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NKor bans nuke inspectors
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
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Europe
US ‘will lose financial superpower status’
The US will lose its role as a global financial “superpower” in the wake of the financial crisis, Peer Steinbrück, German finance minister, forecast on Thursday in the most outspoken comments by a senior European government figure since Wall Street plunged into chaos two weeks ago.

Mr Steinbrück, a Social Democrat and long-time champion of tougher financial market rules, said the US government was to blame for the severity of the crisis because it had resisted European calls for stricter regulation until it was too late.

“The US will lose its status as the superpower of the world financial system” with the emergence of stronger, better-capitalised centres in Asia and Europe, he told the German parliament. “The world will never be the same again.”

His comments echo deep anger in Germany at the perceived recklessness of Anglo-Saxon financial engineering and a feeling that the US model of economic liberalism has failed while the more regulated, long-term oriented and industry-based German economy has proved more resilient.

“Ten years from now,” he later told journalists, “we will see 2008 as a fundamental rupture. I am not saying the dollar will lose its reserve currency status, but it will become relative.”

The minister said it had been “irresponsible” of the US government to oppose stricter regulation even after the subprime crisis had broken out. This laisser faire ideology, he said, “was as simplistic as it was dangerous ... This largely under-regulated system is collapsing today.”

Mr Steinbrück did have warm words for the US’s crisis management in the past fortnight, including the planned $700bn rescue package for the financial sector. Washington, he said, had acted not just in the US’s interest but also in the interest of other nations.

Speaking after Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president and current holder of the European Union presidency, called for an emergency G8 meeting on the financial crisis, Mr Steinbrück said tougher capital market rules were now urgently needed.

His proposals include a ban on “speculative short selling”; a crackdown on variable pay for bankers; a ban on banks securitising more than 80 per cent of any asset they hold; international standards making bank managers personally responsible for their trades and increased supervisory co-operation.

He said France and Germany would set up a working group of treasury, central bank and supervisory authority officials.
Posted by: tipper || 09/25/2008 20:06 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If you say so, Herr Finanzminister Steinbrueck. You did notice that recently the Euro fell, what was it, 10% against the U.S. dollar? Clearly not everyone agrees with your assessment at the moment -- although admittedly this crisis will be a while unwinding, and stronger, better-capitalized financial centers in Europe and Asia would certainly be a good thing for us all. But I do not doubt the Germans dislike the American way of doing things when it is different than the German way. 'Tis ever so.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 20:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Herr Herr Steinbrück stopped just short of calling us a... "mongrel nation."
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 20:34 Comments || Top||

#3  Yeah, Besoeker - guess he couldn't bring himself to compliment us.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 20:38 Comments || Top||

#4  I wish there were an isolationist running. We should withdraw from Nato and sign a mutual defence treaty with Poland, the Baltic, and the Czech Republics.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 09/25/2008 20:54 Comments || Top||

#5  Peer, The rest of the world has been catching up to the U.S. for decades. Glad you've finally noticed.

Also, please allow me to make my own prediction. Germany gets hammered by this. Anytime there's a global slowdown, export based economies take the harder hits.
Posted by: Mike N. || 09/25/2008 21:21 Comments || Top||

#6  Compare wid WAFF.com > RUSSIA'S GLOBAL WAR GAMES [jamestown.org artic] > "STABILITY 2008" RUSSO-BELARUSIAN MILEX reportedly is premised on an increasingly deteriorating geopol situation and POSSIBLE NUCLEAR WAR AGZ THE US-NATO; + TOPIX > US ARMY GENERALS PLAN FOR FUTURE RESOURCE WARS + NEW ARMY STRATEGY DETAILS 30-40 YEARS OF PERSISTENT WORLDWIDE WARFARE FOR RESOURCES [mainly agz RUSSIA-CHINA].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 21:26 Comments || Top||

#7  He better hope not. Where the US economy goes the rest of the world follows longer, deeper, and harder.

Posted by: FOTSGreg || 09/25/2008 22:58 Comments || Top||

#8  "at the perceived recklessness of Anglo-Saxon financial engineering"

now, this guy is a wordsmith . . . .
Posted by: General_Comment || 09/25/2008 23:48 Comments || Top||

#9  Or an unemployed Pravda drone?
Posted by: Frank G || 09/25/2008 23:53 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Gun sales brisk ahead of election
Posted by: tipper || 09/25/2008 19:02 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ammo is goin' through the roof.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 09/25/2008 22:13 Comments || Top||

#2  I bought my first gun this past May and go to the local shooting range every week for two reasons: fear of rioting if Obama loses and fear of Obama banning guns if he doesn't.
Posted by: Scott R || 09/25/2008 22:38 Comments || Top||

#3  Had my stash since Clinton was in office.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/25/2008 22:41 Comments || Top||

#4  Probably reflects that people are worried that BO might get elected. Despite what Obama says, I don't believe he is a 2nd Amendment advocate. The 2nd Amendment was put in the Bill of Rights by the founding fathers with good reason. They were worried about a government running amok and they wanted to insure the rights of the people.

Might have to buy a reloader to get ammo price down some.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/25/2008 23:32 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Pakistani, US troops exchange fire
PAKISTANI and US troops exchanged fire along the Pakistani-Afghan border overnight after two US military helicopters came under fire, a US military spokesman said.

Rear Admiral Gregory Smith said Pakistani soldiers at a border checkpoint were seen firing on two US OH-58 Kiowa helicopters covering a patrol of Afghan and US troops about 2km inside Afghanistan.

"The ground forces then fired into the hillside nearby that checkpoint, gained their attention, which worked,'' Rear Admiral Smith said.

"Unfortunately, though, the Pak unit decided to shoot down a hillside at our ground forces. Our ground forces returned fire.''

Rear Admiral Smith, a spokesman for the US Central Command, said no one on either side was hit in the exchange, which occurred in late afternoon, and the helicopters never fired any rounds.

"The whole thing lasted about five minutes,'' he said.

"It all ended quickly.''

The Pakistani military said its troops had fired warning shots at two helicopters which were "well within Pakistani territory".

But Rear Admiral Smith and Pentagon officials said the helicopters were in Afghan air space.

The ground unit that spotted the Pakistanis firing at the helicopters consisted of a small US training team embedded with an Afghan border police unit, he said.

But at the United Nations in New York today, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said Pakistan's military was firing "flares" to warn the helicopters about the location of the border with Afghanistan.

Mr Zardari, who was beginning a meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, contradicted the accounts that the US helicopters had come under small arms fire inside Afghan territory.

"You mean the flares," he replied when asked about the US accounts, adding the flares were "to make sure that they know that they have crossed the border line".

Sometimes the border is so mixed that they don't realise they have crossed the border," said Mr Zardari, seated opposite Dr Rice in a luxury hotel.

As reporters filed out of the room, Dr Rice told Mr Zardari: "The border is very, very unclear, I know."

Later, Mr Zardari told the UN General Assembly that Pakistan would not allow its sovereignty to be violated by its allies.

"Just as we will not let Pakistani's territory to be used by terrorists for attacks against our people and our neighbours, we cannot allow our territory and our sovereignty to be violated by our friends," he said.
Posted by: tipper || 09/25/2008 18:54 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "That's TWO..."
Posted by: mojo || 09/25/2008 21:09 Comments || Top||

#2  Welcome to the party. You're on our dance card.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 09/25/2008 21:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Get some of that.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/25/2008 22:33 Comments || Top||

#4 
"Just as we will not let Pakistani's territory to be used by terrorists for attacks against our people and our neighbours, we cannot allow our territory and our sovereignty to be violated by our friends," he said.

Words, words, words...
Barack Obama and Zardari have something in common.
They way they use words, words come to not mean much.
In fact there words seem to be meaningless.
To Obama and zardari words are no more than political hot air to be consumed by their Kool-Aid drinking patrons.
Since no one is in charge of Pakistan, the axiom must be true.
Since Pakistan can't control its frontier, it can neither stop terrorists nor other forces should they intervene.
Posted by: KissMyAss || 09/25/2008 23:58 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Polar bears cut off from penguin supply because of melting ice.
"The Arctic sea ice melt is a disaster for the polar bears," according to Kassie Siegel, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. "They are dependent on the Arctic sea ice for all of their essential behaviors, and as the ice melts and global warming transforms the Arctic, polar bears are starving, drowning, even resorting to cannibalism because they don't have access to their usual food sources."

Scientists have noticed increasing reports of starving Arctic polar bears attacking and feeding on one another in recent years. In one documented 2004 incident in northern Alaska, a male bear broke into a female's den and killed her. My headline is almost as dumb as this statement. Polar bears like lions are known to attack the cubs of a female. Often the female is killed trying to protect her young.

In May, the U.S. Department of Interior listed the polar bear as a "threatened" species under the Endangered Species Act. In a news release, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne stated, "loss of sea ice threatens and will likely continue to threaten polar bear habitat. This loss of habitat puts polar bears at risk of becoming endangered in the foreseeable future, the standard established by the ESA for designating a threatened species."
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 09/25/2008 18:36 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "polar bears are starving, drowning, even resorting to cannibalism"

Oh, ferchrissakes, dumbass - polar bear can SWIM.

And why are the polar bears even around, if what you say is true? Why didn't earlier even warmer periods send the polar bears into extinction?

Idiots.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 18:50 Comments || Top||

#2  "Polar bears cut off from penguin supply because of melting ice."

So do you want ice between North Pole and South Pole?

:D
Posted by: Dino Pholulet5957 || 09/25/2008 19:48 Comments || Top||

#3  More likely due to overpopulation.
Posted by: DoDo || 09/25/2008 20:00 Comments || Top||

#4  Polar bears survived the warming trend around 1000 when it was 3-4 deg C warmer than now, they survived the warming trend that happened 5000 years ago, they will survive long after our generation is ashes.

More scare tactics from the now desperate greens to be noticed. Sorry chums, people look after their shrinking money in their wallet and look out for themselves now instead of listening to you.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/25/2008 20:24 Comments || Top||

#5  HISTORY CHANNEL "MONSTERQUEST"/OTHER > Polar bears are not only swimming, they'e making landfall in NORTHERN CANADA and having sex wid the local CINDY BEARS [Yogi Toon], ala so-called "PRIZZLY/PROWN BEARS" [Polar-Grizzly/Brown Bear Hybrid]???

ALso reportedly spotted in GREENLAND-ICELAND [Sorry, were NOT drinking BUDWEISER BEER].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 20:33 Comments || Top||

#6  I think the staple of a Polar Bear diet is fish. This entire article is nonsense.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 09/25/2008 20:38 Comments || Top||

#7  ...or slow natives, or the truly rare tourist/journalist ignoramus.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/25/2008 21:49 Comments || Top||

#8  Fish, seals, and whatever they can catch.

The thing is, Polar Bears will swim long distances in search of food. Like from the limits of the icepack down to Iceland. (I think this happened earlier this year, where the authorities pointed out that it was the first time in twenty years or so that it had happened... and then shot the bear. We're supposed to be doing all sorts of stuff to ourselves and deindustrializing to save the Polar Bear. Hey guys, what about y'all just stop shooting at them?)
Posted by: Abdominal Snowman || 09/25/2008 22:32 Comments || Top||

#9  Maybe when it's starved and lost all fat, the bear sinks . . . .
Posted by: General_Comment || 09/25/2008 23:33 Comments || Top||


UC Berkeley Chancellor Accuses Tree Sitters Of Racism
“[R]acism against our minority student athletes ... underlies much of the opposition to our student athlete high performance center,” declared UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau in a letter sent to two major donors to the school.

That allegation in a June 27 letter stunned the recipients, Berkeley residents and long-time university donors and supporters Thomas and Janice Boyce.

The appearance of the letter, given to this newspaper by a third party, comes as the campus is launching the public phase of a $3 billion endowment fund-raiser, with Birgeneau in the lead.

The chancellor’s letter followed earlier letters from the couple questioning the university’s handling of the tree-sit protest at the now-leveled grove at Memorial Stadium, as well as the expense of rehiring campus police chief Victoria Harrison.

Stephan Volker, one of the attorneys who challenged the university’s plans to level the grove to build the four-level high-tech gym and office complex, called Birgeneau’s claim “beyond bizarre.”

“It seems the university will leave no stone unturned to smear anyone who disagrees with their policies,” said the attorney, who briefly attended the school himself and whose spouse and a son received Cal degrees...
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/25/2008 18:31 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  WTF?
Hippies aren't racist!
This guy is dangerously insane.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/25/2008 22:46 Comments || Top||


Sunbathing topless not recommended for fatty and not pretty women
News you can use, from Pravda.
Posted by: Mike || 09/25/2008 17:23 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Pravda means truth. And, for once, it applies...
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 22:54 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Sacrilege of Chinese Lederhosen threatens Oktoberfest!
The Munich Oktoberfest, the annual showcase of Bavarian culture, got off to a rousing start with almost a million visitors downing 450,000 liters of beer over the opening weekend. But folk societies are warning that the region’s proud heritage is under attack from cheap Lederhosen made in China, India and Eastern Europe.

Mein Gott!!
Posted by: Mike || 09/25/2008 17:20 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  what is lederhosen?
Posted by: sinse || 09/25/2008 17:43 Comments || Top||

#2  Leather shorts with cute suspenders, worn mostly by Bavarian men, sinse. (Though I think men in Austria and Switzerland also wear them.)

Go here.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 18:30 Comments || Top||

#3  what is lederhosen?

It's what's worn by adult males who haven't been hammered by Stacy and Clinton yet. And being drunk isn't an excuse except for being bare naked in Soldiers Field to watch the Bears play on a December Sunday.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/25/2008 19:06 Comments || Top||

#4  An article posted here not long ago by that ponce of a British writer on his way to hang out in the Enclosure at the Munich Oktoberfest said that only tourists wear the cheap foreign-made Lederhosen. Locals and those in the know buy local brands from certain exclusive shops. Rantburg's own European Conservative weighed in on the subject.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 19:27 Comments || Top||

#5  Clothes like this are wrong on so many levels . . . .
Posted by: General_Comment || 09/25/2008 19:55 Comments || Top||


Transsexual aliens invade New Jersey!
Transsexual alien eels, that is:

Just when we thought that Dirty Jerse had hit rock bottom, its rivers and forests have become overrun with a slimy, invasive species of eel that can live for months during droughts and change sex if necessary in order to keep reproducing. The Asian swamp eels were found recently in Silver Lake.
Posted by: Mike || 09/25/2008 17:19 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Transsexual aliens invade New Jersey!

