The 2008 Legislative session has begun, and the Ammunition Accountability Act is being introduced across the country. Below is a summary of legislation that has been introduced throughout the United States. To view the bills' status click on the links to the individual bills... Gun control has failed, so now the big effort is to prohibit ammunition.
#2
Look for them to go after reloading supplies and equipment, too.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/03/2008 19:04
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Encoding means little unless the purchaser can be identified through licensing. What we will have with this is defacto gun registration and the potential for limits on the type and quantities of ammunition available to the consumer. Lastly, this will cost a bundle to implement and what will be the status or legal disposition of old, non-encoded ammo. One can only guess. The cost will be passed along to the consumer. Er huh, hmmm, encoding.... shotgun shells????
#4
There are multiple references to it being another Soros front org. It usually is when a well funded, pre-canned "grassroots" organization springs up from nowhere. Why not. Soros bought the US presidency, what's the second amendment compared to that? States w/ Ammunition Accountability Act bills pending
Posted by: ed ||
12/03/2008 19:34
Comments ||
Top||
#5
This is a round about way to ban ammunition. At least the washington state law requires that the encoding be such that it is 'higly likely' to survive imact.
#6
The Washington bill was referred to committee in Feb 2008 so it is dead (at least until the next session. THis link: http://www.jouster.com/cgi-bin/guntalk/config.pl?noframes;read=78208 states that the serialzation scheme is the product of a couple of Seattle area lawyers that mean to extract a licensing fee from every round of bullet sold. so in addition to putting a chokehold on honest citizens they are gonna have their hands in our pants too.
#7
I couldn't find the referenced bills in Tennessee legislation. The House bill has no history and no action has been taken. The Senate bill could not be found. These bills must be in the planning stages as they have not been introduced. I have received no alerts from the Tennessee Firearms Association. They must be looking for someone to sponsor them. Our legislature has recently replaced the speaker who has long been an impediment to pro-firearm legislation. Moreover, Tennessee has used firearms for protection and hunting for a long, long time.
I think these bills are wishful thinking of gun grabbers and gun controllers; just as the personalized weapons were that had to recognize your hand before they could be used.
This technology is sort of like the taggant technology used with explosives. However, this technology does not prevent people from manufacturing explosives. Same is true of ammunition; if a person wants to cast bullets, it is difficult to prevent it and as already mentioned there are billions of rounds of ammunition unidentified. Additionally, ammunition is readily available from other countries that is not identified. And then there will be the blackmarket for ammunition. If thugs want to use firearms and ammunition for crime, they will merely steal both or buy them illegally as they do now. The ammunition encoding act aims at controlling law abiding citizens.
The administration of such a law would be an enormous burden to taxpayers. All the current bailouts will not leave enough Federal money buy toilet paper for the Congress. The States can't afford such legislation either.
MUMBAI: Even as India seeks Dawood Ibrahim's extradition yet again, the don is ensconced safely in his plush bungalow in Karachi.
Security agency sources told TOI on Wednesday that it's business as usual for the underworld kingpin. A few days ago, a couple of his relatives, including Salim Ansari, flew to Pakistan (using their valid Indian passports) to meet him. Sources said the don was so confident that he would not be touched by the Pakistani establishment that he had made no changes in his daily routine.
He continues to phone his contacts in Mumbai. Recently, a contact who fronts for him in the real estate business reportedly sent Rs 120 crore via hawala, sources in the government stated. The hawala channel between Mumbai and Karachi remains busy.
Indian security agencies are keeping close tabs on Dawood's movements, as are their counterparts in the US intelligence establishment. It's on the basis of detailed inputs from them that India maintains that Dawood Ibrahim is in Pakistan. But central agencies question why the Maharashtra government has not taken any action against the D-company here.
"What's the point of asking Islamabad to hand over Dawood when we're not doing anything to destroy his empire in Mumbai and other places in India?" a senior official asked.
Mohammed Ali, who holds sway in the docks and is a key member of the Dawood Ibrahim network, continues to operate with impunity. Even after the November 26 terror attacks, his smuggling racket remains unchecked. Despite strong indications that it provided logistical assistance to the attackers, the police insist there was no local support. At the same time, they do not rule out Dawood Ibrahim's involvement.
Meanwhile, security agencies are hoping the US will move on Lashkar-e-Taiba leaders, including Abu Hamza and Hafeez Syed. An email sent to a TV channel was traced to an LeT hideout near Muridke in Pakistan's Punjab province. The phone intercepts of the LeT terrorists who executed the Mumbai massacre also reveal their links to Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/03/2008
15:15 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
My hope is that somewhere in this world, there is a Tomahawk cruise missile with Dagwood's name and address programmed in.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Nikolaevsk, AK ||
12/03/2008 15:45
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Tomahawks are too merciful--he'd never know what hit him. I hope the Indians send a very patient taskforce in that will slllooowwwllly extract every detail, nail by nail, digit by digit, leaving the tongue only until he talks.
Attacks fell in November to their lowest monthly level since the Iraq war began in 2003, despite recent high-profile bombings aimed at shaking public confidence, a top U.S. commander said Wednesday.
Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, the No. 2 U.S. commander here, blamed al-Qaida in Iraq for a spate of bombings that has killed nearly 50 people in Baghdad and elsewhere since Monday. The blasts took place despite an 80 percent drop in attacks nationwide since March, Austin said.
At least 33 people were killed and dozens wounded in multiple bombings Monday against Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and Mosul. Another 15 died in blasts Tuesday in the northern cities of Mosul and Tal Afar and in the southern city of Iskandariyah.
One civilian was killed and five were wounded Wednesday when a magnetic bomb attached to a minibus went off as the vehicle was carrying Education Ministry employees to work in eastern Baghdad, police said.
"What you've seen in the last several days is an attempt by al-Qaida and others to conduct high-profile attempts that are really aimed at intimidating the civilian population" and drawing media attention, Austin told reporters. "Their intent is to erode the confidence of civilians and Iraqi security forces to create a picture that things are not going in the right direction."
Nevertheless, Austin said November "saw fewer attacks than any month since 2003" when the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein's regime. He gave no figures.
U.S. combat deaths were down in November too, falling to one of their lowest monthly levels of the war eight. The drop suggests that extremists are focusing on Iraqi forces as the U.S. scales down its role on the battlefield.
Austin attributed the fall in violence to an increase in the number of Iraqi security forces on the streets as well as the arrest in recent months of a number of key figures from al-Qaida and Shiite extremist "special groups."
In the latest arrest, U.S. troops captured two suspected members of the Shiite militant Kataib Hezbollah and killed another during raids early Wednesday in Baghdad's Karradah district, the U.S. said. The U.S. believes Kataib Hezbollah is trained, financed and armed by Iran, a charge the Iranians deny.
"Coalition and Iraqi forces have killed or captured hundreds of individuals who played key roles in al-Qaida," Austin said. "We have also degraded the networks of the (Shiite) special groups criminals." But Austin said the continuing attacks were "still of concern" because they were aimed at killing large numbers of civilians and drawing "media attention."
U.S. troops are working more and more with Iraqi soldiers and police in hopes of improving their performance ahead of substantial withdrawals of American forces expected next year. ...
Posted by: ed ||
12/03/2008
14:57 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
21 Deendar activists were convicted today by a Special court in connection with the serial bomb blasts in Churches in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Goa.
more Lions of Islam
The judge Shivanagoudar, pronouncing the judgement in the Parappana Agrahara Central jail here, where the Special court was located through video conference due to security reasons acquitted four others for lack of evidence. The quantum of punishment would be announced tomorrow.
The blasts had shook the state during May-July in 2000. The members of the Deendar Anjuman outfit were found guilty by the judge.
The court had tried 25 persons, who were accused in four cases of church blasts.
The then Congress Government headed by S M Krishna in Karnataka, had referred the church blast case to CoD in 2000, and the special court was set by the state government in 2005. The accused were charged under IPC section 120-B (Criminal conspiracy) and Expolsives Substances Act.
The members of the Hyderabad-based Deendar Anjuman had triggered serial bomb blasts in three churches in Bangalore, Wadi and Hubli in the state during May and June 2000. The Karnataka police, who were clueless about the persons involved in the church blasts however stumbled upon the evidence against the culprits when they were on their way to place another bomb which accidently went off in their vehicle. Two suspects were killed in the blasts and another was rescued by the police with severe burns.
The outlawed Deendar Anjuman group which had also planned to trigger bombs at the famous temple in Tirupathi, left behind leaflets of Bible Society of India to create an impression that the blast was the handiwork of Christians.
Subsequent to the blasts, the Union Government had banned the organisation, the decision of which was also upheld by a Tribunal.
Syed Zia-ul-Hassan, the prime accused and a Pakistani national was still at large and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had issued a red-corner notice against him. Hassan name also reportedly figured in the list of those most wanted by the Union Government, which was given to Pakistan by the NDA government for repartriation.
In separate incidents, the Deendar Anjuman activists also allegedly planted timer devices in a few churches in Goa and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh in May 2000.
They also handed out Hindu RSS leaflets outside one of the churches they bombed
Posted by: john frum ||
12/03/2008
14:53 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
City crime is one thing, but a New York tabloid has upped the ante - stealing the entire Empire State Building.
The Daily News claimed it had pocketed the 102-storey Art Deco icon by filing fraudulent documents with the city register to expose New York's dangerously lax system for recording property.
According to the News, the "heist" took just 90 minutes. Then they returned the building to its real owners, Empire State Land Associates.
The phoney documents were made even more laughable by appearing in the names of legendary bank robber Willie Sutton and original King Kong movie star Fay Wray.
"The massive ripoff illustrates a gaping loophole in the city's system for recording deeds, mortgages and other transactions," the News said.
"Of course, stealing the Empire State Building wouldn't go unnoticed for long, but it shows how easy it is for con artists to swipe more modest buildings right out from under their owners. Armed with a fraudulent deed, they can take out big mortgages and disappear," the News warned.
#1
Just as long as everyone keeps their hands off of my bridge, they can do what they want.
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats ||
12/03/2008 15:24
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Ah! So this is why I keep getting a past due notice on a mortgage on the UN. Still wont pay.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/03/2008 16:23
Comments ||
Top||
#3
It must be true; I saw it on an episode of Law and Order called "Identity". That case involved a "family man" stealing Lonnie Jackson's identity and his Harlem brownstone.
From the WSJ:
If President Barack Obama He ain't President yet, Ralphie
wants to stop the descent toward dangerous global climate change, Hell, The One said he could stop the oceans' rise - surely he can stop the climate from changing....
and avoid the trade anarchy that current approaches to this problem will invite, As opposed to what we've got now....?
he should take Al Gore's proposal for a carbon tax and make it global. So now OBambi is not only the President of the US (even though we've already got a President for the next month or so), he's king of the world? Figures.
A tax on CO2 emissions With the money being siphoned off by going to the UN kleptocrats, no doubt-- not a cap-and-trade system -- offers the best prospect of meaningfully engaging China and the U.S., I don't think that means what you think it means, Ralphie....
while avoiding the prospect of unhinged environmental protectionism. Do you promise it will get rid of the unhinged "environmentalists" around the world, Ralphie? Starting with you and your butt buddy AlBore?
China emphatically opposes a hard emissions cap on its economy. That's 'cause they're smarter than you are, Ralphie.
Yet China must be part of any climate deal or within 25 years, notes Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, its emissions of CO2 could amount to twice the combined emissions of the world's richest nations, including the United States, Japan and members of the European Union. And he "knows" this how, exactly....?
According to the world authority on total bullshit the subject, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it will cost $1.375 trillion per year to beat back climate change and keep global temperature increases to less than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). $1.375 trillion - that's undoubtedly exactly the cost of their champagne, caviar, whores, limousines, private jets, overpriced homes and apartments, and assorted bribes. How do they do it?
Cap-and-traders assume, without much justification, Just like your assumptions, Ralphie. It might behoove you to remember that "assume" always begins with an ASS.
that one country can put a price on carbon emissions while another doesn't without affecting trade or investment decisions. This is a bad assumption, given false comfort by the Montreal Protocol treaty, which took this approach to successfully rein in ozone-depleting gases. Chlorofluorocarbons are not pervasive like greenhouse gases (GHGs); nor was the economy of 1987 hyperglobalized like ours today. Hell, the economy of December 2008 isn't as hyperglobalized as the economy of January 2008.
Good intentions lead straight to Hell, Ralphie - and I wish you and your buddies would hurry up and get there
to limit big polluters in some countries but not others will turn any meaningful cap into Swiss cheese. Mmmmmm, cheese. Though Danish Havarti's better.
It can be avoided by relocating existing and new production of various kinds of CO2-emitting industries to jurisdictions with no or virtually no limits. I think we've already done that, Ralphie. Do China, Thailand, Vietnam, et at., ring any bells....?
This is known as carbon leakage, And your pathetic, pedantic, uninformed-by-actual-science rantings are known as bullshit leakage. I wonder where we could find a big-enough stopper....
and it leads to trade anarchy. I'm thinking we're already there. Idiot.
Read the rest at the link if you're a masochist you want to - it doesn't get any better (just like Ralphie).
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/03/2008
13:37 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Sorry, mods - forgot to change the category to Opinion. :-(
And I'm sure you all know my opinion of Ralphie and his fellow travelers....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/03/2008 14:11
Comments ||
Top||
#2
I saw a fantastic bumper sticker the other day: "Stop Continental Drift".
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats ||
12/03/2008 14:30
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Global carbon tax for a world government and new world order?
#8
We had the coldest January in 50 years, the coldest March and April in 30 years, the coldest June in 25 years, and we've had unusually cold temperaures for October and November including more snow (the statisticians haven't come back with the results for Oct/Nov)and I'm pumpin' all the CO2 I can right now trying to stay warm. Go blow a dead bear, Ralphie.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/03/2008 18:59
Comments ||
Top||
#10
Someone tell Ralphie he's late to the global warmingclimate change variable weather party. All the good endorsements and book deals are taken.
Posted by: ed ||
12/03/2008 20:33
Comments ||
Top||
#11
What will he and Al Bore do when the next ice age arrives and the only thing stopping delaying it has been all the CO2 that countries have been pumping into the atmosphere?
Of course, the major greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is dihydrogen monoxide vapor, and I haven't heard anybody talk about reducing that.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/03/2008 20:55
Comments ||
Top||
#12
Tell ya what Ralphie, when you and the other fuckwit enviros figure out how to collect the carbon tax from China, and the third world, give us a call for our "taxes".
#1
Falling further is relative. Importantly, metals have long been the most tightly controlled cartel market out there.
In copper, for example, when the US went to mostly fiber optic cable for long distance, enough copper to build several aircraft carriers out of pure copper disappeared into storage, and the price of copper didn't vary at all.
#2
Exotic alloys prices are not falling very much at all. Inconel, monel, hastelloy, and titanium are still relatively high. Carbon steel and the standard grades of stainless steel (304L and 316L) are falling because of a decrease in demand.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/03/2008 18:50
Comments ||
Top||
#3
The important thing is that demand for depleted uranium and white phosphorus stay strong.
Posted by: ed ||
12/03/2008 19:53
Comments ||
Top||
Wow! What a contrast. In the US, the mere mention of using truth serum on a terrorist would cause the ACLU's head to explode and immediate calls for the administration to be thrown out of office. Great to see that there are still countries that are willing to do what it takes to prevent future loss.
#2
From what I have read, "truth serum" is just a scientific way of getting you to lower your inhibitions. It's like getting drunk - you babble, but there is no guarantee that what you say will make sense.
With pliers and other instruments of torture, eventually the victim will say anything to make the pain stop.
There ARE methods to wear down someone's resistance that are not true torture, but are very effective. Sleep deprivation, and so on. Of course, we Americans aren't allowed to use them.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/03/2008 17:27
Comments ||
Top||
#4
They have some new drugs available that can cause one to be more trusting of an interrogator. And they can give another drug to erase the memory of the interrogation session so the subject has no idea later what they even said. But all that does nothing if he comes back with "hey, I was trippin' balls and I have no idea who was there".
#5
HMMMMMM, HMMMMMMM, I know or remember young[er] Mr. AZAM KASAB from somewhere in the mainland USA, BUT WHERE!
D *** NG IT, YOU JUST KNOW PAULA "BATHSHEBA/
DELILAH" ABDUL IS GOING TO WANT TO KICK HER DADDY'S COCONUTS/TROPIC PLANTS AGAIN TO GET HIM TO REMEMBER, AND WID MOM SHOWING HER WHERE TO KICK AND HOW HARD!?
#11
And to think that Larry Summers was forced out of the presidency of Harvard for merely suggesting that more research was needed to see if there were any innate differences between men and women that would explain why there are a lot more prominent male scientists than female scientists.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/03/2008 20:45
Comments ||
Top||
#12
Somebody please remind me not to piss off Barbara. Thankew.
#14
Any male bonehead who thinks women can't remember never forgot a woman's birthday. Remember? The elephant, of mighty reputation though it might be, isn't even in the same league with the average married woman.
#5
He absolutely sums it up. The worldwide problem is that we have no leadership that can see the obvious, act upon the threats, AND communicate it all to the populace. Lack of leadership and a press that has sunk to a marketing and propaganda tool is killing is, literally and figuratively.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Nikolaevsk, AK ||
12/03/2008 13:10
Comments ||
Top||
#6
So enough. No more empty talk. No more idle promises. No more happy ignorance, half measures, or appeasement-minded platitudes. The time for hard-nosed, uncompromising action hasn't merely come it's been overdue by seven years. The voice of our brothers' blood cries out from the ground.
I enjoyed the artilce, but I'm disappointed the author did not say what "hard-nosed, uncompromising action" he recommends we take.
#7
Bravo! I'm right there with this guy. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. The stakes are too high now. To tolerate the intolerate is no longer tolerable.
Not when you are facing the kind of threats these monsters are intent on seeing through.
#8
My gosh! The next thing you are gong to tell me is that we don't have a president-in-waiting who is going to lead us to Paradise. Please! Enough of the reality. We've lost our financial bubbles. At least allow us our PC bubbles.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/03/2008 16:35
Comments ||
Top||
#11
All of Asia and large parts of Africa, and even Europe, is slowly turning into a mini-Iraq or Afghanistan - even if Prez Barack sends US troops into Pakistan, the Militants will had weakened and carved out locally controlled areas elsewhere in Asia by then. IMHO if the US is still involved in heavy fighting in Afghanistan or Pakistan 2010-2012, and Iran successfully goes nuclear by the same time, the US would've lost the GWOT, Asia, and maybe even Africa. US global superpower status will be seriously affected and damaged - the US will be on the defensive around the world.
#1
The article says that 50% of the people at the CIA are open minded. I wonder...
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/03/2008 16:30
Comments ||
Top||
#2
A high profile position, where you can be totally micromanaged and then tossed to the wolves when anything goes wrong. Yeah, I really want that job.
AoS note: your comments go in yellow highlight, not brackets. Please fix in the future or posts may be deleted.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has acknowledged publicly for the first time that tumbling oil prices are gouging the country's fragile economy.
