Eleven days after his emotional reunion with a Filipino man who helped save his life during World War II, American veteran James Carrington died quietly Sunday at the Destrehan nursing home where he resided. He was 88.
One of thousands of American and Filipino soldiers imprisoned by the Japanese after the fall of the island of Corregidor, Mr. Carrington, a Marine who grew up in New Orleans, escaped from the notorious Bilibid Prison and was given refuge by a group of Filipinos in a passing horse cart.
He later help lead guerrilla fighters based in a mountain hideout who created havoc for the Japanese military before American forces retook the Philippines.
Mr. Carrington's son, James Carrington Jr., said he believes his father rallied in recent weeks to stay alive for a Thanksgiving week visit from Jesus Gonzalez, a native of the Philippines now living in Vancouver.
"It took every bit of strength he had," the veteran's son said. "It kept him alive, in my opinion. That's all he was looking forward to."
Gonzalez, who was 11 years old at the time, was among those who hid Mr. Carrington after the Marine scaled a prison wall in April 1944. His older brother was later arrested by Japanese soldiers for his role in the episode and is believed to have been executed.
Gonzalez's daughter Valerie, a musician who lives in New Jersey, had tracked down the ailing former Marine after her father, a retired engineer, recalled a cigarette lighter left behind by Mr. Carrington that bore his name.
Mr. Carrington had visited with Jesus and Valerie Gonzalez, along with immediate members of his own family, for a few days prior to Thanksgiving Day. He died Sunday morning at the Ormond Nursing and Care Center.
"I'm very glad that we made the effort to go and see him," Jesus Gonzalez said Monday from Canada. "I didn't expect that it would be the last one with him. It was such a joyful moment with me to have met him at last after all those years. I'll see him again somewhere, somehow, up in heaven perhaps. He was a great man. He did a great service to the United States and to the Philippines."
Mr. Carrington, a former Warren Easton student, left high school to join the Marines in 1939. After the war, the man who had been dubbed the "Cajun guerrilla" made a living as an excavating contractor, and he and his wife, Joyce, raised two children in Harahan.
A Marine honor guard will participate in the burial ceremony.
The word "evil" has been used twice today in the Corner to describe Blago's crimes. I'm not really disputing the use of the word. But that's not really the word that comes to my mind. Evil is too dark, too serious, too smart for what we're talking about. I agree with Kathryn that there's something almost wholesome or nostalgic about Blogo's criminal misdeeds. He wasn't found opening an umbrella in parts of his anatomy for money on the internet, or giving cash to terrorists who were going to have Santas wear suicide-padding at department stores around the country. He didn't check interns for a hernia without permission or spy for the Norks. He's just a crook. A good, old-fashioned, crook. I know I'm supposed to be outraged, and in a certain sense I am. If he's guilty of all that's alleged, I hope they throw him in the stoney lonesome until the Chicago Cubs win the World Series or 2025, whichever comes second. But in another sense, this is just plain enjoyable. It's like when you watch "Cops" and the idiot burglar tries to hide beside a tree in the dark, even though he's wearing light-up sneakers. It's like when Dan Rather dares the world to prove he's a clueless ass-clown. It's just good stuff. There's no tragedy here. No wasted potential. No undeserving victims. No profound and complicated symbolic issues (I somewhat doubt the Serbian-American lobby is going to cry racism). This is the sort of criminality we want the Feds to find, particularly in Chicago. Everyone gets what they deserve at least so far and all of the guilty parties are all the more deserving of punishment because they don't quite understand what the big deal is. I love it.
More please.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/09/2008
17:09 ||
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Two Gothenburg-area residents were found alive after spending 17 hours in bitter cold temperatures when the small aircraft they were flying crash landed in icy waters near Iqaluit in northern Canada on Sunday night.
Oliver Edwards-Neil, a 25-year-old Australian and his Danish flying companion, 45-year-old Troels Hansen, were found wandering on a patch of floating ice by a passing fishing boat.
Both men reside in Gothenburg, where Edwards-Neil is studying to be a pilot, according to Australian newspaper, The Age.
"They were wandering around on the ice, are suffering from hypothermia, but are doing well considering the circumstances, said Swedish foreign ministry spokesperson Gufran Ad-Nadaf to the TT news agency.
According to The Canadian Press news service, the twin-engine Cessna Skymaster crashed about 160 kilometers south of Iqaluit shortly after the pair radioed in to say that they were having engine problems after take-off from Baffin Island on their way back to Sweden.
"They'd lost one engine and then, quickly after, lost the second engine and unfortunately ended up crashing into the water, said Halifax rescue centre spokesperson Mike Bonin to The Canadian Press.
A search and rescue operation was launched shortly after the crash and includes both private and military aircraft, as well as a nearby fishing boat.
According to Bonin, the weather is clear but extremely cold and there is a great deal of ice in the area due to global warming, the ghosts of baby harp seals, and drowning polar bears. .
Indian authorities have released the names or aliases of the nine suspected militants killed during last month's attacks in the city of Mumbai (Bombay).
Photographs of eight of the men were released - the body of the ninth was said to have been too badly burned.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/09/2008
15:33 ||
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I think I've found the problem...
Karachi citizens give their views on India's Mumbai accusations
Amin, street vendor: India is totally wrong in making these accusations. It always does this, even though they find out later someone else is involved. This is very wrong. If there is some evidence, then they should take action against the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. But there has to be strong evidence.
Shaghi, housewife: They are just making things up. It's not like that. They are responsible for the attacks themselves. As far as Dawa is concerned, they should have a conference and get together and talk things over. Otherwise, this will never end.
Habibullah Ansari, businessman: Indian accusations go back a long way. Whenever something like this happens, the Indians blame Pakistan. It is actually a result of their own brutalities. Now, they are all using it because of the upcoming elections. We should not comply, until and unless they provide hard evidence. And then the people should be arrested and tried under Pakistani law.
Faisal, student:This is our own weakness. What can we say? We ourselves have been a victim of terrorism. But if it's happening in India, or elsewhere, Muslims are blamed. This is due to differences between ourselves. Until Muslims get united, this will continue. India has to provide strong evidence before asking Pakistan to act.
Iffat Ashar, housewife: We don't believe Pakistan is involved in these attacks. They are because of their internal situation. They are just accusing Pakistan. I think Pakistan's image is like this in the world - whenever something like this happens, Pakistan is automatically blamed. I don't think Pakistan will take action against Dawa. They will do what is in their interest.
Questions have been raised in India over the police handling of the arrest of a man suspected of handling mobile phone cards used by Mumbai's attackers.
Calcutta police arrested Mukhtar Ahmed for procuring SIM cards for the group without knowing that he was an undercover operative.
He was on a long-term mission with police in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Senior intelligence sources say a "high-value asset" has been blown and his family put at risk.
'Huge catch'
Mukhtar Ahmed has told those questioning him that he was working for police intelligence in Indian-administered Kashmir.
His brief was to procure SIM cards for Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters and pass the numbers to police so that all calls from those numbers could be monitored by intelligence.
Calcutta police officials admit that Mr Mukhtar has given them details of his work but say they can release him only if police in Indian-administered Kashmir make a formal request in writing.
Police there may be reluctant to do so as intelligence operatives rarely own up to undercover operations publicly.
Mr Mukhtar's identity is now in the public domain and police in Indian-administered Kashmir are neither owning up to his work nor disowning him.
The senior federal Intelligence Bureau official said: "This exposure will put Mukhtar and his family at great risk.
"Why should the Calcutta police leak his name to the press when we had told them categorically to keep shut on the entire Mumbai investigations?
"They thought they had a huge catch and they wanted publicity."
He said Calcutta police should have checked with Indian-administered Kashmir police once they arrested Mr Mukhtar.
"A high-value asset has been blown, a major operation has been screwed up," said the Intelligence Bureau official.
He said a SIM card recovered from the mobile of one of the Mumbai gunmen, called Ismail, was among those supplied to Lashkar by Mukhtar Ahmed.
"But it was only switched on once before the attack and hardly used because Ismail got into action and was killed by police soon after," the official said.
Mr Mukhtar and Tousif Ahmed, the Calcutta trader who procured the SIM cards for him, may be handed over to Mumbai police because they are wanted in connection with the attack.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/09/2008
15:32 ||
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ooooops
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2008 17:44
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The only solution to these kinds of problems is a new giant government agency to oversee cooperation between other giant government agencies.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
12/09/2008 20:36
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Some same-sex marriage supporters are urging people to "call in gay" Wednesday to show how much the country relies on gays and lesbians, but others question whether it's wise to encourage skipping work given the nation's economic distress.
Organizers of "Day Without a Gay" - scheduled to coincide with International Human Rights Day and modeled after similar work stoppages by Latino immigrants - also are encouraging people to perform volunteer work and refrain from spending money.
Sean Hetherington, a West Hollywood comedian and personal trainer, dreamed up the idea with his boyfriend, Aaron Hartzler, after reading online that a few angry gay-rights activists were calling for a daylong strike to protest California voters' passage last month of Proposition 8, which reversed this year's state Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriage.
The couple thought it would be more effective and less divisive if people were asked to perform community service instead of staying home with their wallets shut. Dozens of nonprofit agencies, from the National Women's Law Center in Washington to a Methodist church in Fresno collecting food for the homeless, have posted opportunities for volunteers on the couple's Web site.
"We are all for a boycott if that is what brings about a sense of community for people," said Hetherington, 30, who plans to spend Wednesday volunteering at an inner-city school. "You can take away from the economy and give back in other ways."
Hetherington said he's been getting 100 e-mails an hour from people looking for volunteer opportunities, and that his "Day Without a Gay" Web site has gotten 100,000 hits since mid-November.
Despite Hartzler and Hetherington's attempt to fashion a positive approach, some organizers of the street demonstrations that drew massive crowds in many cities last month have been reluctant to embrace the concept, saying that it could be at best impractical and at worst counterproductive to "call in gay."
"It's extra-challenging for people to think about taking off work as a form of protest, given that we are talking about people who may not be out (as gay) at work, and given the current economic situation and job market," said Jules Graves, 38, coordinator of the Colorado Queer Straight Alliance. "There is really not any assurance employers would appreciate it for what it is."
Graves' group nonetheless is arranging for interested participants to volunteer at the local African Community Center in Denver. The agency said it could find projects to keep 20 people busy, but so far only 10 have pledged to show up, said Graves.
Scott Craig, a fifth-grade teacher at Independence Charter School in Philadelphia, had no problem requesting and being granted the day off. So many of the school's 60 teachers were eager to show support for gay rights they had to make sure enough stayed behind to staff classrooms.
About 25 teachers plan to take Wednesday off and to have their work covered by substitutes while they discuss ways to introduce gay issues to their students and volunteer at the local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, Craig said. A letter telling parents why so many teachers would be out went home Monday.
"We want to get the conversation going in the community that gay is not bad," Craig said. "For kids to hear that in a positive light can be life-changing."
Join The Impact, the online community that launched protests last month over the passage of gay marriage bans in California, Florida and Arizona, has urged people to withdraw $80 from their bank accounts Wednesday to demonstrate gays' spending power, and to devote the time they might otherwise spend watching TV or surfing the Internet to volunteer work.
Witeck-Combs Communications, a public relations firm in Washington that specializes in the gay and lesbian market, published a study this year that estimated that gay and lesbian consumers spend $700 billion annually.
Bob Witeck, the firm's chief executive officer, said it would be difficult to measure the success of Wednesday's strike since gay employees occupy so many fields. And rather than suspending all consumer spending for the day, gay rights supporters would have a bigger impact if they devoted their dollars to gay-friendly businesses year-round, Witeck said.
"Our community leaders who are running book stores, newspapers, flower shops, coffee houses, bars and many, many other things are hurting right now, so paying attention to their needs during this hard time is an effective form of activism," he said.
Hetherington said he has been careful to design A Day Without a Gay - he came up with the name after the film "A Day Without a Mexican" and liked it because it rhymed - so no one feels excluded or threatened.
He has specifically urged high school students not to walk out of their classes and assured college students they won't be disloyal to the cause if they go ahead and take their final exams. He also has listed opportunities - ranging from writing letters to members of Congress about federal gay rights legislation to spreading the word about Wednesday on social networking sites - for gay marriage backers who cannot miss work.
#3
a day without show tunes, floral shops, dance studios, Film Actors Guild, drama queens in the office? It worked so well for A Day Without A Mexican!
Perhaps they can take their day off and protest black support for Prop *8* in Compton?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2008 17:32
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"You have one hour to get your butt here, and you will be working two hours past close of business tonight. Or don't bother coming in, and we'll mail you your stuff."
#7
Not only does this sort of "protest" infuriate me - as a gay guy, I find it humiliating. You don't like the way the voters voted, so you throw an economically destructive tantrum at the expense of your society? Hey, I've got an idea for a response. How about do a better job at work and do a bit more for your community as well - without seeking attention and admiration - to show that we are here for our fellow citizens and will not resort to anti-religious bigotry. How about demonstrating that tolerance and respect are a two-way street by setting an example?
You don't like the way people vote? Maybe you could try winning them over by having open-minded discussions free of insults and ad hominem. A dialogue where your mind might be changed as well as theirs. After all, I'm glad that I was raised by a married mother and father. I think it was important for me to understand how male-female relationships work - even as a gay man - how much more so for my heterosexual siblings. I have no problem with a state deciding that it wants to maintain heterosexual marriage as an ideal for raising the next generation of Americans. If those opposed to this standard want to change the minds of voters, they are free to try. But to react in such a hostile manner because they failed to win enough people over to their side is shameful.
Thanks for posting that. I personally don't give a damn how consenting adults get their sexual jollies. That's their business as long as it doesn't involve minors or illegal force. I am, however, EXTREMELY TIRED of having the homosexual agenda shoved in my face and told I'll either be "tolerant" or else.
As for the "Day without a Gay," my response as an employer would be similar to 'Moose's. Straight, gay, black, white, purple polka-dot, whatever, just get in here and do your damned job as we agreed when you hired on. The workplace is a WORKPLACE, not a venue for political expression. Anyone who can't handle that, there's the door and walking ain't crowded. Don't let it hit you in the ass on the way out.
#10
Ryuge, my thanks as well for a thoughtful comment. I (as most of Californians) welcome equal rights for gays in civil unions. I only have an issue with the term "marriage" and how gay activists and judicial activists have jacked it for their own agenda. Their protests, boycotts, and fascism will undo decades of progress for gays. I'd suggest they get their own in control before a century is lost. Then, of course, Islam will kill em
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2008 21:48
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Several Democratic operatives from Illinois say the Illinois state legislature will likely move as quickly as possible to hold impeachment proceedings against Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), in attempts to prevent the jailed governor from appointing President-elect Barack Obama's successor in the Senate. The Illinois General Assembly would be tasked with holding impeachment hearings, and the state Senate would vote on a conviction.
Illinois law allows Blagojevich to make an appointment while in jail. While the decision would be a disaster for Democrats politically, no one is ruling out that prospect. Any candidate appointed by the jailed governor would be immediately tainted, and would face immense hurdles winning on their own in 2010.
Blagojevich could also appoint a caretaker to the seat, but that also would not bode well for Democrats politically. Having a sitting Democratic senator from Illinois appointed by a jailed governor would hurt the party's chances of holding the seat in 2010.
I don't know, we in Illinois are used to this sort of nonsense. Only Joisey and Louisiana have the same degree of corruption, and I think we're still ahead ...
2010 is two years down the pike. By then it will all have blown over. Bring the matter up in the campaign and you'll be put off with "the Merkin people want to talk about the issues, not about old news." Y'see, it'll all be in the past, when we'll have all been ever so much younger.
Lieutenant governor Pat Quinn would take over if Blagojevich was forced to step down. He's from the progressive wing of the state Democratic party, and is very close with Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)
He's a perennial loser in the Kucinich mode and was put into the LG chair to shut him up. Successful, too.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/09/2008
15:00 ||
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Illinois law allows Blagojevich to make an appointment while in jail.
Nice to see how "forward thinking" the Founding Fathers of Illinois were...
#7
Even if Blago did appoint someone at the point, the Senate would have to vote to seat him, which seems extremely unlikely.
As for ratting him out, he's been under investigation for a long time and since he's evidently not discreet, it doesn't have to be anyone "ratting him out". The only thing that surprises me about this is how blatant he was. I always figured he would "sell" the seat. He's been known as a "pay to play" guy for a long time. Most of the pols are glad to be rid of him.
Dostum Says He Is Not in Exile in Turkey and Remains a Potent Force in Afghanistan
A Turkish newspaper has reported that Rashid Dostum, the leader of ethnic Uzbeks in Afghanistan, was flown to Turkey as part of a special operation arranged by the Turkish government. The report maintained that Dostum might be sent into exile by the Afghan government as a result of a secret deal to save him from the impending investigations into his involvement in the kidnapping and beating of political rivals.
Come to Illinois and you can be governor ...
Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Burak Ozugergin confirmed that Dostum was in Turkey but denied the claims that he was under house arrest. He noted that there was no current judicial process against Dostum in Afghanistan and he was in Turkey to spend the Eid al-Adha (Kurban bayrami) with his family members who live in Ankara. "General Dostum is the honorary leader of a community with Turkic origins in Afghanistan... He may have some contacts in Turkey," added Ozugergin.
