
Addressing an AMAL student delegation from the American University of Beirut (AUB), Berri said: "If the effective tactic to confront the Israeli enemy is armed resistance, the tactic in the domestic arena should be peaceful resistance.
"We must always endorse the rhetoric of dialogue and communication because it is the path that strengthens the country's immunity," Berri told the students.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2011
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#1
Translation: "Unlike those Jews, these Muslims will kill me."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
In his defense of the Energy Department's handling of the $535 million loan guarantee to the now bankrupt Solyndra, Energy Secretary Steven Chu made some bold claims about the overall effectiveness of the department's clean-energy loan programs. He also made the case that the collapse in solar panel prices -- which helped sink Solyndra -- was "totally unexpected" by most financial analysts at the time when the department went forward with the loan in 2009.
At the end of last month, I wrote about Beacon Power, a green-tech company that received over a hundred million dollars in taxpayer-backed credit but who teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. Yesterday, Beacon tipped over, filing for protection from its creditors -- and potentially taking $43 million in taxpayer dollars with it:
[Al Ahram] 
THE EU was ridiculed last night after it took three years to issue a new rule that water cannot be sold as healthy.
[Dawn] At least seven people -- five 
Walid 
[Dawn] Chief Minister 
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
[Iran Press TV] At least 13 people have been killed after US 
Pak intelligence officials say suspected US drones fired four missiles at a house near the Afghan border, killing seven alleged
[Dawn] Governor 
Kurram Agency
[Dawn] Lawyers and mediapersons entered into a brawl on the premises of the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
[Dawn] An anti-terrorism court on Thursday acquitted three sons of Sufi Mohammad , the chief of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (
Zim-bob-we President 
The Islamist politician likely to become Tunisia's first democratically elected prime minister has alarmed liberals and secularists by claiming the arrival of the "sixth caliphate", a controversial term for a 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Najib Miqati
Moqtada 
[An Nahar] Rebel troops hit offices of Syria's ruling party on Thursday, a day after a daring raid on an intelligence base that prompted Russia to warn that its longtime ally risks "full-scale civil war."
[Dawn] IT is encouraging that the Anti-Women Practices (Criminal Law Amendment) Bill was finally passed by the National Assembly on Tuesday. Twice last month, the bill was stalled over what many observers saw as trivial objections. The social practices that the bill criminalises include that of women`s `marriage` to the Koran. This method of keeping inheritance limited to male family members is also quite common amongst the country`s feudal elites, some of whom are parliamentarians. The 
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Iran Press TV] At least six people have been killed and 25 others were 
[Dawn] 
A woman who claimed that Justin Bieber was the father of her infant son has dropped a paternity suit against the pop star, amid reports he was preparing to file a counter suit.
Iraq has executed a Tunisian man convicted of involvement in a 2006 attack on a revered Shiite shrine that unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodshed, a justice ministry 
Embattled President 
The Gingrich Group took in between $1.5M and $2.0M over an eight year period (about $25K per month over many months).
Twenty-nine people 