The official IRNA news agency has quoted the increasingly unpopular president as saying Iran will be forced to trim spending and generous subsidies and raise taxes... or maybe testify before Harry Reid and request a bailout.
#1
"This is what mother nature does over the long term... some of the water will seep into the ground and some will evaporate. The lagoon will have four areas and eventually the water will get clearer," Najim told Gulf News. He said this technology is commonly used in countries that cannot afford proper facilities or infrastructure.
#2
they can build the worlds tallest building , new malls. and about anything else that money can buy but not a second sewage treatment plant? where are the euros screaming the enviromental shit at them
#3
Different cultures - different priorities. Why should we care, if we don't have to live with it? Remind me to cross Dubai off my places to visit.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/03/2008 16:17
Comments ||
Top||
#4
The tanker in the picture is, Ima guessin' about 3500 gallons capacity. There are 500 tankers a day. So you have about 1.75 million gallons of wastewater hauled per day. Say everyone uses 50 gallons per day, then you have about 35000 people served. Everyone generates about 0.17 lb BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) per capita, so you have something around....say, 6000 lb BOD per day. A primary cell in a sewage pond, not using air blowers, but just the air/water interface to transfer O2 to water for the bugs to decompose the sewage (BOD) will be 30 lb BOD/acre. So you have a pond in the order of 200 acres. Big pond. You could do something like make 4 ea 50 acre ponds. Then you take the output of those ponds and feed by gravity into a settling pond, where the solids remaining will settle and the effluent clears itself up. You could put a roll type liner in the pond and eliminate ground contamination.
The point of this little exercise is to show that it took about 10 minutes to gage and scope out the problem. With minimal expense, they could have their sewage problems solved.
Another example of simple math, fundamentals of engineering and biology vs. The Insh'allah Effect. When the IE dominates, all you get is a pile of sh*t.
QED
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Nikolaevsk, AK ||
12/03/2008 16:27
Comments ||
Top||
#5
AP wins the combined Rantburg U. and Snark o' the Day award. ;-)
#2
Considering that home equity loans paid for a lot of tuition and that there is no more home equity in many locations ... I can see how that can happen.
#6
How much of that 'paper' requirement is lazy and ineffective personnel management who do not want to have to work in determining qualifications? It's so simple - must have a [paper mill] college degree.
#7
Yer all correct. "Higher" education should crash and rightly so. Tenure should end. Most jobs don't require college degrees, let alone graduate degrees (and I am writing as one who has 3 largely unnecessary degrees, acquired because I was stupid, not smart).
Unfortunately, a lot of primary and secondary education is also a crock. One of my grandfathers had only an 8th grade education yet retired (early 1960s) as head accountant for a mid-sized steel company. My other grandfather didn't finish even 8th grade as he was a farm boy and needed at home. The point is, both learned reading, writing, and arithmetic in primary school and, through hard work in tough time, were able to succeed. Nowadays you've got to stay in school until you're 25 or so and still don't know enough to be useful.
#9
If anyone's ever filled out a FAFSA form, the EFC (Expected Financial Contribution) from the parents (regardless of whether you're on speaking terms with them / moved out at age 18, etc.) is 20 percent. It's assumed that the parents will take out home equity lines or otherwise liquidate other assets to cover this percentage.
#10
I liken this situation to people buying more house than they can afford. Most kids don't need to go to Harvard or Yale. Two years of community college ($5,000 each here) and two years at a state university ($14,000 each here) gets you a college education for $38,000. I know a few people who have more outstanding student loan debt than that in a major that is available at most state universities.
#11
Why not outsource to India? They speak English and have some good education facilities. The food's great too, if you like curry. For the price of one year of education here, you can get four in India and live in a nice hotel.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/03/2008 16:28
Comments ||
Top||
#12
I think that one of the strangest aspects of a college education is that the curriculum is one that was tailored to the world of the rich where you went to brush up on your culture and network with your peers to be.
100 years ago no one went to college for "vocational" training. So why do we pretend that the same silly courses in the humanities and social sciences are what are needed today?
#13
As well as becoming unaffordable, college education has become largely irrelevant. It has become irrelevant for many reasons: 1. embracing social engineering, 2. being used as a forum by professors to espouse personal beliefs instead of providing an education, 3. political correctness, 4. multiculturalism, 5. offering courses that have no content, 6. overpaid professors and administrators, 7. the proliferation of federal mandates required in universities such as OSHA, EPA, etc., and 8. elitism. The administrative burden in universities has increased tremendously over the years; thus adding to the cost of attending.
#14
Very astute observations, everyone. My prediction is that the educational establishment will be as rigid as the UAW in resisting any and all attempts at reform. But as long as they have control over the state legislature like they do here in California they won't need to worry about their jobs. Er, that is until the state goes broke.
#15
<i>100 years ago no one went to college for "vocational" training. So why do we pretend that the same silly courses in the humanities and social sciences are what are needed today?</i>
Maybe in the vain hope that some portion of the public is actually educated about the history, literature, philosophy and theology that made the West great for a millenium.
There is stupidity in academia. But you are kidding yourself if you think that ignorance is any improvement.
#16
Name a place where you should pay $150,000 to be ostracized for 4 years by foolish socialists in order to get a degree that will be no good when they take over anyways?
#17
Spend half that much at a state university or college getting a salable degree instead of one in French Medieval Love Poetry (unless one plans on acquiring a professorship in French Medieval Literature, of course). On the other hand, I've a girlfriend who, upon getting a degree in English Literature from the University of Chicago -- her senior thesis was an analysis of the lyrics of The Band, which will be familiar to some Rantburgers, I'm sure -- that gentle, cultured, and well read California girl was immediately snatched up by a white shoe investment bank in Boston to handle customer accounts. She apparently did this quite well, and was able to pay back her very large student loan.
I believe that the price of an undergraduate degree has increased more, and faster, than any other measured "thing" in the last few decades - far outpacing even "health care". Naturally the actual cost to the consumer is often affected by things such as scholarships, differential tuition rates, loans, etc. But still.
Meanwhile, as johnqc points out, many college experiences, and substantial portions of most college experiences, have become nothing short of bizarre. Not irrelevant - pernicious.
Ebbang, I think you've got CA about right. "Education" is one of several "public service" complexes here that has a stranglehold on the legislature - seemingly, regardless of services delivered. I believe a survey showed CA public teachers received greater total compensation than their private sector equivalents (and that of course wouldn't factor in near total job-security and other advantages).
Nationally the problem may continue to be that, because there is such a massive de facto subsidy of "higher education" - and how will that do anything but increase given the incoming crew in DC? - there will be zero or greatly reduced "price/demand correction".
We may avert a ridiculous auto bailout, but the rathole of over-priced, politicized, over-abundant, subsidized "higher education" looks set to consume ever-increasing amounts of resources. Another dark failure of present day America. More to follow.
Duffel bags stuffed with cocaine were delivered by plane to an out-of-the-way suburban airport while two sheriff's officers provided security. A police officer stood by to guard the cash and keep out the riffraff at a poker game where $100,000 changed hands. And a drug dealer was told squad cars marked "sheriff" and "sheriff's police" might be available on a "freelance" basis to provide protection for his deliveries.
Such tales of law enforcement gone awry emerged in court papers Tuesday as federal prosecutors unveiled a series of elaborate sting operations aimed at officers who hired out to ride shotgun for drug deals and other criminal activities.
Fifteen officers and two other men who had pretended to be law enforcement officers were charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine or heroin or both.
But the most spectacular pretending was done by the federal agents themselves.
The pilots of the airplane were not drug runners but undercover agents. So were the gamblers who busily played hand after hand of high-stakes poker all for show.
The drug broker who squired the officers to the airport to pick up the duffel bags was an agent. So was the drug dealer who stuffed the bags into his Mercedes-Benz.
U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said he was dismayed to find that so many law enforcement officers had "sold out their badge."
"When drug dealers deal drugs, they ought to be afraid of the police not turn to them for help," Fitzgerald said at a news conference.
Officials paid homage to an unnamed FBI agent who moved into a business in Harvey more than a year ago and set up shop as a drug broker. He soon attracted the attention of police and the corruption grew, authorities said.
They said the agent was sent in undercover because there had been reports of police corruption over the last several years in southern Cook County, including the Harvey police department. An investigation into allegations of robbery, extortion, narcotics offenses and weapons distribution is ongoing, officials said.
Those charged include 10 Cook County sheriff's correctional officers, four Harvey police officers and one Chicago police officer.
Of the 17 defendants, 14 were arrested or surrendered Tuesday and were being immediately brought before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Mason. Two sheriff's officers are on active duty with Army National Guard units in Afghanistan, and warrants were issued for their arrest.
If convicted of conspiracy to possess and distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine or one kilogram of heroin, the defendants would face a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum of life. The maximum fine would be $4 million.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart called the alleged behavior "absolutely reprehensible."
"The responsibility of watching over jail inmates is an important one and it's a shame these men didn't take that responsibility more seriously," he said in a statement.
Each of those charged has been suspended with pay pending a hearing next week, Dart said. "That step will then lead to a request for termination," he said.
Corrupt officials in Cook County? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. Isn't this like shooting fish in barrel?
Two sheriff's officers are on active duty with Army National Guard units in Afghanistan, and warrants were issued for their arrest.
Then they were federalized, so why not let the UCMJ handle it - cause I can probably get good odds that the penalty will be a lot higher [ie no sense of humor] from the Courts Martial board. Seeing the connection between terrorism and the drug trade in Afghanistan isn't going to be something academic to the board members.
#3
In the 80s women were told that many Cook County Deputies were hit men for the mob and if they tried to pull them over on a dark section of road - to ignore them and drive to a well lighted and populated area before pulling over.
At the end of this month, the inhalers that millions of people with asthma use to control their symptoms will no longer be available. Those inhalers can prevent an asthma attack or relieve symptoms once one has begun.
The problem is that the inhalers propel the medication with chlorofluorocarbons, which deplete the ozone layer.
Effective Dec. 31, drug companies will no longer be able to manufacture or sell the CFC inhalers. "This is the first time that an effective medication has been removed from the market in the USA for an environmental issue," said Dr. Ira Feingold of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
Continued on Page 49
#1
The sadists who came up with this should be locked in an airtight room, then forced to pay to suck on tubes with little gusts of air when they are suffocating.
While getting the helpful advice to "Inhale slowly, or else it won't work."
#2
Thanks to the CFC Nazis, the $10 nonprescription Primatene Mist inhalers that hundreds of thousands use to self treat mild asthma will go away in 2010 or 2011. It will end up with people in the emergency ward or worse.
#4
The CFC ban goes back a couple of decades. We did it to stop the growth of the hole in the ozone layer down near Antarctica. Made our air conditioners and cars more expensive. So how's that hole growing?
#5
This has been a substantial problem in my practice, taking lots of my time and that of my nurses, for little benefit that I can find. The costs are substantially higher for patients because the new propellant costs more.
One can't blame the drug companies: the companies that made the CFC propellant quitting making it so they had no choice.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2008 11:00
Comments ||
Top||
#8
I've got one of the new formulations and it doesn't seem to work as fast as the old CFC's did. That's not generally a problem for me, but I can see where they would make the problem worse if someone is panicking because they can't breathe.
Between this and the new watered down allergy meds (because someone somewhere just might make a hit of speed from playing around with 20 boxes worth), it really makes me dread pollen season.
Explosive devices have been found at Mumbai's main railway station, according to Indian TV reports.The station is one of the sites attacked by the militants during the three-day attacks and siege last week, Reuters said.
TV stations are reporting that the devices have been defused.
India's security status is at war level after the attacks, which killed over 170 people and left over 350 injured.
#1
Eight kilograms of RDX were found at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus this evening just as chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was visiting the station.
Police said the explosives, with timer-devices of the kind used by the Lashkar-e-Toiba in Kashmir, were packed in two bags, 4kg in each.
The bombs, they added, could have gone off within eight minutes and 32 seconds to a maximum of 194 days.
The bomb-disposal squad later defused the devices, kept in the stations parcel wing, near platform number 15.
Joint commissioner of police Rakesh Maria said the RDX was part of the five bombs planted in Mumbai by the terrorists who attacked the city last week.
The bags were found among abandoned luggage of persons who had been injured or killed in the attack on the night of November 26. The RDX was part of the five bombs planted by the terrorists. Searches are now being conducted on the (entire) station premises, Maria said.
Deshmukh, whose resignation as chief minister has been accepted, was on a tour of the station where two terrorists had gone on a killing spree last Wednesday night. He was escorted out immediately.
Within minutes, security forces surrounded the station. Fire engines and medical teams were put on stand-by.
Before the bomb was discovered, Deshmukh met railway officials and commuters, visited the spots at the station that bore marks of last weeks attack and promised to take all the steps necessary to make the station safe.
Police said the bombs were spotted late because investigators misunderstood what Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist arrested, told them during interrogation.
He had said they (the 10 terrorists) had planted five bombs. Three bombs were found last Thursday, two had been placed at the Taj and another near the Oberoi. It was thought that all (bombs) had been accounted for, Maria said.
The other two bombs were initially thought to be those that went off in two taxis, one of them in Vile Parle.
Today, Maria said the taxi bombs were meant to kill the drivers so they wouldnt tell the police about the terrorists and, therefore, not part of the five planted in the city.
K.P. Raghuvanshi, the new chief of the Maharashtra anti-terror squad, said the timer devices failed to work despite being sophisticated because of faulty assembling.
Kasab has told us the bombs planted by the terrorists around Mumbai were assembled aboard hijacked trawler Kuber. The timing devices were like the ones commonly used by the Lashkar in Kashmir, he added.
The pink packing material found in the Kuber was similar to that used to wrap the RDX bomb kept near the main entrance of the Taj, Raghuvanshi said, adding that the strings on the timers were also like those found on the trawler.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/03/2008 15:53
Comments ||
Top||
#2
An interesting factoid...
the SPG, which protects the Indian PM and the Gandhi family, has a larger budget than the NSG, which protects other politicians and when released temporarily from that duty, is available to rescue hostages.
The NSG is far more capable than the Mumbai police.
The only reason this bomb was found was that the Chief Minister of Maharastra state was visiting the station and the NSG bodyguards brought their sniffer dogs.
Thousands of people have been using the station in the past few days and this bomb could have exploded at any time had it been armed properly.
The rage of Indian citizens against their politicians and especially the Congress party will only grow stronger.
The Indian PM Manmohan Singh is finished politically. Not even military retaliation against Pakistan can save him and his party. They will be thrown out of office at the next elections.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/03/2008 18:09
Comments ||
Top||
The action in Casablanca takes place on December 2, 3 and 4, 1941. . . . Part of the beauty of the script, though, is that it can be understood on many levels. It is the story of three little people. It is also an allegory about America's entry into WWII. Rick is America. Weary, cynical, with an idealistic past but unwilling to get involved. Rick says that he sticks his neck out for noone. Ferrari tells him that isolationism is no longer a viable foreign policy. Ilsa, Laszlo, Strasser and Renault are the various faces of Europe. Old enemies, old allies and new victims, all eager to know what American will do. Will America act selfishly or will it act idealistically? Of course, by 1943, when the film was released, that ending was already known. Casablanca was rushed out to coincide with the American landing in North Africa and the fighting for Casablanca, which is what led to its initial success. It is, of course, no accident that the movie is set during the first week of December, 1941. . . .
"Round up the usual suspects!"
Posted by: Mike ||
12/03/2008
07:53 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"I'm shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, to find there's gambling going on here!"
"Here's your winnings for tonight, monsieur."
Two policemen were injured when a suspected extremist opened fire while they were trying to arrest a former activist of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) on Wednesday.
The incident took place around 1 pm in Santosh Nagar area in the city when policemen were trying to arrest Vikaruddin outside a telephone booth. Police Commissioner B Prasada Rao said that one of the two people accompanying Vikaruddin opened fire from his weapon when policemen tried to arrest him. "They opened three rounds injuring head constable Guru Rama Raju and escaped after throwing their weapon," he said. Another head constable sustained injuries in the scuffle. Both the policemen were shifted to a hospital.
The Police Commissioner said that Vikaruddin, a resident of Malakpet area in the city, is a former activist of the SIMI and the Daragah Jihad-e-Shahadat (DJS), a city-based rightwing organisation which trains Muslim youths in self-defence. Imagine how many trigger happy bodyguards he'd have if he were a current activist! Interesting use of the word "rightwing" as well.
He clarified that there was no connection with last week's terror attacks in Mumbai. Police sounded a high alert after the incident and stepped up patrolling and checking of vehicles.
China plans to send additional police liaisons to countries facing major terror threats in a bid to boost cooperation with local security forces and head-off attacks, the Public Security Ministry said Wednesday. The move adds to more aggressive tactics against terror threats, particularly those from activists battling for an independent Muslim homeland in the far western territory of Xinjiang.
An announcement on the ministry's Web site said police officers already posted abroad had played a key role in heading off attacks on Chinese diplomatic missions and financial institutions. The notice did not give the names of countries where attacks had been foiled or provide other details. Without naming specific nations, the ministry said police officers would be dispatched to countries where "anti-terrorism tasks are relatively heavier." Separately, it said a police unit would be sent to Australia and other countries that are home to large numbers of Chinese students and immigrants.
According to the official China Daily newspaper, China dispatched its first police liaison to the United States in 1998 and now has a total of 30 posted to 19 different countries. Police liaisons also have helped in the identification, arrest and extradition of alleged criminals allied with groups fighting against Chinese rule in the country's traditionally Muslim Turkic Xinjiang region, the announcement said.
Along with anti-terrorism, police liaisons work on drug trafficking and other transnational crimes, as well as on tracking down Chinese officials and employees of state financial institutions who have fled abroad with embezzled funds or to avoid prosecution.
#1
Interesting. I watched a Food Channel show on the Caribbean island food, where they demonstrated how to make roti. Apparently the British Empire abolished slavery in the 1830's and replaced the Africans with cheap labor from India and China. The Chinese have infused quite a bit of money into the region, as well as tainted products, as there were several deaths from cough syrup and toothpaste with melamine or some such chemical contamination in Panama. Chinese anti-terror task forces wouldn't raise much suspicion, I'm guessing, and may be quite useful to the rest of us.
#2
Double edged sword - the Chicoms always seek to keep very close tabs and strings on their ex-pats. More than one mainland Chinese has been pressured into spying for the govt when s/he didn't really want to. FWIW
#3
WORLD MILITARY FORUM > CHINA'S SYSTEM OF REGIONAL ETHNIC AUTONOMY CANNOT BE SHAKEN.
e.g. TIBET. The Chin-perceived strengths and weaknesses of the PRC's national territorial and ethnic set-up.
OTOH, INDIAN DEFENCE FORUM > LABOR UNREST SPREADS IN CHINA. Aproximately 150Milyuhn or so Chin from rural areas unable to find work or good pay in China's fast-growing, fast-industrializing major Cities???