How can they tell?
Posted by: Abdominal Snowman || 09/25/2008 17:52 Comments || Top||

#2  We are coming up to the 70th anniversary of the last alien invasion of NJ.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 09/25/2008 23:34 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Press Screams Finally: In a First, Palin Takes Press Questions
'cause, they didn't like her answers! Silly questions, too
Sarah Palin fielded four questions from a small group of reporters Thursday after touring several Sept. 11-related sites, articulating a forceful approach to the war on terror but offering mostly evasive answers to specific questions.

She also wouldn't say whether she supports the reelection bids of embattled Alaska Republicans Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young. "Ted Stevens' trial started a couple days ago. We'll see where that goes," she told reporters in what amounted to her first press conference since accepting the Republican vice presidential nomination.

She ignored a follow-up question on whether she would vote for Stevens and Young and wouldn't say whether she would have done anything differently than the Bush administration in its war on terror.
Anything different? Hundreds of dissertations will be written about Bush's administration in this war, and they want an on-the-spot answer.
"I agree with the Bush administration that we take the fight to them," she said. "We never again let them come onto our soil and try to destroy not only our democracy but communities like the community of New York. Never again. So, yes, I do agree with taking the fight to the terrorists and stopping them over there."

She deflected a follow-up question about whether she felt the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan has inflamed Islamic extremists.
And please tell me, what does that have to do with price of tea in China? They followed her around all week, to ask that?
"I think our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan will lead to further security of our nation, again, because the mission is to take the fight over there. Do not let them come over here and attempt again what they accomplished here, and that was some destruction, terrible destruction on that day. But since Sept. 11, Americans are uniting and rebuilding and committing to never letting that happen again."

In response to a question about the bailout package before Congress, she said, "I don't support that until the provisions that Sen. McCain has offered are implemented in [Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson's proposals."

Palin broke her campaign trail media silence after touring several Sept. 11-related sites and delivering a brief statement on the lessons of Sept. 11 in front of a firehouse that lost many of its firefighters in the World Trade Center disaster.

"Every American student needs to come through this area so that, especially this younger generation of Americans, to be in a position of never forgetting what happened here and never repeating, never allowing a repeat of what happened here. I wish every American would come through here. I wish every world leader would come through here and understand what it is that took place here and, more importantly, how America came together and united to commit to never allowing this to happen again. And just to hear from and see these good New Yorkers who are rebuilding not just this but are helping to rebuild America has been very, very inspiring and encouraging. These are the good Americans who are committed to peace and security, and it's been an absolute honor getting to meet these folks today."

Before that, Palin took a 20-minute tour of the Tribute WTC 9/11 museum, took in a firefighters memorial, spent 25 minutes in a center for families of victims of the terrorist attacks, then met with New York City firefighters.

Palin was ushered into the museum by Lee Ielpi, president of the board of directors of the September 11th Families Association, which maintains the private museum. Ielpi's son, a firefighter, died on Sept. 11, and Jennifer Adams, CEO of the tribute museum, said Palin was moved when Ielpi showed her his son's picture as well as his bunker jacket.

Palin told her guides that her parents came to New York after the attacks and worked in the Staten Island landfill.
Just a tid-bit that reporters didn't vet from their digging
After the tour, Palin observed a memorial wall with John Morabito, a firefighter with Ladder Company 10. "She was actually a little emotional because of the firefighters memorial wall," Morabito said. "I think she was sincere with it. She was friendly. I think she actually is a decent person."

"She seems to be up to date [with] current events and everything that happened on 9/11. She's been given enough information. I'm sure she knows as much as the common American."
Posted by: Sherry || 09/25/2008 17:16 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "I’m sure she knows as much as the common American.” They buried that line??? I can't believe it wasn't the headline.

Why should she talk to these wolves? All they want to do is rip her apart. Biden can verbally vomit all over the floor and they won't care, but one misstep by Gov. Palin and they will slaughter her. Screw em.
Posted by: remoteman || 09/25/2008 18:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Future Vice President Palin is going to have to deal with a vicious press throughout her term in office. It's better if she doesn't wait until after she's sworn in.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 19:16 Comments || Top||

#3  I agree, tw. If Palin strangles one or two of them now with her bare hands in front of the others, the rest will fall in line.
Posted by: SteveS || 09/25/2008 21:21 Comments || Top||

#4  Davie stared down a 'bar, I'm sure Sarah can stare down a bottom sucking illegitimate parasite reporter.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/25/2008 21:52 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Pirates seize Ukrainian ship off Somalia coast
NAIROBI (AFP) — Pirates on Thursday seized a Ukrainian cargo ship off the coast of Somalia while it was en route to the Kenyan port of Mombasa, a maritime official told AFP.

The hijackers commandeered the Belize-flagged Faina to a yet unknown location, said Andrew Mwngura who runs the Kenya chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Programme. "It was sailing from the Baltics and was expected in Mombasa on September 27," he added. "As usual, the pirates were armed on a speedboat when they seized the ship, but we do not know where they have taken it." Somali pirates often take ships to Eyl, a pirate den in the country's northern breakaway region of Puntland.

On Monday, the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre chief Noel Choong said the pirates had changed tactics by attacking further out to sea and on two fronts to evade international security. He said the attackers now operate simultaneously in the Gulf of Aden and on the eastern coast of Somalia and extending their range by operating from larger vessels.

Some pirates have justified their actions by claiming that, in the absence of a functional central authority in Somalia, they were battling illegal fishing and toxic waste dumping by foreign countries.
Ahhhh... they're "environmentalist" pirates.
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 16:36 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  See. They're really "Greenpeace:Somalia"...

GAROWE, Somalia Sep 18 (Garowe Online) - A mysterious gentleman who called Somalia-based Radio Garowe on Thursday claimed to be the spokesman for a self-titled group called the Somali Youth Coastguard.

Identifying himself only as Mr. Wadani (nationalist, in Somali), he read an eight-point press release that included a grave warning to the French government. "We will give a clear answer to the French government's action," Mr. Wadani said, while referring to French commandos who killed one suspected pirate, arrested six others and freed two French citizens who were being held hostage off of Somalia's Puntland coast. Mr. Wadani demanded that the French government "immediately release the Somali youth," referring to the six suspected pirates arrested during last Tuesday's military operation. He warned that any attempt at further military action "will harm the safety of the hostages" aboard some 10 ships currently being held for ransom near Somali waters.

Foreign governments and ship owners were warned to "reach an immediate decision within 48 hours" so the ships and hostages can be freed or the pirates "will take an unexpected step," Mr. Wadani said while reading the press statement.

Further, the statement said that the Somali Youth Coastguard "will not accept the dumping of toxic waste or the robbing of natural resources" along the Somali coast. All foreign vessels caught in Somali territorial waters illegally "will be fined," Mr. Wadani warned.

He distanced the group from any religious or political movement in Somalia, while describing the group as "a popular uprising" against years of international neglect that allowed the dumping of toxic waste along the Somali coastline.
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 16:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Well, if you have Jihad-at-sea, then you have Taqiyya-at-sea too.
Posted by: Grunter || 09/25/2008 17:26 Comments || Top||

#3  What the hell is wrong with these cargo ships? Why are they sailing anywhere close to Somalia.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 18:46 Comments || Top||

#4  Because the alternative to transiting the Suez canal is to go around Africa, one suspects.  And ships that go through the canal end up passing the horn, i.e. Somalia.
Posted by: lotp || 09/25/2008 19:44 Comments || Top||

#5  Look at a map.
Posted by: General_Comment || 09/25/2008 19:48 Comments || Top||

#6  I know what the map looks like. I wonder why anyone thinks it's worthwhile sailing anywhere near Somalia - particularly since the ships apparently refuse to arm themselves. Yes, going around the Horn is longer, but you miss the pirates. Is it really worthwhile to take the chance?

I'm betting the insured owner telling them to take the short route isn't on board to meet the pirates....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 20:36 Comments || Top||

#7  They could avoid these problems by staying close to the Yemeni coast. I suspect they're just trying to save fuel and time (hours) by running the gauntlet. Most times, it works out fine. But other times...
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 09/25/2008 21:03 Comments || Top||

#8  Agree with Zheng Fei.
Posted by: General_Comment || 09/25/2008 22:05 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Dems plan payback for Lieberman
HARTFORD, Conn. -- Connecticut Democrats, angry that Sen. Joe Lieberman is campaigning for the Republican presidential candidate and criticizing his own party's nominee, agreed Wednesday to circulate a resolution to censure the veteran politician but won't consider acting on it until after Election Day.

The state party's central committee Wednesday agreed to send copies of the resolution to every Democratic town committee in the state. The resolution condemns Lieberman for speaking at the Republicans' convention and backing John McCain.

Party officials said the group plans to get input from the town officials and revisit the issue in December. "When we have someone who is our elected senator, as a Democrat, standing in front of not only a national, but an international audience, speaking in support of Sen. McCain, it was the final straw for me personally," said Audrey Blondin, a 30-year party veteran who helped to put together the resolution.

Lieberman was re-elected to the Senate as an independent after losing the Democratic primary in 2006 to businessman Ned Lamont. While he calls himself an "independent Democrat" in the Senate, he remains a registered Democrat and has said he has no plans to change his party affiliation.

Lieberman was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000 and ran for the party's presidential nomination in 2004.

Lieberman and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have been caucusing with Democrats in Washington, giving the party control of the Senate with what is effectively a 51-49 majority -- even though each party has 49 members. Democrats, in turn, have made Lieberman chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Blondin said Lieberman's speech at the Republican National Convention, in which he praised McCain and criticized Democrat Barack Obama, convinced her that state Democrats needed to take a stand. "Our point is not that Joe should in some way be prohibited from supporting McCain or speaking at the National Republican Convention. That's not the issue," Blondin said. "The issue is, he's a Democrat. And Joe, in our opinion, needs to reconsider membership in our party."

Lieberman, speaking earlier Wednesday to a radio station, said that he was surprised by the move to censure him. "Honestly, I thought that was the kind of thing that happened only in the former Soviet Union. I understand that people are unhappy, but, you know, I'm doing something that I really believe," Lieberman told WICH-AM. "I thought in this country you don't get punished for that. So, I hope that in the end, my colleagues will understand and life will go on either way."
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 09/25/2008 16:17 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What would the Republican Party be without a token RINO Senator from southern New England? I'm sure they'll accept Joe in the same spirit as they used to tolerate Lincoln Chaffee and Bernie Sanders.
Posted by: Mitch H. || 09/25/2008 16:39 Comments || Top||

#2  Shows how smart the Democrats are. They apparently have forgotten how they drummed him out of the party. Even the article contradicts the premise.

He's not a member of the party. Your censure means nothing.
Posted by: oldcat || 09/25/2008 17:55 Comments || Top||

#3  Hmmm...treating Joe like the muzzies treat an former muslim, now apostate. And you wonder why some people post that the Donks share values with them. [rhetorical question]
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/25/2008 18:58 Comments || Top||

#4  They are going to censure him, for not being a partisan hack.

Nice PR move.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/25/2008 22:32 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Pakistan faces 'existential threat': Petraeus
PARIS (AFP) - Extremist forces threaten the very existence of Pakistan, the incoming US commander in the region warned Thursday, as tension mounted between NATO and Pakistani forces on the Afghan frontier.

General David Petraeus, who will take charge of US forces in southwest Asia and the Middle East next month, told reporters that Pakistani and US-led troops would have to work together to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda."Pakistan faces a threat that certainly seems to be an existential threat," he said, at a press conference at the US embassy in Paris.

Petraeus described the common enemy as a "syndicate" uniting "some true Al-Qaeda, some Taliban and in between different forms of extremist movements, which are very much contributing to the problem in Afghanistan."

The general was speaking shortly after it was confirmed that Pakistani forces had fired warning shots at US military helicopters operating under NATO command near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan.

Islamabad claims to be fighting the armed groups in its unruly borderlands, despite allegations of collusion between its security forces and Islamic militants launching cross border attacks on Afghan and NATO troops. But Pakistan has also reacted angrily to US airstrikes -- and a reported commando raid -- on its side of the border and the army has vowed to defend its sovereignty, even if that means clashes with US forces.

Petraeus said he had yet to be briefed on the incident in which the helicopters were fired upon, and refused to be drawn on the circumstances in which he would order a cross-border operation. Instead, he insisted that he would work in cooperation with the Pakistani military, which he said faced the same threat."I think the only real answer that I can give you at a forum like this is just to say that there has to be coordination, cooperation and very constructive dialogue as that effort goes forward. As was shown tragically and horrifically in the Marriott Hotel bombing, these same extremist elements again represent a true existential threat to Pakistan itself," he said, referring to an attack on Saturday in Islamabad.
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 15:50 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  it's hard too work with someone who is also backing your enemy
Posted by: sinse || 09/25/2008 17:40 Comments || Top||

#2  the army has vowed to defend its sovereignty

Which has ever been a major problem -- it being the sovereignty of the Army of the Pure that matters, not that of the Country of the Pure.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 18:10 Comments || Top||

#3  POST-GEORGIA > the US-Allies is now in new war agz Radical Islam for the de facto control and domination of mainland Asia and any peripheral areas.

JAN 2009 + POST-DUBYA POTUS PERIOD > as long as the US, etc. keeps itself to IRAQ-AFGHANISTAN, or even redux, RADICLA ISLAMISM INTENDS TO RAMPAGE, DESTABILIZE, AND EMPOWER OR ESTABLISH PRO-ISLAMIST ARMED ENCLAVES, POLITICAL ORGS AND LOCAL NETWORKS AMAP THROUGHOUT ASIA. It desires not only to rebuild and recoup its Manpower, $$$ and Materiel losses from fighting the US-Allies, but also to "hedge" and increase its odds of successfully going NUCLEAR EVEN IFF IRAN, ETC GETS ATTACKED AND INVADED BY THE US = US-ALLIES.

As RUSH LIMBAUGH once labeled, LE QUESTIONNE > WILL THE VARIOUS NATION-STATES OF ASIA, ESPEC BIGGIES RUSSIA + CHINA + INDIA + JAPAN, TOLERATE OR ACCEPT LOCAL-REGIONAL US INTERVENTION, DOMINATION AND CONTROL TO PROTECT AGZ RADICAL ISLAM???