Dostum also spoke to members of the Turkish press denying the allegations. He thanked the Turkish government for its hospitality and noted that he would stay in Turkey after the holiday (December 8 to 11) and discuss the developments in Afghanistan with Turkish officials. Regarding his relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Dostum said, "He is our president and commander-in-chief, and I am his deputy. We have excellent relations. I met with him before coming to Turkey." Dostum added that "Afghanistan is our home. Nobody can send General Dostum into exile. I am an important general"
Check out the CBS2 story. Oh my, selling the Senate seat and the ability of the Cubs to save themselves. And demanding that the Tribune fire the editorial page editor (and apparently to get it under the guise of 'cost-cutting'). Wow.
Read the various 'person A' and 'person B', etc, and you could easily see more indictments coming. Fitzpatrick can go to each of them and say, "We have you on tape. Why didn't you come to us?"
We in Illinois knew he was dirty, but we didn't know this dirty.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/09/2008
14:45 ||
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The charges include historical allegations that Blagojevich and Harris schemed with others including previously convicted defendants Antoin Rezko, Stuart Levine, Ali Ata and others since becoming governor in 2002 to obtain and attempt to obtain financial benefits for himself, his family and third parties, including his campaign committee, Friends of Blagojevich, in exchange for appointments to state boards and commissions, state employment, state contracts and access to state funds. A portion of the affidavit recounts the testimony of various witnesses at Rezko's trial earlier this year.
Coming around the far turn the long awaited entrance of the position of the VP of University of Chicago Hospital. Come on Pat Fitzgerald.... BRING IT ON HOME TO DADDY!
#3
Blagojevich also asked what he can get from President-elect Obama for the Senate seat: "Can [the President-elect] help in the private sector. . . where it wouldn't be tied to him? . . .I mean, so it wouldn't necessarily look like one for the other."
Blagojevich said that consultants (believed to be on the call at that time) are telling him that he has to "suck it up" for two years and do nothing and give this "motherfucker [the President-elect] his senator. Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck him."
#4
We in Illinois knew he was dirty, but we didn't know this dirty.
What a naive young man you are, Dr. White. I presume there is little done in government that doesn't involve someone getting a back scratched. Isn't that why we have zoning laws?
What is surprising is his lack of discretion in phone use and the Gary Hart move of telling people to tape his phone calls yesterday.
Maybe he can bunk with Ryan and they can reminisce about the good old days.
#5
As Illinois former Secretary of State Paul Powell (Democrat) said: "There's only one thing worse than a defeated politician, and that's a broke one."
Maybe the only thing worse than a broke politician is an indicted politician who retire to the Graybar Hotel
Powell, who in his lifetime of public service never earned more than $30,000 a year, left an estate worth more than $2 million$800,000 of it in bills packed into shoe boxes, briefcases and strongboxes in the closet of his hotel suite in Springfield.
I wonder how far the Blag thing is going to spread.
#9
Now, let me see if I've got this straight. The One helped Blago get elected, but now Blago is calling him a worthless blankety blank for not helping him with the bucket of stuff he's gotten himself into. Who may I ask...owes whom?
#10
Hey, Doc,, Fitzpatrick can go to each of them and say, "We have you on tape. Why didn't you come to us?"
What if the Big O is one of the others on tape?
#11
Glenmore, I don't know how you feel about this, but I've lived in Louisiana all my life and I really just have to stand back in awe of this thing. Between us electing Jindal last year and kicking Dollar Bill out this weekend, I have to wonder whether Louisiana has become a Division 2 ballclub when it comes to corruption. It's damn near tragic.
Posted by: Matt ||
12/09/2008 20:16
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Yep, Matt. After our felonious governor, KKK rep, 3 straight convicted Insurance Commissioners (or was it 4?), and Ice Box Bill, (not to mention all the local crooks) we were on a roll, but we do seem to have dropped to the minors now - though still AAA. I guess we drained too much of the swamp. But I have confidence we will come back to the Big Leagues.
#13
Sounds like the Fitzmas the Dems were expecting finally came along--except they got coal and switches.
Couldn't happen to a more deserving crew. Let's just hope Blago brings Bama down as part of a deal. I'd like to see both of them sharing a cell with Bubba.
Last Wednesday evening around 10pm, following a relaxing supper, my friend Eugene and I arrived at the check-out desk at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, as we have done together hundreds of times in our travels as New York investment bankers currently living in Hong Kong.
As I placed my bag on the table I heard a loud gunshot, which I recognized from my years living in South Africa to be the distinctive snap of an AK-47 assault rifle. Hearing another shot a second later, I looked at Eugene and said, ¡°Run, that¡¯s AK!¡±
We streaked away from the gunfire toward the nearest exit as the terrorists were entering the hotel lobby from various points. I smashed through the doors toward the pool area and ducked into some bushes as the gunfire grew in intensity. I realized Eugene did not make it out of the lobby.
Five or six people had arrived in the bushes before me, all now paralyzed in fear. From the sound of things I realized that a Columbine-like shooting spree was taking place inside, with gunmen walking around methodically executing people. Mind racing, I concluded that being bunched up in the bushes in the corner of the pool area was not safe.
Breathless, I thought to email my colleagues in London and apprise them of our plight. ¡°Urgent: This is not a joke. At Taj Hotel in Mumbai. Gunmen on loose. People killed. Call police.¡± Then I turned off my phone, thinking a ring could give away my position and bring on a quick and violent death.
[later made it to a small room off the pool thanks to locals escorting them trhu a trap door in the pool area]
The minutes passed, while screams and sounds of gunfire continued. I began to pray to St. Michael the Archangel: ¡°St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.¡± I also prayed the first of many Rosaries to see my way through what had suddenly become the single most shocking and desperate experience of my life. I knew that if I was to get through this, it would be Our Lord¡¯s doing.
As the terrorists¡¯ grenades, AKs and bombs periodically shook the walls and rattled our minds, I resumed my fervent ¡ª though distracted ¡ª prayers to Our Lady.
As the hours passed, the mood inside the room remained tense but controlled. At one point the tiny red corner light on my Blackberry began to flutter. It was a colleague in my firm¡¯s corporate security operation informing me that I should leave the premises immediately, as the terrorists were searching the hotel floor-by-floor looking for Americans and Brits to kill. I¡¯m 6¡ä4¡å and an obvious Yank, particularly in a place like Bombay. Once spotted, I¡¯d be a dead man for sure.
Just then a very loud bomb detonated and small arms fire rang out in one of the stairwells. I assumed the end was near.
I hurried off an email to my Mom and Dad, thanking them for my life and everything else they¡¯d given me. Then I emailed my dear wife and sons: ¡°Thank you, Celeste, for being my best friend and soul-mate. I love you!¡± I wracked my mind and heart for a few pearls of wisdom to leave my three small boys that would edify and sustain them in a life without their father. Asking the Holy Spirit for guidance, I explained to them that life was a gift, and that they should do their best to enjoy that gift. I urged them to take care of their mother, each other, and their community ¡ª and not to be afraid to discern their vocations. I counseled them to keep a daily prayer life and live the norms of piety we¡¯d taught them. ¡°Live life to the fullest, boys, and stay in a state of grace.¡±
My heartache (and heart-rate) increased as the AK fire drew closer. I approached the headwaiter and quietly asked him if I might slip out the back stairs, as my corporate security indicated I should leave the building immediately. The man assured me that we were secure, but the look on his face betrayed his fear and uncertainty. He then huddled with his two busboys while I positioned myself by the back stairs.
A moment later, the busboys announced that they would begin allowing some folks to slip out. This instantly created a mad rush toward the stairs. Though I was positioned near the doorway, a lovely Indian-accented chorus arose, saying, ¡°Women and children first!¡± Ah, but of course! I gulped and stepped aside. The women and children began exiting in groups of eight.
I learned later from our corporate security, who were monitoring my emails, that the business center was attacked by gunmen some five minutes after I was able to escape. I also learned that my friend Eugene had been shot in the lobby, but thankfully will make a full recovery. (Eugene told me the next day that I¡¯d sprinted right past the terrorist who leveled his gun and shot him in the hip. Fortunately he was dragged into a security room, from which point he was able to escape the hotel a few minutes later.)
Colleagues and friends have asked how I feel after experiencing such a trauma. I tell them I am fine ¡ª shaken but fine. At the end of the day, I am convinced that ¡°bona omnia fecit¡± (all works for the good). I will forever be inspired by the staff of The Taj, who were polite, courteous and courageous throughout the ordeal. They saved hundreds of lives, many sacrificing their own in doing so.
[Edit Comment: Remarkable how the courage and sacrifice by the staff went nearly unmentioned in the western press]
Why God has allowed me to live on? I have no idea. But at this point, the thought that will not leave my mind is, ¡°From him to whom much is given, much is expected.¡±
I pray that I can live up to His expectations.
From the website Catholic Exchange; considerable amounts of the story have been edited out - please visit the link and read it all.
#1
Maybe its a just a coincidence that on the same day Gov. Blagojevich is taken in for questioning that president and CEO of Mutual Bank, Amrish Mahajan, was served with papers relating to the Rezko/Obama land deal. Could it be that the Governors wife Patricia Blagojevich and the CEOs wife Anita Mahajans past indiscretions finally caught up with them? And do ya think First Lady-elect Michelle has ever had lunch with either of these two upstanding ladies from Cook County?
Search warrants were served Tuesday at the company's offices on the 17th floor of a Chicago office building at 220 S. State St. According to office workers across the hall, the offices had already been cleared out.
K.K. Bio-Science abruptly closed down Jan. 19, giving its employees no warning. Company representatives then spent the next week tossing records and office equipment into trash bins, said other building tenants.
"They threw away an incredible amount of stuff," said Paul Leslie Beals, who works across the hall at the Lawyers' Committee for Better Housing. "I counted at least five Dumpsters in the hallway. There was a printer in there that one of my colleagues took. There were all kinds of files and documents. Somebody said they even saw some checks in the trash. They were throwing away everything."
Gov. Blagojevich's spokeswoman, Abby Ottenhoff, declined Tuesday to address the specifics of the investigation.
The criminal complaint filed today against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich contains a remarkable section detailing the Democratic politician's alleged attempt to cash in on his ability to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. Attached to the U.S. District Court complaint is an FBI affidavit, excerpted below, alleging that Blagojevich was caught on wiretaps noting that the Senate seat "is a fucking valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing." He was also recorded saying that unless "I get something real good," he would appoint himself to the vacancy. "I'm going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain. You hear what I'm saying. And if I don't get what I want and I'm not satisfied with it, then I'll just take the Senate seat myself." According to the surreptitiously recorded conversations, Blagojevich spoke with associates about the possibility of trading the Senate post for either an ambassadorship or a Cabinet post. The Democratic politician, according to the affidavit sworn by FBI Agent Daniel Cain, "analogized his situation to that of a sports agent shopping a potential free agent to various teams." Blagojevich, 51, and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested this morning on political corruption charges.
#1
So, how much is a seat in the Senate worth these days?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/09/2008 13:04
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#2
Less than what was spent on the Presidency. Unless the owners get into a bidding war like they do with their other hobby, professional sports teams.
#6
Yep, looks like the store is still open for business...
Illinois law allows Blagojevich to make an appointment while in jail. While the decision would be a disaster for Democrats politically, no one is ruling out that prospect. Any candidate appointed by the jailed governor would be immediately tainted, and would face immense hurdles winning on their own in 2010.
Blagojevich could also appoint a caretaker to the seat, but that also would not bode well for Democrats politically. Having a sitting Democratic senator from Illinois appointed by a jailed governor would hurt the partys chances of holding the seat in 2010.
Lieutenant governor Pat Quinn would take over if Blagojevich was forced to step down. Hes from the progressive wing of the state Democratic party, and is very close with Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) Schakowsky was not considered a frontrunner in the appointment process, but could get newfound consideration if Quinn becomes governor.
A mysterious night-time phone call brought nuclear India and Pakistan close to the brink of war at the height of the crisis over the Mumbai terror attacks last week, Pakistani officials said Sunday. They said the "threatening" call was made, ostensibly by India's foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee, to Pakistan's president, Asif Zardari, on Friday, November 28, two days into the Mumbai assaults, in which some 170 people died. India had, by then, declared that the militants who had stormed Mumbai were all from Pakistan.
The heated conversation left Zardari believing that India was about to mount an attack on Pakistan and led him to place Pakistan's armed forces onto "high alert," according to Wajid Hasan, Pakistan's ambassador to London, a close associate of Zardari. Given Pakistan's inferiority in conventional forces, it might not have been able to respond except with nuclear weapons to an Indian attack, analysts said. India, however, did not put its forces on the alert.
Zardari quickly mobilized Western leaders in an attempt to avert war, telephoning Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State, and British foreign minister David Miliband, among others, who in turn frantically called India, Hasan said. Pakistani reporters who were briefed by the Indian Embassy in Islamabad said they were told that Rice telephoned Mukherjee in the middle of the night and demanded: "Why have you threatened war?"
According to those same sources, Mukherjee told Rice he made no such call or threat. Nevertheless, Rice, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates rushed to the region.
Indian officials in New Delhi, who like other sources could not be identified by name because they were unauthorized to speak to the public, said they suspected the call had its origin in the Pakistan's own Inter Services Intelligence agency - suggesting a deliberate attempt to foment war between the two neighbors.
The news of the tension created by the mysterious "Indian" telephone call emerged as the Bush administration, in the face of growing pressures from India, put Islamabad on notice that it must clamp down on the Islamic militant groups accused of targeting India. According to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who flew to Pakistan after a visit to New Delhi, Indian officials are now threatening the use of force if Pakistan does not move swiftly to act against those responsible for the Mumbai assaults.
As if on cue, Pakistani security forces Sunday raided a camp used by members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad, the provincial capital of Pakistan part of Kashmir. India had pinpointed the group as the outfit which carried on the attack on Mumbai, though it is only one of dozens of jihadist organizations active in Pakistan.
On Sunday, India lashed out at Pakistan over the phone call episode. It was "worrying that a neighboring state might even consider acting on the basis of such a hoax call," Mukherjee said in a statement. "I can only ascribe this series of events (the story of the call) to those in Pakistan who wish to divert attention from the fact that a terrorist group, operating from the Pakistani territory, planned and launched a ghastly attack on Mumbai," he added.
Pakistan's government insisted that the phone call came from a number in Indian's Ministry of External Affairs. Pakistan's ambassador in London said a caller ID system was used to identify the origins of the call. "They did it (made the call). It was not a hoax call but an instrument of psychological warfare. They were trying to scare Pakistan, test the waters for our reaction," Hasan said in an interview.
Hasan added that he had received information that India was "about to launch a very drastic action" on that Friday, and it was only intervention from Western leaders that averted it. To add to Pakistani injury, first news of the phone call was leaked to a select group of Pakistani journalists at a briefing given by the Indian embassy in Islamabad, in an apparent attempt to make Zardari's government look weak, according to reporters present and Pakistani officials.
It is unclear who actually made the call. Indian officials, who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, theorized that Pakistan's ISI made the call by using technology to make it look like a number from India's foreign ministry. That suggests that the ISI, which is part of the military, was trying to break relations between the governments of the two countries, which had already been torn by the Mumbai assault, in order to leave Pakistan's military in charge.
#1
I guess the ISI and the Pakistani military forgot one little detail: One way or another, there wouldn't be anything left to be in charge of. Except perhaps for coordinating efforts to run away from terrorists.
#5
WW4 will be started by a prank call from some wanker DJ
That's funny in a tragic sort of way.
In the US v Soviets, ballistic missiles served as a deterent because the 30 minutes between launch and impact gave time to launch a counter strike. India and Pakistan are only a few minutes apart as the missile flies. Whoever gets in a good first punch gains a huge advantage. This not only makes for a fast-paced game, but allows events to quickly spiral out of control.
#6
I think Pakistan is forgetting they got their asses handed to them the last three times.
Their nukes are smaller and so is their country. India has bigger nukes and a much bigger country and infrastructure. Who do we think would win a nuclear exchange?
#7
"Hi, this is Moes President Zardari"
"Is Amanda there? Amanda Hugnkiss?"
"Lemme check"
"Is there Amanda Hugnkiss here? Hey everybody I want Amanda Hugnkiss!"
/Bart Simpson starting wars
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2008 14:50
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#8
Zadari? Mukherjee. Do you have Prince Albert in a can?
What?
Well you better let him out or we'll nuke your sorry Pakistani asses!"
click
HAHAHAHAHAHA...Good one! Send Gul a case of scotch!
#9
If there is a nucleur exchange between Paki and India we all loose. The only good thing that could come out of this would be for the world to once again see the total destruction of WMD's.
#11
ISI = Cancer. Remove it. Polonium works well as a pinpoint radiation treatment, but so does high velocity large caliber lead for a more general treatment.
#14
If there is a nucleur exchange between Paki and India we all loose. The only good thing that could come out of this would be for the world to once again see the total destruction of WMD's.
Ummm...if the world can't stop Iran, NK & Syria (not to mention Brazil, South Africa & who-knows-who else) from secretly (and against agreements/treaties) developing nukes, what is your plan to stop them after all the other countries get rid of theirs??
Inquiring minds want to know...
The United States and other Western powers have "exacerbated Somalia's downward spiral" and must revise their policies in the east African country, a Human Rights Watch report has warned. Ah, "Somalia's downward spiral". From...what?