#4
Danielle, if I recall correctly the Chinese toothpaste and cough medicine were made with a manufacturing(?) grade of glycerin, rather than food grade or medical grade. This made no sense to Mr. Wife, who commented at the time that high grade glycerin is quite inexpensive.
JosephM, I've read a number of articles recently about Chinese children of the sod, having gone to the cities for jobs and adventure, are now returning home because the jobs have gone, leaving them with nothing more than some manufacturing skills and a new approach to life.
Hat tip, Instapundit
The horrific story of the latest adventure conducted by the religion of peace in Bombay riveted the publics attention to such an extent that one of the most egregious violations of political freedom in a Western democracy has, at least on this side of the Atlantic, gone almost without comment. We always ask "why our tranzi ruling classes love Islam so much?".
I mean the sudden arrest in London last week of of Damian Green, a conservative MP and Shadow Minister for Immigration, who was seized by anti-terrorist personnel from the Metropolitan police, held for questioning for 9 hours, and whose private papers and computer files in his home and office in the House of Commons were confiscated. The Honorable Members offense? Embarrassing Gordon Browns government. How did he do this? By revealing in debate on the floor of the House of Commons and in various lapses, failures, and dirty-little-secrets about the governments immigration policy, e.g.,
* the fact that the home secretary knew that the Security Industry Authority had granted licences to 5,000 illegal workers, but decided not to publicise it.
* the fact that an illegal immigrant had been employed as a cleaner in the House of Commons.
* A whips list of potential Labour rebels in the vote on plans to increase the pre-charge terror detention limit to 42 days.
In other words, Mr. Green was doing exactly what a member of the Opposition should do: shedding light on the governments failures in order to make it more accountable to the public. I wonder what George Orwell would say?
#1
The object of the exercise seems to have been intimidation and the flaunting of power. Short of an outright, totalitarian suspension of democracy
And they've accomplished it all without ACORN, an Obama Youth Army, George Soros, The Clintons, Kissenger and Assoc. or Hank Paulson. Amazing, absolutely amazing.
#2
Its a constant conflict in history between those who want a static society, largely to protect the power they've accumulated, against the dynamics of human behavior. The imperial, aristocratic, and socialist static models eventual suffer from entropy which leads to decay. Then it takes a dynamic outside or internal force that overwhelms the society in which only the few with power at the top have a true vested interest in preserving. Up till recently the American republic had a reasonable structure to accommodate the dynamic, to say - ride the tiger. However, as the population progressed to better standards of living, more and more sought to control the vagaries of that dynamic and preserve their gains by imposing more and more order and control over it. In doing so, it is starting to strangle the dynamic and sliding to the static [of course all in the name of the poor, the children, - or whatever it took to keep the same players in power].
Some of Canada's foremost counterterrorism cops secretly took on a group of young Muslims yesterday, in a pitched contest in downtown Toronto. The result? A 4-4 tie.
Soccer matches, not typically seen as a means of advancing national security, can apparently help get the ball rolling. At least, that sensibility led a group of Mounties and Muslim youth to a downtown stadium yesterday, where an hour spent as soccer adversaries was followed by a friendly question-and-answer session.
Many Mounties and Muslims alike feel they get bad publicity these days. Playing soccer was seen as a chance to bypass perception and the press, and explain themselves to one another directly. "It helped put into perspective that it's not an us-versus-them mentality," explained Muhammad Robert Heft, the Muslim side's goalie and the event's organizer. "You're dealing with a person now, not an idea."
Unfortunately, a Globe and Mail reporter and photographer were turned away from the game, partly due to national-security reasons. When the journalists showed up uninvited, some officers were concerned about their faces turning up in the newspaper. Other Mounties apologized, saying Ottawa headquarters had not cleared the match as a media event. The Muslims were more media-friendly, speaking outside the stadium afterward.
The outspoken Mr. Heft, a Muslim convert recognizable in his trademark white turban, runs a Toronto Islamic centre known as P4E. An avowed fundamentalist, but one who is deeply critical of terrorism, he spent months organizing the match. He said his time paid off, even just to see smiling cops running around with young Muslim men. He described the Mounties as good sportsmen, even if he found them pretty lax about enforcement. "We didn't even have a referee in the game," he said. "... A couple of times, our guys were offside and they [the Mounties] let them go."
Familiar, polarizing topics were touched on during the post-match discussion at centre circle - such as the cases involving Maher Arar, Omar Khadr, and the 2006 roundup of 18 Toronto-area Muslims, mostly young, on terrorism charges. The Mounties, including some officers who worked on these very cases, said they couldn't say much about matters before judges.
After the match, Mostafa Hashamm, a bearded 19-year-old whose wife wears a veil, said he is concerned about unwarranted police scrutiny just about "every time I drive." But he found the Mounties to be "more open than I thought," and he said they mostly talked about "how they can get rid of youth paranoia."
At the conclusion of the event, Mr. Heft, the organizer, thanked the Mounties for their time. Then, he said, he urged them to convert to Islam.
#1
"... A couple of times, our guys were offside and they [the Mounties] let them go."
Knew they cheated and still drew a tie? Ha!
that it's not an us-versus-them mentality," explained Muhammad Robert Heft, the Muslim side's goalie and the event's organizer
By playing competetive sports when teams are declared along such lines...right. Hey Mu'Bob, the infidels scored 4 against you; shame. A pure Arab would have held them scoreless.
a bearded 19-year-old whose wife wears a veil, said he is concerned about unwarranted police scrutiny just about "every time I drive."
Love to burst your conceited little bubble, but I scrutinize every 19 year old behind a wheel, and moreso when I see a 19 year old boy with a scrabbly couple whiskers and somebody with a pillow case over their head slouched in the back seat.
At the conclusion of the event, Mr. Heft, the organizer, thanked the Mounties for their time. Then, he said, he urged them to convert to Islam.
Worse than d2d vacuum sales - "Hey, we see you like balls too. Come join us for some islam after the game."
The world is decidedly poorly made," Asif Ali Zardari, widower of Benazir Bhutto and president of Pakistan, must be saying to himself. The French expression Le monde est décidément mal fait sums things up quite nicely. For it was at the very moment that Mr. Zardari was attempting to modernize his country -- to break with the equivocations of the Musharraf years and move forward with a peace process with India for which he took the initiative -- that the tragedy of Mumbai occurred. But what's done, unfortunately, is done. And if the authors of the carnage are, as it seems, linked to the Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, we can already draw a certain number of appalling and unquestionable conclusions.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba is one of the jihadist groups with which I became familiar while working on my book "Who Killed Daniel Pearl." This group is, without a doubt, based in Pakistan. It is likely that the Lashkar-e-Taiba has within India ideological or religious "correspondents" in the vast Muslim community that sees itself (not without reason) as discriminated against by the Hindu majority. Still, there is very little doubt that the initiative, strategy and money for the assault on Mumbai came from terrorist leaders inside Pakistan. Far from concentrating only on the cause of Kashmir's independence, and most of all, far from existing only in the notorious and officially ungovernable "tribal zones" on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Lashkar-e-Taiba is an all-terrain group with great political influence. It includes militants in every city of the country: Peshawar, Muzaffarabad, Lahore and even Karachi (Pakistan's economic capital).
Since its creation 15 years ago, the Lashkar-e-Taiba has been linked to the ISI, the formidable Inter-Services Intelligence agency that operates like a state within a state in Pakistan. Obviously, this link is not widely publicized. However, from the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl to the July 2005 attack on the Ayodhya Hindu temple in Uttar Pradesh, there is abundant evidence that the jihadist wing of the ISI has assisted the Lashkar-e-Taiba in the planning and financing of various operations. Worse yet, the Lashkar-e-Taiba is, as I discovered while researching and reporting my book on Daniel Pearl, a group of which A.Q. Khan, the inventor of Pakistan's atomic bomb, was a longtime friend. Mr. Khan, one may recall, spent a good 15 years trafficking in nuclear secrets with Lybia, North Korea, Iran and, perhaps, al Qaeda, before confessing his guilt in early 2004. Later pardoned by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Mr. Khan remains perfectly free to travel within Pakistan, as he was just admitted this Monday, under the protection of the ISI, to the most elite hospital in Karachi. No, this is not a dream -- it is reality. Pakistan is home to a man both father of his country's nuclear program and known sympathizer of an Islamist group whose latest demonstration has netted at least 188 dead and several hundred wounded.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba is, ultimately, one of the constitutive elements of what is conventionally called al Qaeda. For too long we've told ourselves that al Qaeda no longer exists except as a brand; that it is only a pure signifier, "franchised" by local organizations independent of one another. Yet there indeed exists in our world what Osama bin Laden called the "International Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders," which is like a constellation of atoms aggregated around a central nucleus. These atoms find themselves, for the most part, clustered in this new zone of tempests that forms the whole of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Three days after the massacre, in a moment of anger and frustration that rings true, Pakistan's President Zardari said: "Even if these activists are linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, who do you think we are fighting?" The problem, unfortunately, is beyond him. Like his predecessor, President Zardari lacks the means to break the back of criminal elements within the ISI and Pakistani military. To an even greater extent, he lacks the backing of those who associate it with the darker side of his own administration. And therein lies the challenge -- perhaps the most frightening of our era. After the bleeding of Mumbai, it is time the entire international community -- not just those in the region -- took notice.
#4
See, once again the folly of disarming civilians, no one was able to fight back, just the "Railway Police" with antique weapons and NO time at the range to practice.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
12/03/2008 14:01
Comments ||
Top||
#5
"Rednek" was a typo, but I like it, Redneks kan't spel.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
12/03/2008 14:04
Comments ||
Top||
#6
Jim correct me if I'm wrong but those "antique" weapons are more accurate and more powerful than the AK47s the terrs were using. The only ability lost is that spray and pray mode of aiming that I damn well hope the cops wouldn't use.
Now, to your point about practice...............
From what I've read they would have been better off with slingshots cause the never fire real rounds or have any range time at all.
Chalk this all up to the people not the hardware. Remember "Guns don't kill people, people kill people (except when they don't know how to use the damn gun!)"
Yikes again!
PAKISTAN was bracing last night for a retaliatory airstrike by India against the sprawling headquarters of the al-Qa'ida-linked Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist organisation near Lahore. This site should have been bombed flat the day it opened.
As Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari warned the LET militants "had the power to precipitate war in the region", India demanded that Islamabad hand over a list of about 20 people, including India's most-wanted man Dawood Ibrahim.
India's military chiefs were exerting strong pressure on the country's political leaders to give permission to attack the headquarters, an 80ha site at Muridke, close to the Punjab capital of Lahore, just across the border from India.
The reports came as the Indian Government summoned the Pakistani high commissioner in New Delhi yesterday to demand "strong action" against the Pakistani militants who it says were responsible for last week's attacks on Mumbai. New Delhi warned Shahid Malik that India expected Islamabad to take "swift action" to deal with the evidence of involvement by LET operating from bases inside Pakistan.
India demanded that Islamabad extradite Ibrahim, a fugitive Mumbai mafia don who it believes has links to LET, the terrorist group long allied to Pakistan's ISI spy agency. India also asked for Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the LET founder, and Maulana Masood Azhar, the head of militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad, who was freed in exchange for passengers on a hijacked Indian Airlines flight in 1999.
Ibrahim, Mumbai's most notorious underworld don, is the head of D-Company, a feared crime syndicate, and one of the world's five most wanted men. He is widely believed to have worked closely with al-Qa'ida. He is also thought to have masterminded the 1993 Mumbai bombings, a series of 13 explosions that claimed 250 lives.
The heavily guarded LET complex near Lahore, known as the Markaz-e-Taiba (Holy Centre), includes mosques and madrassas with more than 3000 students. Theoretically it is the headquarters of the Jamaat-ul-Dawah Muslim welfare organisation that is closely identified with LET.
Saeed, the LET founder and spiritual leader, lives in the complex.
Reports yesterday said that if India attacked the complex -- possibly to kill Saeed -- an attempt would be made to justify the action by pointing to the way in which the US was launching pre-emptive strikes inside Pakistani territory using unmanned drones to kill al-Qa'ida and Taliban targets.
Indian sources have confirmed that investigators have established strong links between the group of terrorists who attacked Mumbai and the LET leadership inside Pakistan. Intercepts of calls made on a satellite telephone used by the group before they disembarked from the "mother ship" that brought them from Karachi shows a series of calls made to Muridke. This could be the new information I was asking about in a comment on another story about the apparent hardening of Indian attitudes.
Indian officials said that all the militants were from Pakistan and that the only one captured alive had admitted to being part of LET.
Yesterday, the surviving terrorist, Ajmal Amin Kamal, in a new interrogation by Indian investigators, again linked the Mumbai attack to LET, saying he had joined the organisation at the behest of his father to raise money for his family. He named an LET commander who, he said, paid his father for his services.
Pakistan reluctantly announced a formal ban on LET in 2002 after coming under strong international pressure to clamp down on the organisation. This followed a spectacular attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001, launched by LET together with the Kashmir-based JEM.
Although still technically outlawed in Pakistan, LET has managed to expand its membership and activities and has also established itself in other countries. To get around the formal ban on its activities, LET renamed itself Jamaat-ud-Dawah, which gained considerable influence across Pakistan as a result of the "welfare" work it did after the devastating 2005 earthquake in Kashmir. The US Government has also classified Jamaat-ud-Dawah as a terrorist organisation and said it is no more than an "alias" of LET.
Indian investigators are convinced there is no doubt of LET's involvement in the Mumbai outrage.
Mr Zardari insisted the militants who attacked Mumbai were "non-state actors" with no links to any government.
Reports yesterday said India received warnings in October from US intelligence of a possible terrorist attack "from the sea" on targets in Mumbai. Unnamed American intelligence officials told US television news service ABC that they had warned their Indian counterparts in mid-October of a potential attack "from the sea against hotels and business centres in Mumbai". One intelligence official even mentioned specific targets, including the Taj Mahal hotel, ABC said.
#2
"To get around the formal ban on its activities, LET renamed itself Jamaat-ud-Dawah, which gained considerable influence across Pakistan as a result of the "welfare" work it did after the devastating 2005 earthquake in Kashmir."
Humanitarians -- just like Hamas.
Yikes! This appears to directly contradict an earlier statement from the foreign ministry that military action was not under consideration.
Any of you Sub-continent mavens care to take a swing at which statement is more likely to reflect a real position? Is it possible that something came to light during the few hours between the statements to harden the Indian position?
NEW DELHI: India on Tuesday said that it would not rule out military option to deal with continued terror threat emanating from Pakistan, in what marked a significant toughening of posture in the wake of the Mumbai attack.
Highly placed sources in the government said India was contemplating putting on hold the peace process if Pakistan didn't respond adequately to India's demand for verifiable action against those behind the attack on Mumbai and on a list of wanted terrorists. Significantly, official sources stressed the military option was on the table, contradicting reports that the foreign minister had earlier in the day ruled out such a course of action.
The assertion came on a day when Pakistan proposed a joint probe into 26/11 even as it has threatened to withdraw troops from the Afghan border for redeployment on the border with India -- a ploy to get US to lean on New Delhi not to ramp up tensions.
While the jury may still be out on whether or not India can exercise the military option in response to the Mumbai attack, the assertion indicated that the government, facing angry public opinion, wants to keep Pakistan on tenterhooks regarding any plan to attack terrorist camps in PoK.
Sources said that Pakistan needed to act quickly on the demarche to prevent the peace process from derailing. "We are waiting for Pakistan's response before we take the nexy step. All we can say now is that if Pakistan doesn't respond, it will jeopardise the peace process," said a senior official, adding that a conducive atmosphere was required for dialogue and that this was lacking now.
Speaking at a functionn, foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Tuesday that sovereign nations had the right to protect their territorial integrity by taking appropriate action even though he refrained from stating directly that India was contemplating military strikes. While Mukherjee tried to strike the right balance by stating that he did not want to talk about the military option yet, senior officials were soon deployed to quell the perception that it had been taken off the table.
In an interview to a news channel, Mukherjee too admitted that the Mumbai attack had proved to be a setback for the Indo-Pak peace process. "There was the Kabul attack and now there is Mumbai. It has vitiated the atmosphere. We have no intention of not carrying forward the peace process, but when sentiments of the people are affected it creates an atmosphere in which business cannot be carried out as usual. These incidents, if not adequately addressed, create an atmosphere in which normal business including peace process cannot be carried out," he said.
Sources added that things had actually started to look up before the Mumbai attack. In the month after the Kabul blast, infiltration had gone down in J&K and so had the number of men killed in the Valley.
Perhaps that's a reason why the L-e-T acted ...
Mukherjee said, "We have in our demarche asked for the arrest and handover of those persons who are settled in Pakistan and who are fugitives of Indian law." India had earlier handed over a list of 20 terrorists including Lashkar-e-Toiba chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar and Dawood Ibrahim to Pakistan.
#1
Mumbai attacks are the real revelation. Its good to see citizens on the
streets at this massive scale. However, well have to see how long we,
the common citizens, can stick together and find concrete solutions to
the immediate problems. Please check the video to see the reactions.
#2
So now we have a nuclear game of chicken. Thanks, Paks.
Both sides are now in a position where they will lose face and credibility if they back down. If the Pak government actually hands those wanted terrorists to the Indian government they will be in serious trouble with their own people. Most likely they are not even capable of doing so even if they wanted to. But if they don't and the Indian government is seen to do nothing about it they will be in serious trouble with their people. They would also lose credibility with their other neighbors in that region. They would begin to look like a big, soft target. Where is the diplomatic solution when dealing with a country like Pakistan where the government is powerless over its terrorists if not actually complicit with them? This could get really ugly.
#3
As bad as this attack was, I don't think it was serious enough to start a war. Perhaps I am being naive, but I think India will chalk this one (and earlier ones) up to experience and wait to see what happens.
Will it make them look weak? Perhaps, but in either denying India's call for justice or being unable to effectively respond to that call, the Pak government is going to look very weak or very complicit in state-supported terrorism. Neither of these is good for the Paks. Both give India clear justification to attack the next time around.
#4
#3: As bad as this attack was, I don't think it was serious enough to start a war.
were it an isolated incident, sure, but the Pakis have a laundry list of bad provocative behavior and no real inducements for teh carrot approach. They have routinely lied and supported India's internal and external enemies. They have done their best to harbor/train/arm/direct those enemies. They have absolutely no credibility. War may start to seem like the lesser damage from the thousand cuts
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2008 19:58
Comments ||
Top||
#5
WAFF/FREEREPUBLIC/TOPIX > US SETS STAGE FOR STRIKES [UNO/Internat-approved mil strikes led by India] IF PAKSITAN DOES NOT ACT [to arrest and dismantle Pak-based Terror Camps].
Also, MUSLIM ACTIVISTS DEMAND AUTONOMOUS HOMELANDS, COMPENSATION FOR BRITAIN's FAILURE TO RETURN INDIA TO MUSLIM RULE IN 1947.
#1
This is some true dart throwing here:
22-170 million birds breed there
8000 - 100000 birds oiled annually
166 million to die over 30-50 years; how does that 5.5 million dead per year compare to the other 16.5-164.5 million who do reproduce?