Lest we fergit, MAD/RADICAL MULLAHS > ENVIRO-RESOURCE CRISES, GREAT POWERS MILPOL CONFRONTATIONISM, + EVEN MUTUAL DESTRUCTION, ETC. ANARCHIES AND CHAOSES, IS TO ISLAM'S = ISLAMISM'S ADVANTAGE.

More popularly known as IFF WE DON'T GET OUR WAY OR WE DON'T RULE, NOBODY ELSE WILL!
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 22:39 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Fertilizer Defanged
As terrorists increasingly use ammonium nitrate (a commonly used agricultural fertilizer) for their bombs (by mixing it with fuel oil and setting it off with a detonator), there has been a lot of research by chemical and fertilizer manufacturers to reformulate ammonium nitrate so that it will not so easily explode. The Honeywell corporation found that by adding some ammonium sulfate to the ammonium nitrate, you actually improve the fertilizing ability of the mix (by making the treated soil less acidic), and prevent the fertilizer from being used as an explosive. Actually, you can still use the ammonium sulfate nitrate mix as an explosive, but it requires some creative chemistry to do so, and serves as a technological barrier for most terrorist groups. ...
Posted by: ed || 09/25/2008 14:51 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Curses! Foiled again.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon || 09/25/2008 15:09 Comments || Top||

#2  Does anyone have more information on this such as cost, source for ammonium sulfate, pros and cons? To me this is basically a fluff piece from some manufacturer. Maybe they are hoping the Dems will mandate the mix without considering the consequences.
Posted by: tipover || 09/25/2008 15:18 Comments || Top||

#3  use google tipover. Here's the first link.
"ammonium nitrate" + Wanted 10 tons delivered













Posted by: Red Dawg || 09/25/2008 15:56 Comments || Top||

#4  March 2004

Speciality Fertilizer Products, a company based in Belton, Missouri, is patenting a water-soluble polymer coating for the fertiliser granules that repels fuel oil. The coating dissolves rapidly in soil, so it would not interfere with ammonium nitrate's main function as fertiliser.

If it works and is widely adopted, the treatment could make it harder for terrorists to turn fertiliser-grade ammonium nitrate into bombs, and could also help prevent industrial accidents.

Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 09/25/2008 16:57 Comments || Top||

#5  you can still use the ammonium sulfate nitrate mix as an explosive, but it requires some creative chemistry to do so

Mixing it 50/50 with some TATP should take care of that little problem!
Posted by: SteveS || 09/25/2008 17:44 Comments || Top||

#6  Ammonium sulfate...
Isn't that Epson salt?
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/25/2008 18:23 Comments || Top||

#7  Magnesium sulfate is Epsom Salt. Ammonium sulfate would still have an acidic reaction. I think the pyro guys say it can be a high temp oxidizer. Sulfur is a plant nutrient and last time we tested the nursery we were low in sulfur see what happens with all that low sulfur fuels.
Posted by: bruce || 09/25/2008 20:25 Comments || Top||


Home Front Economy
Lawmakers: Financial bailout agreement reached

Happy days are here again...
WASHINGTON - Warned of a possible financial panic, key Republicans and Democrats reported agreement in principle Thursday on a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry and said they would present it to the Bush administration in hopes of a vote within days.

Emerging from a two-hour negotiating session, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman said, "We are very confident that we can act expeditiously."
Jesus. Could they pick a better spokesman then "Friend of Angelo", Chris Dodd?
"I now expect that we will indeed have a plan that can pass the House, pass the Senate (and) be signed by the president," said Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.

The bipartisan consensus on the general direction of the legislation was reported just hours before President Bush was to host presidential contenders Barack Obama and John McCain and congressional leaders at the White House for discussions on how to clear obstacles to the unpopular rescue plan.

Tony Fratto, the White House deputy press secretary said the announcement was "a good sign that progress is being made. We'll want to hear from Secretary Paulson, and take a look at the details. We look forward to a good discussion at the meeting this afternoon," he said.

On Wall Street, financial markets grew more upbeat as the Dow Jones industrial average at times rose more than 300 points.

Key lawmakers in Washington said at midday that few difficulties actually remained, although no details of their accord were immediately available. "There really isn't much of a deadlock to break," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
Another guy who should keep his mouth shut.
But there were fresh signs of trouble in the House Republican Caucus. A group of GOP lawmakers circulated an alternative designed to attract private capital back into the credit markets with less government intrusion. Under the proposal, the government would provide insurance to companies that agree to buy frozen assets, rather than purchase them directly as envisioned under the administration's plan. The firms would have to pay insurance premiums to the Treasury Department for the coverage."The taxpayers haven't done anything wrong," said Rep Eric Cantor, R-Va., adding that rather than require them to bear the cost of the bailout, the alternative "pretty much puts the burden on Wall Street over time."

Rep. John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, the minority leader, was huddling with McCain on the rescue. Earlier, asked whether the GOP presidential nominee could corral restive Republicans to support the plan, Boehner said, "Who knows?"

And Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the only House Republican in the bargaining meeting, did not directly say he agreed with the other lawmakers who emerged describing an imminent deal."There was progress today," said Bachus, the senior Republican on the Financial Services panel.

Bush told the nation in a televised address Wednesday night that passage of the package his administration has proposed is urgently needed to calm the markets and restore confidence in the reeling financial system. His top spokeswoman, Dana Perino, had told reporters earlier Thursday that "significant progress" was being made.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's agreement with Democrats on limiting pay for executives of bailed out financial institutions and giving taxpayers an equity stake in the companies cleared a significant hurdle.

The core of the plan envisions the government buying up sour assets of shaky financial firms in a bid to keep them from going under and to stave off a potentially severe recession.

It was not yet clear how lawmakers had resolved lingering differences over how to phase in the eye-popping cost — a measure demanded by Democrats and some Republicans who want stronger congressional control over the bailout — without spooking markets. A plan to let the government take an ownership stake in troubled companies as part of the rescue, rather than just buying bad debt, also was a topic of intense negotiation.

Bush acknowledged Wednesday night that the bailout would be a "tough vote" for lawmakers. But he said failing to approve it would risk dire consequences for the economy and most Americans. "Without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic, and a distressing scenario would unfold," Bush said as he worked to resurrect the unpopular bailout package. "Our entire economy is in danger."
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 14:36 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  no deal yet.
Posted by: 3dc || 09/25/2008 17:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman said, "We are very confident that we can act expeditiously."

More VIP treatment for the King of Countrywide?
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 17:40 Comments || Top||

#3  But there were fresh signs of trouble in the House Republican Caucus. A group of GOP lawmakers circulated an alternative designed to attract private capital back into the credit markets with less government intrusion. Under the proposal, the government would provide insurance to companies that agree to buy frozen assets, rather than purchase them directly as envisioned under the administration's plan. The firms would have to pay insurance premiums to the Treasury Department for the coverage."The taxpayers haven't done anything wrong," said Rep Eric Cantor, R-Va., adding that rather than require them to bear the cost of the bailout, the alternative "pretty much puts the burden on Wall Street over time."

I'm no financial wizard, but this looks MUCH better to me than the "Blank Check" strategy.
Posted by: DLR || 09/25/2008 17:59 Comments || Top||

#4  Report is a huge fight in the Whitehouse meeting.
Almost approaching fists!
Posted by: 3dc || 09/25/2008 19:18 Comments || Top||

#5  Neil Cavuto on FoxFn came out against it!
Posted by: 3dc || 09/25/2008 19:29 Comments || Top||

#6  Cavuto was SPOT ON! His message was essentially, 'no need to rush into anything.' Obama is tossing accusations, blaming McCain. Dodd and Reid are very, very upset. Knowing these buggers are upset would indicate things went well at today's Whitehouse meeting.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 19:50 Comments || Top||

#7  There are some details about what the Boehner-led House Republicans are negotiating for here. The posts are in reverse chronological order, so either start at the bottom or keep scrolling down, depending on your preferred temporal orientation.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 20:16 Comments || Top||

#8  Republican House plan is to do full mortgage insurance. 1/2 now insured.
Require Wall Street to pay premiums on the insurance.
No other money related bail out.
Under 10 billion repair cost.
attachment of golden parachutes etc.
Posted by: 3dc || 09/25/2008 21:05 Comments || Top||

#9  I have heard of up toward 2000 trillion $ in derivatives based in part on the sub-prime loan bundles are out there. The US GDP is 12 to 18 trillion so it is an impossible number.

If the loans are just insured the derivatives could collapse on PMI costs alone.

That's why MorganGoldmanSax wants the full bail out.

However they have to face up to the derivatives being imaginary not representing anything but monopoly money and burn them in the end anyway.

They just can't bear to burn the paper.
Tuff titties...
Posted by: 3dc || 09/25/2008 21:15 Comments || Top||

#10  700 billion quick deal. It is paramount that McCain not run with the herd on this. This is a defining moment for him and his candidacy. Are you an outside reformer or are you a bloodsucking parasite like the rest of the Congress, Mr. McCain. We need to know. And BTW, taxpaying citizens are bloody fighting mad about this.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 09/25/2008 22:22 Comments || Top||

#11  The deal apparently includes a handout for ACORN. Very nice... Maybe Joe Biden will throw in $200m for Iran, as well.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 09/25/2008 22:27 Comments || Top||

#12  Even better, the Democrats insisted that 20% of the deals in the handout be reserved for ACORN.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 09/25/2008 22:59 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
A $700 billion slap in the face
Another classic from Paul Krugman, who's a far left moonbat politically (like 80% of economists), but a Nobel caliber economist. He's out of his depth on politics, but his economic essays are just brilliant.
The initial Treasury stance on the bailout was one of sheer demand for authority: give us total discretion and a blank check, and we'll fix things. There was no explanation of the theory of the case -- of why we should believe the proposed intervention would work. So many of us turned to our own analyses, and concluded that it probably wouldn't work -- unless it amounted to a huge giveaway to the financial industry.

Now, under duress, Ben Bernanke (not Paulson!) has offered an explanation of sorts about the missing theory. And it is, in effect, a metastasized version of the "slap-in-the-face" theory that has failed to resolve the crisis so far.

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 09/25/2008 14:24 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ION TOPIX > UZBEKISTAN.net - REPUBLIC OF IRELAND FALLS INTO RECESSION [FIRST EUROZONE NATION To allegedly fall victim due to US Financial-Wall Street Crisis]; + KOREA BRACES FOR US RECESSION.

That SSSSHHHHHHH OWG-NWO term again - "EUROZONE/
EURO-ZONE", as opposed to simply "EUROPE" or even "EU".

Also from TOPIX > AS US FINANCIALLY STRUGGLES, ADVERSARIES RISE.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 22:58 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
The real reason Hillary bailed on the Iran protest?
Lisa Schiffren, National Review

Pamela Geller (aka "Atlas Shrugs") has a fascinating piece here, explaining why Hillary Clinton really bailed out of Monday's rally at the U.N., organized by Jewish leaders, to demonstrate opposition to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime's goals. My first guess, last week, was that she pulled out when Sarah Palin accepted because the Obama campaign did not want a head to head clash, and asked (told, that is) her to. I could imagine too, that she did not want to be eclipsed by the new star power that Palin would bring to such an event. This made sense given that the Obama campaign refused to send anyone else as a surrogate -- and then used very thuggish tactics to intimidate the rally's organizers into disinviting Palin.

But, as Geller points out, Hillary is not in competition with Palin. She is looking to 2012. She argues that Hillary decision to bail was a direct hit at Obama:

Hillary did not want to be the one to represent Obama. Obama's position on Iran is sophomoric, idiotic and dangerous. Hillary has been more responsible and she was not going to clean up his mess.... Clinton was not going to be the face of Obama's Iranian foreign policy. Obama has said he would meet with Ahmedinejad without condition -- essentially rewarding him for his nuclear arsenal and genocidal threats. No way was Hillary going to pave that road for him, so she pulled out forcing Obama to face the jihad music.

In withdrawing she forced him send someone in his stead -- but who? Biden? Joseph Biden is the poster boy for Iran appeasement. His record on Iran is so weak that he could never make the case for a muscular policy on Iran's nukes and Ahmedinejad's genocidal threats. There was talk of Wexler, but he has his own problems (residential fraud), and he has lied about Obama's positions and support of the Jews. Sending a silly Florida representative would have spoken volumes on the importance Obama assigns to a nuclear, Jew-hating Iran. Besides, Wexler would have paled next to Palin.

Hillary's withdrawal ... may have seemed to have backfired because folks were so disappointed with her, (but) I am not so sure it was a failure. Palin, in the speech she would have given, quoted statements that Clinton has made against the Iranian regime. Palin never mentioned Obama, but spoke of Clinton most admiringly. The Jews in America cannot rest easy knowing Obama did not think the existential threat to Israel and the free world important enough to address.

Geller goes on to say that "Clinton could not have known that Jewish lay leadership would cave to their left wing activists, but that was of little import to her." . . .
Posted by: Mike || 09/25/2008 14:17 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Dunno that I buy the idea. The Dems cannot afford to have anything occur that looks like Hillary supporting/approving of Palin since that opens the floodgates for all those Hillary supporters to also support Palin. Obama/DNC called her off.
Posted by: Goober Cravirong3147 || 09/25/2008 14:45 Comments || Top||

#2  It sure looked and sounded like Bill Clinton was supporting John McCain today. It looked like a mutual admiration society to hear them. I don't think BO is ready for prime time. I think that Hillary and Bill have their eyes on 2012 or 2016. They appear to be supportive of BO. Have we had the Sister Soulja moment yet?
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/25/2008 17:32 Comments || Top||

#3  I have to agree with Goober on this one. Hillary doesn"t want Obama to win but she also doesn't want McCain/Palin as she would most likely be facing Palin in nuaght12. Palin with 4 years of VP experience could be a very formidable opponent. She's caught.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 09/25/2008 19:00 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Cops: Biker gang masquerades as Christian ministry
Posted by: Penguin || 09/25/2008 13:23 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "SetFreeSoldiers" are out of Anaheim. They're not angels and I've heard they've actually done quite a bit of good, but they're not 'passive missionaries'. These guys interact with a pretty tough crowd.