The report, released Monday, blames the policies under President George W. Bush for "breeding the very extremism that it is supposed to defeat. The new administration of U.S. President Barack Obama should urgently review U.S. policy in Somalia and the broader Horn of Africa and break with the failed approach of his predecessor," the report said. Will there even be a need for groups like Human Rights Watch after Barry takes over and all problems are magically solved or disappear? What will these people do without Bush to kick around?
It also cites key European governments for failing "to address the human rights dimensions of the crisis, with many officials hoping that somehow unfettered support to abusive TFG (Somali transitional government) forces will improve stability."
Somalia's weak transitional government, backed by Ethiopian forces, continues to battle Islamic militias with the fighting concentrated in the capital, Mogadishu. Ethiopian forces have not withdrawn from the country, as required under a recent cease-fire agreement. Ethiopia invaded Somalia two years ago and successfully routed the Islamic militia that seized control of the capital. The HRW report states that the United States "directly backed Ethiopia's intervention." Since the 2006 overthrow of the Islamic Courts Union, Somalia has suffered from "unconstrained warfare and violent rights abuses" by all warring parties. Yeah, it was like African Disneyworld when they wuz in charge. Goddamn you, Boosh!
"All sides have used indiscriminate force as a matter of routine, and in 2008 violence has taken on a new dimension with the targeted murders of aid workers and civil society activists," the report states. "The human rights and humanitarian catastrophe facing Somalia today threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions of Somalis on a scale not witnessed since the early 1990s."
Heavy fighting in Mogadishu and across Somalia has driven more than a million people from their homes. The lawlessness has also spilled onto the seas off the Horn of Africa, where international vessels are routinely hijacked by suspected Somali pirates who demand large ransoms.
Human Rights Watch offers specific recommendations to the Somali and Ethiopian governments, the main militias, and the international community to address the human rights abuses. It calls on the West to "insist upon an end to the impunity that has fueled the worst abuses - and the right place to start is by moving the U.N. Security Council to establish a Commission of Inquiry to document abuses and lay the groundwork for accountability." Oh, goody. Not just another UN commission, but a Commission of Inquiry. Headquartered in Geneva or Milan I'm sure...
#1
"What will these people do without Bush to kick around?"
Just as rumors of Hitler is South America continued for 50 years, George W. Bush will never die. Liberals will continue to scare little kids into obediance or BushChimpHitler will grab them while they're sleeping.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
12/09/2008 11:59
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#2
His predecessor, you mean Clinton? Sure, the way its shaping up we are going to have Black Hawk Down too; a well made movie and tribute to the American Soldier which I wish never existed. I do not want to see a sequel.
Anyone else get the feeling that these liberal one-glove people crave war so long as it is their idea? I could listen to someone make a case for an East Africa conflict vs OIC/Sudan but it would have to be a killing war and occupation - not a security patrol to take pot shots and get badmouthed. So then gotta have foot soldiers and where do they come from? EU? AU? Afghanistan? And what would China think about this, they seem to have an interest in that theatre.
#3
All these "human rights" groups seem to believe problems can be solved by a magic wand. They have no understanding of the complexities of the situation, the motives behind the various groups, or how to govern. They just run their mouths and blame every bad thing that happens in the world on the United States and its leaders. Being a member of one of these groups should make you a pariah throughout the civilized world. Instead, these idiots are treated as heroes.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/09/2008 12:59
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#4
Wouldnt be the tribalists fault, noooo not at all.
Rare 50 year Arctic Blast Sets Sights On Southern California.
With a week away, and a sure sign of things to come, OWSweather.com is making preparations on the server to handle the traffic from this next event. UJEAS is in line with the majority if not all the other models in keeping a near historical arctic air mass into the Southern California region.
With a warm November, Southern California is finally ready for cold storms to make their way in. Resort level snow will be likely next week, and in pretty hefty amounts if things stay on track.
OWSweather.com Meteorologist Kevin Martin predicts a 50 year event. While Martin is usually conservative on these events, the pattern highly favors it. "We are in a pre-1950 type pattern, "said Martin.
"We know we are due for a winter storm sometime this year. The type we may be dealing with will be ranked up there with the known years before 1950, which set record low daytime temperatures into the forecast region. With this, may come low elevation snow."
Forecaster Cameron Venable is seeing very cold temperatures in the Los Angeles areas as well. Torrance is not usually known for winter weather, thus making this an interesting event for Venable to track.
"Temperatures in Siberia, Russia will be -81 degrees this week, "said Martin. "With those type of temperatures the arctic air mass has to spill somewhere. Our answer of the exact track will become more clear this week. All residents in the mountain communities should prepare this week for very cold, winter weather, with snow."
Indications are a second, colder storm could hit near the 18th-22nd time-frame. The details on that will have to be sorted out.
#9
mild santa ana starting today but I hear rain in the forecast for so cal this weekend and next
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2008 14:42
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#10
There is one relatively reliable (but by no means infallible) computer model which gives detailed pressure and precip up to 10 days from the initialization period.
#11
cool link. I use the Unisys Sat IR and WV pics all the time
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2008 16:14
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#12
What do y'all in SoCal consider 'cold'; besides the Charger's playoff hopes?
We were 65 and calm yesterday and today 28 with 25mph winds, that drastic a change in half a day makes it that much more miserable - hope you all got cold gear stuff ready just in case.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan's security forces have arrested the operational chief of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, the Islamic militant group that India says was behind the recent killings of more than 160 people in Mumbai.
Pakistani forces arrested Zakir Rehman Lakhvi and Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar during raids on Monday, Defense Minister Choudhry Mukhtar Ahmed told CNN's sister network in India, CNN-IBN. "President Asif Ali Zardari is determined that we must cooperate with India and we must take the people to task who have done thing, this operation," Ahmed said Tuesday.
More than a week after the Mumbai attacks, Pakistani security forces raided an LeT camp near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, on Sunday, according to Pakistani military sources. It was the first sign of government action against Lashkar-e-Tayyiba since the attacks and came as Zardari vowed to crack down on "non-state actors" waging terrorism within its territory. Read more of Zardari's comments
Indian authorities say the sole surviving gunman in the Mumbai attacks told investigators that he was trained at an LeT camp near Muzaffarabad along with the nine other attackers who were killed in the three-day siege. A Pakistani security official said the terror raids on banned militant groups, including LeT, are ongoing and have resulted in at least 15 arrests.
According to the U.S. government, Lakhvi, 47, has directed LeT's military operations in southeast Asia, Chechnya, Bosnia and Iraq. "Lakhvi instructed LeT associates in 2006 to train operatives for suicide bombings," according to a U.S. government statement. "Prior to that, Lakhvi instructed LeT operatives to conduct attacks in well-populated areas." The United States has listed LeT as a terrorist group with ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
Azhar is the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammed, which -- like LeT -- is based in Pakistan and fights against Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region. Azhar is one of about 20 wanted militant leaders that India has demanded Pakistan turn over to New Delhi in the wake of the late November attacks on Mumbai. It has been demanding the extradition of some of those leaders since a 2001 attack on India's Parliament that brought the South Asian nuclear rivals to the brink of war.
The Pakistani defense minister called Azhar "a small irritant." Azhar has been in Pakistan since 1999, when he was released from an Indian prison in exchange for hostages aboard a hijacked Indian airliner.
Ahmed said Pakistan may allow India to interrogate the men under any joint investigation between India and Pakistan into the Mumbai attacks. "But if we don't have a joint investigation team then it will be the Pakistani side which will be grilling them and finding out what wrong they have done," he said.
#1
Ahmed said Pakistan may allow India to interrogate the men under any joint investigation between India and Pakistan into the Mumbai attacks. "But if we don't have a joint investigation team then it will be the Pakistani side which will be grilling them and finding out what wrong they have done," he said
Scared of any ISI/Govt complicity/knowledge coming out Ahmed????
#3
Unless this is a shielding move, effectively removing the middle ground option of local retaliation. "Now we have him and if you bomb him you bomb us and its war." Because Pakistan has been so good as to let outsiders question those they hold, India either takes it (hoping for a visit) and encourages more attacks or a conflict notches above air strikes.
The Pakistani defense minister called Azhar "a small irritant." Azhar has been in Pakistan since 1999, when he was released from an Indian prison in exchange for hostages aboard a hijacked Indian airliner.
#4
Put them in "protective custody", did they? Not a smart move. I think much of the world is getting tired of Pakistan's role in international terrorism.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/09/2008 12:46
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Looking for O-pardon?
A source said today that Gov. Rod Blagojevich was taken into federal custody at his North Side home this morning. The U.S. attorney's office would not confirm the information, and a spokesman for the governor did not immediately return a phone call for comment.
A three-year federal corruption investigation of pay-to-play politics in Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration has expanded to include his impending selection of a new U.S. senator to succeed President-elect Barack Obama, the Tribune has learned. pay-to-play is the Chicago way. Don't these guys respect tradition?
Federal authorities got approval from a judge before the November general election to secretly record the governor, sources told the Tribune, and among their concerns was whether the selection process might be tainted. That possibility has become a focus in an intensifying investigation that has included recordings of the governor and the cooperation of one of his closest friends.
The governor has not been accused of any wrongdoing. The specific contents of the recent recordings have not been disclosed. Blagojevich has said the appointment of a Senate successor, which is his choice alone, could come in a matter of weeks. heh heh...think that process just got longer
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2008
09:22 ||
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Posted by: Scott R ||
12/09/2008 10:51
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#9
Good. They got Ryan. Now this crook. How about da mayor ? When do they shackle Rezko ? Can the great Bambalooza be far behind ? He's one of the mayor's favorites. What a den of crooks.
#10
I was wondering when this would break. Blago has been selling everything he could get his hands on since being elected. Now he can join former Gov. Ryan in the jug. Maybe Durbin was setting the stage to get the Pres to pardon Roddie. Gotta love Illinois - can't tell the inmates without a scorecard.
#11
From this morning's Trib on-line. Must be somethin in the water.
3 former Illinois governors, Kerner, Walker, Ryan, served prison time since early 1970s
By The Associated Press
9:30 AM CST, December 9, 2008
Three former Illinois governors have gone to prison in the past 35 years.
Otto Kerner, a Democrat who was governor from 1961 to 1968, served less than a year of a three-year sentence after his 1973 conviction on bribery, tax evasion and other counts. He was convicted of arranging favorable horse racing dates as governor in return for getting horse racing association stock at reduced prices. Kerner died in 1976.
Dan Walker, a Democrat who was governor from 1973 to 1977, served 1½ years of a seven-year sentence after pleading guilty in 1987 to bank fraud, misapplication of funds and perjury. The charges were not related to his service as governor.
George Ryan, a Republican who was governor from 1999 to 2003, was convicted of corruption in 2006 for steering state contracts and leases to political insiders while he was Illinois secretary of state and then governor. He is serving a 6½-year prison term.
In addition, William Stratton, governor from 1953-1961, was later indicted but was acquitted on charges of income tax evasion.
What the roomful of executives saw upon the first screening was a shock--a slow and quiet semireligious, jazz-filled 25 minutes, voiced by a cast of inexperienced children, and, perhaps most unforgivably, without a laugh track. "They said, 'We'll play it once and that will be all. Good try,' " remembers Mendelson. "Bill and I thought we had ruined Charlie Brown forever when it was done. We kind of agreed with the network. One of the animators stood up in the back of the room--he had had a couple of drinks--and he said, 'It's going to run for a hundred years,' and then fell down. We all thought he was crazy, but he was more right than we were."
Posted by: Mike ||
12/09/2008
08:25 ||
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#2
'It's going to run for a hundred years,' and then fell down. We all thought he was crazy, but he was more right than we were.
Which should've pointed out that the illustrator had more of an understanding of what Americans want then all the Programmers and Vice-Presidents in network television that have driven their audiences into other media for the last 40 years. He was of the plebeians who you exist for, not the patricians who you cater for.
#3
It's kinda like grandfathered in there now. They have to keep showing it because it's tradition and people would protest if they didn't. But if they had the decision to make today they'd never show it in the first place. They'd be afraid of a lawsuit by the ACLU or CAIR. Either that or it'd offend their atheist/gay sensibilities so badly they'd throw it out without even getting to the point of thinking about lawsuits. Even the title is wrong. It says A Charlie Brown Christmas. How quaint. These days it'd have to be Charlie Brown Holidays and just never you mind which holiday or what we're celebrating.
The first sign of cracks in President-elect Barack Obama's foreign policy team of rivals emerged on Monday as his choices for secretary of state and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations visited the State Department. Meow! Hiss!
As Secretary of State-pick Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.N. envoy-choice Susan Rice separately visited the diplomatic agency's headquarters in Washington's Foggy Bottom neighborhood, persons familiar with the transition said that Rice wants to install her own transition team inside the department. LOLZ - I don't think she knows who she's dealing with.
Such a move by an incoming U.N. ambassador is rare, if not unprecedented, because the job is based at the United Nations in New York, where Rice already has a small transition staff, the sources familiar with the incoming administration.
The push by Rice, an early Obama supporter whose position the President-elect wants to elevate to a cabinet post, is also a signal that she intends to use her influence with the new president to play a more significant role than previous U.N. envoys, they said. The transition sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Officials with Clinton's transition team declined to comment on the matter, and aides to Rice could not immediately be reached. State Department officials declined to comment on issues related to the transition. "We have scheduled a one-on-one coordination meeting Friday at 10PM at Ft. Marcy Park a neutral site"
It was not clear if Clinton and Rice--who had strained relations during the Democratic primaries because of Rice's steadfast backing of Obama--saw each other at the State Department as Clinton left the building shortly after Rice arrived.
During the presidential campaign, some Clinton aides saw Rice's early decision to back Obama as a betrayal because of her previous role as a high State Department official during President Bill Clinton's administration. Rice's desire to place her own team in Washington could fuel speculation that those tensions will carry into the new administration. Apparently our UN relations will usurp our national interests. Whodathunkit?
The officials could not say if Clinton's team had formally objected to Rice's plan, or even if Rice would be able to install a separate transition team inside the State Department. But they noted that dueling transition teams could complicate the handover by blurring lines of authority.
Technically, the job of U.N. envoy falls under the authority of the secretary of state, although some previous U.N. ambassadors have held cabinet rank. The last U.N. ambassador to be part of the president's cabinet was Richard Holbrooke, who had a famously icy relationship with then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during the Clinton administration.
Albright, who was President Clinton's first ambassador to the United Nations, was a mentor to Rice. But the two had a falling out when Albright, America's first female secretary of state, lined up behind Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination and Rice backed Obama.
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, was to dine Monday evening with the nation's current and second female secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, at Rice's apartment in the exclusive Watergate complex. The two Rices are not related and Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday that she thought Clinton would do a great job.
Also Monday, Clinton was to meet privately with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. and the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to a Democratic official. Kerry, once a contender for the secretary of state job, will oversee Clinton's confirmation. Kerry has pledged to hold "swift and fair" confirmation hearings. interesting since Kerry himself is neither swift, nor fair
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2008
07:36 ||
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#1
Wildebeest stalks Renoster (RINO)? Strange things happening in the bush.
#6
I think Rice is in a perfect position. Ambassador to a corrupt, bloated international bureaucracy who accomplishes, with glacial speed, little or nothing. But they have great parties and a top shelf lifestyle. And, for some reason, she seems to think this gives her maximum juice in the Barry administration?
Hillary will pick her teeth with her bones. And enjoy doing it.
FARGO, North Dakota: Federal Customs and Border Protection authorities are preparing to launch unmanned aircraft patrols from this state, the first time such monitoring will occur along the northern border of the United States.
A Predator B aircraft that can fly at 260 miles an hour - it was delivered to Grand Forks on Saturday - will make runs along the northern edge of North Dakota using sensors that can provide video and detect heat and changes to landscape, customs officials said.
The plane, which is about 66 feet long, or 20 meters, weighs more than 10,000 pounds, or 4,500 kilograms. It can fly as high as 50,000 feet and can stay aloft for 18 hours. The first missions, designed to locate people crossing the border illegally or avoiding ports of entry, are expected to start next month.
Similar aircraft have patrolled the nation's southern border since 2005, where they have helped lead to the discovery of more than 18,000 pounds of marijuana and 4,000 illegal immigrants, a spokesman for the agency said.
John Stanton, executive director of the service's national air security operations, said the authorities decided to move to the northern border because enough aircraft had become available. (The base cost for the Predator is about $10 million.) Everything must be well under control along the Mexican border.
#3
This is way overdue. The actual number of incursions discovered will probably be very informative. You ever been to N. Dakota? How's about northern Montana? I've been on a coupla hunting trips up there years ago. Wide, wide open. Tough terrain, but wide open. We've needed this for a long time.
Actually, given the large number of Muslim transplants allowed into Canada (some of whom eneded up in Gitmo and other capture facilities), and Canada's pantywaist treatment thereof, keeping an eye on that border is importatnt.
#5
It's about time. Several years ago, a news crew and the Minutemen, I believe, set up cameras with night vision to see how much cross border traffic there was. They were astounded, as many were drug couriers freely driving jeeps across, just walking across on the honor system to check in with the BP, and still others taking boats across the Great Lakes. Besides the Muslim population, Canada has very lax immigration policies and has taken many refugees over the decades, with a huge Asian population in the west.