I'm not gonna say that recovory from oil sands are spic and span but it is Canada it will be done as cleanly as possible as opposed to say, chinese rigs off cuba or hugonauts drilling off venezuela. Articles like this are responsible for over 26486g153148xd434151*687 brain cell deaths annually.
The UN atomic watchdog called Tuesday for renewed interest and increased investment in a technique that uses radiation to improve crop yields and resistance against a backdrop of the global food and energy crises.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is hoping that, given the current food crisis, countries will revive their interest in mutation induction -- a technique that has been in use since the 1920s -- to produce improved high-yielding plants that adapt to harsh climate conditions such as drought or flood, or that are resistant to certain diseases and insect pests.
The technique, which the IAEA insists is "safe, proven and cost effective", uses radiation to alter genetic material in crop plants to boost output and disease resistance. Selective mutation can also help crops adapt to changing climates and conditions.
"The global nature of the food crisis is unprecedented. Families all around the world are struggling to feed themselves," said IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. "To provide sustainable, long-term solutions, we must make use of all available resources. Selecting the crops that are better able to feed us is one of humankind's oldest sciences. But we've neglected to give it the support and investment it requires for universal application. The IAEA is urging a revival of nuclear crop breeding technologies to help tackle world hunger."
Earlier this year, the IAEA hosted an International Symposium on Induced Mutations in Plants, which brought together some 600 plant scientists, researchers and breeders from around the world.
Some 3,000 mutant varieties from 170 plant species spread over 60 countries -- including cereals, pulses, oil, root and tuber crops -- are currently cataloged in a seed database jointly run by the IAEA and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Unlike bio-engineered genetic modification, induced mutation does not splice foreign genes into the plant, but rather reorganises its existing genetic material, said the head of plant breeding and genetics at the IAEA, Pierre Lagoda.
"Spontaneous mutations are the motor of evolution," he said. "If we could live millions of years and survey billions of hectares (acres) of land with 100 percent precision, we would find variants with all of the traits we're looking for but which have mutated naturally.
"But we can't wait millions of years to find the plants that are necessary now, if we want to feed the world. So with induced mutation, we are actively speeding up the process."
No residual radiation is left on the plant, according to Lagoda. And because the technique mimics nature, it has encountered less resistance than genetically modified organisms (GMOs), derided by idiotic critics as potentially dangerous "Frankenfoods". "We're not producing anything that is not produced by nature itself," Lagoda said.
Induced mutation would not solve the world's food crisis on its own, but it was "a very efficient tool, to the global agricultural community to broaden the adaptability of crops in the face of climate change, rising prices, and soils that lack fertility or have other major problems," Lagoda said.
The technology was inexpensive, said the head of the FAO/IAEA Joint Division Plant Breeding Unit in Seibersdorf, Austria, Chikelu Mba. "Investment would be required in training people, in enhancing the capacity of member states to have scientists who will take up plant breeding as a profession and work on problems within their own countries," Mba said.
Indeed, the return on investment was huge. Japan, for example, has invested 69 million dollars (55 million euros) in its plant breeding infrastructure over the past 40 years, but the returns were something like 62 billion dollars, Mba said. Let me guess - they want a mutant pot that drug dogs can't smell in customs..
Posted by: James Carville ||
12/03/2008 10:46
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Mutant plants ya say? Feed me Seymour, sez I.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Nikolaevsk, AK ||
12/03/2008 12:51
Comments ||
Top||
#4
OK, anyone who bites on this crap & still freaks out over GMOs deserves to starve to death. It's a much more dangerous, much more uncontrolled, much more unnecessary line of investigation than the poor, much-maligned genetic engineering approach. It is shotgun-broad, uses dangerous and dirty radioactive material, is intrinsically sloppy, and allows for widespread handling of proliferatable materials. (The flattened Syrian nuke plant was pretending to be an experimental station for this sort of irradiative agricultural research.)
This is the classic example of 'to someone holding a hammer, every problem looks like a nail'.
Imbeciles!
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
12/03/2008 13:59
Comments ||
Top||
Iran plans to send exploratory rockets into space with live animals on board, paving the way for manned space flights, a space research official said on Tuesday.
Brazilian authorities on Tuesday gave approval for the sale of 100 missiles to Pakistan which can be used in air-to-surface attacks on radar tracking instalations, Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said.
The MAR-1 medium-range missiles made by the Brazilian firm Mectron are tactical anti-radiation weapons whose existence was kept under wraps for many years, according to Jane's Information Group.
#3
Been reading too many Iran threads. Mistook Iran for Pakistan. And yes, there isn't a spit's worth of difference between the two.
/Good night John Boy.
Posted by: ed ||
12/03/2008 1:41
Comments ||
Top||
#4
He dismissed suggestions that the transaction might be questioned in light of last week's Islamist extremist massacre perpetrated in Mumbai, India, which some Indian officials suspected was launched from within Pakistan.
"Brazil negotiates with Pakistan, not with Pakistani terrorists," he said. "To cancel this deal would be to attribute terrorist activities to the Pakistani government."
Posted by: john frum ||
12/03/2008 5:38
Comments ||
Top||
#5
Is that the same Pakistan what's been begging IMF for a loan?
#6
Is that the same Pakistan what's been begging IMF for a loan?
Well, the Paks were just taking a note from all the bailout applicants in Washington, except a missile purchase is their version of Year End Bonuses for their executives.
#10
Not that I'm in any way approving of this, but $108 million in military aid is probably a drop in the bucket compared to what we've poured into that rat hole.
(SomaliNet) Unless there is an international peacekeeping force to replace Ethiopian troops, the Somali Premier says he hopes Ethiopia won't withdraw its troops from Somalia.
The Somali Premier Nur Hassan Hussein says he wants the United Nations and international community to "avoid the vacuum" and send peacekeepers to back the country's shaky transitional government. Nur Hassan Hussein was speaking Tuesday with The Associated Press.
Ethiopia has said it will pull its troops out next month. The Ethiopians have been in Somalia since December 2006, and drove out an Islamic administration that seized control of southern Somalia and the capital. But the Islamist insurgency has grown again and now controls all of southern Somalia except for Mogadishu.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic Courts
It emerged on Tuesday that Qassem Suleimani, a senior Iranian military official, commanded a Hezbollah drill south of the Litani River in southern Lebanon roughly two weeks ago.
Suleimani is the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and is considered an emissary between Iran and Hezbollah.
Israeli government radio broadcasts operating in southern Lebanon reported in Arabic on the drill for the benefit of its southern Lebanese target audience.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
So, why kill the rabbi? There is a branch of apologetics - which I take crudely to be the belief that the crime is the fault of the victim - that assumes a milder form, and which I'll call explanetics. So the explanatists view of the Mumbai massacres last week is that the cause lies in what concretely has been done to, or in the vicinity of, the young, cool-looking men with the grenades and the machineguns.
On the day after the attacks began the Indian writer, campaigner and serial explanatist, Arundhati Roy, lambasted her own country on The World Tonight on Radio 4, for its rural poverty and its fluctuating support for Hindu nationalism. These, she seemed to suggest, were root causes of the terror. Elsewhere, analysts have pointed to the 60-year-old Kashmiri crisis as fuelling the jihad. More exotically the writer Misha Glenny now suggests that organised crime in the Pakistani city of Karachi is "the operational key" to such attacks (he has just written a book about international organised crime), but that the origins of last week's nightmare lie "in the deterioration in relations between Hindus and Muslims in Mumbai and India". Well, these things are bad. Kashmir is bad. Hindu communalism is bad.
Poverty is bad. You can see the reasons for warfare in Kashmir, for riots in Hyderabad and for Maoist uprisings in the deep rural areas of India. But why kill the rabbi? Why invade the small headquarters of a small outreach sect of a small religion, which far from being even a big symbol of anything, you would almost certainly need a detailed map and inside knowledge even to find?
From what has been learnt from the one surviving attacker, the baby-faced and variously pre-named Mr Kasab, his group came largely from the rural southern Punjab in Pakistan. It is therefore unlikely that any of them had even encountered a Jew, or knew anyone else who had.
Yet last week, Nariman House was chosen for special murderous attention, alongside the Oberoi and Taj hotels, the railway station and the Leopold café. It reminded me of the 2003 Istanbul bombings when - post Iraq war - specifically British and American targets were augmented, for some reason, by the blowing up of the synagogues belonging to the much diminished Jewish population of that great city.
#4
Michael Toten had some interesting observations of AQI prisoners he visited in Fallujah:
These guys are like Arabic Hannibal Lectors.
Is it safe to be in here? I said.
Well, Sergeant Dehaan said. Theres five cops. And me.
Most of the men in this room looked like they were perfectly willing to murder us all with their hands. I could see it in their eyes, in the sinister way some of them squinted at me, in the tightness of their jaw muscles. I wished I had a gun of my own.
The nastiest ones are the little guys, Sergeant Dehaan said. The little rat-looking bastards. They're the ones who have done the worst things to people.
Ive seen how cruel Iraqi kids can be when they fight over candy the Marines hand out to them. The little rat-looking insurgents most likely were mercilessly picked on as children. When they joined Al Qaeda their bottomless hatred was unleashed against Iraqis even more than it was unleashed on the Americans.
Another interesting study was published by the DOD. It looked at Islamic suicide bombers, and discovered that they were largely 4th, 5th or 6th sons in a family. When you look at the high unemployment and stagnant economies in Arab countries, most of the jobs, inheritance etc. is going to go to the first or second sons.
Becoming a suicide bomber can be seen as a desperate attempt to get some positive aclaim from the family and the community.
I believe that Islamo-terrorists are murderers first and Muslims second.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
12/03/2008 15:57
Comments ||
Top||
Saudi Arabia slammed a Hamas official on Sunday for accusing the oil-rich kingdom of refusing to grant visas to Palestinians in the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip who want to go on the hajj.
A foreign ministry spokesman, quoted by the official SPA news agency, said visas for the annual pilgrimage to the holy Saudi city of Mecca were being granted through the Palestinian Authority of president Mahmoud Abbas. "Saudi Arabia treats all Palestinians on an equal footing and it has increased the number of visas granted to Gaza residents because of their circumstances," a foreign ministry spokesman said.
The Islamist movement Hamas posted remarks on Saturday on its website accusing Riyadh of allowing thousands of people registered with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to have pilgrimage visas but not the 2,200 in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza who applied through Hamas.
"All of the Kingdom's entry points are ready to welcome Palestinian pilgrims who will be given all facilities to perform their Haj rituals comfortably," the official said, adding that such false statements are not in the interests of the Palestinian people. Saudi authorities have granted visas to some 3,000 Gazans who registered for Haj through the Palestinian Authority.
Witnesses and would-be pilgrims told AFP on Saturday that Hamas prevented scores of Muslims wanting to travel to Mecca from reaching the Rafah border with Egypt. Egypt had announced on Friday that the Rafah crossing would be open for three days from Saturday to allow the passage of some 3,000 Palestinian pilgrims with Saudi visas.
Hamas said last week that it would not allow would-be pilgrims who obtained visas through the West Bank authorities to join the hajj unless Hamas was also given a quota to allocate to the faithful.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
Argentina says it will end its $1 billlion in commecial trade with Iran over the unsolved 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires.
The move was reportedly taken due to differences over recent investigations into the attack on the AMIA Jewish Community Center, which killed 85 people and wounded many others. Although no one has ever been convicted for the attack, Argentine prosecutors have accused a number of Iranian officials with involvement in the blast and have issued warrants for the arrest of 12 Iranians by Interpol.
The Islamic Republic, however, has vehemently dismissed the repeated allegations.
In 2007, Iran's charge d'affaires in Buenos Aires, Mohsen Baharvand, said the Islamic Republic would be ready to cooperate with the Argentinean government on the AMIA dossier, if certain conditions were met. "If legal guarantees are given to avoid politicizing the case, Iran will be ready to respond to all the accusations... and prove its innocence," Baharvand stated.
But if Interpol gives in to US pressure and issues arrest warrants for Iranians, Tehran may also issue similar arrest warrants, he said at the time.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is slated to discuss the Iran embargo with members of the American Jewish Committee. Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Wow! After only 14 years.
Posted by: Formerly Dan ||
12/03/2008 8:56
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Argentina's economy is in deep trouble. Iran can't help them so its time to suck up to the U.S.
Pakistan will 'frame a response' to the Indian demand of handing over 20 of India's most wanted men, Information Minister Sherry Rehman said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. "We have to look at it formally once we get it and we will frame a response," Sherry told reporters in Islamabad. The demand was contained in a protest note handed to Pakistan's ambassador in New Delhi on Monday, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
It's a catch-22. We want to reply but we can't figure out how Microsoft Outlook works. The Indian helpline won't take our calls unless we reply first.
The prime minister of Thailand resigned Tuesday after the nation's Constitutional Court banned him from politics and dissolved three political parties in his ruling coalition, concluding that the government was involved in vote-buying and other irregularities in last year's elections.
The ruling against Somchai Wongsawat appeared to break an impasse that has locked the country in spiral of economic destruction. Anti-government activists announced that they would leave two airports they had seized in their drive to remove Somchai's administration from office.
The court banned Somchai from politics for five years, along with 108 other officials of his People Power Party and two of its coalition allies.
But Somchai's downfall represented only a partial victory for protesters belonging to the opposition People's Alliance for Democracy. Somchai's deputy, Chavarat Charnvirakul, became the acting prime minister, and the coalition formerly headed by Somchai retained its substantial majority in parliament. The coalition is looking to form a new government with fresh leadership early next week.
Protesters said they were monitoring developments.
"If a puppet government returns or a new government shows its insincerity in pushing for political reform, we will return," said Sondhi Linthongkul, one of the group's leaders.
It was not immediately clear why the People's Alliance pulled back with only part of its agenda fulfilled. But even before Tuesday's verdict, it had been coming under increasing pressure as its demonstrations brought the country's vital tourism industry to its knees and threatened to push the country into recession.
The Constitutional Court found Somchai's People Power Party and their coalition allies in the Chart Thai and Matchima Thipatai parties guilty of electoral fraud in last December's vote.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
Aswat al-Iraq: At least five people were killed and 25 others were wounded in a car bomb explosion in Talafar, a military source said on Tuesday. "A car rigged with explosives went off at 4:30 p.m. near a police checkpoint in Saraya region in Talafar district, killing five, including a cop, and injuring 25," the source told Aswat al-Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Iraqi Insurgency
Aswat al-Iraq: The Multi-National Forces arrested six suspected al-Qaeda gunmen during operations in central and northern Iraq, the MNF said in a statement on Tuesday.
"A coalition force arrested two people in Baiji district, north of Tikrit, suspected of being al-Qaeda gunmen," said the statement received by Aswat al-Iraq. "Another suspected al-Qaeda gunman was arrested in al-Shurqat in south of Mosul," it added. "Three suspected were detained in al-Rashied neighborhood in Baghdad," it also said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq
Pakistan on Tuesday offered to set up a joint inquiry into last week's terror attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai and said it would cooperate with India as it investigates the three-day siege of the country's financial capital.
Good thing, too. Who knows more about terrorism than the Paks?
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi extended the offer in a statement broadcast on national television, as pressure mounted from both India and the United States for cooperation in unraveling the attack. "Both countries will benefit from bilateral engagement. This is not the time for finger-pointing. Terrorism is a major challenge. It is a common enemy," Qureshi said.
The attacks by a band of 10 gunmen killed 174 and injured nearly 300.
Qureshi delivered his remarks as members of Pakistan's National Assembly held a special session in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad to discuss the country's response to the Mumbai assaults. Indian officials have pinned responsibility for the attacks on Pakistan-based elements of Lashkar-i-Taiba, a militant group linked to several previous terrorist attacks in India. The sole gunman to be taken alive, they say, has admitted that Lashkar was behind the terrorist rampage across the city.
In Mumbai on Tuesday, police commissioner Hassan Ghafoor provided new details about the elaborate attack and the men thought to be behind it. They left from Karachi via ship, he said, hijacked a fishing trawler near international waters to carry them near the Indian coast, then used rubber boats to complete the trip. They arrived with five timed bombs, two of which were placed in taxis -- a tactic to create confusion and a sign of their sophistication.
He said the investigation so far has produced no evidence that the group had "immediate, local support," or that any of its members had visited Mumbai beforehand to gather information or surveil the attack sites.
However, Ghafoor said members of the group "were trained by ex-army officers, some for a year, some for more than a year." The training took place in Pakistan, Ghafoor said, though he did not say specifically that former Pakistani officers were involved.
"It was a suicide attack," Ghafoor said. "There was no hope, no intention, of staying alive."
Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's minister of information, said that the country's top intelligence official, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, would brief a parliamentary committee meeting about possible steps Pakistan might take amid rising tension between the two countries. "We must try to dampen down the discourse of conflict and work for peace in the region," Rehman said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
It is a joke that Pakistan is offering to aid India in terror investigation.
There has been clear evidence that terrorists trained and funded in Pakistan are behind this horrific attack. And this is not new. Pakistan has been the global centre for terrorism for over two decades and India has been one of the major sufferers. Indeed, Pakistan has itself become a victim more recently, but then it was inevitable.
What is much more serious fact to consider with regards to Pakistan's offer to help in investigation is that Pak Govt is itself incapable of doing anything concrete to influence the evil ISI LeT and Al Qaeda operatives should proof be found, and should they have the willingness to act. (and they probably have little willingness given their own troubles).
Pakistan must change its ways of thinking and dealing with politics. Pak needs to be jolted into realizing that it is out of sync with rest of the world which believes in democracy, liberal values and peace.
India needs to act against these terrorists and hit them at their source. Pak Govt as it is incapable of helping india, should in the minimum not protest these acts since it is itself a victim of terror. however, knowing pak they will suddenly declare that such attacks by india are attack on pak govt. it is essentially a case of do nothing on their part, since it suits them. but it does not suit india, and does not suit the civilised world.
sorry, Pakistan, you have to shape up, ACT. or the events will run ahead of you.
Aswat al-Iraq: The chief of the Kirkuk police issued an order to form an investigative committee to investigate the killing of 12 persons in the province, expressing condemnation of the incident. "General Jamal Taher gave an order to form an investigative committee to examine this brutal crime which left 12 people dead," a source from the Kirkuk operations command told Aswat al-Iraq.
The commander of the province's suburbs and districts police had said on Monday that police forces found 12 unknown corpses in a village in southern Kirkuk.
"The corpses were found in Qara-Hassan village, 25 km south of Kirkuk city," Brigadier Sarhad Qadir said. "The corpses were burnt, and bore signs of gunshots that were estimated to have been inflicted four days ago," he said.
Qadir also said that "policemen found today a weapons cache, which contains 200 mortar shells near Hussar village in Shuwan district in north of Kirkuk."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: Iraqi Insurgency
A man suspected of shooting his mother and killing three police officers called to the scene was found beheaded in southern Mexico on Tuesday, authorities said. He shot his Mom? And then killed three cops? And we're supposed to be concerned?