As their website (setfreesoldiers.com) says "Some say we are too Good for the Bad guys, and too Bad for the Good guys."
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 09/25/2008 15:35 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
New York's "Pollution-Fighting" Move Costs Millions
Despite fuel suppliers' warning
Humpf. What the hell do they know?
to New York City Transit officials that the cleaner-burning low-sulfur fuel it used in its bus fleet might become difficult to get, the transit agency never switched to a cheaper and more readily available fuel.
And we're surprised because....?
As a result, the agency found itself caught off guard last month when there were no bidders for a new fuel contract, so it rushed through a stopgap agreement with its previous supplier at a much higher price.
Bet the "previous supplier" saw that one coming a mile off.
Wonder how they knew. Mebbe someone a good friend in the Transit Authority ...
The custom-made
That figures. It's for NooYawk, dontchaknow.
ultra-low sulfur kerosene costs about 20 cents more per gallon than common ultra-low sulfur diesel that suppliers recommended to the agency. It also requires special handling that adds about 45 cents per gallon
Good grief. Oh, well, it's not like it's the procurement officer's money or anything....
to delivery charges in the new contract. The extra costs add up to an additional expense of more than $30 million for the 50 million gallons of fuel to be delivered in the next year.
Chump change. Get Bloomberg - or AlBore - to cover it out of petty cash.
Al's worried about the carbon sequestration for that burned kerosene ...
The transit agency told itself proudly that it was a pioneer in 2000 when it switched its bus fleet to a ultra-low sulfur kerosene to fight pollution. At the time, transit officials thought they knew the federal government was preparing to require all diesel engines switch to ultra-low sulfur fuel. The wider use would lower the fuel's cost, they thought. But instead, in 2006, the federal government chose a slightly different fuel.
See, it's all the Feds' fault! Yeah, that's the ticket!
The kerosene that the transit agency uses is produced only at a Pennsylvania refinery owned by Sunoco, and the agency is the only large purchaser.
And Sunoco thanks you very much. As they bitterly cling to their Pennsylvania guns.
Stanley Grill, the agency's head of procurement, said the agency was hesitant to switch to more commonly available diesel fuel because officials are pansy-assed lily-livered wussies there were worried about how it might affect their engines and pollution levels. The agency is currently testing the diesel fuel.
Bend over, New Yorkers. Again.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 12:45 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How is your "Green Planet" coming along?
Posted by: newc || 09/25/2008 17:50 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Florida Congressman: Palin 'Don't Care Too Much What They Do With Jews and Blacks'
ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: Florida Democratic Congressman Alcee Hastings pointed to Sarah Palin on Wednesday to rally Jews to Obama.

"If Sarah Palin isn’t enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention," said Hastings. "Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through."

Hastings, who is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, made his comments in Washington, D.C., while participating in a panel discussion sponsored by the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Asked what the congressman meant, Hastings spokesman David Goldenberg told ABC News that he was trying to argue that Palin is an "extremely conservative woman who is out of touch with mainstream America."

After saying that Palin "don't care too much" about Jews and blacks, Hastings argued that African Americans and Jews should come together behind Obama because there are many issues on which they agree.

"Just like Jews, blacks care about affordable health care, energy independence, and the separation of church and state," said Hastings. "And just like blacks, Jews care about equal pay for equal work, investment in alternative energy, and a woman's right to choose."

Asked about the Hastings criticism, Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella said, "We’re taking a pass."
Posted by: Beavis || 09/25/2008 12:28 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yes, I'm sure Jews are right at the top of Alcee's "big hug" list.
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 14:03 Comments || Top||

#2  The lil darlin's at ABC forgot to mention Alcee's impeachment and convictions.

But who you gonna believe -- a corrupt former federal judge or your own lyin' eyes?
Posted by: Gabby Cussworth || 09/25/2008 14:28 Comments || Top||

#3  Palin cares about those Jews who are going to be nuked by Irabn and about those Blacks who are being massacred and raped by Arabs in Sudan, you don't ,racist bastard.
Posted by: JFM || 09/25/2008 14:47 Comments || Top||

#4  "If Sarah Palin isn't enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama,

I did not nor will I ever need Governor Palin to get over Stalin, Mandela, Castro, Nikita Khrushchev, Che Guevara, Mugabe, The Congressional Black Caucus, Jesse Jackson, Sharpton or any other communist bastard. Just like Obama, they are what they are.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 15:02 Comments || Top||

#5  There they go with that "A" word again. They talk like there should be enough affordable health care for everybody in the whole wide world who wants to move here. And watch it lead to another mess like the one we're in with housing now.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 09/25/2008 15:06 Comments || Top||

#6  More dis-information that the cock roaches in MSM jumped on immediately, regardless of the fact that a picture of Palin in the Governors office shows her to have a flag of Israel on her cradenza...
Posted by: Speasing Jones3052 || 09/25/2008 15:14 Comments || Top||

#7  Hastings, a former federal judge, was impeached and removed from the bench in 1989 for perjury and corruption. Elected to Congress in 1992, he supported Hillary Clinton during the primaries until she conceded the race.

The difference between a minority Congress critter and the rest of Congress is the rest have not been convicted of a crime, yet.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 09/25/2008 16:11 Comments || Top||

#8  Some background on Alcee's former "problems"...

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alcee_Hastings_corruption_scandal
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 16:29 Comments || Top||

#9  "Yo, Man! She take you out to de woods!" (It be's dat way, brothers an' sistas)

Posted by: Frozen Al || 09/25/2008 16:47 Comments || Top||

#10  Alcee Hastings sounds like a nearly perfect idiot in making such inflammatory statements. Nothing is ever perfect. Keep working on it Alcee.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/25/2008 17:44 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Bavarian dentist retrieves unpaid work from patient’s mouth
A disgruntled dentist in the Bavarian town of Neu-Ulm is under investigation for assault and theft after forcibly retrieving unpaid dental work from the mouth of his patient.

According to police, the dentist knocked on the door of the 35-year-old woman on Monday evening and without saying a word overpowered her and removed two bridges that he had previously fitted to replace teeth he had pulled. Although the woman’s insurance covered part of the costs, she had apparently failed to pay the remaining €400 for the dental work.

He then left silently, but the woman went to the police to press charges.

“The dentist is being investigated for assault for the way he forced open her mouth, and theft for taking the bridges,” police spokesman Christian Owsinski told The Local on Wednesday. “The woman was in pain when she showed up at the station.”

Owsinski said the dentist had not been taken into custody, but if convicted he could face inquiries from both the health insurance company and the dental association that could jeopardize his practice.
Posted by: mrp || 09/25/2008 12:03 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good thing she didn't have a heart transplant.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/25/2008 13:36 Comments || Top||

#2  Q: how would one recover /retrieve unpaid work for a, say, circumcision??????
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 09/25/2008 14:37 Comments || Top||

#3  That's simply a bridge too far.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 14:46 Comments || Top||

#4  Cap it right there.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 09/25/2008 15:36 Comments || Top||

#5  Taking a bite out of medical debt..........
Posted by: no mo uro || 09/25/2008 18:39 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Iraq: The MSM missed the largest reenlistment ceremony ever held.
Added: July 07, 2008

The mass reenlistment ceremony of Service Members currently serving in Iraq. This event is the largest reenlistment ceremony ever held.
Long but worth at least skipping through to see highlights

Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 09/25/2008 11:33 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Of course they missed it. It does not fit The Narrative. Everyone knows the Army is broken and demoralized and the conflict in Iraq is being fought soley by conscripted National Guardsmen. (or should that National Guardspersons? I would hate to be unPC)
Posted by: SteveS || 09/25/2008 13:51 Comments || Top||

#2  Missed, hell! The enemy MSM ignored it.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 14:03 Comments || Top||

#3  The MSM missed the largest reenlistment ceremony ever held.

You misspelled ignored.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 09/25/2008 14:08 Comments || Top||

#4  The CoxSucken MSM wouldn't miss the lowest reenlistment ceremony.

May the BASTURDS BURN IN HELL!!!!
Posted by: Red Dawg || 09/25/2008 16:02 Comments || Top||

#5 


SF Chronicle:
"At Camp Victory outside Baghdad, 1,215 troops from the Army, Marines and other services re-enlisted in a mass swearing-in ceremony led by top U.S. war commander Gen. David Petraeus.

Before an immense American flag hung in the rotunda of the palace headquarters of the U.S. military in Iraq, the troops saluted Petraeus, then sang "God Bless America."

Googling the event brings up a handfull of other US news reports.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 09/25/2008 16:33 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Schieffer: Paulson Pleaded for McCain to Save Bailout
CBS news so salt to taste. But it's not surprising that the old war-horse, when called, would charge out of his foxhole and yell, "Follow me!" He's that kind of man.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/25/2008 11:15 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I think McCain could kill the MOAB if he came out against it. I don't know if he can save it, thought.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/25/2008 12:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Help us Obie-Won-McCain! Your our only hope!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 09/25/2008 13:29 Comments || Top||


Home Front Economy
The Paulson Plan Will Make Money for Taxpayers
I have my doubts but a little sunny optimism is appreciated today.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/25/2008 11:12 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Where's my dividend check for the S&L bailout?
Posted by: ed || 09/25/2008 12:34 Comments || Top||

#2  I don't know what to think anymore. They're going to do whatever they want anyway. Hope they don't screw us.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/25/2008 13:07 Comments || Top||

#3  Or at least give us a reach-around right?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 09/25/2008 13:31 Comments || Top||

#4  If this is such a sure thing, why aren't private and foreign investors stepping up to the plate, given that current prices are way below the inflated prices that Treasury proposes to pay? Let's face it - neither Kessler nor Paulson know what they're talking about. It's not that they lack technical expertise - any more than the CEO's of Lehman or Bear Stearns lacked technical expertise - it's that they are saying nice things about these assets even though they cannot know how things will turn out. The fact is that every sunny prediction Kessler and Paulson have made over the past year has failed to come to fruition. These people are basically putting out fact-free propaganda much like the stock analysts of the Internet era - they are, in effect, saying once again that "this time, it's different".
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 09/25/2008 13:36 Comments || Top||

#5  What really stinks about this is that, like the illegal alien amnesty bill, this Wall Street handout program is being backed by Bush, a guy I used to think of as a rock-ribbed conservative. The guy should be tarred and feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail. I'm starting to think that the second coming of Carter won't start with Obama - it may have started with Bush.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 09/25/2008 13:42 Comments || Top||

#6  ZF, on the domestic front re: Bush, I am in total agreement with you. On the foriegn policy front, Bush is the anti-Carter and we've been lucky to have him (for the most part...there are exceptions).
Posted by: remoteman || 09/25/2008 14:04 Comments || Top||

#7  why aren't private and foreign investors stepping up to the plate

I've read that the Japanese are very happily, and quietly, buying up American investment firms. It's just that who except the American government has that much money to spend all at once?
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 15:04 Comments || Top||

#8  I've read that the Japanese are very happily, and quietly, buying up American investment firms. It's just that who except the American government has that much money to spend all at once?

We're not spending it all at once. And the global markets are worth about $50T. A lot of investors currently have money parked in Treasuries, while waiting for the debt crisis to shake out the weaker players (i.e. the ones that can't pay their debts - companies like Washington Mutual, for instance). The fact is that Paulson is committing taxpayer cash to purchases of junk assets way before the bottom. I, too, have junk around the house I'd like to get rid of. Too bad Paulson wants to pay inflated prices for valueless junk only if they're sold by large corporations that bet too much money on the wrong horse.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 09/25/2008 15:19 Comments || Top||

#9  That $50T figure referred only to the debt markets. There are substantial sums of cash in the equity markets. Lots of funds have holdings in both debt and equity, and would likely be buying distressed debt with both hands if they were confident of being paid back, given the high yields on this debt (Citibank debt with months to go has a double-digit yield). But the reality is that they are not confident of being paid back on a lot of these debt assets. Like I said, we are taking Paulson's word about the value of these assets over the word of millions of private investors, who - unlike Paulson - actually have skin in the game. Why would I take Paulson's judgment over the judgment of the market?
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 09/25/2008 15:26 Comments || Top||

#10  More fatuity from Larry Kudlow:

My latest information on executive pay-caps and government ownership warrants — which are now being called “equity protection” — is that they would apply to bond sellers, not buyers. (My original warning is here.) I guess that makes it only half as bad. But I must say, it still is bad.

Why should a successful bank — whether large, medium, or small — give up ownership and allow pay-caps for executives?

Even the big guys like BofA and JPMorgan Chase are still solid banks. So is Goldman and Morgan Stanley. And Wells Fargo. And many others.

Why should they agree to this? It just makes the plan unworkable. Sources tell me the Treasury is opposed. Stay tuned for more.


If they're successful banks, why do they need this handout? Why would we want to give handouts to successful banks? It is sparkling clear why Wall Street wants this handout package - it's an all-expense paid package to Easy Street - courtesy of the taxpayer - for them.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 09/25/2008 15:56 Comments || Top||

#11  a guy I used to think of as a rock-ribbed conservative.

Huh? He's never been a card carrying conservative. He and his daddy were middle of the roaders for a long time. After the debacle in '96, he was 'picked' to run in '00 because the Trunks had no other viable candidate that they saw could get the White House. It was more of a denial operation, that is to take the office whether than to let the Donks get it. As it was, they did, but just barely. The conservatives haven't found a decent runner since the '80s [until maybe now in the form of the governor of Alaska].
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/25/2008 16:06 Comments || Top||

#12  The bailout might be the "Bridge to Nowhere." Money is the meth of our Congress. What's to keep them from coming back again and again for more money? There is always the detox program and tough love for Congress.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/25/2008 17:35 Comments || Top||

#13  Just not feeling a lot of love. Well, there's the detox program.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/25/2008 17:36 Comments || Top||

#14  a guy I used to think of as a rock-ribbed conservative.

George W. Bush called himself a "compassionate conservative" in the 2000 campaign to distinguish himself from the rock-ribbed Conservatives. Functionally, a Republican Third Way-er. He has never pretended to be anything else, which is why centrist Republicans, centrist Democrats, and Independents enough voted for him in 2000 to put him over the top. In 2004 he got the centrist and Independent votes, plus those of us who are warmongers. ;-) The reason John McCain won the Republican primary is that -- sorry, guys -- there are more centrist Republicans than there are conservatives. And even amongst the conservatives, there are many like Governor Palin, whose conservatism is lived personally rather than something she attempted to impose on the state whose executive she was.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 19:01 Comments || Top||

#15  "Money is the meth of our Congress. What's to keep them from coming back again and again for more money?"