#6
So, when do they start arming those drones? It would add a little spice to things.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/09/2008 13:09
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#7
Wel-l-l, the US Govt. = Congress is doing little to nothing serious to stop the flow of illegals into Amerika, so why should Citizens of the USSA = USRofA be surprised when pro-illegal/Hispanic Netters proclaim the HISPANIC-LATINO
"RECONQUISTA" = "ATZLAN" WILL BE OVERT AND ACCOMPLISHED IN APPROXI 20 YEARS, TO INCLUDE AS SUPPOR BY PERVASIVE US TAX-PAYER FUNDED PUBLIC ASSISTANCE TO SAID SAME ILLEGALS, aka GETTING THE ENEMY TO DESTROY HIMSELF???
#8
Lest HISPANIA fergits, CHINA > has declared 1/2 or more of CONUS-NORAM as DESIRED "FUTURE LIVING SPACE"
It could be interesting to see - the future AZTLAN versus future CHINESE STATES OF [NORTH] AMERICA???
ALso, REDDIT [old] > [IIRC]MYSTIFYING THE PIRI REIS MAP - DID MUSLIMS/OTTOMAN EMPIRE ONCE DESIRE THE CONQUEST OF LATIN AMERICA; + [paraph] DID ISLAM/MUSLIMS DISCOVER AND EXPLORE THE SOUTHERN AND EAST COASTS OF THE USA, CARIBBEAN???
Not counting the CHINESE + VIKINGS +............
D *** NG IT, MORIARITY, OUR SCHOOLBOOKS NEVER TOLD US AMERICA = AMERIKA WAS ALSO ISHMAEL!
#9
Joe, why would China oggle a pigeon on the roof (1/2 CONUS),when they almost have a wren in their fist (Siberia). In 20, they'll have it almost by default.
I was under the impression that AIG was told specifically not to pay executive bonuses.
But not to worry. Government is in charge...
Four million is chump change ...
American International Group Inc., the insurer whose bonuses and perks are under fire from U.S. lawmakers, offered cash awards to another 38 executives in a retention program with payments of as much as $4 million.
The incentives range from $92,500 to $4 million for employees earning salaries between $160,000 and $1 million, Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy said in a letter dated Dec. 5 to Representative Elijah Cummings. The New York-based insurer had previously disclosed that 130 managers would get the awards and that one executive would get $3 million.
Wanted!
Board Level Position with Turning up to work Bonus Scheme.
Must have experience in mis-pricing securities, also experience in creating bonus schemes where no profits exist is a must.
#3
anyone think AIG is bonna pay back those loans? I f they do addd 30% interest too them like the credit card companies have done too us all these years
#5
Seems like these big companies are like the farmer who buys a new truck before declaring bankruptcy. AIG advertises prominately during KU home basketball games (very lucrative space). Sprint, stock abou 5% of what it was a couple years ago, opened the Sprint Center in KC. Ford Stadium in Detroit, Enron Field...I'm sure there are many good and bad examples but these pop to mind instantly.
#6
That's up to $4Million EACH? For 130 managers? Even at $92,500 each for 130 that is over $12Million!
WTF!!!!!
There is not a single manager in AIG that should get a single dollar of bonus money.
#7
Congress is getting all bunched up about the car company executives. Dodd said GM's CEO should go before any consideration of a bailout. There doesn't seem to be the same scrutiny of AIG. Maybe it is because Queen Nancy has retirement holdings in AIG.
#8
perhaps Senator "Friend of Angelo" has the same prescription for Countrywide? Didn't think so. Dodd and Barney Frank should be testifying under oath, not interrogating
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2008 17:37
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#1
He's right on this point, the ruling class will give away our jobs, our rights, our national sovereignty, even our very lives for profit. It begs the question of how much money is enough to satiate them?
#2
bigjim, it's not about profit, it's about power; profit is just how they keep score. And there is no amount of profit or power sufficient to curb ultimate competitors.
#3
There is an ad on that page that says President-elect Barack Obama's IQ is 125. If I recall correctly, that puts him in the merely bright range, 130+ being required to be considered moderately gifted. Hopefully he won't indulge himself while in office by writing bad French poetry, like a rumoured-to-be-a-man retire politician similarly lauded for his genius.
/sorry for going off-topic, but I seem to be feeling catty. I'll go read the article now.
#4
This joker says "world government" like it's a good thing, yet concedes that International governance tends to be effective, only when it is anti-democratic. Lord save us from "One World wankers".
FWIW, Obama likes to think of himself as Lincoln. He should ponder "government of the people, by the people, for the people".
#6
Unless it is set up as a Republic, with each nation having checks and balances against each other with hard written rules for freedom, a world government is nothing more than world tyranny.
#7
The European Union is a model of global governance? Obama's has a taste of ideas for the UN from Strobe Talbott, Susan Rice, and John Podesta? Me thinks it is about time for another Boston Tea Party on steroids to protest this crap in no uncertain terms. The best bailout plan would be using taspayer money to buy them all one-way tickets to Europe and rescind their citizenship for treasonous ideas.
#13
ION OWG-NWO, WORLD AFFAIRS BOARD > CENTRAL AMERICAN LEADERS AGREE ON COMMON CURRENCY, PASSPORT SYSTEM. State(s) and Regional Integration-Organiz as a "justified/valid" Nation-Region survival strategy as per the US-GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS.
A German court sentenced a Lebanese man to life imprisonment for plotting two failed suitcase-bomb attacks on German trains in 2006 that the authorities say could have led to dozens of deaths for regional commuters. The Higher Regional Court in Dusseldorf convicted the defendant, identified as Youssef Mohamad E. H. D., of attempted murder in an undetermined number of cases, court spokesman Ulrich Egger said in an interview from Dusseldorf today. The trial began almost a year ago in the western German city.
Suitcases containing propane gas canisters and detonators were discovered on two local trains departing from Colognes main station on July 31, 2006. Germanys federal prosecutor has said the bombings, which were only prevented by technical failures, could have caused damage on the scale of the terrorist attacks in Madrid in 2004 or London in 2005. This constituted a very serious danger, Deputy Interior Minister August Hanning, said in an interview on German news broadcaster N24. It was only a relatively small technical error that prevented a catastrophe.
Youssef Mohamad told the court last week that he never intended to kill innocent people and knew the bombs wouldnt go off, Deutsche Presse-Agentur said. Another man involved with planning the attack, Jihad H., was sentenced by a Lebanese court last year to 12 years in prison. The two worked together in April 2006 to plan the attacks as an act of revenge against the publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005, the prosecutor has said. Youssef Mohamad was arrested Aug. 19, 2006, in the northern German city of Kiel.
#1
I have a great place for him to start. Use the South Korean model. Always strapped for cash, they put their emphasis on two things: small arms and training.
The Obama budget cuts are going to eviscerate our conventional forces. The economy may not give any other choice. This means if we want to project force, it will mean less technology and more personnel.
The days of standing off and slapping a country like Iraq with cruise missiles and air power will just be too expensive. This shifts the balance towards more land forces, and yes, higher casualties.
In past I have suggested that it is time for the US to set up an American Foreign Legion, garrisoned offshore, and modeled after the French Foreign Legion. Highly trained light infantry from around the world, that is far less expensive than using our own forces, and can be sent to places we don't want to send our people.
#4
We should be modest about what military force can accomplish and what technology can accomplish. The advances in precision, sensor, information, and satellite technologies have led to extraordinary gains in what the U.S. military can do. The Taliban were dispatched within three months; Saddam's regime was toppled in three weeks. A button can be pushed in Nevada, and seconds later a pickup truck will explode in Mosul. A bomb dropped from the sky can destroy a targeted house while leaving the one next to it intact.
But no one should ever neglect the psychological, cultural, political, and human dimensions of warfare. War is inevitably tragic, inefficient, and uncertain, and it is important to be skeptical of systems analyses, computer models, game theories, or doctrines that suggest otherwise. We should look askance at idealistic, triumphalist, or ethnocentric notions of future conflict that aspire to transcend the immutable principles and ugly realities of war, that imagine it is possible to cow, shock, or awe an enemy into submission, instead of tracking enemies down hilltop by hilltop, house by house, block by bloody block. As General William Tecumseh Sherman said, "Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster."
I'm glad Obama is keeping Gates on--sounds like he really gets it. As much as I love the thought of running a war from an armchair in Nevada, with the ease of a video game, we cannot forget the vulnerabilities of electronics and computers. We may have to fight "blind" and "deaf". And the day of lavish earmarks are over.
#5
I seriously doubt that the days of lavish earmarks are over, I'd hazard a guess that it will be business as usual in DC. But you're right about the modern concept of warfare vis-a-vis the average person. They want quick and easy, and put it on CNN so they can watch. If it takes longer than Gulf War 1 its too long to captivate the attention of the average American.
Hardly. It's just starting or as they say 'you ain't seen nothing yet'. The servicemembers will be starved of funding for basics, training, and maintenance while the politicians micro manage even more funding to their 'defense industry' front clientele who in turn will kindly dump more money into their reelection campaign funds. Its the Murtha way. It thrives. And the crooks keep getting reelected.
A former leader of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency has been implicated as serving on the board of a proscribed non-governmental organization that advised al Qaeda and the Taliban on the development of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.
Lieutenant General (Retired) Hamid Gul served on the board of the Umma Tameer-E-Nau, an organization founded by Pakistani nuclear scientists and industrialists, according to a secret dossier that the United States has put together to present to the United Nations Security Council, The News reported. Gul has also been implicated in supporting the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, the Haqqani Network, al Qaeda, and other extremist groups.
Gul served as the chief of the ISI from 1987 to 1989. Gul is known as the Godfather of the Taliban for his efforts to organize the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, and the helping to facilitate the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s. Gul supports the terrorist insurgency in India-occupied Kashmir and opposes the US-led effort to defeat Islamic extremism.
#2
Never mind the small talk, just give us hiis coordinates. We'll send a special delivery right away.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/09/2008 13:50
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We won't do jack sh*t.
We'll probably hand over our yearly check for $1Billion to Pakistan in the next month or so.
We should be firing a ballistic missile at them instead.
Al Qaeda's great moment for propaganda has arrived, just as I predicted it would when I wrote about this in June. The Guantanamo trials will provide leading figures in the 9/11 massacre their "moment" to deliver a blow to America's psyche, image and legal system.
As predicted, almost to the letter in my analysis in June, the men charged with plotting the September 11 attacks have declared their readiness to make confessions. According to Associated Press the military judge assigned to their war crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay read aloud a letter in which the five co-defendants said they request an immediate hearing session "to announce our confessions." The AP report added that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (aka KSM) has already told interrogators he was the mastermind of the attacks. "Now he's telling the judge that he and the others want to make confessions at the trial." The judge at the pre-trial hearing, Army Col. Stephen Henley, is asking each defendant if they are prepared to enter a plea. Three have agreed to do so.
So, is there an Al Qaeda plan being put into motion on the inside? Most likely there is as our knowledge of Al Qaeda training instructions has shown. -Both the government and media of the United States are ill-prepared for this type of jihadi propaganda warfare. Seven years after the beginning of the so-called "War on Terror," the enemy's ideology, strategies and methods still haven't been officially identified. It is like using a Word War I mind set to fight World War II terror strategies.
Here is what the jihadists, both on the inside and the outside of the Guantanamo detention center are planning for:
Looking back at WWII, we learn the World Workers' Party hasn't much changed its stripes. Some of these cards could've been written by Markos Moulitsas...
Indicted U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's election loss may have cost him more than just his congressional seat. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat who likely faces a trial next year on bribery and money laundering charges, can no longer offer his resignation as part of a plea deal with prosecutors. Jefferson has pleaded not guilty in the case, which started in 2005 when federal agents found $90,000 in alleged bribe money stashed in the freezer of his Washington home.
That led to last year's indictment on charges that he took bribes, laundered money and misused his congressional office for business dealings in Africa. Jefferson has promised there is an "honorable explanation" for the money in the freezer, although he has yet to make it public. His campaign did not return a call for comment Monday.
He lost Saturday's hurricane-delayed election to Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao, who will become the first Vietnamese-American in Congress.
Jefferson faces up to 235 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
"That was a huge bargaining chip: 'I'll plead, I'll resign.'" said Ed Chervenak, political science professor at the University of New Orleans. The loss also could also lessen the nine-term congressman's ability to get a deal for members of his family who face charges in separate cases, Chervenak said.
"I'll resign, don't indict my family? That's gone now," he said.
While the congressman was indicted in Virginia, his brother Mose and sister Betty, a New Orleans tax assessor, have been indicted on federal fraud charges in New Orleans. Both are accused of using family-owned companies to funnel federal and state grant money to themselves for personal use. A second sister, Brenda Jefferson, pleaded guilty in June to helping conceal the alleged scheme.
With his congressional seat no longer at stake, Jefferson may be more likely to accept a plea deal if he believes prosecutors have a strong case, said Dane Ciolino, a law professor at Loyola University. "Only because he's got less to lose now," Ciolino said. His seat "is something he had and didn't want to lose before."
National Republicans backing Cao emphasized the corruption allegations against Jefferson, Louisiana's first black congressman since Reconstruction. Cao won with 50 percent of the vote to Jefferson's 47 percent in a district dominated by African-Americans and Democrats.
Cao ran an enthusiastic and well-financed grass-roots campaign, but it was a series of improbable circumstances starting with Jefferson's indictment that led to his victory.
Hobbled by the scandal, Jefferson drew six opponents in this year's Democratic primary and had to fight for a runoff victory Nov. 4, when Barack Obama's presence on the national ballot generated higher black turnout.
An analysis of Saturday's results show turnout was low, about 30 percent, for white voters, but even lower, about 15 percent, for black voters.
Bill Rouselle, a New Orleans political consultant, said many black voters either thought Cao had little chance of winning or didn't realize the state's election system had recently changed and Jefferson still had to face a Republican opponent after winning the party primary runoff.
Had hurricanes Ike and Gustav not forced officials to delay primaries, the general election would have been Nov. 4. As the Democratic candidate, Jefferson likely would have benefited from the Obama-fueled turnout, which exceeded 40 percent in predominantly black precincts.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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#1
The Big O will quietly pardon him, if the Big O's handlers say so.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/09/2008 1:06
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#2
"Cold Cash" shouldn't mind going to jail. Don't they call it the "cooler"?
Lock him up for all 235 possible and tell him he's damned lucky he wasn't facing a firing squad.
Aswat al-Iraq: The commander of the Multi National Forces (MNF) in northern Iraq on Monday said that there is a possibility that Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) Organization could return to areas throughout the country, revealing that numbers of foreign fighters in Iraq have been reduced during the last six months. "Developments in the security situation are brittle," the commander said in a televised press conference. "Five MNF units are working with Iraqi troops to monitor Iraq's border with Syria," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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#1
Which part of "long war" don't people understand?
I fear, and sorta predict: around 50% of the US populace has demonstrated its short attention span and disconnection from its own reality, the US political class is breath-takingly cowardly and clueless, the world is now utterly dependent on US will and resources in the key battles ..... therefore the path to eventual victory will be much, much longer and more costly than it needs to be.
Condemning the Mumbai carnage, senior US Congressman Frank Pallone has said the terrorists involved in the attack tried to give the impression that they were local Indian Muslims.
"The fact was that they were not. They were not the Muslims in India. They were those Muslims who were trained in Pakistan and came from Pakistan," the Democratic lawmaker from New Jersey said at a condolence meeting held for the Mumbai terrorist attack victims the other day.
He said the Pakistani government had to play a role in its unorganised territories and make sure that they were not being used to launch another attack by al-Qaeda or the Taliban. "If not, then the US has to go there itself," he added.
However, Pallone opposed any attack on Pakistan by India at this point of time. This, he said, would be a big mistake because the terrorists wanted to create conflict and tension in the region. "So I think, right now, all the governments are trying (to prevent this). In my opinion, let this not be an excuse for another war between India and Pakistan," he said.
Pallone said that the upcoming Barack Obama administration needed to put a lot of pressure on Pakistan and make it clear that if it wanted to have any kind of relationship or receive assistance from the US, there had to be strings attached. "The US has sent both the secretary of state as well as military leaders to both India and Pakistan. I know that the new Obama administration and the new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, want to do whatever they can to shore up India's security," he said.
Pallone declared Pakistan a "failed state", saying Islamabad did not have control over its own territories and its land was being used by terrorists to launch attacks against other nations, including the US and India. "Pakistan is essentially a failed state. I do not believe the central government controls most of the territory of the country."
"It is obvious that in the area near Afghanistan, which is used by al-Qaeda and the Taliban as a way to move into Afghanistan and oppose American forces there, there is no control. It is obvious that even though they have outlawed the organisations that were trying to sever Kashmir from India, they continue (to exist). So, the government really has no control," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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#1
OK, Pak is a failed state, just like Somalia except with nukes. Now what?
AS an open, diverse and at times chaotic democracy, India has long been a target for terrorism. From the assassination of Mohandas Gandhi in 1948 to the recent attacks in Mumbai, it has faced attempts to change its national character by force. None has yet succeeded. Despite its manifest social failings, India remains the developing worlds most successful experiment in free, plural, large-scale political collaboration.
The Mumbai attacks were transformative, because in them, unlike previous outrages in India, the rich were caught: not only Western visitors in the nations magnificent financial capital but also Indian bankers, business owners and socialites. This had symbolic power, as the terrorists knew it would.
However, I recently saw a televised forum in which members of the public vented their fury against Indias politicians for their failure to act, and it soon became apparent the victims were poor as well as rich. One survivor, Shameem Khan instantly identifiable by his name and his embroidered cap as a Muslim told how six members of his extended family had been shot dead. Still in shock, he said: A calamity has fallen on my house. What shall I do? His neighbors had helped pay for the funeral. Like most of Indias 150 million Muslims, Mr. Khan is staunchly patriotic. The citys Muslim Council refused to let the terrorists be buried in its graveyards.