Fabian Ramirez's head was found at a highway intersection in Iguala, a town southwest of Mexico City, according to a statement from the Guerrero state Public Safety department. A message was found nearby: "This is what happens to all those who kill a police officer or a soldier." "Or shoot their Moms."
The department said Ramirez shot his 50-year-old mother in the back Monday, wounding her. He then allegedly killed three police officers who arrived at the scene, including Iguala's police chief. Police captured Ramirez later that day, but four armed men broke into the jail and took him away by force. "We come fer the Mom-shooter, Chuck!?"
"Hokay."
An anonymous phone call led police to the head on Tuesday. "The Mom-shooter's head's in the fork of the tree by the fork in the road!"
"Who's this?"
[CLICK!]
The four armed men were dressed in black and had lettering on their clothes identifying them as agents of Mexico's Federal Investigative Agency, the statement said. However, none of the police officers who had been guarding Ramirez recognized the four men, the department said. "Hi, there, fellows! You sure don't look familiar to me!"
"We ain't."
Officials declined to say whether police were suspected in Ramirez' killing. "Nope. Can't tell."
Beheadings have become common in Mexico's criminal underworld in recent years, most of them attributed to drug cartels trying to intimidate their rivals. Nine men were found decapitated in Tijuana over the weekend. "Spanish fly?"
"No, thanks."
"You wan' rent my seester?"
"No, thanks."
"Then how 'bout a nice head? Make the ladies giggle, eh?"
"Y'got any red ones?"
Southern Guerrero state, home to the Pacific resorts of Acapulco and Zihuatanejo, has long been the focal of point of territorial fights between Mexico's drug cartels, land disputes and leftist rebellions. But this happened in Tijuana, not there.
The message found alongside Ramirez' head also included a threat against a powerful rancher and former mayor of the town of Petatlan who went into hiding in May after gunmen killed 17 of his associates and relatives. The message was signed, "the people's avenger." "Señor Former Alcade! This death threat! It's signed with a 'Z'!"
"Sergeant Garcia! Pack my bags! I'm suddenly called away to... ummm... Milpetas!"
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Sounds like Mexico needs a Rapid Action Battalion.
A bipartisan Congressional committee report released on Tuesday has warned that the US is at risk of a nuclear or biological warfare attack in five years' time.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Perhaps more importantly, IIUC this REPORT urges POTUS-ELECT BARACK to take a strong Policy(s)stance = action ASAP vee IRAN, NORH KOREA, and SSSSHHHHHHHHHHH ALL-ROADS-INTERSECT-IN-PAKISTAN PAKISTAN, in order to preclude or prevent such an event.
WHile IRAN steadily nuclearizes, the Militants-Terrs hope that US-ASIAN GEOPOLITICS + CORRECTNESS, ETC. WILL INDUCE THE US TO CONTAIN ITSELF TO AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN, ESSENS LEAVING THE JIHAD [mostly] FREE TO ATTACK AND DESTABILIZE LARGE AREAS OF MAINLAND ASIA + OTHER, BUT ESPEC ASIA [Russia, China, India = NUC/WEAPTECHS, MANPOWER, SUPPOR].
#2
Mayans already have Congress beat by centuries. Dec. 21, 2012 game over, or they ran out of paper....
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Nikolaevsk, AK ||
12/03/2008 4:08
Comments ||
Top||
#3
"It is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013," the report read.
#4
We will know quickly afterwards when the Iranians have a nuke.
It will go off in some city in the US.
I hope the sissies and limp wrists in DOS eventually realize that you cannot negotiate for peace with people who want to die.
Every diplomat in the world who has a tuxedo and a martini shaker has been to Teheran and tried negotiating with Ahmendinutjob and they are still working on the freaking nuke. When do these morons that keep wanting to talk and make nice finally realize that Iran wants a nuke because their apocalyptic version of Islam wants a war?
I hate to say it but we will have a city somewhere in the US, Britain, Spain or Germany DISAPPEAR in the next TWO years if we don't turn those nuke sites in Iran into sheets of nuclear glass.
Posted by: James Carville ||
12/03/2008 10:43
Comments ||
Top||
#5
It appears to me that this situation is almost the same as Chamberlain faced during 1936. Hitler made threats, and Chamberlain, remembering the horrors of WW1, would do almost anything to avoid that situation again.
Hitler knew this and gave Chamberlain a worthless piece of paper, and Chamberlain projected all his hope and change on it and declared the Munich Agreement a success.
Similarly, Dinnerjacket makes threats of nuclear war, building nukes, firing missiles, and gets the diplos on both sides of the pond in a tizzy. The only thing is that Dinnerjacket has no intention of making an agreement with the West. He plays the limp wristed diplos like a fish, while he buys time for U2235 enrichment and who knows what weapons development or plutonium process or acquisition to take place.
This is pure mass denial on the part of the West. The diplos and leaders all hope against all evidence that DJ won't get a nuke.
The US is in transition, and she is perceived as weak and preoccupied. DJ is in a good position, except that his pet project is costing lots, and he is running out of money.
I do hope that we and/or Israel have plans and assets in place to neutralize the threat. DJ may be full of threats and bluster, but if he is not total BS, he could also have a nuke. Saddam did not have a nuke, but it was not because he was not trying.
DJ has made public threats. The leaders in the West have not acted upon those threats, which is totally irresponsible.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Nikolaevsk, AK ||
12/03/2008 12:33
Comments ||
Top||
#6
I predict that there will be 4-6 major terrorist incidents inside the US during Obama's term, including a Beslan type incident. And 1-2 of those will be WMD strikes.
In return, we will do much as Clinton did, lob protests and UN resolutions and maybe a few cruise missiles.
In response, I predict that mosque burning will be the new sport and the initial stages of Cowboy's and muslims. You will also see muslim enclaves in the inner cities growing much like they are in france with the same sorts of effects.
#8
AP - another link is that the Iranians may be facing an economic meltdown at home (already starting without the deep resources of other countries to pull out of the spiral), and facing internal discord, may try that age-old "external enemies"tactic to distract. I see Iran lashing out more to keep internal control than jihad-exportation
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2008 19:50
Comments ||
Top||
#9
Good point, Frank. I see this whole thing as a big race, Nukes, Bankruptcy, Jiihad, Pi$$ed off masses. It is a sh*t tsunami.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Nikolaevsk, AK ||
12/03/2008 21:14
Comments ||
Top||
#10
ION NEWSCIENTIST > [Scientists]MEGATHRUST EARTHQUAKE COULD HIT ASIA AT ANY TIME.
As times before, "CLIMATE/LAND CHANGES" = REGIONAL-GLOBAL DIASPORAS = induce or cause many people vee INDONESIA, EAST-SOUTH ASIA TO MIGRATE TO GUAM-WESTPAC IN SEARCH OF RECOVERY AND A NEW LIFE, AND EXCLUSIVE = NOT COUNTING THE ANTICIPATED US MARINE RELOCATION TO GUAM FROM OKINAWA OR OTHER LOCAL US MIL BUILDUP.
* FYI GUAM BUILDUP > JAPAN is refusing to fund the construx of a US-desired new airfield in suppor of the realignment of US forces in Japan, + JAPANESE LABOR UNION ON OKINAWA is now protesting the transfer of US Marines to Guam [want absolute assurances/guaranties on US $$$ benefits for MILBASE WORKERS, + right of curr Japanese Base employees to transfer and find Base(s)work on Guam and remit $$$ back to Japan-Okinawa].
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a landmark decision today in which California state courts found that its medical marijuana law was not preempted by federal law.
The state appellate court decision from November 28, 2007, ruled that "it is not the job of the local police to enforce the federal drug laws." The case, involving Felix Kha, a medical marijuana patient from Garden Grove, was the result of a wrongful seizure of medical marijuana by local police in June 2005.
"It's now settled that state law enforcement officers cannot arrest medical marijuana patients or seize their medicine simply because they prefer the contrary federal law," said Joe Elford, Chief Counsel with Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the medical marijuana advocacy organization that represented the defendant Felix Kha in a case that the City of Garden Grove appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Perhaps, in the future local government will think twice about expending significant time and resources to defy a law that is overwhelmingly supported by the people of our state."
#1
Sovereign California, a very interesting precedent. One which may open the door for many for the State(s) trumping of other Federal statutes and laws, not the least of which may involve revenue sharing, immigration, military service, and taxes. Events at the University of Alabama in June of 1963 involving Gov Geo Wallace might point to something of a conflict in Federal legal views.
#2
Yes, but the usual leverage for 'non-participation' is the withholding of funding. Wonder what concessions Congress will extract from CA with Arnold shows up like the Big 3 asking for the big handout bailout?
#3
Sovereign California, a very interesting precedent.
Well, we *are* the United States of America, after all.
US Constitution - Bill of Rights - Amendment 10
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
#4
Steve: Ref Prop 215; Take a read of the 2005 decision Gonzales v. Raich. Bottom line, interstate Commerce Clause as well as the Necessary and Proper Clause both apply.
#5
I think if the federal govt. should enforce their own federal laws, if they can. Otherwise, almost everything has a state criminal/civil version.
If the hippies and cancer patients in Calif. want to get loaded I really don't care, there are much worse things going on in CA than Felix Kha smoking his skull bong and watching Gilligan's Island all day.
#6
You can't be for States rights and then think that the Federal government can trump any and all state laws. I am and always will be a States rights supporter. So if the (not so)Good people of California want medical mj, that's their right. In my most unlearned opinion the courts use of the Commerce Clause is a reach. But, they have spoken and that's the law. States' Rights have consistently been eroded away and will probably just get worse under Nobama.
#8
I believe the line should be drawn at trade over state lines. If someone is just using/selling at state level, then the state takes care of it. Going over state lines, you can guarantee the FBI will be there to smack you down. Of course, the local state asking the FBI to help with a case is always allowed and can help track down a web of interstate and international crime as well.
Basically, I believe that if a state wants to legalize something, the Feds have no right to step in and force it on them.
#9
The question becomes "Can the feds enforce federal law in a State that doesn't accept the law?"
That's why the Donks demanded and got the removal of federal troops from the South over the Hayes-Tilden election compromise. Then insured they wouldn't return with the passage of Posse Comitatus. It's also one of the major reasons the blacks lost their 14th and 15th Amendment rights for nearly a hundred years. Just remember the continuation of your arguement is that if State Rights are not constrained they can also trump individual civil rights. Otherwise we're engaged in picking and choosing what we want, which is basically a game of power not principle.
#10
One of the most clever instances of giving a party what they want at a price they can't afford since Marbury v. Madison. Nonetheless, I expect the changes in the next 10 years will make this decision moot. Just as these United States became the United States after the civil war and the legislative power of the Congress became unconstrained after the switch in time that saved nine, I expect the transition of the states to administrative appurtenances of the federal executive to be complete within the decade. That is why I object to the domestic use of Federal troops for any reason including the enforcement of school attendance policies. This is a slippery slope and I doubt this opinion will be sufficient to prevent or even delay our descent.
#11
P2K, my argument with this is that the reasoning SCOTUS uses is contained in Commerce Clause. Clearly, the Commerce Clause would not apply to Civil Rights. I'd say that is comparing apples to oranges. I just don't see how growing pot in your backyard for your own 'medical' use falls under interstate commerce. Also, please note, I am not a supporter of 'medical' mj, but I am a proponent of States Rights.
The U.S. military in Iraq captured four suspected members of an Iranian-backed insurgent network called Kataib Hezbollah on Monday, it said. "Kataib Hezbollah is assessed to be a surrogate of Iran. Its members are believed to be responsible for recent attacks against Iraqi citizens and coalition forces," the U.S. military said.
Accusations
American troops caught 33 Iranian-sponsored criminals in the last month, the military said. It was not clear whether Monday's detentions were included in that figure. The United States accuses Iran of arming, funding and training militias that attack U.S. and Iraq security forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: IRGC
A Qatari charity said on Monday it plans to ship one ton of medical aid to the Gaza Strip this week in a bid to defy an Israeli blockade on the tiny Palestinian territory. "We intend to send a boat in a symbolic gesture, carrying a ton of medicine to our brothers in Gaza," said Abdallah al-Nimaa, vice president of the Qatar Charity Organization.
Nimaa told AFP the ship is set to sail from Doha on Friday, although he said he expects the Israeli authorities to stop the vessel from reaching Gaza, where most of its 1.5 million inhabitants depend on foreign aid. "We expect Israeli warships to bar the Qatari aid ship, however we are determined," he said, adding that the group did not request an Israeli permit.
Nimaa's doubt over the ultimate success of the trip was highlighted on Monday by Israeli authorities, who blocked a Libyan ship trying to deliver aid to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said. The Al-Marwa sailed instead to a port in neighboring Egypt. It left Libya last Monday, carrying 3,000 tons of food, medicine and other aid, Palestinian and Libyan officials said.
Israel, which has in the past allowed ships carrying humanitarian goods to dock in Gaza to avoid a public confrontation, said Al-Marwa had turned back without incident. "They understood that the navy was there and decided to turn around," said Andy David, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman. "We have a very clear policy [on the blockade] which is constantly publicized."
Palestinian officials said the vessel had left Gaza's shores and its crew was unharmed.
The Anti-Siege Committee, a Palestinian group that lobbies with Hamas backing against the embargo, accused Israel of having also blocked Al-Marwa's communications with Gaza. The ship was now docked in Egypt's Al-Arish port, the group said. "We urge all sides to pursue this intifada [uprising] of ships," said Anti-Siege Committee spokesman Ala al-Batta.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
The Baltic Dry Index which is a direct indicator of the health of vital worldwide shipping and supply activity as well as the potential health of the global economy has recently slipped more than 93%. Its value has gone from over 11,000 to less than 800 with little except for a floor of zero to suggest the slide will stop in the near future.
This means that worldwide, the demand for cargo ships and more importantly raw materials that go into producing the everyday items that consumers buy has come to a near standstill. This is an indicator of a massive worldwide slump and likely foreshadows more economic woes for not only the US, but also the entire globe.
To understand the Baltic Dry index one has to approach this economic telltale from multiple angles. Basically, the index is set where the supply of raw materials meets the demand for ships to be booked to carry those materials from country to country or continent to continent.
The index is broken down into different segments that take into account the size of the ship and the type of the cargo that is being shipped.
Generally, when the BDI is charting a gain, stocks will likely close up and countries' whose currency are good market indicators of worldwide exchange, like the value of the Canadian and Australian Dollars are on their way up as well.
When the BDI is performing badly, generally the US and worldwide stock markets are likely to also perform badly in the near future and the currencies of the countries previously mentioned, who are heavily affected by the foreign goods and raw materials exchange will also likely soon show losses.
This is because the BDI shows exactly where the worldwide demand for raw goods and materials rests at any given period. When these raw goods and materials are not being moved around, production of almost everything imaginable slows due to the tightening supply of worldwide goods.
#1
I find this hard to believe for one simple reason ... the malls around here are still packed. I have noticed no significant decrease in the number of people shopping or the number of bags they are carrying. I am still seeing people loading cars in the parking lot.
Think about this for a second. Are you buying only 7% of the things you were buying? If people aren't buying cars, then they are having to keep the ones they have running longer. That should mean an increase in demand for repair parts. And regular wearout items like wiper blades and headlights which are imported still need to be shipped. People will still need tires, shoes, flashlights, etc.
#3
Joe, EVERYTHING will eventually on the bailout list. Congress is doing a grand experiment by pouring money down a black hole and determine exactly how much is needed to satiate its appetite. Tune in for regular updates.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Nikolaevsk, AK ||
12/03/2008 4:22
Comments ||
Top||
#4
crosspatch ,
It's not the amount shipped, it's the cost to ship.
Price is set at the margin so a 93% fall in price is NOT a 93% fall in trade.
Basically it means that there is a LOT more containerised supply than demand.
#7
Looking at the shopping mallsright now is not a good measure of underlying economic status.
It neglects to take into account the lag time between economic causes and visible effects. Your retail shopping mall is full of people seeking bargains at a time that traditionally is a very high volume sales period. Those goods were manufactured and stocked months ago.
Today wholesalers have seen their orders fall dramatically and as a result are placing fewer orders with manufacturers, who in turn are buying a lot less of the bulk commodities that make up the main cargo for bulk shipping.
#9
From a previous article: Which is why global shipping has collapsed: it is the harbinger of the end of the era of trade, in which third-world labour costs kept first world inflation down and allowed interest rates to fall and stay low and debt to be increased to an historic degree.
That process of importing deflation (or, more precisely, disinflation) from developing nations -- especially China and India -- relied on trade: raw materials in; finished goods out.
The fall in freight rates for both dry bulk carriers and container ships is telling us that it's over.
In other words inflation is set to rise, so we are in for a period of "stagflation" (recession and inflation)
I'm still cogitating this hypothesis. Governments around the world are driving interest rates down to historic lows, so what's going on?
#10
People aren't buying new cars. That, after all, is why the Big Three have gone to Washington with their palms outstretched. At the shopping malls the prices were shockingly low even for the traditional day-after-Thanksgiving sales; In Buffalo, one of the most price-sensitive cities in the country, Lord & Taylor had rack after rack of current-season $100 items for $25.
#11
Is it price reduction or gouge reduction? 'If' they are still making a profit, has it been gouging all along? And 'if' profits are still being made, with the decline in ROI in other venues [as in I could make more money investing it over here rather than making a real reasonably priced item or service] does it reinforce basics in the economy at the expense of speculative markets?
#13
The shopping continues because of habit. People still spending what they should not. If they have cash, they ought to be conserving it. Do without the habit for once. The prices being offered now by retailers are likely below purchase cost. Many retailers have to sell at any price, because many are going to have to file for bankruptcy after the new year dawns. They are trying to keep the lights on and rent paid. But they are not gaining ground and turning a profit.
Yes, all transnational shipping is dropping. The use of electricity on the Chinese grid is down 40-60 %, depending on source information. This means a drastic contraction in smelting and manufacturing. Port loads at Port of LA are down 30% year/year and dropping. The operators of the TransCon rail shiping, BNSF and UP are laying off crews on that route which brings 90% of the containers east. Retail sales are bound to contract. People have enough "stuff" to get by for some time and will have to. Contraction is in the air.
#15
Could this mean that we'll actually have to begin manufacturing our very own stuff?
Nope. This doesn't change foreign labor being cheaper.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
12/03/2008 12:30
Comments ||
Top||
#16
Another way to look at this is that we have commodity deflation. Raw materials are becoming cheaper after spiking. Eventually, somebody is going to find the prices ammenable to making products again. This should fuel the eventual turnaround as long as credit markets are functional.
Look at gas prices. They've crashed. This will eventually free up some cash in the economy. It is like an across the board tax cut.
I agree some spending is out of habit but some is necessary too (food, diapers, etc.). This too forms the 'bottom' of the economic downturn.
Labor intensive manufacturing will continue to go offshore when there is demand for the products.
#17
#8, Could this mean that we'll actually have to begin manufacturing our very own stuff?