--I think it maybe getting near time to refresh the tree of liberty...
Posted by: Flitch the Imposter aka Broadhead6 || 09/25/2008 19:26 Comments || Top||

#16  I just listened to Obama saying he wanted to include a program to allow people to keep their homes even though they are not paying their mortgage payments. I don't yet own the place I live in and he wants me to pay someone elses' payments? Blow a dead bear, Obama.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 09/25/2008 19:30 Comments || Top||

#17  If the MOAB passes, knowing that Uncle Sam is about to pick up the tab, where is the incentive for anyone to pay for anything....?
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 19:53 Comments || Top||

#18  Lindsay Graham (R-SC), a handout supporter, on Hannity and Colmes:

We're Trying to Make Sure the American Taxpayer Doesn't Get Screwed Any More Than Possible.

Gee, thanks for nothing.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 09/25/2008 20:56 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Examiner endorses McCain-Palin
Good summary as to why.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/25/2008 11:11 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm still waiting with baited breath to see who the NY Times endorses. (c;
Posted by: rjschwarz || 09/25/2008 11:46 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm still waiting with baited breath to see who the NY Times endorses.

Who?
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/25/2008 12:11 Comments || Top||

#3  Colgate?
Posted by: Bulldog || 09/25/2008 12:27 Comments || Top||

#4  wow. Isn't this is a 100% beltway liberal rag? I'm shocked. I think liberals who aren't completely deranged are beginning to understand that Obama is far too dangerous of a choice to allow petty partisan bickering put him in charge of their freedom and future.
Posted by: Betty Grating2215 || 09/25/2008 13:15 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Al-Qaeda Targets Lethal Disease Research Facility on NY Island
Until her arrest in Afghanistan this summer, Aafia Siddiqui was the FBI’s most wanted woman in the world. Now the U.S.-educated, Pakistani mother of three is being held in New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center facing attempted murder charges.

Aafia Siddiqui holds biology and neuroscience degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) and Brandeis University. In 2003, she vanished from Pakistan and reappeared on July 17, 2008, outside the governor’s compound in Ghazni, Afghanistan. According to the FBI indictment against her, Siddiqui was carrying “various documents, various chemicals, and a computer thumb drive.”

Aafia Siddiqui is believed to be an al-Qaeda operative. Among the documents in her possession were handwritten notes referring to a “mass-casualty attack” listing locations commonly known to be targets: Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, and the Empire State Building. But one target, Plum Island, remains virtually unknown to the American public. If Siddiqui really is an al-Qaeda operative, the consideration that this government facility (officially known as the Plum Island Animal Disease Research Center) is a target is unnerving.

Located approximately eight miles off the coast of Connecticut, the 840-acre research facility is home to the most virulent zoonotic diseases in the world. The lethal diseases stored and studied on Plum Island are transmitted to humans by animals. The only U.S. strains of foot-and-mouth disease (eradicated from American soil in 1929) are secured in freezers on Plum Island, as are strains of polio, hog cholera, and African Swine Fever. None of the animals on the island ever leave; those that come uninvited, like deer that sometimes swim there from the mainland, are shot.

The island, located in the Long Island Sound, is 85 miles north of Manhattan. It was purchased as a government facility in the late 1800s and used as a defense fort during both world wars. After World War II, Plum Island became a bio-warfare lab — with its set-up and operation spearheaded by former Nazi scientist Eric Traub, who had been Hitler’s bio-weapons doctor before he was captured.

In 1954, the Department of Agriculture took over control of Plum Island, transforming the facility into “America’s first line of defense against foreign animal disease.” By 1999, outspoken scientists and government officials called for the facility to be closed down, saying the study of obscure zoonotic diseases did not warrant the $16.5 million that taxpayers were spending on it each year. Further, many felt the risks associated with a category-five hurricane hitting the laboratory outweighed the benefits of the research going on there. A hurricane in 1991 knocked power out on the island and threatened the release of deadly germs; there was another power outage in 2002. Along came the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Control ceded to the Department of Homeland Security and the government shifted its focus from closing the facility to expanding it.

In a recent op-ed piece for the Hartford Courant, Connecticut State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal outlined some of the dangers associated with the “monstrous risks” of the Plum Island facility — should it be compromised. Among them:

* The proximity of Plum Island to New York City, one of the nation’s most populous cities and a repeated target of terrorist attacks.

* The fact that 20 million people live within 50 miles of Long Island Sound.

* The proximity of Plum Island to a nuclear submarine base, a nuclear submarine construction facility, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and a major nuclear power plant.

* The special security risks of protecting and providing emergency response services to an island.

A final decision about whether or not to expand the current island facility or move it will be reached before the administration change on January 20, 2009. Until then, the debate as to where the facility should go continues.

One fact is not up for debate. Al-Qaeda’s desire for a mass-casualty attack on American soil isn’t going anywhere. That an al-Qaeda operative — a scientist with a biology degree from M.I.T. — was arrested overseas with a U.S. biological and agro-defense facility listed in her own handwriting as being on a “wish list” of attacks only underscores this fact.

No wonder the FBI considered Aafia Siddiqui one of the most wanted women in the world.

Note: Siddiqui failed to show up for her arraignment in federal court in Manhattan on September 4. Her attorney cited poor health as she recovers from a gunshot wound. During an interrogation in Afghanistan last July, Siddiqui commandeered a weapon and fired at U.S. Army officers, FBI agents, and her interpreters. One agent returned fire and Siddiqui was shot in the torso.

In August, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security listed five mainland locations (other than Plum Island) it is considering to house a new, Biosafety Level 4 laboratory: Flora, Mississippi, is at the top of the list. Other sites include Athens, Georgia; Manhattan, Kansas; San Antonio, Texas; and Butner, North Carolina.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/25/2008 10:47 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I figure that UGA would be a target since it has a large animal lab there, but wouldn't the CDC in Atlanta be another target too be concerned about?
Posted by: sinse || 09/25/2008 11:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Why isn't Midway Island on the list of potential sites? Isn't a few hundred miles of salt water good insulation of risk? Or are these risks transmitted by airborne currents?
Posted by: Halliburton - Asymmetrical Reply Division || 09/25/2008 11:26 Comments || Top||

#3  In the middle of the desert in Nevada or Utah would be good.
Posted by: DLR || 09/25/2008 12:59 Comments || Top||

#4  Why go all the way to New York when muslims can get all the polio they want in Pakistan?
Posted by: ed || 09/25/2008 13:00 Comments || Top||

#5  al-Qaeda doesn't realize it, but this woman crossed over into "license to kill" territory. While she personally is getting a lifetime membership to Florence, Colorado, anyone she came into contact with has a death penalty on them.

There is absolutely, positively no sense of humor about messing with bio.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/25/2008 13:50 Comments || Top||

#6  "Why go all the way to New York when muslims can get all the polio they want in Pakistan?"

That's a winner :)

LINK

Posted by: Spong Speaking for Boskone5381 || 09/25/2008 20:24 Comments || Top||

#7  Plum Island - virtually unknown, except to those who read Nelson Demille's books

see: "Plum Island"

but copy the link and visit via Fred's link to Amazon, then he gets a share...
Posted by: Frank G || 09/25/2008 20:37 Comments || Top||

#8  I've got a pretty good book on Plum Island around here somewhere (probably in a box packed up for my move next week), but I was under the impression that the lab was shut down.

Posted by: FOTSGreg || 09/25/2008 23:03 Comments || Top||

#9  Lab 257 is the title of the book I have. Very fine, factual account if seeming a little sensationalized.

Posted by: FOTSGreg || 09/25/2008 23:07 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Pakistani troops fire on US helicopters
KABUL, Afghanistan - Pakistani troops fired at American reconnaissance helicopters patrolling the Afghan-Pakistan border Thursday, heightening tensions as U.S. steps up cross-border operations in a region known as a haven for Taliban and al-Qaida militants.

Two American OH-58 reconnaissance helicopters, known as Kiowas, were on a routine afternoon patrol in the eastern province of Khost when they received small arms fire from a Pakistani border post, said Tech Sgt. Kevin Wallace, a U.S. military spokesman. There was no damage to aircraft or crew, officials said. "They did not cross the border and they did not fire back," Wallace said. U.S. forces and Pakistan's military "are working together to resolve the matter," a NATO statement said.

Pakistan's military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said Pakistan's military was awaiting a full report from Afghanistan on Thursday's shooting, but that Pakistani units had "very clear" orders not to fire across the border. "We are getting it investigated," he said.

In Washington, a U.S. official said the U.S. coalition in Afghanistan immediately demanded an explanation from Pakistan, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 10:37 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  NEW YORK - Pakistan's new president says his military fired only "flares" or warnings, at foreign helicopters that he claims crossed the border from Afghanistan into his country.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari told U.S. reporters Thursday that his forces fired only as away to warn the helicopters that they had crossed the border. Zardari said that it's often difficult to tell just where the border is.


Next time, maybe a little 30mm cannon return fire. Just to say..."thanks".
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 11:54 Comments || Top||

#2  They did not cross the border and they did not fire back.

I know this story is true, unlike the Paklander's claim the Americans fired at them. Because if we did, no one would be left alive to tell the tale.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/25/2008 12:07 Comments || Top||

#3  Like the old joke says: "That's ONE..."
Posted by: mojo || 09/25/2008 12:34 Comments || Top||

#4  My Grandmother shot at me from across the line of control once...
Posted by: Abdominal Snowman || 09/25/2008 12:52 Comments || Top||

#5  Sounds like a Dangerously situation, AS.
Posted by: SteveS || 09/25/2008 13:33 Comments || Top||

#6  Look closer. Probably in support of infiltration or smuggling.
Posted by: ed || 09/25/2008 13:46 Comments || Top||

#7  The president of Pakistan is a civilian. He knows only what he is told.

What is "small arms fire" with regard to a Kiowa/OH-58 reconnaissance helicopter? How much more serious than kids taking potshots at tin cans with an air rifle?
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 13:54 Comments || Top||

#8  the outpost should not exist anymore even if they did fire too tell them they had crossed the border. Not too mention they don't care who else crosses it
Posted by: sinse || 09/25/2008 13:55 Comments || Top||

#9  they are just playing " Pakis and Indians. "
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 09/25/2008 14:04 Comments || Top||

#10  See, this is all because Sarah Palin knows nothing of diplomatic relations. When a Pakistani leader says your are "gorgeous", by golly, you better hold him tight, or he will have his people fire on your people.
Posted by: plainslow || 09/25/2008 15:38 Comments || Top||

#11  TW, small arms fire (rifle and light to medium machine gun fire) is able to do the Kiowa serious (and possibly mortal) damage. The Kiowa is unarmored and very thin skinned. That said, they are fairly hard to hit and reasonably maneuverable.d backup
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 09/25/2008 15:44 Comments || Top||

#12  Thank you, Whiskey Mike. In other words, exactly as dangerous as to the tin can when kids are taking potshots with air rifles. ;-) You share so generously of your knowledge, and you know how much I love that!
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 16:14 Comments || Top||

#13  I think we ought to annihilate any border post firing on our forces. How many border posts will be wiped out before they learn a lesson that we are not to be triffled with.

Alqaeda, Pakitalies, and unreconstructed taliban are busy planning attacks on the West from the FATA and Northwest provinces and we're supposed to allow them go about their plans for an attack on our homeland?
Posted by: Punky Elmineling4042 || 09/25/2008 16:28 Comments || Top||

#14  "Blazing Saddles"quote,
Don't shoot him, (Mongol) you'll only make him mad.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 09/25/2008 18:06 Comments || Top||

#15 

OH-58 Kiowa. The co-pilot often times has a M-4 next to him and there have been many confirmed kills by co-pilots with their M-4s as the Kiowa flies so low he can use it. As WM said, one 7.62 round in the right place can bring it down. The cockpit has no protection and the crew are the easiest part to hit.
However, since the Kiowa is so maneuverable and quick, the crews love them and are fearless flying into areas that they shouldn't be in and usually come out with just a bullet hole or two.
I know us infantry guys love 'em.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/25/2008 18:21 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
India-Pakistan Glacier Battleground Could Lead to Environmental Catastrophe
It could. Or maybe not.
The quarter-century struggle between India and Pakistan for control over the Siachen Glacier along their disputed border in Kashmir is setting up a environmental catastrophe that will devastate the region's water supply, according to environmental scientists.

By stationing toxin-leaking military equipment and between 6,000 and 25,000 combined troops atop the glacier, and by landing flights daily on the world's highest helipad, India and Pakistan have made the Siachen the world's dirtiest glacier and one of the world's fastest-receding glaciers -- it currently loses roughly 100 meters (328 feet) per year. That dirties the water tank for some of Asia's largest rivers, which together provide drinking water for half of humanity.
I ain't a mathematician, and don't even play one on TV, but that seems a little high for one glacier.
"If Siachen and other glaciers
Oh - now it's expanded to "other glaciers" - kinda like the gerbil wormening thing....
are not preserved, the impacts on human health, water resources and food production will be colossal," said Abid Suleri, director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, a think tank in Pakistan.
"Think tank" "Pakistan" - DoesnotcomputeDoesnotcomputeDoesnot compute
Crop yields could be reduced by up to 20 percent in East and Southeast Asia and by up to 30 percent in South and Central Asia by 2050, he added.
It's always could. And it's always 2050. Did the global catastrophe prognosticators get a half-price special on that year?
Comfortably close enough to scare people and comfortably far away enough so that the experts are dead and buried before Armageddon arrives ...
"Due to military exercises and battles, toxic wastes are buried in the ice, and these find their way into the Indus water basin and affect the lifeline of Pakistan,"
And no other country in the region gets their water from the India Indus water basin, Kahlid? Of course not.
said glacier specialist Khalid Rashid, who taught math and physics at Islamabad's Quaid-i-Azam University.
"Math & physics" "Islamabad" - DoesnotcomputeDoesnotcomputeDoesnot compute (Are they trying to make my head explode?
"The whole area is being polluted with toxic waste, and it will pollute your children and your grandchildren. If we do not want to leave behind the harmful effects of human activity, we must withdraw troops now."
By "we" he means INDIA, of course. Tell ya' what - y'all go first and show India how it's done, m'kay?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 10:37 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Environmentalists must go to that glacier and protest - to save the world. Now! And don't come back until the job is done.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon || 09/25/2008 13:06 Comments || Top||

#2  All of a sudden a paki is concerned about his family. yet they will shoot their own son and cut their daughters throat at the word of dishonor
Posted by: sinse || 09/25/2008 14:00 Comments || Top||

#3  according to environmental scientists

Ha?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/25/2008 19:14 Comments || Top||

#4  The solution to pollution is dilution. Sorta works for the Ganges, don't know about the Indus. Lifeline of Pakistan, ya say? Wellll, that puts things in a whole new light.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 09/25/2008 22:25 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Chinese journalists invent time travel!
BEIJING - A news story describing a successful launch of China's long-awaited space mission and including detailed dialogue between astronauts launched on the Internet Thursday, hours before the rocket had even left the ground.