When these well-planned attacks unfolded, it was clear to anyone with experience of India that they were not homegrown, and almost certainly originated from Pakistan. Yet the reaction of the worlds news media was to rely on the outmoded idea of Pakistan-India hyphenation as if a thriving and prosperous democracy of over a billion people must be compared only to an imploded state that is having to be bailed out by the I.M.F. Was Pakistan to blame, asked many pundits, or was India at fault because of its treatment of minority groups?
The terrorists themselves offered little explanation, and made no clear demands. Yet even as the siege continued, commentators were making chilling deductions on their behalf: their actions were because of American foreign policy, or Afghanistan, or the harassment of Indian Muslims. Personal moral responsibility was removed from the players in the atrocity. When officials said that the killers came from the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, it was taken as proof that Indias misdeeds in the Kashmir Valley were the cause.
These misdeeds are real, as are Indias other social and political failings (I recently met a Kashmiri man whose father and sister had died at the hands of the Indian security forces). But there is no sane reason to think Lashkar-e-Taiba would shut down if the situation in Kashmir improved. Its literature is much concerned with establishing a caliphate in Central Asia, and murdering those who insult the Prophet. Its leader, Hafiz Saeed, who lives on a large estate outside Lahore bought with Saudi Money, goes about his business with minimal interference from the Pakistani government.
Lashkar-e-Taiba is part of the International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders (the Qaeda franchise). Mr. Saeeds hatreds are catholic his bugbears include Hindus, Shiites and women who wear bikinis. He regards democracy as a Jewish and Christian import from Europe, and considers suicide attacks to be in accordance with Islam. He has a wider strategy: At this time our contest is Kashmir. Lets see when the time comes. Our struggle with the Jews is always there. As he told his followers in Karachi at a rally in 2000: There cant be any peace while India remains intact. Cut them, cut them cut them so much that they kneel before you and ask for mercy. In short, he has an explicit political desire to create a state of war between the religious communities in India and beyond, and bring on the endgame.
Like other exponents of Islamist extremism, he has a view of the world that does not tolerate doubt or ambiguity: his opponents are guilty, and must be killed. I have met other radicals like Mr. Saeed, men who live in a dimension of absolute certainty and have contempt for the moral relativism of those who seek to excuse them. To achieve their ends, it is necessary to indoctrinate boys in the hatred of Hindus, Americans and Jews, and dispatch them on suicide missions. It is unlikely that any of the militants who were sent from Karachi to Mumbai young men from poor rural backgrounds whose families were paid for their sacrifice had ever met a Jew before they tortured and killed Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, who was several months pregnant, at the Mumbai Jewish center.
Americas so-called war on terror has been, in many respects, a catastrophe. In Pakistan, it has been chronically mishandled, leading to the radicalization of areas in the north that were previously peaceful. Yet links between the military, the intelligence services and the jihadis have remained intact: Lashkar-e-Taiba is merely one of a number of extremist organizations that continues to function.
The prime solution to the present crisis is to force the closing of terrorist training outfits in Pakistan, and apply the law to those who organize and finance operations like the Mumbai massacres. Hafiz Saeed and other suspects should be sent to India to stand trial. The remark by Pakistans president, Asif Ali Zardari (a man whose history of shady business dealing makes him demonstrably unfit for high, or even low, office), that he did not think the terrorists came from Pakistan would be funny if it were not tragic.
The United States gives around $1 billion a year in military aid to Islamabad; that is leverage. It does the people of Pakistan no favors for Washington to allow their leaders to continue with the strategy of perpetual diversion, asking India to be patient while denying the true nature of the immediate terrorist threat. I received this e-mail message recently from a friend in Karachi: Nowhere can get more depressing than Pakistan these days barring some African failed states and Afghanistan.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/09/2008
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"he [Head of LeT who shelters safely in Paki with Saudi funding] has an explicit political desire to create a state of war between the religious communities in India and beyond, and bring on the endgame.
Like other exponents of Islamist extremism, he has a view of the world that does not tolerate doubt or ambiguity: his opponents are guilty, and must be killed."
This guy gets it. Why do our state department and the idiots in the dominant leftist media never seem to learn?
Should incarcerated juveniles be allowed to attend the inaugural celebration? The possibility has some correctional officers at a California detention center in an uproar.
"This is a recession and there are kids running around L.A. without shoes," said an irate worker who asked for anonymity. "But they are flying criminals to Washington for the inauguration. It's ridiculous."
After the three were convicted of a home invasion in which an elderly woman was beaten, they were sent to the juvenile residential treatment camp known as Camp Afflerbaugh in LaVerne, Calif. Its Web site describes the camp as a facility that "provides intensive intervention." "The goal of the program is to reunify the minor and family, to reintegrate the minor into the community and to assist the minor in achieving a productive, crime free life," the Web site says.
The correctional officer I spoke with said fellow officers are disappointed that the Los Angeles probation department would even consider sending any of the juveniles to Washington.
"The juveniles committed a violent crime," the correctional officer said. "What we are doing is rewarding bad behavior."
Camp Afflerbaugh falls under the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles County Probation Department, the largest probation department in the world. A man who answered the phone at the camp on Friday referred me to the L.A. Detention Services Bureau, but not before denying that the inaugural plans were a done deal. Phone calls to the L.A. Detention Services Bureau on this matter were not returned by late Friday. But another employee with the facility claimed that on Thursday, the minors were taken to be measured for tuxedos and that a judge has approved the trip.
When it comes to rehabilitating juveniles, there are two schools of thought. Some of us believe that when minors commit crimes, they should be incarcerated and treated like adult criminals. Others are more compassionate, trusting that through counseling and education, a young criminal's crooked path can be straightened.
"The general idea of sending at-risk youth for them to have an opportunity to be part of this historic occasion of Obama's inaugural is, of course, a fantastic one," noted Susan Dvorak McMahon, an associate professor in DePaul University's Department of Psychology. "Often, they don't get these types of opportunities, and I think Barack Obama epitomizes a hope that you can have a different future." Because it is not clear how the juveniles were selected for the honor, McMahon was hesitant about commenting on this particular case. But she understood the frustration that some people might feel.
"I wouldn't necessarily want to reward kids who have committed a crime," she said. "But there are a lot of kids who are at risk who could benefit from this. There are lots of kids to choose from."
That's why the altruism of Earl Stafford, the founder of a very successful technology company in Virginia, is being talked about across the country. Stafford announced last Thursday that he plans to invite disadvantaged people including wounded soldiers to D.C. for the inauguration. He bought a $1 million inauguration ball package from the JW Marriott Hotel and plans to stage two balls a youth ball on Inauguration Day, as well as a "People's Inaugural Ball."
"There will be those who are distressed and underserved mingling with people who aren't so," Stafford told the Washington Post. "The needy will be our honored guests. That's who inspired us." The once-in-a-lifetime event to install Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States is expected to draw up to 5 million people from all over the world.
Officials at Camp Afflerbaugh may simply be trying to inspire three troubled juveniles. Still, there's no way to give these youngsters this incredible experience without sending the wrong message to their disadvantaged peers who have played by the rules.
#1
there's no way to give these youngsters this incredible experience without sending the wrong message to their disadvantaged peers who have played by the rules.
#2
You ever hear anyone brag about attending the inauguration of James Buchanan or Jimmy Carter? Or is this the gods way of introducing a bit a Greek Tragedy foreshadowing for the story to follow?
#4
They could have picked three exceptional teens that have distinguished themselves scholastically or in some other way that potentially benefits society.
But they didn't, they choose three hoods in jail that beat up an old woman in a home invasion. That DOES send a rather unambiguous message to young people.
#6
Ok as long as it's not my money. If some airhead millionaire wants to spend a bundle on some stupid symbolic gesture, so be it. It just leaves a little less for him to spend on trying to elect dangerous leftists.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/09/2008 13:16
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In a perfect world, they would send groups of juvenile thugs from rival gangs who, tuxedos not withstanding, would continue their tribal rivalry live on network tv with traditional volleys of poorly aimed gunfire. It would be an inauguration to remember!
Rev. Jeremiah Wright returned to the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ on Sunday, reports Manya Brachear of the Chicago Tribune. Will the networks notice that Wright suggested ABC and CNN were "the gates of Hell"? They might enjoy Wright suggesting Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly were Satan, but he also listed the Chicago newspapers and Time magazine. He also mocked Elizabeth Hasselbeck as factually challenged -- even as he insisted that December 7 was the day the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima instead of Pearl Harbor Day.
"Jesus said upon this rock I will build--listen to the promise--my church," he said. "And the gates of Hell--listen to the promise--the gates of Hell--neither ABC nor CNN--the gates of Hell--neither Hannity nor O'Reilly--the gates of Hell--neither Time, Time magazine, Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Tribune ... the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. Nothing will be impossible with God."
At the 11 a.m. service, Wright belittled "baby milk believers," who, he said, suffer a delusion that politics don't belong in the pulpit. He pointed out that "Luke the evangelist, not Wright the radical" lambasted the oppressive policies of the Roman government in the Gospel story that recounts Jesus' life.
"Any preacher who dares to point out the simple ugly facts found in every field imaginable is demonized as volatile, controversial, incendiary, inflammatory, anti-American and radical," Wright said, taking time out to note the thousands of Japanese civilians who died 67 years to the day when American warplane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. (Actually, Dec. 7 marks the day when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.)
The U.S. bombed Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, so Wright was wrong about the day, and of course, wrong about the number of years as well. But Wright was on a roll:
He implied that his previous use of derogatory language to describe Italians in a past sermon referred to the Roman oppression Luke condemned.
"Emperor Augustus in Rome--that's in Italy, dizzy blond on the View," Wright said, presumably referring to conservative television personality Elisabeth Hasselback, who has railed about Wright on the ABC daytime talk show.
Wright also thanked an employee at Fox News -- "a saint in Caesar's household" -- who advised him to cancel his October speaking engagements because the network had an advance copy of his schedule.
But if modern-day Italians can be mocked for what the Roman Empire did, does he think it's okay to say derogatory things about African-Americans over what the Africans did 2,000 years ago? That's a very odd line of argument to justify ethnic attacks on Italians and their "garlic noses." Factually speaking, Augustus Caesar ruled Rome when Jesus was born, but not when he died. Tiberius was the emperor at that time.
I would expect the media elite will try to ignore Wright as non-news since Barack Obama left the church. But where is the media in asking which church Obama will pick in Washington?
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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We already know what Rev. Wright thinks of the USA, so why pay attention to anything else he says?
#2
Because of stuff like this: Religion News Service, March 10, 2005 Obama met Wright 20 years ago in the process of trying to get Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ involved in some community organizing he was doing. Ever since, Obama has been a devoted member of Wright's church. Obama says that Wright is not only his pastor, but he also is his friend and mentor. And Wright is one of the people to whom he turns [to] help him explain how his liberal positions jibe with his faith.
Posted by: ed ||
12/09/2008 1:06
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When he dies in a short while, Imagine where he will be standing.
The SA Air Force has lost dozens of top engineers and technicians in just a few months, with ten senior technicians resigning in one week to go to Australia. The ten technicians were offered jobs by an Australian aviation agency. This comes after 20 aircraft engineers were poached by the same agency earlier in May.
Technicians at Ysterplaat air force base say that if management doesn't come up with a solution to the problem soon, the SAAF could lose all its top technicians by December.
A technician with 20 years' experience, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said morale was at an all-time low at all of the country's air force bases. He said "everyone" was talking about leaving the force for more benefits and higher salaries. "Morale is low, and the Australian Air Force's recruitment team will be in the country in two weeks to recruit even more staff."
The source added that although pilots and technical personnel enjoyed their jobs, conditions had worsened over the past five years. "Top management's attitude, the mass retrenchment of skilled technicians in the late 1990s and the hiring of inexperienced senior personnel are just some of the reasons. Crime and the cost of living are the secondary reasons why people want to leave."
The source said senior technicians were paid "peanuts", and were going home with just over R9 000 a month. "Technicians in exactly the same post in Australia go home with anything between R19 000 and R28 000 a month. "The government shouldn't be moaning that such a lot of skilled people are leaving the defence force; they should rather be reviewing their salary scales."
In April, SA's military top brass warned that the rate at which soldiers, sailors, pilots and technicians were being poached from the SANDF posed a serious threat to the country's security. Last week the chief director of the SA Navy's maritime strategy division, Rear Admiral Bernhard Teuteberg, admitted the navy was struggling, mainly because technicians were being poached by international companies.
But the former head of the SA Navy's mechanical operations in Simon's Town, David Nathan, said the skills shortage was created by the retrenchment of nearly 1 000 skilled engineers in the 1990s.
#2
Pay and benefits are always better in the civilian world, yes? You need to give your people a reason to stay. Or become North Korea. That kinda sorta works, at least for the retention problem.
#4
I'm curious if most of these people were white or black or if they were a mixed lot. If they were mostly white, they may have been looking for a chance to get out of SA for a while, so it may not even have been the pay that did it.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/09/2008 17:29
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#7
Pre ANC control, I imagine they had an effective deterrent force
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2008 17:39
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#8
When an organization starts hiring and promoting based solely on skin color, the competent always get the shaft. So, they leave--and expose the affirmative action hires for the toadies and incompetents they are. The organization, of course, completely disintegrates as a functioning entity.
Sorry, South Africa. I was in your country when it was a beautiful and relatively peaceful place, the jewel of Africa. Now it's on the fast toboggan run to being Zimbabwe. May God help any white person who can't get out of there because it's very certain no one else will.
(AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Pakistan's armed forces have been mobilised for more raids targeting leaders from the banned Kashmiri separatist group Lashkar-e-Toiba in Punjab province. The move follows the arrest of the group's chief operational commander, Zakiur Rehman Lakhwi, alleged by India to be the mastermind of last month's deadly Mumbai attacks.
Other top commanders and group members were expected to be arrested late on Monday in military raids on the town of Muredkey, where Jamaatut Dawa (formerly Lashkar-e-Toiba) has its headquarters, as well as Sheikhupura, Faisalabad and other important cities.
On Sunday, a military helicopter gunship attacked the group's headquarters in Shawai Nullah outside the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, Muzaffarabad. The army overwhelmed the militants after 90 minutes and several were arrested.
Lakhwi was not arrested in the Shawai operation but in another, undisclosed location, at the request of security agencies. He is to be interrogated by a joint team of agents from the FBI and Pakistan's spy agency ISI.
An ISI team on Sunday also visited Jamaatut Dawa's provincial headquarters in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi. ISI officials questioned Jamaatut Dawa staff but did not carry out any search operations.
Islamabad has denied any role in the Mumbai attacks which left at least 170 people dead. But some of the gunmen are said to have had links to Pakistani militants.
Indian investigators have said that the only gunman captured in Mumbai, Azam Amir Qasab, told them he had been recruited by Lashkar-e-Toiba, and trained at a camp run by the group.
Although Pakistan formally banned Lashkar-e-Toiba after Al-Qaeda's 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States and curbed the group's activities, its camps were never closed, according to analysts.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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All this month, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has explained in one speech after another how he would like nothing more than to leave office when his term ends in 2013. But the Venezuelan people are urging him to remain in the presidency, Chavez has said, and he will not disappoint.
"I am not the one planting this. It is the people who are planting this," Chavez said Wednesday before red-shirted supporters in the coastal city of Cumana. "I would prefer to leave in four years, for many reasons -- human and personal reasons. But in the end, at this stage in my life, I am conscious that I do not belong to myself."
Chavez says he belongs to the people of his oil-rich country. The National Assembly, a body with only a handful of government foes, is expected to support a measure next week that would trigger a referendum asking Venezuelans to approve a constitutional amendment scrapping term limits. If Chavez wins that vote, to be held as early as February, the former army paratrooper could rule until at least 2019 -- 20 years after he first took office with a promise to dismantle Venezuela's old social and political order.
"Ten more years of the revolution will come," Chavez said Saturday to throngs outside the Miraflores presidential palace. "I will be here until God wills it."
The populist firebrand's renewed effort to remain in office a year after voters rejected a referendum that would have eliminated term limits underscores the challenge the administration of President-elect Barack Obama faces in Venezuela.
During a tumultuous decade in power, Chavez has survived a coup and an oil workers' strike. He took the initiative against opponents, debilitated foes and, in the process, took control of all government institutions. He has used Venezuela's formidable oil coffers to build an anti-Washington alliance with like-minded governments in Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua.
Chavez has also forged ties with Iran and assisted Marxist guerrillas in neighboring Colombia, American and Colombian officials say, while escalating verbal attacks on Venezuelan opposition figures and the country's private news media.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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#1
he won't live that long. Venezuela's economy is augering in, based on Hoogo's failed policies and socialist incompetence, and the food strikes will be put down mercilessly, then expect a coup. Oil price drops serve democracy
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2008 8:10
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#2
He'll survive like Mugabe survives. There is no real internal force that can remove him otherwise it would have already occurred. Hope is not a strategy. He'll just ratchet up the repression, just like all the other thugs before him. The one big mistake he could do is to antagonize the Colombians and neutralize the other states to intervene in his defense when they act.
Five terrorists involved in the Mumbai terror attacks may be still at large, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing evidence found on the trawler on which they travelled from Karachi to India's financial hub.