Seems like that would be a good idea. Jobs need to be created to give people purchasing ability. People also have to have purchasing power and create demand for there to be manufacturing. I don't mean to be pessimistic but things could get pretty rough before they get better.
#19
"This doesn't change foreign labor being cheaper."
The globalization and leveling of labor costs was already underway. This crisis may accelerate it, which would ultimately be a good thing.
Labor costs will eventually rise elsewhere as workers demand more, and workers in the U.S. will ultimately be obliged to demand less for their work, bringing the cost of employing them back to levels that have a more accurate historical context. This will make it more attractive to employ people here again.
This will NOT happen overnight, but it will happen.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
12/03/2008 22:17
Comments ||
Top||
#20
Couple of things about the BDI: First, it's quite dependent on shipping credit risk. From page two of the article:
While it is important to look at this recent tumble in the BDI's value as a possible harbinger of worsening global economic conditions, it is possible to speculate about the cause of this huge loss and therefore take some of the mystery and potential fear out of this gut wrenching economic development. One of the biggest factors that could be contributing to the BDI's recent massive downturn is the US turned International credit crisis. If a merchant who is selling and shipping $100 million dollars in goods can not obtain a guarantee from a bank that payment will be delivered upon completion of the sale, not many merchants would want to take the chance that their buyer would not be able to furnish the money to complete the transaction. In the past this was less of an issue even when banks couldn't entirely guarantee that the buyer could pay completely for the goods.
Banks used to be able to sell the cargo outright to pay the debt of a buyer in default. The situation has since changed. Because consumer and financial sector confidence has fallen in consumer goods being shipped from overseas and an economy that has driven down the demand for consumer goods, these same banks are reluctant to trust that they could sell the ships' cargo and recoup their potential loss due to a default of payment either by a raw goods buyer or another bank.
Second, it's not much lower today than it was in 2002.
Third, it appears to lag the S&P 500. Better to watch that:
Pakistan: At least 10 people were killed and 50 wounded on Monday after a suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laden car in a restive northwestern Pakistan valley, officials said. The bombing took place at a security checkpoint in the town of Mingora in the scenic Swat Valley, which has been rocked by a violent campaign to impose a strict version of Islamic law.
"Ten people were killed and 50 others were injured in the suicide blast at the checkpost," a security official told AFP. He added that all of those who died were civilians and a lone security official was among the wounded. "The attacker was trying to approach the checkpost after bypassing the queue but his car exploded on the way," the official said.
The chief of a local government hospital, Lal Noor, said nine bodies were brought in along with the 50 who were wounded and one of the wounded died at hospital.
Gunfights were also reported in several other parts of Swat Valley, the official said. A soldier and a militant were killed at Qambar village near Mingora in a gunfight when militants tried to get 17 of their men released from security forces who had been arrested on Monday, he said.
Separately, one militant was killed and several others were injured in a clash with troops outside Mingora, a security official said. He added that authorities on Monday imposed a curfew in Mingora which was lifted in the afternoon and that troops had launched a search operation for militants in the area.
The mountainous, snow-capped Swat region is renowned for its ancient Buddhist relics and once attracted large numbers of foreign and local tourists with Pakistan's only ski resort. But since last year it has been beset by violence blamed on pro-Taliban militants. The region has been turned into a battleground since hard-line cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who has links to Pakistan's Taliban movement, launched a violent campaign for the introduction of Sharia law in the valley.
The Pakistani military said in February this year that there remained 400 hardcore militants hiding in Swat and vowed it would not end its offensive in the area until all of them were cleared. However, militant attacks targeting security and government officials, girls' schools and shops have increased in the area over the course of the year.
Elsewhere in the border areas, Pakistani jets and artillery killed 15 militants in operations on Monday, an official. The clashes took place in several areas of the Bajaur tribal region where troops have been engaged in fierce fighting with rebels since the launch of an army operation in August.
"Pakistani artillery backed by tanks and fighter jets pounded underground bunkers and other hideouts of rebels, killing 15 militants during the last 24 hours," local administration official, Mohammad Jamil told AFP. He said that six militants were killed and three others wounded in artillery fire on Monday in the Nawagai area while nine rebels were killed after fighter jets bombarded their hideouts in Mamoun on Sunday.
Jamil added that a woman was also killed when a mortar fired by troops hit her house in Mamoun area on Sunday.
Islamabad says the Bajaur operation is proof that it is committed to crushing insurgents.
Pakistani military recently said that more than 1,500 rebels have been killed while hundreds more militants have been captured since August.
Also on Monday, Taliban militants destroyed a dozen trucks in the Pakistani city of Peshawar containing supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan, killing two people in the process, police said. The attack took place early in the morning at a terminal in the northwestern city where trucks carrying supplies for the NATO forces are parked at night.
"Two people were killed and 12 trucks loaded with goods for NATO forces were burnt to ashes after Taliban fired three rockets at the terminal," area police official Zahoor Khan told AFP. Two armored personnel carriers, a crane and several goods containers were also burned, he said, and added that first Taliban men fired rockets and then a group of militants came and started fires at the terminal.
Pakistan last month barred delivery of sealed containers and oil tankers through the Khyber Pass for a week after Taliban in the rugged lawless area hijacked 15 trucks destined for Afghanistan and looted the vehicles, including two armored vehicles.
Pakistan's military chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, vowed last month to keep NATO's supply line to Afghanistan open and reaffirmed support for the alliance's mission there during a visit to the Brussels headquarters of the force.
This article starring:
Maulana Fazlullah
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
Last week in Mumbai we witnessed as clear a case of carefully planned mass terrorism as we are ever likely to see.
The seven-venue atrocity was coordinated in a highly sophisticated way. The terrorists used BlackBerrys to stay in touch with each other during their three-and-half-day rampage, outwitting the authorities by monitoring international reaction to the attacks on British, Urdu and Arabic Web sites. It was a meticulously organized operation aimed exclusively at civilian targets: two hospitals, a train station, two hotels, a leading tourist restaurant and a Jewish center.
There was nothing remotely random about it. This was no hostage standoff. The terrorists didn't want to negotiate. They wanted to murder as many Hindus, Christians, Jews, atheists and other "infidels" as they could, and in as spectacular a manner as possible. In the Jewish center, some of the female victims even appear to have been tortured before being killed.
So why are so many prominent Western media reluctant to call the perpetrators terrorists? Why did Jon Snow, one of Britain's most respected TV journalists, use the word "practitioners" when referring to the Mumbai terrorists? Was he perhaps confusing them with doctors?
Why did Britain's highly regarded Channel 4 News state that the "militants" showed a "wanton disregard for race or creed" when exactly the opposite was true: Targets and victims were very carefully selected. Why did the "experts" invited to discuss the Mumbai attacks in one show on the state-funded Radio France Internationale, the voice of France around the world, harp on about Baruch Goldstein (who carried out the Hebron shootings in 1994), virtually the sole case of a Jewish terrorist in living memory?
#2
The media did the exact same thing during the Beslan attacks up in Russia. They absolutely refused to call them 'terrorists' or even 'muslims'. Instead they called them 'gangsters' or 'hostage-takers'.
The f-king New York Times still refuses to call them what they are.
Deliberately and with full knowledge of their intent, and knowing that it will encourage even more of these acts, covering up for the terrorists once again. The editors of the NYT have blood on their hands.
Now to find out that the mother in the jewish center was 6 months pregnant as she was tortured and murdered. And the 2 year old baby had been beaten. Via Atlas Shrugs.
#6
Unfortunately in recent years we have become used to leftist media burying their heads in the sand about the threat that Islamic fundamentalism poses, in much the same way as they once refused to report accurately on communist atrocities.
Grosss analogy is spot on. However, this is not a recent phenomenon as he suggests. The medias PC reporting is a symptom of the long held refusal, for many (Left and Right), to acknowledge that Islamic fundamentalism is an ideology that is grounded by a religion. Similar symptoms appear every time the Hearts and Minds crowd argue that placing the Taliban on the US Terrorist list would be a mistake. And even though Sheik Rahman after the 93 WTC bombing correctly citied passages that proved the Koran justified his deplorable actions, many experts display comparable symptoms as they continue to say that AQ simply perverts the Muslim religion. Until the civilized world comes to grips with the fact that the Underlying Cause Theory is not identified simply by supporting dictators, poverty, oppression, or some other esoteric cause we will continue to have leaders like Obama say, We dont want to make Bin Laden a martyr.
#8
As has been noted elsewhere, the damage done by the BBC is incalculable - it has all that programming in all those languages, and carries a presumption of legitimacy and accuracy in many quarters (esp. those far less likely to be aware of its systematic, extreme, and even bizarre bias).
I still recall hearing a BBC broadcast late at night in DC - the local NPR carried the first morning news show (there's double poison - NPR and BBC). I was driving on an empty interstate. The host was doing a live interview with an Israeli military spokesman about an IDF raid in a West Bank town (this was during the extended - and successful - response to the Palestinian terror offensive capped by the Netanya Passover massacre). The IDF guy was not "English," but clearly a Hebrew-speaker, English a second language.
The host asked whether the IDF had discontinued operations in the town because (exact quote) "you have killed enough people?". I almost swerved. There was incredibly powerful "dead air" as the IDF spokesman, surely, struggled to make sure he had heard the question correctly. He mumbled some sort of reasonable response.
At home, one is amazed and appalled at the MSM-inspired nonsense that comes out of peoples' mouths. Abroad, we have the BBC carrying water for dictators, fascists, racists, genocidal maniacs, bigots, and murderous religious fanatics - so long as they're anti-US or anti-western or anti-Israel. Anyone really wonder how we elect non-entities at home, and deal with mass hysteria abroad?
Six Taliban were killed and several others injured in security forces' operation in several areas of Bajaur Agency on Tuesday. Locals said troops targeted Kosar, Bai Cheena, Jannat Shah and Charmang areas of Khar tehsil with artillery.
The six Taliban were killed in the operation in Bai Cheena, they said. The troops continued to advance into various areas of Khar and Nawagai, which were earlier under the Taliban control, the locals said. Officials said several areas in Nawagai were now under the army's control.
One Taliban and a security official were killed as the Taliban attacked a security forces convoy in Kabal teshil of Swat. The Taliban attacked the convoy in Dewlai area of Kabal. The Swat Media Centre confirmed the killings in the exchange of fire. Following the clash, the security forces targeted suspected Taliban hideouts with artillery. A mortar shell accidentally hit a house killing a child and a man, while two women were injured. The troops imposed unannounced curfew in Dewlai area and launched a search operation.
Three women were killed and a child injured when security forces pounded suspected Taliban hideouts in Chamar Kand area of Safi tehsil in Mohmand Agency. The artillery shell hit on the house of Bakht Jamal. Security forces pounded Taliban hideouts in Bhaidaag, Ghalanai and Mamadgut areas of Safi and Pindyali tehsils. No Taliban casualties were reported.
This article starring:
Bai Cheena
Bhaidaag
Chamar Kand
Charmang
Dewlai area of Kabal
Ghalanai
Jannat Shah
Kabal teshil
Khar tehsil
Kosar
Mamadgut
Mohmand Agency
Pindyali tehsil
Safi tehsil
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
Former United States secretary of state Madeleine Albright described Pakistan as an 'international migraine' on Tuesday. Usually I disagree with Madame Albright almost reflexively. This time she nailed it in one.
Counting elements such as nuclear weapons, terrorism, extremism, corruption and poor economic situation, she said that the important location of Pakistan converted every national issue into an international one. She said that the current US secretary of state, who was on her way to India, had a tough job ahead of her.
In the wake of tensions between India and Pakistan in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, Albright said that President Asif Ali Zardari was trying hard to deal with the issue at hand. She said that Zardari was working to gain control and develop a country that was a very difficult place to administer.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
Pakistan is more like an international boil on the a$$ end of the body politic that needs lancing and disinfectant.
There, fixed.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Nikolaevsk, AK ||
12/03/2008 4:13
Comments ||
Top||
#2
The most appropriate metaphoric illness for pakistain is Piles IMHO.
#7
Pakistan had nuclear weapons many years before the 1998 tests. They cold tested in 1983 and exploded a weapon at the Chinese Lop Nur range the next year.
They threatened India with nuclear weapons during the Brass Tacks exercise a few years later
Posted by: john frum ||
12/03/2008 14:14
Comments ||
Top||
#8
Love her brooch. Complements both her turkey wattle and her meaty gams ( the latter not shown so as to protect the children).
Court strips PM of his post for vote fraud, outlaws ruling party; airport to reopen
A Thai court stripped Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat of his post and outlawed the ruling party yesterday, prompting jubilant anti-government protesters to lift a blockade of Bangkok's main airport. Party leaders quickly vowed to form another government under a new banner, but without Somchai, who was barred from politics five years by the Constitutional Court in a vote fraud case.
The move was welcomed by the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which occupied Suvarnabhumi airport a week ago to cap a months-long campaign to oust Somchai, the brother-in-law of exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
"My duty is over. I am now an ordinary citizen," Somchai, 61, told reporters in the northern city of Chiang Mai from where he has been governing since the blockade began.
Under a military constitution adopted after a 2006 coup against then-premier Thaksin, any political party in which a single executive is convicted of vote fraud must be dissolved and all executives banned.
Somchai, a former lawyer, spent less than three months in power, beset by the royalist protesters who accused his government of acting as a proxy for their nemesis Thaksin and of being hostile to the monarchy.
"As the court decided to dissolve the People Power Party (PPP), therefore the leader of the party and party executives must be banned from politics for five years," said Chat Chonlaworn, head of the nine-judge court panel. "The court had no other option," he said.
An Iraqi court sentenced Saddam Hussein's cousin "Chemical Ali" to death on Tuesday for crushing a Shiite revolt after the 1991 Gulf War.
It was the second death sentence to be handed down against Ali Hassan al-Majeed, who earned his nickname for his role in using poison gas against Kurdish villages. He was first condemned to be hanged last year for the killing of tens of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s, but that sentence was held up by political wrangling.
Judge Mohammad al-Uraibi also sentenced a former top Baath party official, Abdul Ghani Abdul Ghafour, to hang for his involvement in the crackdown on Shiites in the south, and 10 others to sentences ranging from 15 years to life in prison. The judge said the court had decided to execute Majeed "by hanging for committing wilful killings and crimes against humanity".
The court, the Iraqi High Tribunal, was set up to try former members of Saddam's government and was the same one that sentenced the former president to death. Saddam was executed in December 2006 after being convicted of crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Shiite men and boys after a 1982 assassination attempt.
Majeed's reputation for ruthless use of force to crush opponents won him widespread notoriety during Saddam's rule and led many Iraqis to fear him even more than the leader himself. Saddam's execution sparked anger among minority Sunni Arabs, who were outraged by a video showing the ousted leader being taunted by official observers of the governing coalition in the moments before he was hanged.
His half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti was executed two weeks later in a botched hanging that ripped off his head. Two other members of the former government have also been executed. Also currently on trial is former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, the public face of Saddam Hussein's regime, who is facing charges over the execution of dozens of merchants accused of breaking state price controls in 1992.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Iraqi Baath Party
#1
Anger among the Sunni minority was anything but widespread, and the official observers of SH's execution did not taunt him.
There's no such thing as a botched execution, if the guy ends up dead. Barzan's indecorous little ending probably resulted from the hangman's failure to take the prisoner's serious medical problems into account - these probably weakened his frame enough that an excessive drop distance was used.
Other than that, no errors here.
Oh, and the bad guys are all getting what they deserve. And not from a mob. And with evidence and documentation and the right to defend themselves. And ..... oh, is it time to apologize to Europe and the rest of the world for annihilating that odious regime? I forget the schedule for that.
A U.N. special commission investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri reported Tuesday that it has uncovered fresh evidence that could lead to more suspects.
Hariri's killing touched off widespread protests in Lebanon, which together with intensified international pressure forced Syria to withdraw its troops after a nearly 30-year presence.
"The commission reports that it has acquired new information that may allow it to link additional individuals to the network that carried out the assassination," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wrote the Security Council.
A commission report submitted by Ban to the 15-nation council did not specify what the evidence was, but asked that its mandate be extended through February so it can continue the investigation.
The independent team of investigators headed by Canadian prosecutor Daniel Bellemare has been helping Lebanese authorities investigate 20 other bombings and assassinations in Lebanon since October 2004, and there are "links between those cases and the Hariri case," Ban said.
Hariri, a wealthy businessman who opposed Syria's influence in Lebanese affairs, died in a suicide truck bombing that also killed 22 other people on Beirut's coast.
No one has been charged, although four pro-Syria Lebanese generals have been under arrest for three years for alleged involvement in the murders.
The first U.N. chief investigator, Germany's Detlev Mehlis, has said the plot's complexity suggested that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services had a role. Syria has denied involvement.
Bellemare's team said in its latest report that Syria "has provided generally satisfactory cooperation."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
Park Sang Hak, a North Korean defector, launches balloons bound for his homeland. They carry leaflets accusing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il of being a drinker of pricey wine, a seducer of other men's wives, a murderer, a slaveholder, a dictator and "the devil."
The South Korean government says it wishes Park wouldn't rain all this aggravation on a heavily armed neighbor, but it says it is powerless to stop him. So about the only thing that usually stops Park's balloons is a wind that won't blow north.
But on Tuesday morning here at Paju, near the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas, Park and his compatriots ran into a bunch of South Korean activists willing to fight to keep the balloons on the ground. Park's anti-Kim leaflets, they shouted, were a threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula.
A balloon-driven rumble broke out. Scores of police struggled to keep it from turning into a full-blown riot. Before it was over, Park kicked one of the counter-protesters squarely in the head -- a blow that sounded like a bat whacking a hardball. He spat on several others who were trying to rip apart bags of leaflets. He pulled a tear-gas revolver from his jacket, and fired it into the air before police grabbed it away from him.
In the end, Park's group managed to launch just one of their 10 balloons. Thousands of leaflets were torn from bags and spilled onto the ground.
Ballooning in the Korean borderlands, it seems, has become a contact sport.
Leaflets dropped this fall in the North have infuriated the government there, which is believed to be particularly sensitive to personal attacks aimed at Kim, owing to the stroke he reportedly suffered in August and the subsequent firestorm of speculation about his mental and physical competence.
The leaflets have been an aggravating factor in the North's unusually belligerent behavior this fall toward the government of South Korea. Effective this week, the North drastically cut access for South Koreans working at the Kaesong industrial complex, located just north of the border.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
So the peaceniks don't like it, eh? What ever happened to speakin' troof to powah?
#4
Forget that. I'm being old fashioned. iPods! That's it. Send 'em some iPods pre-loaded with some really good stuff. Takes a little bit of money is all. Where can I contribute?
#8
Rumor has it the boy has a taste for Hennessy XO Cognac. Not wine, granted, but in a country where the major drinks are a local liquor known as soju and beer (maekju), using wine as a synonym for cognac is probably close enough to be understood by the target audience.
Good for the balloonists. Kim Jong Il is a right bastard who deserves a Ceaucescu moment in his very near future.