The country's official news agency Xinhua posted the article on its Web site Thursday, and remained there for much of the day before it was taken down. A staffer from the Xinhuanet.com Web site who answered the phone Thursday said the posting of the article was a "technical error" by a technician.
Posted by: Mike || 09/25/2008 10:33 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is probably how they'll get their gymnasts to age.
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 10:47 Comments || Top||

#2  The question is, did they already launch and they are waiting until they land safely before "pretending" to launch. Sort of a slightly more open way than the Soviets used to do it.

Or will they bullshit the launch no matter what happens and say all went well.

tu3031's comment is brilliant.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 09/25/2008 11:54 Comments || Top||

#3  There was a young lady named Bright
Who traveled much faster than light
She set out one day
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night
Posted by: mojo || 09/25/2008 12:37 Comments || Top||

#4  Hope the premature launch article wasn't in the obituaries section.
Posted by: ed || 09/25/2008 12:50 Comments || Top||

#5  In other news, "Dewey Defeats Truman"!
Posted by: Darrell || 09/25/2008 14:29 Comments || Top||

#6  took a page from Biden's palybook, did they????
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 09/25/2008 14:42 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran Sinking as Aquifers Dry Up
Iran is drawing groundwater faster than it can be replenished, causing large chunks of farmland to sink and rocking buildings off their foundations, according to a new study.
But on the bright side, we're going to be a nuclear nation soon!
Satellite radar observations indicate the water table has sunk an average of 1.5 feet annually during the past 15 years, sinking the unsupported soil above it.
Probably being used for all those centrifuges.
The loose, shaky soil exacerbates earthquake damage,
No, really? Hooda thunk it!
according to study author Mahdi Motagh from GFZ, the German Research Centre for Geosciences based in Potsdam, Germany.

The overdraws come from a growing population and an explosion
Insert bad pun here....
in industry and farming. Half of Iran's water comes from aquifers.

"This can only be mitigated by finding water elsewhere
For once, I don't think they mean Israel, which is also a desert. Anyway, if ImaDinnerJacket has his way, any water stolen taken from Israel will be slightly radioactive.
or by drastically reducing water use for agriculture, industry and personal use but not for the Mad Mullahs, the Army, and ImaNutCase, of course, neither of which will be easy in Iran or many other countries facing similar water crises," said Roland Burgmann, from the University of California-Berkeley, who was not involved with the study.
So of course he's an expert on it.
Iran's groundwater troubles -- as well as its subsequent sinking -- mirror problems faced worldwide, including in the U.S., where groundwater is in increasingly short supply in the arid Western states.
Yep, it's All Our Fault. I'm surprised they didn't blame the Jooooooooos.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 10:24 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sorry, mods - thought I put this in non-WOT.

On the other hand....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 10:35 Comments || Top||

#2  Before 9/11, it was predicted that war over water supplies was going to cause the next world-wide convulsion. There's a long list of simple, low-cost conservation techniques that could put the problem off for a while (fix leaking pipes being the first item) that a large part of the world, including the U.S., have not bothered to implement. After all, water falls from the sky.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 10:41 Comments || Top||

#3  ...---... ...---... we are sinking, we are sinking!

Hallo, hallo.....vat are you sinking?
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 10:42 Comments || Top||

#4  It was around my third year of engineering school when we learned how to calculate how much a well can safely put out. Safely as in sustainably. If you overtax an aquifer it compacts, permanently, thus reducing its hydraulic conductivity. That's just engineering talk for the speed water moves through a permeable layer of earth, the point is it is permanently decreased with overuse.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/25/2008 11:05 Comments || Top||

#5  Now would be a good time to think about GC crops, the Evil JEW crops that use much less water.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/25/2008 11:08 Comments || Top||

#6  sounds like time to invest in solar stills along our coast lines.
Posted by: DLR || 09/25/2008 13:04 Comments || Top||

#7  So, we got Al Goreacle telling us we are all gonna drown because of rising sea levels. At the same time, these augifers are being depleted. Seems like we need to build a slew of desalination plants to suck water out of the ocean instead of from the ground. They can be powered by tidal/wave energy right off shore. Problem solved...bingo, bango, bongo.
Posted by: remoteman || 09/25/2008 13:36 Comments || Top||

#8  There is a new nanotech filter that only passes through water molecules, nothing larger. Plus it only uses 1/4th the power of conventional reverse osmosis, and is both scalable and low maintenance.

Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/25/2008 13:54 Comments || Top||

#9  To which we can add a bit of baking soda and iodine-free table salt, and instant healthy potability! ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 13:57 Comments || Top||

#10  Waiting for the Dems to also add THIS to their no drill agenda in 5, 4, 3,...
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 09/25/2008 14:27 Comments || Top||

#11  Can't count on solar power as much if the solar wind continues to wind down. No solar wind = more cloud cover = global cooling.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon || 09/25/2008 15:17 Comments || Top||

#12  Moose, what is this, do you have a link? I ask because I use a lab grade RO/DI and the rejection rate is 4:1 - that's alot to spew off for a clean gallon.
Posted by: bombay || 09/25/2008 17:05 Comments || Top||

#13  Someone has to say it.

IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!
Posted by: no mo uro || 09/25/2008 18:41 Comments || Top||

#14  And those cities shall sink.
Posted by: newc || 09/25/2008 21:34 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Code Pink fanatic who tried to disrupt Palin meets with Ahmadinejad
Jim Geraghty, "Campaign Spot" @ National Review

Jodie Evans, the Obama bundler who rushed the stage during Sarah Palin's convention speech, met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last night.

I guess he wanted to tell her, "good job."

Contemplating the extraordinary behavior that the Obama campaign will excuse before they stop taking a bundler's money, I'm reminded of Dennis Miller's routine about just what the heck you have to do to get kicked out of Guns and Roses.
Posted by: Mike || 09/25/2008 10:23 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  One might think that you wouldn't want people like this anywhere near your campaign. The nuts cant account for more than a few percent of the vote, 5%?, max? Why do they coddle them so? They are no doubt having a negative effect on the Dem campaign, every comment section on every rational website article leads me to believe this. Why don't they shake loose of these loons?
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/25/2008 11:12 Comments || Top||

#2  Because they don't think they are loons, BigJim. This is what mainstream thinking is according to the left. The Cause before all else, and the more over the top you behave supporting it, the more they love it/you.
Posted by: DLR || 09/25/2008 11:52 Comments || Top||

#3  These people are not 'hangers on' for Obama's crusade. They are his crusade. Without the wild-eyed kooks, there is no 'is' to Obama. He lacks definition and purpose.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon || 09/25/2008 12:37 Comments || Top||

#4  Look on the bright side - we haven't heard from Cindy Sheehan in a while...
Posted by: Raj || 09/25/2008 12:46 Comments || Top||


Olde Tyme Religion
Egypt cleric says Mickey Mouse is not agent of Satan
Okay. Is this cleared up now? Or do we gotta hear from some other loony tunes holy man?
An Egyptian Muslim scholar has called for an end to risible religious edicts after a Saudi cleric said Mickey Mouse was an agent of Satan who should die, local media reported on Wednesday.
Kill her!!!
Sheikh Mohamed al-Munajid, a cleric who often appears on Saudi television and who is also a former Saudi diplomat in the United States, said last week that mice were "agents of Satan" and should be killed. "Sharia (Islamic law) calls for the extermination of all mice. That includes the rodents as well as 'the famous cartoon mouse'," he said. He blamed Mickey Mouse for causing people to become soft on mice.
FILTHY INFIDEL CARTOON RODENT!!!
However, Suad Saleh, a woman preacher who hosts a popular television programme on fatwas, or religious edicts, told the English-language daily Egyptian Gazette that Munajid's ruling "tarnishes Islam's image."
...and we all know how hard that is to do.
And notice he didn't say it to an Arabic-language newspaper ...
"An edict should be based on knowledge, logic and reason," she said. "Yes, mice should be killed when seen according to Islam's teachings. But it is illogical to deal with a cartoon character as a live mouse and kill it."
...and Disney plays rough. Remember how they dealt with Farfour?
In 2005, the former dean of Egypt's Al-Azhar University, the world's oldest Islamic seat of learning, said in a widely criticised ruling that nudity during sex annuls a couple's marriage.
Even if the lights are out?
Saleh said Muslim clerics should learn to become more media savvy.
Mo wasn't "media savvy", INFIDEL WENCH! A fatwa on you!!
Earlier this month, another Saudi cleric said owners of satellite television channels that broadcast "immoral" content deserved to die.
Geez, most people just threaten to go to cable for a break on their rate...
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 10:10 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Egypt cleric says Mickey Mouse is not agent of Satan

He is of Michael Isner which could be just as bad, sort of, maybe....
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/25/2008 10:43 Comments || Top||

#2  Egypt cleric says Mickey Mouse is not agent of Satan

I'm acquainted with people who have worked for Disney who would beg to differ.
Posted by: Chemble McCoy9435 || 09/25/2008 11:10 Comments || Top||

#3  I know some parents of preschoolers who also might beg to differ.
Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie || 09/25/2008 11:43 Comments || Top||

#4  Pluto, on the other hand, IS the King of Hades....
Posted by: Caesar Flomotle2617 || 09/25/2008 14:47 Comments || Top||

#5  Then I take it Mickey is really an agent of Phil, Prince of Insufficient Light.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 09/25/2008 15:14 Comments || Top||


Home Front Economy
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae: 9/11/03
Note the date...
By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: September 11, 2003
And some of the comments...
''The regulator has not only been outmanned, it has been outlobbied,'' said Representative Richard H. Baker, the Louisiana Republican who has proposed legislation similar to the administration proposal and who leads a subcommittee that oversees the companies. ''Being underfunded does not explain how a glowing report of Freddie's operations was released only hours before the managerial upheaval that followed. This is not world-class regulatory work.''

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed. ''I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,'' Mr. Watt said.
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 09:59 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A new government agency to handle the situation?

Just the ticket.

I now feel ever so much better about the outcome
Posted by: Kelly || 09/25/2008 11:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Affordable housing was the mantra of all the developers and their pet politicians here in San Diego. They talked like there should be enough affordable housing for everybody in the whole wide world who wanted to live here. I remember one story in the Union Tribune where they were crying about immigrants from Somalia who had to move to Utah because they couldn't afford to live here. Sniff. It was sooo sad. /sarc Meanwhile their bulldozers were running roughshod all over the county and they were building McMansions that were going for a million bucks or more. Traffic got so bad on the freeways that a commute that took half an hour in 1993 took up to two hours in 2003. They ruined the place.

Thanks, Barney. We were all bent over and you gave it to us.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 09/25/2008 13:55 Comments || Top||

#3  But Utah's still better than Somalia, right?
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 09/25/2008 13:59 Comments || Top||

#4  It's like a home away from home for them. Go for the affordable housing. Stay for the polygamy.
Posted by: ed || 09/25/2008 14:14 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Iraq Political Breakthrough Buried By MSM
...the Iraqi parliament approved a law paving the way for the first provincial elections in four years.

The breakthrough came after lawmakers decided to postpone a decision on how to resolve a power-sharing dispute over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which has stoked ethnic tensions in northern Iraq.

U.S. commanders have warned that failure by the central government to make progress in promoting unity among Iraq's divided ethnic and religious parties was threatening recent security gains...
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/25/2008 09:33 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Why Obama Will Lose
David Deming
EDMOND -- When Benjamin Franklin was dispatched to France as ambassador of the United States in 1776, he won the hearts of the French through his authenticity. Rather than take on an affected and phony continental style, Franklin eschewed the powdered wig of the European gentleman and donned the fur cap of an American frontiersman. Original genius and polymath, Franklin understood that the French would see through any false pretension but respect an authenticity that sprang from an unpretentious and naive love of country.

What a contrast there is between Franklin and Barack Obama. Obama is a Harvard lawyer who is a mile wide and an inch deep. He is only the latest in a long line of shallow elites that consider it stylish and intellectual to despise their own culture and heritage.

Nothing exemplifies Obama's antipathy for American culture better than his statement that Americans "cling to" religion and guns out of frustration or bitterness. We only can suppose that Obama regards religion or firearms as aberrations that need to be eradicated.

Of course, both guns and religion are essential aspects of American culture. The United States was founded by people seeking religious freedom. Does the word "Pilgrim" ring a bell with anyone? Our freedom and the right to self-government were won by farmers with guns.

The American Revolution started when the British marched to Concord with the intention of confiscating colonial arms. Both the right to "keep and bear arms," and the right to "free exercise" of religion are enshrined in the Bill of Rights. We have come a long way when the presidential nominee of a major political party regards the exercise of fundamental rights as a mental aberration.

When Obama refers to "my Muslim faith," the verbal gaffe resonates as a Freudian slip because of Obama's thinly veiled hatred for this country's unique culture and institutions. Obama sat for 20 years in a church where the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr preached "goddamn America." He only resigned from the congregation when it became politically expedient to do so. When earlier this year, Michelle Obama said "for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country," can we conclude that her husband disagrees? Is it not remarkable that Michelle Obama can be so small-minded as to find nothing in the history of the United States that merits her admiration but the personal success of her husband?

What is Barack Obama for? His campaign motto is "change." But even a 6-year-old child understands that "change" can be either good or bad. Lacking specifics, the invocation of "change" as policy is completely empty. As we witness Obama's minions mindlessly endorse the meaningless maxim of "change," it only can call to mind the barnyard animals in George Orwell's "Animal Farm" chanting "four legs good, two legs bad!"

The choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate has been devastating for the Obama campaign precisely because she is everything Obama is not. Palin is not ashamed of her culture or country. She is not embarrassed by being an American, but naively embraces her birthright. Unassisted by affirmative action, Palin has risen to national prominence on the basis of her character, intelligence and natural gifts. In a word, she has guts. This is a woman who is proud of her country, not because it has granted her personal success, but because she respects what America stands for: freedom, opportunity, and individualism.

Obama is a vapid demagogue, a hollow man that despises American culture. He is ill-suited to be president of the United States. As the weeks pass, more Americans will come to this realization and elect McCain/Palin in a landslide.

DAVID DEMING is an associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma, but his opinions do not necessarily represent those of the university.
Posted by: Beavis || 09/25/2008 09:13 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We can only hope that Mr. Deming is correct.

Who was it that said "Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large numbers"?
Posted by: DLR || 09/25/2008 10:19 Comments || Top||

#2  Optimist.

his opinions do not necessarily represent those of the university.

Understatement or snark?
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 09/25/2008 10:55 Comments || Top||

#3  He is only the latest in a long line of shallow elites that consider it stylish and intellectual to despise their own culture and heritage...Obama is a vapid demagogue, a hollow man that despises American culture.

Where does David come up with this fluff?! Nothing intelligent, just 1/2 truths and smears.
Is there only one culture and heritage in America? The author seems to think so. He doesn't understand it and he fears it. Change keeps democracy fresh.
Posted by: Rupert Sninert6826 || 09/25/2008 11:43 Comments || Top||

#4  Is there only one culture and heritage in America?

Yes, obviously, unless you buy into multiculturalism, and believe that a country and a NATION is a set of separate communities, each with its own culture and own heritage. Western Nations were built against that model, painful as it was. Melting pot, not salad bowl.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 09/25/2008 12:24 Comments || Top||

#5  Change keeps democracy fresh.

Because nothing sez change as a professional chicago machine politician waaaayyyyy to the radical left, with mob connections, whose early sponsor was the area slum landlord, and who's been prepped up by 60's radicals rejects (ayers & co) and a messianic billionaire (soros and his own machine) to become their manchurian candidate, and this only because his skin color makes him a viable bet.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 09/25/2008 12:28 Comments || Top||

#6  Change is what we will have if Obama passes his tax hikes. That's all we will have.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon || 09/25/2008 12:33 Comments || Top||

#7  A new code word has entered the left's political lexicon. Change = Marxist stealth revolution.
Posted by: ed || 09/25/2008 12:42 Comments || Top||

#8  Is Rupert the DNC's latest Troll-of-the-Day offering?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 13:05 Comments || Top||

#9  Rupert Sninert6826 ,
We need change, nobody would argue with that. The national debt has nearly doubled in the last 8 years, Real wages are less than in the 60's, the trade deficit sets record highs ever year. But socialist policies are not the change we need. That's not how this country's political model was set up and that's not how our financial model was crafted. We need to spend less, earn more, and give American businesses and industries a fair shake. If you want to go socialist, try Venezuela, or Bolivia.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/25/2008 13:18 Comments || Top||

#10  Amen Big Jim. We need to grow our way out of this problem. We need to reduce government regulation that stifles real business growth (not the business of the money changers, but the business of companies that actually make things), we need to reform our legal system to introduce a loser-pays result to several types of cases, we need to eliminate the tyranny-of-the-minority that exists now (via the legal system) that stops/inhibits and makes more expensive any needed project (see energy infrastructure). And most of all we need term limits at all levels of government and non-partisan or computerized districting. These are just a few of the things I would do if I were king for a couple of days. (Might invite Heidi Klum over for a friendly cup of tea too, but I digress)
Posted by: remoteman || 09/25/2008 14:23 Comments || Top||

#11  Nothing exemplifies Obama's antipathy for American culture better than his statement that Americans "cling to" religion and guns out of frustration or bitterness

I read that directly as Obama whining like a two year old "They Scare ME"
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 09/25/2008 19:55 Comments || Top||

#12  A level of antipathy matched only by his wife Michelle's comment...."for the first time in my adult life I am proud of American."

These people are the Snap On tools of donk socialism.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 19:58 Comments || Top||

#13  For those who are so big on Obama's CHANGE mantra--could you please send me some? I've got some bills to pay, and it would really be in keeping with Obama's philosophy to help me out. In fact, if everyone in Obama's campaign and his voters would just send me one thin dime, I could retire a sizable amount of debt and be better able to cash in on my slice of the American pie.
Posted by: ex-lib || 09/25/2008 20:50 Comments || Top||

#14  Change from the product of the Chicago Machine. Wanna buy a bridge in Brooklyn?
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 09/25/2008 22:37 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Yale to archive bin Laden tapes
English majors getting tired of Shakespeare and Wordsworth will soon be able to turn to Yale’s libraries for a poet of different kind altogether: Osama bin Laden.

The University is currently in the midst of processing, preserving and archiving 1,500 audio tapes recorded in bin Laden’s Afghanistan headquarters from 1988 through 2000 — a collection that includes recordings of everything from celebrations after militant actions to religious sermons to, yes, bin Laden’s poetry. The University has already digitized 335 of the tapes and will have the rest of the project completed in a few years, Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said, and once the archiving is finished, the entire collection will be available to researchers and students.

The tapes took a roundabout route to New Haven. After the December 2001 fall of the Taliban, Bin Laden and his cohorts fled his Kandahar compound, leaving behind hundreds of audiotapes of gatherings, speeches and sermons that would be unearthed by CNN in the ensuing weeks. The network turned over the tapes to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which decided to release the tapes after concluding that the recordings did not contain any sensitive intelligence.

David Edwards, director of the Williams College Afghan Media Center, obtained the tapes with the intention of preserving and cataloging them. Edwards, a professor of anthropology and sociology, alerted his colleague Flagg Miller, an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of California at Davis, of the tapes’ availability for research purposes. But Edwards subsequently determined that the tapes, having been tossed around and kept in a damp and dusty environment, were in fragile condition and required treatment. He said he thought they would be accessible to a wider range of people at a large research university — particularly one with a strong interest in Middle East collections, such as Yale. In 2005, he offered the audiotapes to the Yale Library Manuscripts and Archives, and later that year they made the trek from Williamstown, Mass. to New Haven.

William Massa, head of collection development for Yale libraries, said that while the original audiotapes are being kept in a Yale library shelving facility in nearby Hamden, researchers, including those without a Yale ID, are welcome to use Yale’s digital archive to access the tapes that have already been restored and processed. “Anybody who registers to use Yale’s resources can have access to the digital recordings,” he said. Conroy said researchers can listen to the digital files in the original Arabic on a secure laptop in the Manuscripts and Archives reading room.

For now, Miller is the sole researcher studying the tapes. Miller, who has access to the original tapes but also uses copies, said the tapes are helping him to investigate the role that language ideology and poetry play in contemporary Muslim reform in the Middle East. Miller, who over the past three years has been translating and transcribing the tapes, said his research will be compiled into a book that will seek to explain the development of Bin Laden’s militant movement with respect to the role of language in Islam and Muslim culture. “The collection represents the most important database on Bin Laden’s intellectual formation that is available to the public,” Miller wrote in an e-mail.

Miller said Western scholarship and the media have focused specifically on Bin Laden’s public statements surrounding Sept. 11 and on rare occasions have revisited earlier statements that he made about the West. The cassettes in the collection, in contrast, offer recordings from as far back as the late 1980s in which Bin Laden can be heard opining on issues such as fighting the Soviet Union, which invaded Afghanistan in 1978. The cassettes include “moving personal narratives of martyrdom” from members of a group that in time would develop a more rational public persona, Miller said. The New York Times has reported that one of the tapes includes a recording of notorious Egyptian-born cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri preaching to jihad recruits by comparing frying eggs to holy war.

Despite the tapes’ high-profile content and recent coverage in major news outlets such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, many Yale history and political science professors interviewed for this article, including those who specialize in the Middle East, said they were unaware of the recordings’ residence in Yale’s libraries. “This is the first time I have heard of them,” political science professor Andrew March said. More than 200 speakers are featured in the audiotape collection, with 20 audiotapes featuring Bin Laden’s voice.
Posted by: ryuge || 09/25/2008 06:05 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The tapes took a roundabout route to New Haven.

They should've just had that Taliban kid they enrolled a coupla years ago run them over. Save on the FedEx bill.
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 9:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Listening to them must be a little like listening to Charlie Manson's ramblings.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/25/2008 17:54 Comments || Top||


Britain
Alleged terrorists wanted 'violent jihad' in Manchester
A Manchester taxi driver was a secret member of al-Qaida who had a terrorists' "contacts book" with phone numbers written in invisible ink, a court was told. Habib Ahmed, 28, of Cheetham Hill, attended a terrorist training camp in Pakistan and was funded in his activities by his wife Mehreen Haji, it was claimed.

A jury at Manchester Crown Court was told Habib Ahmed was called on to help conduct terrorist business in the UK and abroad by Rangzieb Ahmed, a 33-year-old Rochdale-born man who was an "important member" of al-Qaida. It was claimed that the terrorists' contacts book belonged to Rangzieb Ahmed and that he gave it to Habib Ahmed. The book was found when police secretly searched Habib's luggage as he flew back to Britain from Dubai. The two men, who are not related, deny they were members of al-Qaida and have gone on trial along with Habib Ahmed's wife in a case which is expected to last up to three months.

Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, said the investigation had involved the use of listening devices in a hotel room in Dubai and inside two cars in Manchester. The jury was shown a series of documents including a flyer found at Habib Ahmed and Mehreen Haji's North Manchester home showing a picture of a sub machine gun under the heading "Jihad in Manchester?" - advertising an event with speakers at Longsight library.

Mr Edis said Habib Ahmed and Mehreen Haji had been interested in the idea of violent Jihad and had been married by Muslim cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad who was the leader of the now defunct organisation al-Mujaharoun. The jury was shown a picture of the Sheikh at the wedding celebration and his signature on the couple's marriage certificate. The certificate also bore the name of witness, Hassan Butt who Mr Edis explained had given a number of interviews to newspapers saying he was a Taliban supporter and terrorist recruiter.

The jury was also told of books found at the couple's home and information on a computer including evidence someone had looked up information from the Anarchist's Cookbook including how to make explosives, lock picking and how to kill someone with your bare hands. A book called "Join the Caravan", which said fighting those occupying Muslim lands was a religious obligation was also found at the house.

Forensic examination of a computer found at the house revealed Mehreen Haji had been interested in the topic of Jihad and suicide missions because there was evidence of Google searches on whether they could be justified on religious grounds and notes she had made from those searches.

"December 2005 to July and August 2006. That is the key period," Mr Edis said. "The prosecution say that during that time Rangzieb Ahmed who was a member of al Qaida - and an important member of al Qaida who was in a position to direct some of its activities - was engaged in an operation which involved him travelling to Dubai and intending to travel onward to South Africa, but being diverted - because something went wrong - to the UK. "He was travelling on important al Qaida business. In that exercise he was assisted by Habib Ahmed who flew out to Dubai to help him. After they had met in Dubai they both separately flew to the UK arriving on or around Christmas or late December.

"Rangzieb Ahmed stayed in the UK for most of the time until January 17 2006 when he flew out to Pakistan. During that time he was meeting al Qaida contacts and being assisted by Habib Ahmed." He added: "Rangzieb Ahmed is a British national born in Rochdale. He went to Pakistan when he was quite young and spent most of his life out of this country in other places. But his visits to this country in 2005 and 2006 are of importance. The prosecution say he came here when he was doing al Qaida business.

"After he had gone Habib Ahmed remained in this country, it is where he lives. He continued to be a member of al Qaida and in April 2006 he went to a training camp in Pakistan to be trained in how to be an active terrorist. That costs money. When he was there his wife Mehreen Haji sent two tranches of money to him of £2,000 or thereabouts on each occasion."

Mr Edis said that when Habib returned from Dubai via Holland his bags were secretly searched by the police there and found to contain three books. "The prosecution say that those books contained information of considerable importance to a terrorist because it is information which enables terrorists to communicate by email with each other secretly and also some important phone numbers for terrorist contacts - the contacts book of a terrorist," said Mr Edis.

The jury was told Ranggzieb Ahmed had admitted to being a member of another organisation banned in this country called Harkat-ul-Mujihadeen, but that he denied being a member of al Qaida.

Rangzieb Ahmed and Habib Ahmed are both charged with membership of Al Qaeda between January 1 2002 and September 1 2006 and possession of three books linked with terrorism between April 22 2004 and April 12 2006. Rangzieb Ahmed, 33, of Barnston Avenue, Fallowfield is further charged with directing terrorism between April 22 2004 and August 24 2006 and possession of a rucksack containing traces of explosives between April 22 2004 and January 17 2006.

Habib Ahmed, 28, from Cheetham Hill faces additional charges of possession of information for terrorist purposes contained in books between April 13 2006 and August 24 2006 and electronic records connected with terrorism on August 23 2006. He is also charged with attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan between April 23 2006 and June 27 2006. Mehreen Haji, 27, from Cheetham Hill, is charged with two counts of funding terrorism to the tune of £2,005 on May 11 2006 and £1,991 on May 12 2006 which was given to Habib Ahmed. They deny the charges.
Posted by: ryuge || 09/25/2008 05:56 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Southeast Asia
Bomb explodes in Burma on anniversary of government crackdown
Several people were injured by a bomb in the Burmese city of Rangoon this morning, on the first anniversary of the military government's brutal crackdown against democracy demonstrators. The explosion adds to the tension in the country's biggest city, where convoys of armed police are patrolling in anticipation of the anniversary of the 'Saffron Revolution, when hundreds of thousands of Buddhist monks and ordinary Burmese marched against the junta.

Police told Burmese reporters at the scene that seven people suffered "minor injuries" from the bomb, which went off at 10.35 this morning next to Rangoon's Mahandoola Park. The victims appear to have been queuing at a bus stop, a few hundred yards from the place where soldiers opened fire on unarmed protesters on September 27, 2007. One foreign witness, who was on the scene soon after the explosion, reported seeing at least three injured people, including two who lay motionless on the ground. The loud explosion rattled windows as far as two hundred yards away but caused little obvious physical damage. Within minutes the area around the explosion had been sealed off by police armed with rifles and guns for firing rubber bullets.