The newspaper report counters the Mumbai police, which claimed that there were only 10 terrorists in the vessel out of which nine were killed and one was arrested. "Based on evidence found on the trawler, it was possible that five other men were involved in the plot and were still at large," the New York Times said.
The report also said Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the Lashkar-e-Taiba 'commander', was in Karachi for the last three months to help organise the terrorist attack in Mumbai.
The Mumbai attackers also kept in contact with their handlers in Pakistan with cell phones as they rounded up guests at the two hotels--Taj and Oberoi, it said, quoting a Pakistani official in contact with the terror outfit. The attackers left a trail of evidence in a satellite phone they left behind on the fishing trawler they hijacked near Karachi at the start of their 500-mile journey to Mumbai, the report said.
The phone contained the telephone numbers of Yousuf Muzammil, a Lashkar-e-Taiba militant, considered to be mastermind of the Mumbai attack, Rehman and a number of other Lashkar militants, the Times said, citing a report on the Mumbai siege prepared by MJ Gohel and Sajjan M Gohel, two security analysts who direct the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London.
The numbers dialled on the phone found on the trawler used to call Muzammil matched the numbers on the cell phones recovered from the Taj and Oberoi hotels, the New York Times.
This article starring:
Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Taiba
#1
With so many phone calls, the operation seems to have been micro-managed in a "Jimmy Carter Iran embassy hostages rescue" fashion.
Forty more military vehicles were set on fire on Monday in yet another attack on Nato forces' logistics inside a transport terminal at Hazarkhwani, only a day after around 171 trucks of the allied troops fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan were torched in Pishtakhara.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Peshawar, Kashif Alam, said six trailers and nine containers were torched in the incident.
Eyewitnesses and another senior officer, who requested anonymity, however, disagreed with his senior, saying 40 military vehicles of the Nato forces were destroyed and 10 others damaged in the blaze. The official said the figure did not include the damaged trucks.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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#1
Send in the EPA! The greenhouse gases released by this arson is completely unacceptable.
#7
I don't want to tell them their business, but has NATO ever considered putting some armed guys with these convoys?
Just a thought, they are in PAKISTAN after all.
#9
So either the Pakis have a death wish ( not likely to occur due to the world wide epidemic of testicular atrophy) or their particular 48 hour clock hasn't wound down yet.
US suspects Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence may have shared sensitive information with the group allegedly involved in Mumbai raids. The New York Times on Monday quoted several unnamed senior US officials as saying that the ISI shared intelligence and provided protection for Lashker-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant group, allegedly involved in the coordinated terrorist attacks on India's port city of Mumbai.
They also added that investigators are now focusing on one Lashkar leader they believe is a main liaison with the Pakistani spy service and a mastermind of the attacks.
American and Indian authorities believe that one senior Lashkar commander in particular, Zarrar Shah, is one of the group's primary links to the ISI. "He's a central character in this plot," an American official said.
Indian Investigators are also examining whether Shah, a communications specialist, helped plan and carry out the terror attacks in Mumbai, according to the newspaper.
The US officials also emphasized that the intelligence services are reassessing their view of Lashkar and believe it to be more capable and a greater threat than they had previously recognized.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has denied any government connection to the siege on Nov. 26-29, in which 10 gunmen targeted Mumbai's luxurious hotels and tourist attractions with automatic weapons and hand grenades in a 60-hour terror spree, killing nearly 200 people and injuring almost 300.
A war of words erupted when India pointed the finger at Pakistan and senior Indian officials and intelligence reports suggested the attacks were carried out by Pakistan-based militants. Islamabad has said it would act on any evidence that is presented to it and continues to express skepticism of Pakistani involvement.
This article starring:
Zarrar Shah
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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[12 views]
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Aswat al-Iraq: Security forces in Talafar on Monday imposed a curfew on the suburb after receiving reports about two booby-trapped cars, according to a security source. "Security forces conducted wide-range search operations in Talafar (60 km to the west of Mosul), aiming at finding the two cars," the source told Aswat al-Iraq. He did not mention further details.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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[17 views]
Top|| File under: Iraqi Insurgency
The New York Times Company plans to borrow up to $225 million against its mid-Manhattan headquarters building, to ease a potential cash flow squeeze as the company grapples with tighter credit and shrinking profits.
The company has retained Cushman & Wakefield, the real estate firm, to act as its agent to secure financing, either in the form of a mortgage or a sale-leaseback arrangement, said James M. Follo, the Times Company's chief financial officer.
The Times Company owns 58 percent of the 52-story, 1.5 million-square-foot tower on Eighth Avenue, which was designed by the architect Renzo Piano, and completed last year. The developer Forest City Ratner owns the rest of the building. The Times Company's portion of the building is not currently mortgaged, and some investors have complained that the company has too much of its capital tied up in that real estate.
The company has two revolving lines of credit, each with a ceiling of $400 million, roughly the amount outstanding on the two combined. One of those lines is set to expire in May, and finding a replacement would be difficult given the economic climate and the company's worsening finances. Analysts have said for months that selling or borrowing against assets would be the company's best option for averting a cash flow problem next year.
Standard & Poor's recently lowered its credit rating on the Times Company below investment grade, and Moody's Investors Service has said it was considering a similar move. Times Company stock, which has lost more than half its value this year, closed on Friday at $7.64, down 30 cents.
They were about $47.50 a share in January, 2004.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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[15 views]
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#3
On the bright side, it is alleged that a conservative in Alabama now owns a large chunk of the Times, and could oust the Sulzburgs for their demolition of the Time's value -- and reputation.
I was walking the streets of Washington, the streets I grew up in, last night. I found myself in front of the Washington Post building again, looking up, this time not longingly. This time I laughed. Let the future begin.
#7
No one can oust Pinchie except his own family. The publicly-traded shares are class A and are non-voting. The family owns class B shares which vote.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/09/2008 8:09
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#8
well the family has lost a LOT of money. Heh
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2008 8:23
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#10
Fear not! The Democrats will bail them out with your tax money.
Cause God forbid they use their own money. Why not send out a message that every good party member should have a subscription? Because even they know a losing proposition when they see it and have no interest in pouring 'their' money into a pit.
Gangs of youths smashed their way through central Athens, Thessaloniki and other Greek cities on Monday, torching stores, buildings and cars in the third day of mayhem after the fatal police shooting of a teenager.
In the country's worst rioting in decades, dozens of shops, banks and even luxury hotels had their windows smashed and burned as youths fought running battles with riot police. Black smoke rose above the city center, mingling with clouds of tear gas. Broken glass littered the streets. In an outpouring of rage, high school and university students joined self-styled anarchists in throwing everything from fruit and coins to rocks and Molotov cocktails at police and attacked police stations throughout the day.
"Cops! Pigs! Murderers!" protesters screamed at riot police.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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[13 views]
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#1
Fetch the Israeli skunk spray. Spray stinkiness from overhead, and shoot kneecaps from below. This is well beyond boys will be boys. Then jail all the smelly, screaming idiots for complicity, making them all liable for the cost of repairing the destruction they participated in -- proof of said participation being the smell. Broken kneecaps being merely a lagniappe.
Or send in the Q-ships to Arclight the place. That would end the riots, too.
#2
Reports said the teenager who was shot was part of a group stoning the police car. he then proceeded to attempt throwing a "petrol bomb" at the vehicle.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/09/2008 7:19
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#3
Evidently it's now ok in Greece to throw rocks and fire bombs at the police.
Greece's prime minister, Costas Karamanlis, wrote a letter to the boy's parents expressing his sorrow. "I know nothing can relieve your pain, but I assure you . . . the state will act, as it ought to, so that yesterday's tragedy won't be repeated," he wrote.
"It is inconceivable for there not to be punishment when a person, let alone a minor, loses their life," Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos said at a Saturday news conference. "The loss of life is something that is inconceivable in a democracy."
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2008 8:11
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#5
If that "minor" had been throwing a rock at me I'd have put two rounds center mass just as soon as he drew his fist back. Rocks are damned dangerous weapons and just because the bastard throwing it isn't of legal age doesn't mean it can't do serious damage. My sympathies lie with the cops. Gun the protesters down in the streets and drive police cars over their dead bodies. Then bury them in a mass grave with no memorial service.
#6
Gangsters, Terrorists and the domestic 'moonbats' have for a long time used women and 'minors' on their "front lines". Any interaction with authority figures creates the effect of 'police (or military) brutality against our children! (or women)'.
I sense that the Greek anarchists are probably no different and actually sent the kids out for the initial confrontation telling them to spark some 'action', whatever it may be. Having this many rioting 'outsiders' in such a short time requires 'pre-planning'.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/09/2008 8:52
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#7
You people believe the issue is "policemen vs anarchists". I don't blame you since that's what most Greeks (and certainly the anarchists) seem to believe also. But the way I see it the same police that murdered the 15-year old or allowed anarchist violence to run amok (tolerance towards "leftist" violence), is the same police that has allowed Neonazi groups to launch pogroms against immigrants (tolerance towards "rightist" violence), and the same police that brutalizes prisoners (tolerance towards its own violence), and which allowed the terrorists of 17th November to go uncaptured for decades.
This isn't a war of policemen vs anarchists, it's a war that both sides have launched against law and order. Fascism and Anarchy are both the enemies of liberal democracy.
(After all, the police-loving fascist party "LAOS" and the anarchist-loving leftwing parties have a similar attitude of hating the West and loving Russia -- if they were actually on opposite sides of the world ideological conflict one would expect they'd actually differ on foreign policy... atleast occasionally)
"If that "minor" had been throwing a rock at me I'd have put two rounds center mass just as soon as he drew his fist back."
Yes, but then again, you're a coward who justifies lethal action by the mere possibility of *personal* injury.
I mean you could have atleast tried to disguise the cowardice by saying you'd shoot the guy if he was throwing the stone at *anyone*, not just yourself.
#8
I think we can discern a common pattern as they appear to gravitate around university areas. Even on this side of the Atlantic the areas are known hang out and hand outs for anarchists and a general sedentary population [vice transient student population] that suffers from a disproportionate arrested adolescence syndrome. Higher crime stats and general anti-social [aka 'rebellious'] attitudes are systematic. Of course they insist that the society that supports the institution upon which they parasitically survive off of must sustain said institution. Wonder what what happen if the 'university bubble' popped and these cretins had to really work for a living?
#9
The difference between a rock and a bullet is mass and velocity. Both kill - ask Goliath [in ancient history Balearic slingers were famous for their ability to kill or injure on the battlefield] or for that matter numerous females stoned to death in the name of honor.
#14
All governments need a little occasional mayhem to remind them that they are powerless against even a modest uprising. They tend to forget that and push the envelope during periods of extended calm. Our own govt, both current and incoming could profit from a reminder once in a while that they draw their power from the will of the people, not from divine right. They have been hooking up the super-rich class pretty largely for the last 8 years and running the rest of the country to the brink of depression. I wouldn't be surprised to see some unrest here before long. So yeah, the greek rioters are punks and idiots, but the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time....
#16
Q-ships, Arclight, anarchists and Aris all in the same thread. And tw going all Ghengis Khan is just a cherry on top. Drinks, indeed! Make mine a MOAB, on the rocks, please.
(AKI) - Security forces were fighting Islamist militants on two fronts in the southern Philippines on Monday, after 24 soldiers were killed and 16 others were wounded in conflict at the weekend. Soldiers fought battled militants from the separatist Abu Sayyaf where the government forces is trying to defeat the group blamed for a spate of deadly attacks that have left hundreds of people dead in the past 20 years.
Lt. Steffani Cacho, a spokesperson for the Philippines Western Mindanao Command headquarters, said conflict erupted early on Sunday between marines and militants in the town of Talipao in Sulu province. An hour later, hostilities also broke out in the nearby province of Basilan.
Cacho said five soldiers were killed and 25 others were wounded in fighting in the town of Al-Barka in Basilan, where 14 soldiers had been beheaded early this year. The injured included an air force pilot whose OV-10 light bomber was hit but a co-pilot managed to land it safely in nearby Zamboanga city, she said.
Fighting also was reported on nearby Jolo island, where an additional 11 troops were wounded, she said.
The Abu Sayyaf is one of several groups of Islamist militants based in the south of the country and is demanding the creation of an autonomous Muslim region. Believed to be linked to Al-Qaeda, it has carried out a string of high-profile kidnappings and attacks, including the 2004 firebombing of a ferry in Manila Bay that killed more than 100 people.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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(AKI) - The Taliban has strengthened its reach in Afghanistan and become the 'de facto' governing power in several provinces, an international think-tank said on Monday. The International Council on Security and Development said that the Taliban now holds a permanent presence in 72 percent of Afghanistan, up from 54 per cent a year ago.
According to a report released by ICOS in London, Taliban forces have advanced from their southern stronghold, where they are now the "de facto governing power" to western and north-western provinces, as well as provinces north of Kabul.
The report said the Taliban's permanent presence in the country had increased by a startling 18 percent.
"The Taliban are now controlling the political and military dynamic in Afghanistan," said Norine MacDonald, President and lead field researcher of ICOS.
"Despite increasingly dire levels of security in Afghanistan in recent months, there has been surprisingly little change in response from the international community," MacDonald said. "The insurgency continues to turn NATO's weaknesses into its own strengths."
The ICOS report documented the advance of the Taliban on Kabul, where it claimed three out of the four main highways into the capital were now compromised by Taliban activity.
The capital has plummeted to minimum levels of control, with the Taliban and other criminal elements infiltrating the city at will, the report said.
"The Taliban are closing a noose around Kabul, and there is a real danger that the Taliban will simply overrun Afghanistan under the noses of NATO," said Paul Burton, director of policy for ICOS.
Through its research, ICOS revealed the Taliban's presence across the country using a combination of publicly recorded attacks and local perceptions of Taliban presence.
ICOS' research model defines one or more insurgent attacks per week in an Afghan province as a "permanent Taliban presence".
"The current global security architecture is ill-equipped to deal with the problems that beset Afghanistan," said MacDonald. "Quite simply, the current rulebook on how the international community approaches these crises needs to be rewritten if we are to succeed in Afghanistan and in other conflict zones such as Iraq and Somalia."
ICOS said military intervention must be supported by job creation and development, as well as effective counter-narcotics policies, literacy, a free and open media.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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#1
Friendlies get US troops to protect them and US funds to build.
Then simply demolish any Talib controlled areas with artillery. Burn the crops, kill the livestock, destroy the buildings.
Side with the enemy and you DIE should be the message.
#4
Right. Taliban power! Back in the real world: Battlefield Losses Plummet Last month, eleven U.S. military personnel died in combat (one in Afghanistan and ten in Iraq.) This is the lowest monthly deaths since before the Iraq invasion. It's the lowest death rate for Afghanistan since July 2002 (when there were no deaths.) For 2008, the monthly death toll (from combat) has averaged about 24. Since 2001, about a thousand foreign troops have died in Afghanistan, about a third of them from non-combat causes (usually vehicle accidents).
The sharp drop in NATO and U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan is attributed to the successful campaign against Taliban leadership. ...
Posted by: ed ||
12/09/2008 13:55
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#5
Meanwhile in Hopey Changey Ville: Chicago Sun-Times pointed out on Friday that Chicago has seen 426 homicides this year through Tuesday (late Oct 2008), compared with 417 in New York and 302 in Los Angeles.
There are more than 8 million people in New York, compared to slightly under 3 million in Chicago. The population of Los Angeles exceeds that of Chicago by more than 800,000.
How about invading and pacifying Chicago, President Rope-a-Hope?
Posted by: ed ||
12/09/2008 14:07
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#6
Hi
Interesting site name - # hostname, How did you get such a pretty domain name?
#9
ION WAFF > MILITANTS WITHDRAW THREAT TO BEHEAD 300 ABDUCTED SOLDIERS. Baitullah Mehsud was threatening to kill five a day and send their parts over to the Pak Army.
#10
ION UK > SPECTRE OF CIVIL WAR STALKS DIVIDED THAILAND.
* Also, WORLD MIL FORUM > RAND OFFICIAL: IFF NORTH KOREA COLLAPSES AFTER DEATH OF KIM JONG-IL, SOUTH KOREAN MIL FORCES COULD BE STATIONED ALONG THE DMZ BORDER TO HANDLE EXPECTED MASSIVE REFUGEE FLOWS, WHILE CHINESE PLA UNITS CAN TAKE CONTROL OF YONGYBON NUCLEAR FACILITY.
OFFICIAL/RAND > China must ensure that any post-Kim regime is NOT ANTI-CHINESE, + NOKOR's MISSLES ARE POINTED NORTH AND WEST INTO CHINA, NOT JUST SOUTH AGZ SOUTH KOREA OR US-JAPAN.
* WORLD MIL FORUM > JAPAN CONTINUES TO PROTEST INCURSION OF CHINESE PLAN SURVEY SHIPS INTO DISPUTED DAOYU ISLANDS; + CHINA WARNS JAPAN THAT IT HAS SOVEREIGN RIGHT TO SEND CHINESE SHIPS, OTHER INTO ANY CHINESE TERRITORY [disputed or not].
* IRNA > VICE PRESIDENT: ZIONISM'S ANNIHILATION SHOULD TURN INTO A GLOBAL CAUSE.