The Bangalore Police is on the lookout for a woman dentist who Bobbitised her doctor lover after he married another woman. The victim, Dr Meer Arshad Ali (32), is in a Bangalore hospital after efforts to trace his dismembered private part bore no result.
Dr Ali and Dr Syeeda Ameena (30) were neighbours in Mysore and reported to be lovers for the last eight years. The friendship between the two apparently blossomed while Dr Ali was studying for his MBBS and Dr Syeeda pursuing her BDS.
Dr Syeeda moved to Bangalore along with her parents after completing her degree, while Dr Ali stayed back in Mysore. Over the years, Dr Ali used to visit Bangalore regularly to meet Dr Syeeda, who had set up Meswak Dental Clinic at Koramangala.
It is learnt that around six months back, Dr Ali married another woman from Lucknow. However, the lovers reportedly used to meet and Dr Ali had told his wife about his friendship with the dentist.
On Saturday, Dr Syeeda invited Dr Ali to her clinic, where she offered him a juice mixed with something which made him lose his consciousness. It is said that she used a surgical blade to Bobbitise Dr Ali, allegedly for betraying her.
Subsequently, the dentist herself offered him first aid when Dr Ali started screaming owing to the pain. When the bleeding failed to stop, she even moved him to a multi-speciality hospital. She fled the spot after handing over Dr Alis laptop and mobile phone.
The relatives of Dr Ali searched for the dismembered part at the dental clinic for it to be stitched back, but it could not be traced.
Though the victims family did not want to inform the police because of the sensitivity of the case and also on account of the guilt Dr Ali carried for not marrying her as promised, a relative of Dr Ali working in the police department lodged a complaint with the Koramangala police.
The police have registered a case for attempt to murder and for voluntarily causing grievous injury.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
. . .were neighbours in Mysore . . .
And the good Doctor thought that was just the name of a place he lived . . .
#4
On Saturday, Dr Syeeda invited Dr Ali to her clinic, where she offered him a juice mixed with something which made him lose his consciousness. It is said that she used a surgical blade to Bobbitise Dr Ali, allegedly for betraying her.
That was not the woman to scorn
Posted by: john frum ||
12/03/2008 19:53
Comments ||
Top||
Tim Down knows that 1 millimeter is nothing to sniff at. This past summer, the fruit and vegetable wholesaler was caught with kiwi fruit that were too small by about that much -- 0.04 of an inch.
Government inspectors told him that because his 5,000 Chilean kiwis were too scrawny, he could not sell them. "I couldn't even give them away. It was ridiculous," said Down, a 53-year-old from Bristol, who paid $150 to dispose of the fruit.
There is good news for merchants such as Down who hawk misshapen produce. This month, the European Union voted to repeal its strict rules on the size, shape and appearance of 26 fruits and vegetables. It will still regulate 10 items, including kiwi fruit, but if one of these is now deemed too petite, or too plump, it could still be sold as long as it carries a warning label. "This is better regulated at the level of trade than at the level of Brussels," said Michael Mann, the E.U. spokesman on agriculture.
The changes take effect in July. Until then, it will remain illegal for retailers throughout the European Union to sell a forked carrot or a cauliflower less than 4.33 inches in diameter. A Class 1 green asparagus must be green for at least 80 percent of its length. A vine shoot on a bunch of grapes must be less than 1.97 inches.
In a blog entry titled "Return of the curvy cucumber," Mariann Fischer Boel, the E.U. agriculture commissioner, wrote, "In these days of high food prices and general economic difficulties, consumers should be able to choose from the widest range of products possible." She added, "I hope very much that we will never again read about 'bonkers Brussels bureaucrats.' "
The food classifications have long been fodder for the many Euro-skeptics here who paint the bloc as a faceless creature that spends its time devising schemes to wipe out British identity. The most boisterous are the British tabloids, always ready with a gibe or an opinion. In 1994, when the European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, introduced minimum standards for the curvature of bananas, the Sun roared that European officials had "really gone bananas," while the Daily Mail, hunting for the dimensions decreed by the "old fruits of the European Commission," reported a "slip-up" when they could not find the exact angle of the bend permitted (there isn't one).
For its part, the European Commission attempts to monitor what it calls "Euromyths" and debunk "scare stories about the EU reported in the British press," according to its Web site, where it posts its rebuttals.
Mann said the changes were part of an internal campaign by the European Commission to reduce red tape by 25 percent by 2012.
Sainsbury's, a large British supermarket chain, recently joined the debate with a Halloween display of disfigured vegetables: forked carrots would be sold as "witches' fingers" and imperfect cauliflowers as "zombie brains," and so on. A spokesman for the company said the campaign was shelved when it was discovered that store managers could be prosecuted individually.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Too many university graduated bureaucrats looking for gainful employment. More Paper! More Regulations!
Someone please remind me later how much more civilized and cultured our Euro-betters are because at the moment I'm torn between acute mirth at their legislative buffoonery and profuse gratitude that my ancestors left for a country where people can choose for themselves whether to buy specific items of produce.
#6
SteveS---it is called the technical imperative. Management would rather tinker around in the technical stuff than actually have to make the tough decisions on vital issues.
Mr. Down had to throw away 5000 kiwi fruits because of a dimension issue, so all that energy, and food value was absolutely wasted because of a bureaucratic rule. Nice going, greenhouse gas boys.
The EUniks would rather deal with so-called undersized kiwi fruit that deal with Dinnerjacket's nuke threats. And the US may not be far behind in this madness.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Nikolaevsk, AK ||
12/03/2008 12:46
Comments ||
Top||
#7
A. Paul,
It's also an example of the Peter Principle about people promoted to their level of incompetence.
These Eurorabble are incompetent to deal with what they should handle, so they regress to trivalities that they can.
#8
Something like 30 years ago our local school system found itself saddled with an incompentent they couldn't fire, so they gave him a lateral promotion into a position to clarify policies. A few years ago they found themselves with a three-inch binder full of trivia, and appointed a committee to weed out worthless rules. From time to time the committee reports to the school board with a list of rules to consolidate or throw out.
Posted by: James ||
12/03/2008 13:49
Comments ||
Top||
#9
James do you think that they'd be willing to take on the Federal Law books?
#11
AlanC---the EUniks have gone WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY beyond the intended scope of the Peter Principle. LOL!
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Nikolaevsk, AK ||
12/03/2008 15:52
Comments ||
Top||
#12
That is big government socialism. The incompetent are hired by the government where they are responsible for the creating rules and regulations for those who can succeed without living off of other people's forced contributions under penalty of law. In other words everyone must live as equals determined by the lowest common denomenator.
Typical european aristocratic mentality - Hey Britain you dodged one here: imagine two counts grand indictment to usurp Brussel authority for using a knife to cut Key Lime Pie.
Reacting to criticism in India and an isolating media trend inside Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari has asked India in an interview to Financial Times on Monday not to blame Pakistan for last weeks attacks in Mumbai, saying non-state actors could not hijack nations. The next sentence is even more significant: Even if the militants are linked to Lashkar-e-Tayba, who do you think we are fighting?
Mr Zardari also pointed to a development that the media in Pakistan was ignoring: that the attack could be a tactic to divert attention from the real war going on in the Tribal Areas between the terrorists and the Pakistan army. He came very near to saying that it was in fact a plot to force the army to vacate the Tribal Areas and deploy along the Indian border because of the Indian threat to mobilise forces as they did in 2001.
The interior adviser, Mr Rehman Malik, was clearer in his diagnosis: he said in Lahore that the Mumbai attacks were designed to force Pakistan to deploy its troops on the countrys eastern borders, thereby clearing the western borders for infiltration into Afghanistan. Although the PPP government has praised the Pakistani media for being balanced, the fact is that by reacting so emotionally to the fear and loathing spread by the reckless and xenophobic Indian media, the Pakistani media has tended to isolate the government at a critical point.
The Indian government has given our High Commissioner in Delhi a formal protest note linking the Mumbai attack to Pakistan, which the latter has rejected because of lack of proof. The single terrorist caught by the Indians is said to have confessed that his group landed on Mumbai harbour by a boat. He has also confessed to training imparted to his group by the Pakistani banned terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Tayba. But confessions being no more credible than confessions in such situations, if the media war subsides and there are signs on some channels that it is subsiding one can get down to objective analysis.
Pakistan is going through its toughest anti-terrorist phase. The army is making inroads in the Bajaur stronghold of the Taliban who are apparently desperate to find a way to relieve the pressure on them. Realising that the people of the Tribal Areas were tending to accept state authority and assist the Army, they have offered ceasefire and even gone through the motions of a unilateral one. Although they have benefited morally from the unanimous parliamentary resolution asking the army to get out of the Tribal Areas, their reversals have not ceased.
The Taliban have resorted to a more intensified wave of suicide-bombing and have targeted Peshawar and areas close to Peshawar as a deterrent but with no palpable results. The Army is still effective in its operations. This is when the vectors of higher planning seem to have come together. Taking account of the widespread media campaign that the war against terrorism is not Pakistans war, we can logically speculate that an authority higher than the Taliban
An interesting description
may have commissioned a plot to push the Army out of the Tribal Areas on to the border with India.
Taking account of the widespread media campaign that the war against terrorism is not Pakistans war, we can logically speculate that an authority higher than the Taliban may have commissioned a plot to push the Army out of the Tribal Areas on to the border with India.
The Mumbai attackers were all suicide-bombers out of whom one has actually chickened out and has allegedly started to sing.
Mr Zardaris statement that the attack could have come from non-state actors and that his government was actually fighting against these same actors reveals how isolated the PPP government has become in the wake of the attack and the media war that has followed it. Retired generals, pointedly two ex-ISI chiefs, have come on TV to describe what the next war with India will look like. Tragically, what has come out is a visceral non-professional exaggeration of the bravery of Pakistani Muslims when they battle Indian Hindus.
The brilliance of Pak ISI strategic thinkers
Once this fever subsides, more cold-blooded analysis should make Pakistanis realise the real predicament they are in. If the Indians mobilise and Pakistan mobilises in response, the western border will be unprotected. It will be unprotected against two forces: the NATO forces arrayed across the Durand Line and the Taliban who cross the border and raid inside Afghanistan. The war between these two forces will intensify in the absence of our troops, and CIA drone attacks may not only extend further inside Pakistans settled areas but also might escalate to air force attacks, followed by boots on ground.
If the Indians mobilise and Pakistan mobilises in response, the western border will be unprotected. It will be unprotected against two forces: the NATO forces arrayed across the Durand Line and the Taliban who cross the border and raid inside Afghanistan. The war between these two forces will intensify in the absence of our troops, and CIA drone attacks may not only extend further inside Pakistans settled areas but also might escalate to air force attacks, followed by boots on ground.
Welcoming this kind of eventuality on the Indo-Pak border is not a wise gambit for our war mongers. Commentators who rejoice over the fact that any concentration of Indian troops on the border will hurt India economically and meet with international criticism should consider this: what if the Indians should deploy to merely provoke American attacks from Afghanistan, targeting locations where these non-state actors are known to be ensconced? The media should consider that its emotional response may give India the initiative to cause harm to Pakistan without actually getting into a fight.
The PPP government should not feel uncomfortable in this brief period of political isolation. It is handling the crisis in the right way and its policy of cooperation with India and coordination with a very pro-India international community is based on wisdom
Posted by: john frum ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Oh yes. They always have good excuses. And if they can't invent some for themselves, there's plenty in the "West" who'll do it for them.
#2
PAKISTANI-/INDIAN DEFENCE FORUMS/WORLD AFFAIRS BOARD/TOPIX/OTHER > PAKISTANI TALIBAN PLEDGE TO JOIN FORCES WITH PAKI ARMY, GOVT. IN FIGHT/WAR AGZ INDIA. Talibs proclaim to fight agz the Paki Army-Govt only becuz of the latter's unwanted incursions and MILOPS in Taliban areas.
Other MUMBAI-related Artics, to wit:
*INDIAN DEFENCE MINISTER ANTHONY TO ARMY: BE PREPARED FOR WTC-TYPE OF TERROR ATTACKS, +
* HINDU FUNDAMENTALISTS [Group Rally = Street democtration]STRIKE AT [visiting[PAKISTANI DELEGATION, +
* THOUSANDS MARCH ACROSS INDIA, DEMANDING/
SHOUTING "WE WANT ACTION NOW", +
* HINDU CROWDS SHOUT/DEMAND INDIA MILITARY ACTION AGZ PAKISTAN, +
* UK LABOUR PARTY: BRITISH BBC IS "BRITISH BIASED CORPORATION" - TERRORISTS IN LONDON ARE LABELED "GUNMEN" OR "MILITANTS" IN MUMBAI!?
You can just feel another BRIT TORY-LABOUR, etc. FOR-PEACE, ALL-LONDON POL BARBECUE being scheduled, can't ye????
#3
OOPSIES, my bad, forgot to add PAKISTAN REJECTS INDIA'S DEMAND TO TURN OVER MUMBAI SUSPECTS + PAKISTAN PREPARES ITS OWN TERROR SUSPECT LIST FOR INDIA + PAKISTAN: INDIA MUST CONTROL ITS OWN HINDU, OTHER MILITANT EXTREMISTS.
Also, PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > OBAMA: IFF THE US CAN BOMB PAKISTAN, WHY CAN'T INDIA!?. India has the right to engage in CROSS-BORDER MIL RETALIATION in its own self-defense.
WASHINGTON (AFP) US commanders are considering an accelerated drawdown of US forces from Iraq, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday, softening his opposition to president-elect Barack Obama's 16-month timetable. "I am less concerned about that timetable," he told a news conference at the Pentagon a day after Obama announced Gates had agreed to stay on as defense secretary in a Democratic administration.
Gates said US commanders were already "looking at what the implications of that are in terms of the potential for accelerating the drawdown and -- and in terms of how we meet our obligations to the Iraqis."
Here it comes ...
How Gates would handle his differences with Obama over the pace of the drawdown has been a key question ever since advisers to the president-elect suggested he might be asked to work in an Obama administration. He acknowledged that being the first defense secretary ever to be kept on by a newly elected president, much less one from another party, makes his a "unique situation."
"I think the president-elect has made it pretty clear that he wanted a team of people around him who would tell him what they thought and give him their best advice. I think he has assembled that team," he said. "There will, no doubt, be differences among the team. And it will be up to the president to make the decisions," he said.
Gates made clear that he intends to be a full participant, not just a wartime placeholder while Obama and his administration get settled. "I have no intention of being a caretaker secretary," he said.
He said he and Obama agreed his tenure would be open ended.
Gates has insisted in recent months that he could not conceive of conditions under which he would stay on. But he met discreetly with Obama for the first time on November 11 in Washington after the president-elect had visited President George W. Bush at the White House. "We actually met in the fire station at National Airport and they pulled the trucks out so that our cars could go in," Gates said. "I spent a long time hoping the question would never be popped," he said. "I then hoped he'd change his mind. And yesterday it became a reality."
All other political appointees at the Defense Department are subject to replacement by the new administration, he said. Gordon England, the deputy defense secretary announced he would be leaving.
Gates wrapped his position on Iraq in some ambiguity. He said that while Obama had repeated his desire to get US combat troops out by the end of 2011, "he also said that he wanted to have a responsible drawdown."
"And he also said that he was prepared to listen to his commanders," he said. "And it's within that framework that I think it is agreeable," he added.
Gates emphasized that a timetable calling for the withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq by the end of 2011 already had been set under a status of forces agreement reached with Baghdad. "It's a longer one, but it's a definite timetable. So that bridge has been crossed," he said. "And so the question is how do we do this in a responsible way. And nobody wants to put at risk the gains that have been achieved with so much sacrifice on the part of our soldiers and the Iraqis at this point," he said.
Gates concurred with Obama's view that South Asia is the region that now poses the greatest threat of attack to the United States, observing that "we basically have our foot on the neck of Al Qaeda in Iraq."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Surrendering a significant US military presence in Iraq, to include rights for action against regional adversaries, would be probably the greatest strategic blunder in US history. Not to mention a betrayal (of dead Americans and allied Iraqis) comparable to the abandonment of S. Vietnam.
#4
The One wants to end the $ 12B per month drain on the budget that the Iraq war is causing. Gates is a RINO. A man who comes to us from the Central Intelligence buraucracy. He has no military background or foundation. He who will turn on General Petraeus and the military as will The One when the time is right.
Excerpt from The Failure Factory:
Even in May 2008, when the pressure led Obama to equivocate somewhat (he said, for instance, that he wasn't sure "Ahmadinejad is the right person to meet with right now") - featured prominately on the Obama campaign's website - proudly and unabiguously declared, "Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidentual diplomacy with Iran without precoditions" (emphasis added). But the same month Obama received support from a seemingly unlikely source: President Bush's defense secretary, Robert M. Gates. On May 14, Gates told a reporter that he favored the conciliatory approach to Iran expoused by liberal New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman - an approach that happened to run counter to the administration's stated position. We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage with respect to the Iranians and then sit down and talk with them." Gates said. The defense secretary explicitly proposed making consessions to Ahmadinejad's radical regime.
About 58% - 42% with half the votes of the November election.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
not a surprise... hard to get the deadbeats out to vote a second time when:
a) martin aint black
b) it is cold outside
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
12/03/2008 1:11
Comments ||
Top||
#2
c) when buyers' remorse kicks in
d) and when Palin is around drawing crowds while ACORN has not enough deceased voters and cartoon characters to marshall around.
#3
Not that I'm complaining, but isn't it interesting that Centrist President Elect could not take a day off to fly down and endorse endorse Martin? No need to be seen or televised backing a loser I suppose eh? Quite the discussion yesterday at the barber shop.
#4
@#3: I heard Saxby Chambliss last night talking about that point.
He pointed out that he had gotten more votes in his race than O! did in Georgia. He figured it would really fire up the GOP base if O! had come, and O! may well have figured the same way.
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats ||
12/03/2008 8:54
Comments ||
Top||
#5
Now, if we can just get Franken to realize he is a loser.
#6
we have a rep race here that EVERY precinct has reported in and the Dem still wont concede. Waiting for somebody to come up with an extr 2k ballots aint easy and takes time.
In the PBR the Chancellor, at a stroke, doubled government debt to more than £1 trillion. The Conservatives warned at the time that this sort of economic recklessness would weaken market confidence in the UK economy.
Figures released this afternoon appear to show this is already happening and as a consequence the market view of the risk of the UK Government defaulting on its debt has reached a record high. The Tories say...
"The markets now rate the default risk for UK Government debt higher than that of Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Finland, Germany and Norway, a judgment largely based on the government's decision to take on unprecedented borrowing in last week's Pre-Budget Report. Over the last year, the perceived default risk for the UK has increased almost 15-fold.
"The cost of hedging against default on bonds is shown by the credit default swap spread (the CDS spread). On December 1st, the closing spread on UK 5 year government debt was 99.4 basis points. On December 2nd, Bloomberg reported that the intra-day credit default swap spread for 5 year UK government debt had reached a new record high of 106.5 basis points. On December 3rd 2007, the CDS spread was 7.2 basis points.