French police arrested the suspected military chief and "No. 1 member" of ETA on Monday _ a new blow to the banned Basque militant group just weeks after his alleged predecessor was caught, officials said. Trailed by police, the man identified only as "Balak" and two alleged accomplices _ all armed _ were detained on a street in the southwestern French village of Gerde shortly after nightfall, a French police official.
In a statement, French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said "Balak" appeared to be the new head of ETA's military arm, assuming control after Mikel de Garikoitz Aspiazu, alias Txeroki, was arrested on Nov. 17.
In Spain, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said the arrests Monday followed a joint French-Spanish police operation. He identified the suspect the French authorities called "Balak" as Aitzol Iriondo. "Aitzol Iriondo is presumably Txeroki's substitute," Rubalcaba told reporters in Madrid. "And as such we're talking about the military chief and No. 1 member of the terrorist group ETA."
It was not immediately clear why there was an apparent discrepancy between the different names put forward by French and Spanish officials. Rubalcaba said authorities were working to identify the two other suspects.
Investigators believe Iriondo was one of three ETA members who participated in the fatal shooting of two Spanish civil guard officers in the southern French town of Capbreton last December, Rubalcaba said. Police investigators were still trying to work out whether Iriondo or Aspiazu was the triggerman for the killing of the two Spanish civil guards, Rubalcaba said.
Rubalcaba was clearly emboldened by the recent arrests. "I don't know if any terrorist is at this moment thinking about substituting Iriondo, but we can guarantee you that as we talk we're looking for that person," he said. "And it will go on like this until this finishes."
This article starring:
Aitzol Iriondo
Mikel de Garikoitz Aspiazu
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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#1
He pissed on himself from fear when he was arrested. Imagine what he would have done had he been arrested by his fellows of the Cuban or Saddam's police.
A 21-year old woman Rizwana Bibi became the latest victim of honour killing, succumbing to bullet injuries at the District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) here on Monday. She was shot and wounded by ex-fiance inside the premises of the Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi Bench on December 3.
The woman, admitted to the DHQ hospital after she was attacked by her ex-fiance Ghulam Hussain last Wednesday, battled for life for five days but in vain.
The lady was attacked when she was leaving after attending hearing in a case regarding quashment of an FIR registered against her husband with the Kalar Syedan police station by her brothers for kidnapping her.
As per details Ashfaq and Rizwana claimed to be legally married when they were produced before the court of a judicial magistrate in Rawalpindi district courts. The judge accepted the woman's statement that she is with her husband and she wanted to live with him. The couple married without the consent of their family members on their own free will, which angered the girl's family members who viewed it as against their family honour.
Rizwana's brothers lodged an FIR against Ashfaq, his brother, mother and his sister for collaborating in the 'offence'. The couple had filed a case before the LHC for quashment of FIR. The day when the girl was attacked she attended the proceedings in the court of Justice M A Zafar where she recorded her statement and the police also presented a report before the court. However, the police report presented stated that the 'nikah nama' which was documented in Bhakkar was fake.
Rizwana's brother got registered an FIR against Ashfaq and his family with the Kalar Syedan police station on September 8 under Section 365-B.
On December 3, when Rizwana was coming out of the court, her ex-fiance Ghulam Hussain opened fire on her. She sustained bullet injuries on head, lungs, and belly and on one leg. Police arrested Ghulam Hussain and admitted Rizwana Bibi to the hospital in critical condition where she succumbed to injuries five days later.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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The Pakistani authorities have placed restrictions on the movement of Maulana Masood Azhar, the chief of the outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), by confining him to his multi-storeyed concrete compound in the Model Town area of Bahawalpur.
Well-placed official sources say Masood Azhar's activities have been restricted in the wake of the Indian government's recent demand to hand him over to New Delhi.
Adviser on Interior Rehman Malik said in Islamabad last week that India has given to Pakistan a list of three persons--Maulana Masood Azhar, Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon--for their immediate extradition.
Official sources say India has sought the arrest and extradition of Masood Azhar while citing a 1989 agreement signed by the director-general of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the director-general of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) which binds both the agencies to collaborate with each other, to trace out the most wanted terrorists and criminals and hand them over to their respective counterpart.
Maulana Masood Azhar is wanted by the Indian CBI for his alleged involvement in the 2001 attacks on Indian parliament which brought the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours to the brink of war. As a matter of fact, it is not for the first time that his movements have been restricted by the Pakistani authorities. Every time the Indian government demands his extradition, he is confined to his under-construction headquarters in Bahawalpur. Azhar had been serving time in an Indian jail for Kashmir-related militancy but had to be released by the Indian government in 2000 in exchange for passengers of an Indian airplane which had been hijacked by some Kashmiri militants and taken to Kabul. Soon after his release, he discarded the Harkatul Mujahideen (HuM) to launch the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
Since then, having gone through many ups and downs, especially in the wake of the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament and the 2003 suicide attacks on Gen Musharraf in Rawalpindi, the Jaish had been renamed as Khudamul Islam (KuI) and reorganised under the command of Mufti Abdul Rauf, the younger brother of Masood Azhar. The State Department had designated the Jaish as a foreign terrorist organisation in December 2001, making the Musharraf regime slap a ban on the outfit in January 2002. December 29, 2001 was the only time Masood Azhar was formally arrested by the Pakistani authorities following the parliament attacks. However, a three-member review board of the Lahore High Court ordered his release on Dec 14, 2002.
The second time he had to face the wrath of the establishment was in 2003 in the aftermath of the Rawalpindi suicide attacks on Musharraf, after it transpired that Mohammad Jamil, one of the two suicide attackers who tried to assassinate the first commando president of Pakistan, belonged to the Jaish. However, Masood tried to clear his position by maintaining that the bomber had already defected to the Jaish's dissident group--Jamaatul Furqaan, led by Maulana Abdul Jabbar alias Maulana Umar Farooq. However, the Maulana from Bahawalpur soon fell out of favour with the establishment in the wake of American allegations about his al-Qaeda links and because of the US belief that he, along with some other Jihadi leaders, had been providing logistical support to fugitive al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
As a matter of fact, following the January 2002 kidnapping and the subsequent murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl by Sheikh Ahmed Saeed Omar, close aide of Masood Azhar, the Americans had sought the custody of the Jaish chief, saying the US Department of Justice wanted to file charges against him for his involvement in the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 (with an American citizen Jeanne Moore aboard). The American authorities had claimed that under the American law, they had the right to investigate crimes against their citizens committed anywhere in the world.
However, the Musharraf regime had turned down the US demand, saying he was not a hijacker and his incarceration in India had been illegal.
"Otherwise, he would have been tried and convicted by the Indian courts while he was behind bars." In other words, Masood Azhar could not be accused of any crime.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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#1
"Azhar had been serving time in an Indian jail for Kashmir-related militancy but had to be released by the Indian government in 2000 in exchange for passengers of an Indian airplane which had been hijacked by some Kashmiri militants and taken to Kabul."
Im no international diplomat but heres a thought. The whole Prisoner for Hostage exchange thingey always seems to come with a downside. And, more often then not, its when the exchanges include Jihadists with innocent blood up to their armpits. Just sayin
#2
You know, if the man is head of an 'outlawed' organization, shouldn't his hairy ass be inside of a prison cell? What's the fudging point in outlawing an organization if you aren't going to drop the organizers into a nice, dank oubliette?
I mean, hell, we didn't actually ban the CP-USA, and Gus Hall still spent a half-dozen years in the clink.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
12/09/2008 14:33
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On MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews often heaps scorn on politicians, but signs are growing that he wants to be one of them.
In recent weeks, Matthews has ramped up his exploration of a 2010 campaign, as a Democrat, against Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.). He has discussed the dynamics of a possible run with prominent Democratic fund-raisers, strategists and leaders from across his native Pennsylvania, according to several people who have spoken with Matthews during the last several months. He also is considering buying a house in the state.
It would help to live there ...
All the activity has set the political world abuzz but also fueled speculation that Matthews is using his inquiry to gain leverage with MSNBC executives in negotiations for a contract extension.
If I were those executives I'd wish him well and pledge $50 to his campaign ...
"He is clearly interested," said Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel, a former congressman who was the Democratic nominee against Specter in 2004. Matthews has consulted him twice in the last six weeks.
"I told him his celebrity is a double-edged sword," Hoeffel said. "It gives him name recognition, but when national celebrities come home after many years they run the risk of resentment. . . . He needs to go on a six-month listening tour, spend 2009 getting around Pennsylvania. It would gain him a ton of information and contacts, and demonstrate he's serious."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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#1
Can the GOP get a non-RINO ready in case Specter decides to retire?
Posted by: Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton- D Ark NY ||
12/09/2008 14:39
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#10
The Kansas governor is from Ohio. Pretty common deal anymore; get the cash and backing then find a position anywhere to compete for. Carpetbaggers indeed.
Celebrity: you will be a loudmouthed smokescreen for policy before we throw you under to bus to save our asses.
The missing 133 ballots in a Minneapolis precinct are going to stay missing - at least for now. City spokesman Matt Laible said today that officials had suspended the search for the ballots that began after they turned up missing in the waning hours of last week's U.S. Senate recount.
The matter will be turned over to the state Canvassing Board, which will decide whether the 133 will be officially counted, Laible said.
The ballots at issue are from the Dinkytown neighborhood, a heavily Democratic area, and a comparison of Election Day results and recount totals indicates that not counting them could cost Franken a net of 46 votes. That has prompted his campaign to complain loudly about the disappearance. The campaign of Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, however, expressed skepticism that the ballots were truly lost.
After the discovery of the ballots' disappearance Wednesday, city elections officials scoured the warehouse in northeast Minneapolis where the recount was conducted, on the belief that the ballots, in a single envelope, had made it from the church to the warehouse.
Franken's campaign also complained today that several counties are balking at separating out crucial rejected absentee ballots in the U.S. Senate recount, saying the process is necessary to ensure that persons casting votes be accurately counted.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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Those are not missing - they were likely run twice by mistake on election night.
Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed operational mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and four co-defendants told a U.S. military court in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Monday that they want to make a "confession" and enter guilty pleas to murder and war-crimes charges in the death-penalty case.
The startling announcement came at the start of what was supposed to be a week of pre-trial hearings on various motions. It could create a major dilemma for the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama, who has said he wants to close the Guantanamo detention facility and prosecute defendants such as Mohammed in federal courts.
Judge Stephen R. Henley, an Army colonel, asked three of the defendants who are representing themselves if they were willing to enter guilty pleas Monday. All said they were ready to do so. Henley read from a document that the five sent him on Nov. 4 after they met together that day to plot legal strategy. The five said they had decided to "announce our confessions and plea in full," according to the document, which Henley read in court.
"Our success is the greatest praise of the Lord," the judge read from the document.
Offering to plead guilty along with Mohammed were Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Tawfiq bin Attash and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. A nephew of Mohammed's, Ali is also known as Ammar al-Baluchi.
Henley said he would not be able to accept pleas anytime soon from two defendants, Binalshibh and Hawsawi, because the court has yet to hold hearings on whether they are mentally competent to represent themselves.
Mohammed later told the court he would not enter a plea until a decision was made on whether the two can defend themselves. "I want to postpone pleas until decision is made about the other brothers," Mohammed said.
The military court was told in an earlier hearing that Binalshibh, an alleged liaison between the hijackers and al-Qaeda's leadership, is being administered psychotropic drugs. An attorney for Hawsawi, a Saudi and alleged financier of the attacks, said Monday he had requested a mental competency hearing for his client, but the lawyer did not provide any details on what prompted his concern.
Mohammed said he wants to end the death-penalty case quickly. He has previously expressed a desire to be executed, which he said would allow him to die a martyr.
"I understand we are in a big drama," said Mohammed. "We don't want to waste our time with motions and motions."
Earlier Monday, he requested the dismissal of the military attorney who has been advising him.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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Just the header here - read the whole thing. Ben Shaipro calls a spade a spade.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/09/2008
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#1
Western civilization isnt at war with terrorism any more than it is at war with grenades.
Western civilization is at war with militant Islam, which dominates Muslim communities all over the world. Militant Islam isn't a tiny minority of otherwise goodhearted Muslims. Its a dominant strain of evil that runs rampant in a population of well over 1 billion.
There are plenty of Islamists who are happy in their misery, believing that their suffering is part and parcel of a correct religious system. Those people direct their anger outward, targeting unbelievers.
They hate us because we are infidels. They kill us because we refuse to surrender to them.
Stop telling us that Islam is a religion of peace. If it is, prove it through action.
The simple fact is that tolerating the intolerate has proven itself intolerable.
Time after time after time, these radical islamists prove beyond any doubt that they have absolutely no interest in joining the modern world, let alone participating in it. In fact, they have negative interest in the sense that they want to turn the clock back on modernity, tolerance, and personal freedom.
It is starting to become clear, even for those who insist on viewing things through fuzzy lenses, that anyone who attempts to rationalize the behavior of these barbarians is part of the problem (Deepak Chopra, et al).
The KSM Fives announced desire for martyrdom instantly caused the collective sphincter constriction in handwringers and thoughtful chin-strokers alike. Immediately, some cautioned that killing these sub-humans would only facilitate their visions of virgins. Others have commented that the United States is ill prepared for the jihadi propaganda that may follow their unhindered demise. Whether a more just sentence is that their end days are spent rotting in a Super-Max cell or with a rope around their neck is a separate debate. Regardless of the US actions (Or in spite of), its their death-cult that will confirm or deny their martyr status. Keep in mind, many of the Mooselimbs open questions regarding Yassir Arafats istishaad have been blunted by the blood poison by assassin theory.
#6
I think that evangilism has a place among the the Moslem masses. Many of them can turn their backs on the radical hate if given a chance. As it is now those who don't want to live the hate mantra have few choices.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/09/2008 13:23
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Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan says that Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe has been unsuccessful to rule southern African state.
Really, Kofi? When did you figure that one out? Not while you were Secretary General, was it?
"President Robert Mugabe's government has not demonstrated the ability to lead the country out of its current crisis. There is bitter disappointment in the current leadership," Annan said in a statement issued in Paris on Sunday, allAfrica news website reported.
The former UN Secretary General also called on Southern African leaders to play a more active role in bringing about a transition to an inclusive government in Zimbabwe.
The Sunday statement was issued after a meeting of a group of former leaders known as 'The Elders'. A delegation from the group - compromising Annan, former President Jimmy Carter of the United States as well as former Mozambican education minister Graca Machel - was recently denied entry to Zimbabwe. "The [Mugabe] regime has been in denial about what is happening in their country, and the region has not really wanted to know either," Carter also said in Sunday's statement. He urged rapid formation of a workable government.
Meanwhile, former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi said, "A liberation movement and its leaders lose their legitimacy when they not only ignore the suffering of their people but actually act in a manner that increases their suffering dramatically," comparing Mugabe's anti-colonial past and present actions in power.
Few people would know more about liberations losing their legitimacy than the Algerians ...
Brahimi noted that African leaders and Southern African leaders in particular, had a duty to come to the aid of Zimbabweans.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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#1
Carter also said in Sunday's statement. He urged rapid formation of a workable government.
#3
The Sunday statement was issued after a meeting of a group of former leaders known as 'The Elders'.
Held in the Fortress of Eldertude no doubt.
Good to see that Kofi remains a blustering useless little man who seems to favor the company of other blustering useless little men.
#5
Iff the US-WORLD FINANCIAL CRISIS does worsen and pans out for a number of years or even decades as Perts have forecasted, ZIMBABWE = AFRICA MAY HAVE TO WAIT A WHILE FOR THE US TO INVADE.
Tribune Co., the owner of the Los Angeles Times, KTLA Channel 5 and dozens of other daily newspapers and television stations across the country, filed Monday for bankruptcy protection from creditors, in the latest indication of deteriorating economics for the news business.
The company's ills, which stem principally from declining advertising revenues, have been exacerbated by the heavy debt load of $12 billion it incurred a year ago when it was taken private by Chicago real estate entrepreneur Sam Zell. But they parallel troubles afflicting many other newspaper and broadcasting companies nationwide: In recent weeks, the McClatchy newspaper chain put its Miami Herald up for sale, the Christian Science Monitor said it would abandon daily print publication in favor of Web operation, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Minneapolis Star-Tribune have flirted with or entered default, and the New York Times said it would mortgage its headquarters skyscraper in midtown Manhattan to help cover operating costs.
But none as yet has gone so far as to file for bankruptcy, which could add a new dimension of uncertainty for Tribune and its 16,000 employees. During a bankruptcy reorganization, major management decisions are subject to the approval of a bankruptcy judge, and the ultimate fate of a company -- including whether it remains intact or is sold off in pieces -- could be decided in part by its creditors.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/09/2008
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Perhaps the Trib's endorsement Oct 17th of the first dem Presidential candidate in their companies history, would have reduced subscriptions and ad revenue to push Zell's 'change' to now 'hope' in Chapter 11.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2008 8:24
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#4
"Obviously we would not want to complete the reorganization until we felt pretty secure that we understood what the future ongoing visibility was."
Here's the "future ongoing visibility." You're a bunch of lying bastards who couldn't be trusted to tell the truth about the direction the sun will rise in the morning. No one but your little leftie coterie is interested in your lies anymore. You're going down, hard, and you're not coming back. The rest of us are going, "AMFs! Don't bother to write!"
Oh yeah and Julia (The Bush administration is persecuting me for my dissent) Keller.
On second thought, just clean the decks entirely.
I can remember when the Trib was a reliably Republican, right-leaning paper. Then the claim was that its owner, one Colonel McCormick, slanted the newspaper to a right-wing bias. I only thought it had good news judgment and treated the facts in stories fairly then.
Well, the Trib has more than made up for that over the years swinging far left on its coverage, columnists and editorial stances.
While Pakistan awaits evidence from India so it can prove that it has the capacity to move against non-state actors threatening its writ and allegedly attacking other states in the region, another incident questioning its capacity to control events has taken place. An army of some 300 gunmen official account puts the number on 30 blasted their way into two transport terminals on Peshawars Ring Road on Sunday and torched more than 160 vehicles destined for US-led NATO troops in Afghanistan.
A dominant view in Pakistan, expressed by former military officers in the media, is that Pakistan should block NATO supply convoys going through Pakistan. This volte face has come after a drone attack in Bannu. The experts on TV channels began demanding action after abandoning the earlier caution aroused by Pakistans economic downturn and the money the US pays for the passage of approximately 800 trucks a day.
The Taliban attack destroyed a convoy near Peshawar even as there were warnings from South Waziristan that the Taliban would undertake such an operation. The truck terminal was not given any reinforced security despite claims by the government to the contrary, and the attackers were given a free run. At the minimum this proves to the world that the Pakistan army is incapable of if not unwilling to putting down such elements and keeping its side of the commitment made to the US on NATO supplies. The supplies overland from Pakistan beget Islamabad the funds for mobilisation against the terrorists.
Pakistan is also haunted by the accusations made by India with regard to the origin of the one terrorist caught in Mumbai. The question is not whether the Indians are right or wrong. What is important, in real terms, is whether the world believes India or Pakistan. Pakistan denies that Ajmal Amir Kasab lived in a village named Faridkot in the Okara district of Punjab. Pakistani TV channels have gone to the village and shown people swearing that no Ajmal Amir Kasab or his named parents ever lived there, creating grounds for another media battle over who is telling the truth.
But a Pakistani journalist working for Londons Observer has collected evidence which claims to corroborate Indias allegation: the report is based on an electoral roll for Faridkot, which falls under union council number 5, tehsil (area) Dipalpur, district Okara with a list of 478 registered voters, showing a Muhammad Amir (father), Noor Elahi (mother) living in Faridkot. The parents identity card numbers too were discovered. This report is going to make Pakistans spirited defence irrelevant. The world is going to believe the Indian version. And that is where trouble is going to come from.
There is some cleaning up going on too but it might be too late and offset by the denials about Faridkot. The army has removed a Lashkar-e-Tayba training camp in Azad Kashmir, on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad. The question is: why now? Accusations were flying thick about this camp for a long time. Informed Pakistanis knew that the camp was there, although camouflaged somewhat by the stratagem of allowing the outfit to take the role of a rescuer of people after the 2005 earthquake in Azad Kashmir, despite some problems that the outfit had with foreign NGOs working there and their female members.
The removal of the camp or its takeover after pushing the Lashkar out of there is a precaution against the possibility of Indian precision strikes against them. Similarly, the old Lashkar headquarters in Muridke near Lahore has been opened and shown to journalists to establish that no terrorist activities could have been planned there. India has denied that it is planning to use the military option; rationally speaking the military option is unlikely to redound to anyones advantage. Yet, passions and internal political pressures can do much damage and the Indian government is under pressure right now.
We hope that the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) yesterday took a cool-headed view of the situation. Realism rather than rage should hold sway despite an environment of Armageddon created by the electronic media first in India and then, in retaliation, in Pakistan. The army must step back and let the civilian government handle the situation without vocal, domestically targeted, diplomacy. This is no time to create unity of the people in favour of rash action. Pakistan has to make a special effort to prove that it is in control of the situation. The two sides must regain the ground lost because of the Mumbai attack.
It is time to measure Pakistans capacity to withstand the prospect of a multi-pronged conflict raging both within and without. No country in the world can afford to succumb to passion when its economic and political moorings have been snapped. Wisdom recommends that Pakistan take a sober view of the situation and act with flexibility rather than Quixotic bravado. This is also the advice that the Pakistani media should take to heart, and begin to show caution in place of challenge
Posted by: john frum ||
12/09/2008
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#1
What is important, in real terms, is whether the world believes India or Pakistan.
Oh-oh. I think I know which way that one's gonna go...
#2
WORLD MIL FORUM [paraph]> JAMESTOWN.ORG REPORT: [unconfirmed]OSAMA BIN LADEN HAS NAMED ABDUL HAQ TURKISTANI AS LEADER OF AL-QAEDA'S CHINA BRANCH IN XIANJIANG [Uighurs], WITH APPROVAL ALSO FROM TURKIC ISLAMIC PARTY. IMPROVED SINO-LATIN AMERICA TIES WID AQ AND RADICAL ISLAM STRESSED.
Osama is believed to be in personal charge of up to 250 Chinese Militants under auspice of AL-QAEDA???
#4
As for the NATO trucks, vee IRAQ the Islamists are prob trying to indir induce effective mil confrontation wid the presntly less potent,less competent PAKI ARMY forces while limiting US-NATO to key cities = urban areas. The US, etc. will have to temporarily rely on AIRPOWER FOR LIFT, RECCE [UV's] AND CLOSE SUPPORT, TO WHICH THE MILITANTS HAVE PLENTY OF MAN-PORTABLE SAMS + RPGS???
IOW, PAKI = POST-MUMBAI INDIA > MILITANTS MAY ATTEMPT TO SPREAD WAR/JIHAD AS FOR CONTROL OF THE COUNTRYSIDE = AREAS OUTSIDE OF MAIN CITIES-TOWNS??? ALso, as per the US FINANCIAL CRISIS + CONTROVERSIAL BAILOUT OF DETROIT "BIG 3" [read - new US Military AFVS/IFVS production = new USGovt $$$ hyper-deficit spending of scarce monies it doesn't have]???
The Pulitzer Prizes, the most prestigious US journalism awards, announced Monday they were expanding to include online-only publications.
The Pulitzer Prize Board that oversees the awards said the 2009 prizes, which will be announced in April, had been broadened to include "text-based newspapers and news organizations that publish only on the Internet."
In a statement, the Board said it had "decided to allow entries made up entirely of online content to be submitted in all 14 Pulitzer journalism categories."
Sig Gissler, administrator of the prizes, said the move was a "logical extension of the historic mission of the Pulitzer Prizes."
"We continue to keep an eye on the changing media scene and try to make appropriate adjustments as we go along," he told AFP.
"There's an evolutionary aspect to the Pulitzer Prizes going back through history," Gissler said. "We added photography in 1943, for example, and we added explanatory journalism, and we started allowing online content as early as 1999."
The Board said that online or print entries should come from US newspapers or news organizations that publish at least weekly and are "primarily dedicated to original news reporting and coverage of ongoing stories."
"Consistent with its historic focus on daily and weekly newspapers, the Board will continue to exclude entries from printed magazines and broadcast media and their respective Web sites," the statement said.
Online content from newspaper websites has been permitted in all journalism categories since 2006 but online-only publications were only allowed to submit entries in two categories breaking news and breaking-news photography.
Among the prize categories are local reporting of breaking news, commentary, feature writing, investigative reporting, explanatory reporting and reporting on national or international affairs.
The deadline for entries in the 2009 competition is February 1.
#1
Tip jar is over to the right, folks, and consider doing your seasonalholiday Christmas shopping via Fred's Amazon portal in the sidebar.
Those clear report covers (the ones with the plasic spines) don't come cheap and we want Fred's Pulitzer entry to look first-rate when the hacks at Columbia begin their deliberations...
#2
Sig Gissler, administrator of the prizes, said the move was a "logical extension of the historic mission of the Pulitzer Prizes expansion, considering that print-media is almost as dead as unbiased journalism."
A Dutch container ship outruns some would be pirates off the coast of Tanzania (that's the country below Kenya on the African east coast), as reported here:
A high seas chase in which a container ship outran pirates shows the hijackers are extending their reach further out from Somalia, mariners say
#2
The more you subsidize the more you get. [Didn't we play this same stupid game with crime in general in the late 60s and get an explosion in the statistics, resulting in any politician seeking office declaring himself/herself a 'law and order' candidate?]
#3
Did anyone ever hear the story of the Trojan Horse? Why not disguise a destroyer as a container ship? Or jus put a MK 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS)on a couple of these freighters and I'll guarantee you this pirates will be gone.
Posted by: Art ||
12/09/2008 9:48
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Washington - A genocide prevention task force concludes that US leadership, early warnings, preventive diplomacy, and coordinated international action are crucial elements of any effort to prevent the kind of mass killings that have ravaged Sudan's Darfur and the Congo.
That may sound like another well-meaning Washington study destined to gather dust.
Only if we're lucky ...
But the fate of this task force -- led by two Clinton administration foreign-policy heavyweights, Madeleine Albright and William Cohen -- might be a little brighter.
Halfbright a heavyweight? Just as a reminder of the incompetence of most of the Clinton foreign policy team.
One reason: The conclusion of its year-long labor corresponds with President-elect Obama's naming to his national-security team a diplomat who has advocated swift action when genocide threatens.
Susan Rice, Mr. Obama's pick to be the US ambassador to the United Nations, had experience with the Rwanda genocide of the 1990s during her years as a chief Africa diplomat under the Clinton administration.
She also biffed the grabbing of Osama bin Laden when he was in the Sudan ...
#2
That may sound like another well-meaning Washington study destined to gather dust. Only if we're lucky ...
This is the essentially the white paper for Obama's AFRICOM jump-start and entry into the savior of the world status. The 400 meter target will a natural extension of the effort as he moves to restore 'hope' lost through past genocides and abuses of a domestic nature.
#4
As long as Berkeleyists flock to enlist in the USGPC (United States Genocide Prevention Corps).
I sse a few problems with that.
First That the guys who do the proposing aren't those who will do the dying.
Second: That like we have seen in Irak and even Afghanistan, the beautiful people, the MSM, the whore states (those who would pact with the Devil himself if they could extract a profit: eg teh Euros) not to mention the often very long propaganda arm from the bad guys and outright rivals (eg Russia) will undermine nation's will to fight until, like in Vietnam they handle a victory to the genociders.
Third: That you must know a lot more than what Americans usually know about history and politics of the region in order to know if you are helpng good guys or would be genociders who happen to be losing. Yugoslavia was a prime example of America being manipulated by the euros and the MSM.
Fourth: That this costs money. That America would be running through the world while Euro firms mp the floor with tax-burdened American firms
That does not mean that America should be indifferent, specailly when it is in its interest: Darfur, (but that shoyuld have begun in Afghanistan) could be an opportunity to drive a wedege between Muslims and non-Muslim inhabitants of teh Third World, between Blacks and Arabs thus making fight against Al Quaida and Islam much easier. But the effort must be accompanied with a propaganda effort who has been sorely missing in Afghanistan, but responsability of this failure lies not merely in teh Bush administration but to America's enemies internal and external.
#6
Typical liberal passive-aggressive garbage: all agenda, all the time.
We already have a fully capable system of doing threat assessments called the Department of Defense, but the only thing liberals can think of is how to do an end run around them with the obvious and specific intention of degrading or eliminating a key function of national defense.
This is an element that will fit perfectly into Obama's new defense budget.
This is disarmament by other means and it will only intensify the more into Hussein's administration we go. And Barak ain't even in the White House yet.
#7
Susan Rice, Mr. Obama's pick to be the US ambassador to the United Nations, had experience with the Rwanda genocide of the 1990s during her years as a chief Africa diplomat under the Clinton administration.
Yes, she opposed U.S. involvement in stopping the massacres.
#9
First, we'll cut defense spending and then we'll fritter away increasingly scarce military resources on missions whose parameters are determined by bodies who are often hostile if downright inimical to our interests.
And I bet people who protest this will even have their patriotism questioned.
Sounds like another step in the ongoing Clinton Restoration.
If the election of Barack Obama has been greeted with glee across much of Africa, there is at least one spot where the mood is decidedly different.
In the Sudanese capital of Khartoum these days, political elites are bracing for what they expect will be a major shift in U.S. policy toward a government the United States has blamed for orchestrating a violent campaign against civilians in the western Darfur region.
"Compared to the Republicans, the Democrats, I think they are hawks," said Ghazi Suleiman, a human rights lawyer and member of the Southern People's Liberation Movement, which has a fragile power-sharing agreement with the ruling party. "I know Obama's appointees. And I know their policy towards Sudan. Everybody here knows it. The policy is very aggressive and very harsh. I think we really will miss the judgments of George W. Bush."
While the Bush administration most recently advocated the idea of "normalizing" relations with Sudan as a carrot approach to ending a crisis it labeled a genocide, Obama's foreign policy appointees have pushed for sticks.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, the nominee for secretary of state, has called for a NATO-enforced no-fly zone to "blanket" Darfur in order to prevent Sudanese bombing of villages. The appointee for U.N. ambassador, Susan E. Rice -- a key Africa adviser to the Clinton administration during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when President Bill Clinton was sharply criticized for failing to act -- has pushed for U.S. or NATO airstrikes and a naval blockade of Sudan's major port to prevent lucrative oil exports. Rice has vowed to "go down in flames" advocating tough measures.
Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., who was chosen for his foreign policy experience and pressed early for U.S. intervention to stop the fighting in the Balkans, was blunt during a hearing last year: "I would use American force now," he said.
But it remains unclear how those pre-election views will square with the president-elect, who has outlined a pragmatic, coalition-based approach to foreign policy, while also speaking of America's "moral obligation" in the face of humanitarian catastrophes of the sort that are plentiful in Africa.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2008
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Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan
#1
While the Bush administration most recently advocated the idea of "normalizing" relations with Sudan as a carrot approach to ending a crisis it labeled a genocide, Obama's foreign policy appointees have pushed for sticks.
Of course they're pushing for sticks. It's a long-festering 'humanitarian' issue in a backwater country with an impact affecting the U.S. national interest somewhere between the buildup of penguin guano in Antarctica and the decline in the number of pop-groups in Sweden.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/09/2008 1:42
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#3
Coming to the conclusion that the democrats want their own "war to free the black people".
Economic Crises? check. Unilateral Option to War by Charismatic Leader? check. Reason to War Narrative? check. With Biden tutoring Obama and the Clinton redux making the decisions what could possbily go wrong...
#4
Democrats seem to have the ability to go to war, or just bomb the crap out of people without getting a lot of friction for it. I don't know why, but they do seem to have that going for them, they only start 'righteous' wars.
#5
Sudan was only ever a stick for the Democrats to whack GWB. Along with every other war, pestilence, famine and throbbing hangnail on the planet. The chances of The Changeling annoying China over Darfur when they can use the $US for a yo-yo are zero.
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.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Some same-sex marriage supporters are urging people to "call in gay" Wednesday to show how much the country relies on gays and lesbians, but others question whether it's wise to encourage skipping work given the nation's economic distress.
Last Wednesday evening around 10pm, following a relaxing supper, my friend Eugene and I arrived at the check-out desk at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, as we have done together hundreds of times in our travels as New York investment bankers currently living in Hong Kong.
The first sign of cracks in President-elect Barack Obama's foreign policy team of rivals emerged on Monday as his choices for secretary of state and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations visited the State Department.
Condemning the Mumbai carnage, senior US Congressman Frank Pallone has said the terrorists involved in the attack tried to give the impression that they were local Indian Muslims.
Should incarcerated juveniles be allowed to attend the inaugural celebration? The possibility has some correctional officers at a California detention center in an uproar.
Rev. Jeremiah Wright returned to the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ on Sunday, reports Manya Brachear of the Chicago Tribune. Will the networks notice that Wright suggested ABC and CNN were "the gates of Hell"? They might enjoy Wright suggesting Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly were Satan, but he also listed the Chicago newspapers and Time magazine. He also mocked Elizabeth Hasselbeck as factually challenged -- even as he insisted that December 7 was the day the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima instead of Pearl Harbor Day.
(AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Pakistan's armed forces have been mobilised for more raids targeting leaders from the banned Kashmiri separatist group Lashkar-e-Toiba in Punjab province. The move follows the arrest of the group's chief operational commander, Zakiur Rehman Lakhwi, alleged by India to be the mastermind of last month's deadly Mumbai attacks.
All this month, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has explained in one speech after another how he would like nothing more than to leave office when his term ends in 2013. But the Venezuelan people are urging him to remain in the presidency, Chavez has said, and he will not disappoint. 
A 21-year old woman Rizwana Bibi became the latest victim of honour killing, succumbing to bullet injuries at the District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) here on Monday. She was shot and wounded by ex-fiance inside the premises of the Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi Bench on December 3.
The Pakistani authorities have placed restrictions on the movement of Maulana Masood Azhar, the chief of the outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), by confining him to his multi-storeyed concrete compound in the Model Town area of Bahawalpur.
Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed operational mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and four co-defendants told a U.S. military court in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Monday that they want to make a "confession" and enter guilty pleas to murder and war-crimes charges in the death-penalty case. 
Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan says that Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe has been unsuccessful to rule southern African state. 
Tribune Co., the owner of the Los Angeles Times, KTLA Channel 5 and dozens of other daily newspapers and television stations across the country, filed Monday for bankruptcy protection from creditors, in the latest indication of deteriorating economics for the news business.
The Pulitzer Prizes, the most prestigious US journalism awards, announced Monday they were expanding to include online-only publications.
If the election of Barack Obama has been greeted with glee across much of Africa, there is at least one spot where the mood is decidedly different. 