"German government credit default swap spreads on December 1st were 38.1 bp, Norway: 32.3 bp, Finland: 48.4 bp France: 54.4 bp, Netherlands: 66.1 bp. Belgium: 74.5 bp and Portugal: 99.2 bp."
No wonder Fox News had that ticker about Britain going bankrupt. Can Gordon Brown really keep a straight face next time he tells us that our economy is better placed than our main competitors? He must know what an outright lie he is telling, or is he doing the equivalent of a spolit child sticking its fingers in its ears and shouting "La la la, not listening!"?
Law enforcement agencies, including police and Rangers, for the first time, set foot in the Afghan Camp and conducted a door-to-door search operation.
The operation was carried out on the fourth day of unrest in the city, which has claimed at least 48 lives and wounded hundreds. The police and Rangers apprehended 24 alleged criminals and recovered ammunition.
The joint operation lasted for two-and-a-half hours in the area also known as the Kochi Camp and has a population of 1,500 people. "We entered the Afghan Camp for the first time ever," Gulshan Town SP Sohail Zafar Chatta told Daily Times.
"All the arrested men are professional criminals and their arrests were made according to the lists maintained by the intelligence and law enforcement agencies," Chatta said. "These men always disturbed the law and order situation at Super Highway after any incident in the city. They have even been involved in various cases including police encounters, robberies, highway robberies and snatchings to name a few," he added. He said the operation would continue today (Wednesday).
Police claimed to have arrested as many as five high profile criminals but their names were not disclosed.
The families of those arrested claim the men were tortured by the police.
Four killed: Reuters quoted Karachi police chief Waseem Ahmed as saying four people were killed in different incidents in the early hours of Tuesday but the city had been mostly calm since then.
"There has been no major incident since the morning," Ahmed told Reuters.
After the three days of mayhem in Karachi, life returned to normalcy in the city on Tuesday, although people living in sensitive and affected areas, where the law and order situation was extremely deteriorated during riots, passed the day in a state of fear.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
Is this their gesture of good faith to the Indians over the Bombay massacre?
The NWFP government has asked the federal government to take decisive action against a Taliban builup in Jamrud, a senior official told Daily Times on Tuesday.
"The government has to take action or we shall see Iraq-like situation in the area in the coming few months," the official said on condition of anonymity, referring to the deteriorating law and order situation in the city and growing Taliban activities in Jamrud and adjacent areas of Khyber and Mohmand agencies.
He said a high-level meeting was held in the provincial capital two days ago to discuss the situation emerging in Jamrud tehsil and on the outskirts of Peshawar. The meeting chaired by the chief minister and attended by top security officials and others discussed the prevailing lawlessness in the province and termed it a result of mounting Taliban activity in Khyber Agency.
He said the meeting had noted that Taliban from Jamrud were responsible for kidnappings and attacks on NATO supply convoys.
The official hoped that the rising Taliban-related trouble on the country's western border would reduce in the wake of tension between India and Pakistan following the Mumbai terrorist attacks. "It is because the focus will be shifted to the country's eastern border due to a threat of war from the Indian side," he elaborated. He said the United States was now pressing the central government to go for decisive action against Taliban.
The residents of Peshawar and adjacent areas are feeling insecure after the snatching of 13 trucks in Jamrud, clashes between police and Taliban in Matani and Ring Road areas and Sunday's attack on a terminal in Peshawar where 21 trucks destined for Afghanistan were gutted.
Located at a stone's throw from Peshawar, the once peaceful Jamrud area is fast becoming a strong bastion of Taliban who are operating with impunity. Their presence is not only a cause of serious concern for the provincial government, but for the residents of Jamrud as well.
The provincial government's call comes as the country has witnessed an unprecedented surge in violence and lawlessness in the insurgency-wracked Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) as well as the settled districts of NWFP in November.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
The Islamic Republic plans to build two new 1000-megawatt units at the Bushehr nuclear power complex, says a senior Iranian official.
The deputy director of the Iran Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO), Ahmad Fayyazbakhsh, said that instead of completing the second unit at the Bushehr plant, Iranian authorities have decided to build two new reactors. "IAEO officials plan to build two new units with a capability of 1,000 MW each, rather than completing the second unit of the Bushehr nuclear reactor," IRNA quoted Fayyazbakhsh as saying on Tuesday.
Work on the first unit of the Bushehr nuclear power plant is in its final stage. IAEO spokesman Mohsen Delaviz said in November that the plant is scheduled to become fully operational in 2009. "The commissioning stages of the Bushehr nuclear plant have begun, and we are hopeful that the plant will be launched in 2009, as per the agreement we have with the Russian party," said Delaviz.
Russia's Atomstroyexport has been helping Iran in the construction of a nuclear power plant capable of generating 1,000 megawatts of electricity annually under a contract signed in 1995. The Russian company also trains Iranian specialists and has so far delivered eight fuel shipments to the reactor.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Which is worse: the fact that Iran is building nuclear power plants, or the fact that we aren't?
WASHINGTON: The terrorist massacre in Mumbai was plotted in Pakistan and was executed by Pakistanis, Indian and US officials now agree. The big question now: How culpable are the Pakistani government and its military and intelligence agency, and how can the answer be handled either way it turns out?
That's the tricky issue facing New Delhi and Washington as they put together pieces of the terrorist jigsaw to claimed 170-plus lives, including nearly 40 Muslims and nationals from 10 countries.
US advice to India: wait and see how Pakistani government cooperates in the investigation before any punitive action. US directive to Islamabad: prove your protestations of innocence and non-complicity at the official level, with a full and transparent cooperation in the face of overwhelming evidence that the footprints of the terror attack lead back to Pakistan.
This is the gist of the exchanges between the three countries. On Tuesday, Washington broadly accepted India's contention, based on evidence now shared with US law enforcement and intelligence agencies that the terror trail led to Pakistan. The preponderance of proof include detailed confessions by the one surviving terrorist, GPS tracks, e-mail and electronic tracks, telephone intercepts, and ordnance and forensic evidence, among other things.
US acceptance of India's case -- dismissed out-of-hand as knee-jerk, premature etc -- was signaled by an unnamed senior American official who was quoted by Reuters as saying ''There are a lot of reasons to think it might be a group, partially or wholly a group, that is located on Pakistan's territory.''
The official, accompanying Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on her trip to the sub-continent, also said Islamabad had accepted the ''possibility that there might be people located on Pakistani territory,'' involved in the attack and had promised to cooperate in the investigation.
#2
Generally speaking, I think Condi's record with Muslim countries speaks for itself, and will transcend to a Hillary-led State.
Pakistan can ignore the US, placate the Indians and simply wait and see if BHO was born with a pair good for more than spawning...
(SomaliNet) About 2,000 youths have stormed a mosque in the restive Nigerian city of Jos. Muslim leaders eventually succeeded in calming the crowd.
At least 3,000 police officers are patrolling the streets to prevent new outbursts of violence. Reinforcements have been sent to Jos from across Nigeria. The situation is reasonably calm, even though hundreds of scared residents are still spending the night in churches, mosques and army camps.
On Friday, rioting broke out between Muslims and Christians over the results of a local election. The violence has claimed at least 200 lives in two days.
Jos is located in central Nigeria, the border region between the predominantly Muslim north and the Christian south of the country. The authorities in cities near Jos have taken additional security measures to prevent the violence spilling over.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Global Jihad
A 2-year-old survived an attack that took the lives of his parents, thanks to a quick-thinking nanny who grabbed the boy and dashed past gunmen to safety. Sandra Samuel and Moshe Holtzberg were the only ones to survive a siege on Mumbai's Chabad House last week.
It could be called one the miracles of last week's tragedy in Mumbai, India. Two-year-old Moshe Holtzberg and nanny Sandra Samuel were the only ones to make it out of the Chabad House alive after gunmen stormed the house, killing Chabad House directors Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, and four others.
Rivka Holtzberg, who arrived in Mumbai with her husband five years ago to serve the city's small Jewish community, was pregnant, her father said at her funeral Tuesday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
Those at the Chabad House were among 179 people killed last week when gunmen targeted several sites across Mumbai, including two luxury hotels, a train station and a hospital.
As the siege at the Chabad House began, Samuel heard the commotion, locked the doors and hid in a room. "She heard Mrs. Holtzberg -- Rivka -- screaming, 'Sandra, Sandra, help, Sandra,' " said Robert Katz, executive vice president of the Israeli organization Migdal Ohr.
The gunmen reportedly went door-to-door, searching for targets. Samuel unlocked her door and dared the gunmen to stop her, according to Katz. She then ran upstairs to find the Holtzbergs shot dead, lying on the ground with their son crying over them. "She literally picked him up and made a dash for the exits, almost daring the terrorists to shoot a woman carrying a baby," Katz said.
The two arrived in Israel early Tuesday on a flight with the boy's maternal grandparents and the bodies of his parents. "Moshe, you have no living mother and father. ... Today you become the child of all Israel," Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, a Chabad official from New York, said in a short ceremony at the Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv.
The return of the bodies was delayed until authorities removed hand grenades from the bodies, left there by the attackers, Katz said.
Leading the efforts to provide Moshe with shelter and support is his great-uncle, Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman, founder of Migdal Ohr, Israel's largest youth village. It provides more than 6,500 "orphaned, impoverished, underprivileged and new immigrant children" with homes and education. "Who could have ever predicted that someone who has dedicated his whole life to caring for orphans and children at risk would now be faced with having to care for his own grand-nephew and would need to help bury his own niece and nephew?" Katz asked.
Grossman also secured a one-year visa in Israel for Samuel to assist in caring for the boy as he transitions to his new life, Katz said in a statement on Migdal Ohr's Web site.
The Holtzbergs were laid to rest Tuesday in a service that drew thousands of mourners and emissaries from the ultra-Orthodox Chabad movement to the Israeli village of Kfar Chabad, a village of 900 families just outside Tel Aviv.
Including the Holtzbergs, four Israelis, an American Jew and a Mexican woman were gunned down last week in the attack on Mumbai's Chabad House, a Jewish center where the couple ministered to people from the community and welcomed them to pray, eat kosher food or celebrate Jewish holidays.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I would be the last one to defend the terrrists,but I would like to know if there is any evidence that they spared little Moshe's life?
NEW DELHI - Ten terrorists carried out the attacks on India's financial hub Mumbai last week, all of them arriving by boat from Pakistan's port city of Karachi, Mumbai's police chief Hasan Gafoor said Tuesday at a press briefing. Gafoor said the one terrorist captured by the police had admitted he came from Punjab province of Pakistan.
'Investigations are at an advanced stage. I would not like to reveal further details,' Gafoor said at the televised briefing. The men were trained in Pakistan by former military men for a year and a half, the police chief said, again adding that he would not like to give locations or details at this stage in the investigation.
Gafoor sad there was, as yet, no evidence of local support, though some people were being questioned. He also said there was so far no evidence that the terrorists were using drugs, as has been reported by some media. The police found credit cards and Indian currency ranging from 2000 to 4500 rupees (40 to 90 dollars) on each of the terrorists.
The police chief also said that his department had no specific intelligence indicating the possibility of the attacks.
A team from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation was in Mumbai. 'We are sharing information with them and security agencies all over the world,' the police cief said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
thats really bad i think INDIAINS are fools they always puts blame on others specialy on PAKISTAN but the reality is some thing els, INDIANS Never proved in the past so they should see what is hapning in, who is really behind all this? may be BJP, Shucina and other extreemist HINDUS are involved or may be this was a preplaned DRAMA like WTT USA. I think this Drama was created for a Target KILLING of those Police Officers who was investigating the Male-Gaoon blast and who was exposed the Atari Train blast, so they was killed within 1st 15 mints. So shamfull Behavioer have been shown on all Indian chanells and Gvt. Officials now a days you cant make the people fool as Indian done in the past.
Posted by: David Obama ||
12/03/2008 6:15
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Are you perchance from the Land Of The Pure, Mr. Obama? Because that was about the prettiest bit of data-free conspiracy mongering that I've seen in quite some time. Do remember that American Intelligence has been tracing the information carried on the terrorists' cell phones; no doubt the missiles are being programmed even as we speak.
Now were you to have switched India for Pakistan in your statement -- and of course Pakistan for India -- you would have been cheered to the rafters for your astute understanding of that which is obvious even to the littlest, sheltered, Midwestern housewife... but alas, you did not do so.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says even if the price of oil hits zero, Iran has enough foreign exchange reserves to last for 'three years'.
"As far as the foreign exchange reserve is concerned, we are in good shape, and even if the price of oil hits zero, we can manage the country for about three years," the Fars News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
"The foresight of the country's managers prevented Iran from being swallowed by the global economy, and this helped us because it decreased our susceptibility to the world financial crisis," he said in a live TV address in Tehran on Tuesday.
Ahmadinejad noted that the sanctions imposed on Iran and the Islamic Revolution's prioritization of self-sufficiency helped Iran become strong enough to withstand the "waves of the world economic crisis."
"We thank those countries that imposed sanctions on us because these sanctions helped Iran stand on its own two feet," the Iranian president said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
"We thank those countries that imposed sanctions on us because these sanctions helped Iran stand on its own two feet," the Iranian president said.
Good. Win-win. We got more where that came from Mo.
India on Monday formally accused "elements" in Pakistan of being behind the recent Islamic militant attacks in Mumbai and demanded that Islamabad take "strong action."
The move came after Indian officials said investigations had shown that all the attackers involved in the 60-hour-long assault, which left at least 172 dead and close to 300 wounded, were Pakistani nationals. The attacks were also described as a "major setback" for the peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
"The [ambassador] of Pakistan was called to the Ministry of External Affairs this evening. He was informed that the recent terrorist attack on Mumbai was carried out by elements from Pakistan," a statement said.
In New Delhi's first formal complaint to Islamabad, India said it "expects that strong action would be taken against those elements, whosoever they may be, responsible for this outrage."
A Jewish center was among the targets and eyewitnesses said some attackers singled out Britons and Americans in two luxury hotels. Civilians were also gunned down in a railway station, hospital and a cafe. "What has happened is a grave setback to the process of normalization of relations and the confidence-building measures," Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma told AFP.
Officials said they are convinced the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, possibly with assistance from sections within Pakistan's powerful spy service, staged the operation.
But Pakistan's government has denied it was in any way linked to the operation by the well-trained attackers. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has urged India not to "over-react."
India's ruling Congress party said any response would be "carefully considered" but made it clear that a line had been crossed. "We have been confronted by a rising tide of terrorism for some time but the attack in Mumbai was qualitatively different and calls for immediate and stern action," Congress spokeswoman Jayanti Natarajan told reporters.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is due to visit India on Wednesday, said it was crucial that Pakistan exhibit "complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation" with the Indian investigation into the attacks. "What we are emphasizing to the Pakistani government is the need to follow the evidence wherever it leads and to do so in the most committed and firmest possible way," she told reporters accompanying her on a trip to Europe.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said she had "heard nothing that says that the Pakistani government was involved.
Pakistan has repeatedly underlined that it is fighting its own battle against Islamist insurgents, who have taken their bloody campaign to the heart of Islamabad and stressed the two nations have a common enemy. Lashkar, which has been battling Indian troops in Kashmir, was banned by Pakistan in 2002.
Public outrage in India was fueled Monday by fresh reports that clear warnings of a coming assault were ignored. The Hindustan Times newspaper said a captured Lashkar operative had told his Indian interrogators back in February that the militant group was planning an attack on Mumbai's five-star hotels.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
The Taliban have killed a Frontier Corps (FC) official who had been in their captivity for the last few days, officials in Orakzai Agency said on Tuesday. The agency's political administration officials told Daily Times that they found the body of FC Lance Naik Hadi Gul in a sack in Sunpag area of upper Orakzai tehsil. They said Gul was abducted a few days ago and the Taliban left his body in the mountains after slaughtering him. Meanwhile, clashes between Shia and Sunni tribes in the agency erupted after a dispute over a girl. One tribesman was injured in the clash between Bar Muhammad Khel (Shia) and Utman Khel (Sunni) tribes, the political administration said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
#1
Isn't that a violation of the Geneva Conventions?
The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Indian police believe a top member of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba masterminded the attacks. Yusuf Muzammil, who the newspaper says is the group's head of terrorism operations against India, was among leaders thought to have talked by satellite phone with the gunmen in the two days before they arrived by boat in Mumbai, according to the report. Whoa! That hits home! I take Muzammil every time I get constipated.
An unidentified Bush administration official also told AFP on Tuesday that Lashkar-e-Tayyaba's involvement was a possibility.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Taiba
#5
Double your pleasure, double your fun
A double pleasure is waiting for you
A double pleasure for Doublemint Gum!
A double great feeling making you realize
Doublemint is one for you!
Double fresh, double smooth,
double delicious to choose.
A double pleasure is waiting for you,
a double pleasure is waiting for you
One of the most high-profile terrorism suspects in Britain was ordered back to jail on Tuesday after it was ruled he had breached his bail conditions.
Jordanian cleric Omar Othman, better known as Abu Qatada and who was once described as Osama bin Laden's top operative in Europe, had been accused of plotting to flee Britain. "I'm pleased that the court has agreed that Abu Qatada should have his bail revoked," said Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. "He poses a significant threat to our national security and am I pleased that he will be detained pending his deportation, which I am working hard to secure." Qatada was arrested by the British authorities in 2002 under now defunct laws which allowed foreigners suspected of involvement in terrorism to be held without charge. He was later freed on bail but was detained again in 2005 as part of a group of Arab men the government wanted to deport on national security grounds while acknowledging it did not have enough evidence to put them on trial.
However, earlier this year Qatada defeated the attempt to deport him after Appeal Court judges ruled he would not face a fair trial in his homeland and in June he was freed from prison on bail, albeit on strict conditions. These stated that he had to be confined to his home for 22 hours a day and could only leave between 10 and 11 am and 2 and 3 pm. He was also forbidden from using any mobile telephone or computer, or connecting in any way to the Internet.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Britain
#1
he looks like a dog that chased too many parked cars
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2008 8:17
Comments ||
Top||
#2
If we regular Folks would just Render Down every Lard Ass Islamic Guru we'd have enough FAT to burn for a 1000 years!
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.
Two policemen were injured when a suspected extremist opened fire while they were trying to arrest a former activist of the banned 
Six Taliban were killed and several others injured in security forces' operation in several areas of Bajaur Agency on Tuesday. Locals said troops targeted 
Former United States secretary of state Madeleine Albright described Pakistan as an 'international migraine' on Tuesday.
An Iraqi court sentenced Saddam Hussein's cousin "Chemical Ali" to death on Tuesday for crushing a Shiite revolt after the 1991 Gulf War. 
A U.N. special commission investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri reported Tuesday that it has uncovered fresh evidence that could lead to more suspects.
Tim Down knows that 1 millimeter is nothing to sniff at. This past summer, the fruit and vegetable wholesaler was caught with kiwi fruit that were too small by about that much -- 0.04 of an inch. 
One of the most high-profile terrorism suspects in Britain was ordered back to jail on Tuesday after it was ruled he had breached his bail conditions. 