Police were to be seen probing the bushes and grass in the park, apparently in a search for further bombs, and photographing the site of the explosion. Plain clothes intelligence agents moved people along and took the photographs of foreigners who lingered close to the scene. "There was no bomb, no problem," a plain clothes security agent told The Times. "It is just a rehearsal -- no problem."

Two weeks ago two people died and ten were wounded by two explosions at a café in the north-east of the country, and last week three people were injured in an explosion on a Rangoon bus.

Opposition activists say that there will be no street demonstrations this week, because of the intense security presence in Burma's main cities. A convoy of ten trucks of riot police has been driving around the centre of Rangoon, with guns, truncheons, shields and bales of barbed wire on open display. Buddhist monks at monasteries which were involved in last year's disturbances report that plain clothes spies are watching their comings and goings, and may even have infiltrated their ranks.
Posted by: ryuge || 09/25/2008 05:38 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I found this article in the New Yorker from August 25 2008 excellent background on the Burma Uprising. Thought you all might find it equally helpful-- of special note is the role the US has played in fostering the development of political discussion groups critical of the regime. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/08/25/080825fa_fact_packer
Posted by: Tiny Phaper7687 || 09/25/2008 13:22 Comments || Top||


One dead, four wounded in two incidents in southern Thailand
The jihad insurgency in Thailand's southern provinces continues to take a toll of local residents and community life in Yala, with a rubber tapper the latest casualty on Thursday and four others wounded in Narathiwat Wednesday night.

Yala villager Asaman Sara, 22, was seriously wounded in the morning in Bannang Sata district on the Yala-Betong Road on his way to tap rubber. The incident occurred on the Yala-Betong road, and was believed to be the work of an terrorist insurgent group.

Meanwhile, local officials and a bomb disposal squad inspected the site of a Wednesday night bombing at a school in Narathiwat's Ruso district. One male student and three soldiers from the teacher protection unit were wounded and are now in hospital. The initial investigation said the terrorists insurgents placed a remote-controlled bomb in an iron box and detonated it with a mobile phone. The school was closed temporarily due to uncertain security.
Posted by: ryuge || 09/25/2008 05:29 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Thai Insurgency


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Global Cooling Alert: Solar wind weakest since beginning of space age
The intensity of the sun's million-mile-per-hour solar wind has dropped to its lowest levels since accurate records began half a century ago, scientists say. Measurements of the cosmic blasts of radiation, ejected from the sun's upper atmosphere, were made with the Ulysses spacecraft, a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The solar wind "inflates a protective bubble, or heliosphere, around the solar system," which protects the inner planets against the radiation from other stars, said Dave McComas, Ulysses' solar wind principal investigator and senior executive director at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. "With the solar wind at an all-time low, there is an excellent chance the heliosphere will diminish in size and strength," said Ed Smith, NASA's Ulysses project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"If that occurs, more galactic cosmic rays will make it into the inner part of our solar system," added Smith.
Increase in cosmic rays means an increase in hygroscopic nuclei which stimulates additional cloud cover reflecting the sun's radiation and causing global cooling.
Scientists say the weakening of solar wind appears to be due to changes in the sun's magnetic field, but the causes of these changes are unknown. The weakened solar activity can be beneficial because it slows satellites around the Earth, allowing them to remain in orbit longer.

The sun normally experiences 11-year-cycles between periods of great activity and lesser activity. But, Smith said, the Ulysses mission's recent results, published in Geophysical Research Letters, show that "we are in a period of minimal activity that has stretched on longer than anyone anticipated."

The Ulysses mission was the first project to survey the space environment over the sun's poles. The data the spacecraft has collected has profoundly changed the way scientists view our nearest star and its effects on the Earth.

The spacecraft has traveled more than 539 million kilometers in more than 18 years, almost four times its expected lifetime.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 09/25/2008 02:29 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "this is the day when the oceans stopped their rise..."

Senator Obama upon Hillary's concession
Posted by: mhw || 09/25/2008 9:40 Comments || Top||

#2  "Scientists say the weakening of solar wind appears to be due to changes in the sun's magnetic field, but the causes of these changes are unknown."

No chance in hell the "cause" could be, you know, NATURAL, huh?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 10:57 Comments || Top||

#3  Barbara you know damn well that the changes aren't natural.

It's you driving the damn SUV!!!!!!

Not satisfied with killing the earth you now want to kill the Sun too!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: AlanC || 09/25/2008 11:06 Comments || Top||

#4  Yep, Alan, it's all my fault.

Looks like I'll have to trade up the CRV to a Hummer if I'm going to complete my eeeeeevil plan!

**cackle**

;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 11:16 Comments || Top||

#5  Brace yourselves: As soon as Gore and his minions realize it's mostly the sun's fault, they'll be begging us to reduce our "carbon footprints" because "it's the only chance we have to lessen the impact of the catastrophe on Mother Earth." All their junk science will go unmentioned in the MSM.
Posted by: Darrell || 09/25/2008 11:48 Comments || Top||

#6  I just can't wait for the day when it becomes clear that the Goracle and his followers are the only ones filled with hot air and are finally laughed out of town.

Or tarred and feathered and run out on a rail.

Either works for me, but I prefer the latter.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/25/2008 12:14 Comments || Top||

#7  Notice how important the financial crisis has put all this pseudo scary stuff where it belongs - buried deep in the cellar. We live in the here and now not the past or future. Some do but most of us go day to day. But the greenies are always looking for how to inculcate themselves - Friedman of the NYT's wants all the homes built on the money received from the illiquid assets to be built to LEED standards. You can keep them on the back pages but not away from your tax dollars.
Posted by: Jack is Back! || 09/25/2008 13:10 Comments || Top||

#8  ION TOPIX > THE STAGE IS SET FOR HIS APPEARANCE [DAMIEN = Rise of THE ANTICHRIST].

OR, in the altern, the ISLAMIST HIDDEN-IMAM/MAHDI???

*1980's BLOOM COUNTY COMICS > CRAZY WEIRDO KIDS AND THEIR WEIRDO POLITICS... This is what happens when they freak out after drinking STALE HEINEKEN BEER.

OF COURSE YOU KNOW THIS IS ALL REAGAN'S = THEIR MOTHER'S FAULT!?
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 23:10 Comments || Top||

#9  WHEN DADDY SAYS "DRILL TEAM" + "HOMEWORK" + "FIND A GOOD JOB", THEIR MOM + DAUGHTERS HEAR "SHOPPING", "CHEERLEADING", + "WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION" - There goes PAULA ABDUL again kicking her Daddy's favorite coconuts!

D *** NG IT, PAULA GIRL, WHAT IS IT WID YOU AND COCONUTS - WHAT DID COCONUTS AND TROPICAL PLANTS EVER DO TO YOU!
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 23:17 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
'Obsession' DVD sparks election compaint in US
A controversial video about the dangers of radical Islam that has been distributed to millions of American homes in key electoral swing states as part of their daily newspaper bundle has become the target of a formal complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) Wednesday.

The 2006 DVD "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" has been distributed free-of-charge in 70 newspapers, including the New York Times, reaching 28 million people in battleground states in a campaign that a national Islamic civil rights group has said may violate federal election law.

Produced by the non-profit Clarion Fund, the DVD claims to claims to give "an 'insider's view' of the hatred the Radicals are teaching, their incitement of global jihad, and their goal of world domination" using Arabic television footage "rarely seen in the West."

'The threat of Radical Islam is the most important issue facing us today,'' the sleeve of the DVD Americans received in their newspapers over the past week and a half reads. ''But it's a topic that neither the presidential candidates nor the media are discussing openly. It's our responsibility to ensure we can all make an informed vote in November.''

The Washington D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed a complaint with the FEC Wednesday asking it to investigate whether the organization violated election rules governing the contributions of charitable organizations and foreign nationals to a presidential campaign. According to U.S. law, 501(c)(3) organizations may not engage in political activity, endorse campaigns or conduct campaign activities that seek to influence elections.

According to the Patriot News in Pennsylvania an article on the group's Web site, www.radicalislam.org explicitly backed Republican presidential candidate John McCain: "McCain's policies seek to confront radical Islamic extremism and terrorism and roll it back while [Barack] Obama's, although intending to do the same, could in fact make the situation facing the West even worse."

Gregory Ross, communications director for the Clarion Fund, was quoted as saying the article "crossed the line" and would be removed.

Ninety-five percent of the papers containing the DVD were sent to 10 key swing states in what CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper called "an unprecedented, mindboggling campaign" by a non-profit organization that has refused to reveal the funding source for the mailing.

Despite several attempts by AlArabiya.net to contact the Clarion Fund no calls were returned. "This is typical right-wing pro-Israel stuff," Hooper told AlArabiya.net in an interview.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  CAIR apparently thinks that the Obama-Biden campaign's interests are coterminous with their own. Wonder what Biden thinks of that?
Posted by: Mitch H. || 09/25/2008 8:52 Comments || Top||

#2  CAIR must be between indictments right now, cause they sound awful uppity lately.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/25/2008 9:01 Comments || Top||

#3  Time for some more roach spray in the CAIR hotel.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/25/2008 9:41 Comments || Top||

#4  CAIR apparently mistakes the FEC for something with, y'know, actual power. Teeth.

Nope. Sorry, boys.
Posted by: mojo || 09/25/2008 10:18 Comments || Top||

#5  "Wonder what Biden thinks of that?"

Biden thinks, Mitch?

Who knew?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 11:11 Comments || Top||

#6  Received the DVD by mail, watched it with my wife, have no gripe with it based on my years of reading here at the burg, and saw absolutely nothing in it about any presidential candidates or the election. It looks like protected free speech to me.
Posted by: Darrell || 09/25/2008 11:52 Comments || Top||

#7  Besides, what are they going to do, make us mail it back and forget it?
Posted by: Darrell || 09/25/2008 11:53 Comments || Top||

#8  Darrell - think about the 're-education camp' portion of the movie 'The Killing Fields'?

Only its called 'sensitivity training'....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 09/25/2008 12:12 Comments || Top||

#9  Nice of Al Arabiya to give the URL to radicalism.org.

Maybe some arabs will read it.
Posted by: mhw || 09/25/2008 14:04 Comments || Top||

#10  Damn... I guess they figured distributing it here in the soviet of Hawai'i would be a lost cause....
Posted by: Sonny Grusomp9136 || 09/25/2008 14:52 Comments || Top||

#11  Here too in the peoples republic of Washington [state]. Home of Baghdad Jim (McDermitt, D-Al Qaeda)
Posted by: CrazyFool || 09/25/2008 15:17 Comments || Top||

#12  Yup, here three in PRMassaholia.
Posted by: AlanC || 09/25/2008 15:57 Comments || Top||

#13  Well, is there gonna be a fatwa?
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 09/25/2008 18:03 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Pakistan clashes leave 32 killed
At least seven Pakistani troops and 25 militants have been killed in fierce fighting in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, officials say. "There was a fierce clash between security forces and miscreants in Bajaur in which 25 miscreants were killed and seven soldiers embraced martyrdom," chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP Wednesday. The two sides exchanged heavy rocket and mortar fire during the fighting, sources said.

Nearly 800 civilians and militants have been killed to date and more than 300,000 people are displaced as a result of operations against the militants, which began August 6.

Thousands of people have illegally crossed into Pakistan since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. US and Afghan officials allege that militants use Pakistan's mountainous regions to launch cross-border attacks on US-led troops based in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Pak begins probe into crash of suspected US spy plane
(PTI) Pakistan has initiated a "detailed investigation" into the crash of a suspected US spy plane in the restive northern border areas amid claims by tribesmen they had shot the unmanned drone down. The suspected US drone crashed in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan where American military strike have sparked tension and the Pakistan army said it was investigating whether the UAV was shot down or crashed, media report said.

Confirming the crash of the US predator drone in Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan, the Pakistan Army spokesman was quoted by The News newspaper as saying it crashed apparently due to malfunctioning. Though the army said the drone crashed, local residents said it might have been shot down. "Yes, the security forces and Wazir tribesmen fired at the plane and shot it down," an unnamed security official was quoted as saying by the Pakistani daily.
"I shot it with me Grandpappy's Martini-Henry!"
"The wreckage of the UAV has been recovered from the site by the security personnel and the matter is under detailed investigation," the army spokesman said in a statement.

It did not say who the drone belong to but security official citing anonymity said it was an American aircraft.

The Pentagon, the paper said, had no report of any crash, while the CIA declined to comment.

The incident comes just two days after Pakistani official said that their troops had opened fire to drive back two US helicopter gunships that had crossed into Pakistani airspace in neighbouring North Waziristan.

The site of the drone crash in South Waziristan was a scene of the first ever officially acknowledged special operations hit by US-led coalition forces which left 15 dead including some key al Qaeda operators.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  The Pentagon, the paper said, had no report of any crash, while the CIA declined to comment.

So I guess we know who owns it.
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 9:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Jezail damage.
Posted by: mojo || 09/25/2008 10:16 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Chavez Will Meet Medvedev in Orenburg
Just days after Moscow dispatched a Navy squadron to Venezuela, the Latin American country's president will touch down in Orenburg for a meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday.

Hugo Chavez, an outspoken ally of Moscow, is stopping over during a flight from China to France, officials from the Venezuelan Embassy and Orenburg regional administration said Tuesday.

The choice of Orenburg, capital of a region stretching along the border with Kazakhstan, is connected solely to Medvedev's schedule, a Venezuelan Embassy official said on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media.

Alxei Likhtin, deputy information minister in the Orenburg regional government, confirmed that the two presidents were expected to meet later this week but refused to elaborate. "Apparently yes, but we do not know what sort of visit this will be, whether in the city of Orenburg or outside," Likhtin said by telephone.

The Kremlin declined to comment. A spokesman, Andrei Solesnikov, merely said that no official announcement would be made Tuesday.

The presidents will sign a bilateral cooperation agreement on energy, science and technology, Itar-Tass reported, citing a television address by Chavez last week.

It was also unclear whether Chavez would meet Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that he could not comment yet.

Last week, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin led a delegation of ministers and business executives to Caracas, where he oversaw deals to develop offshore gas fields with state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela. Sechin also is chairman of state-controlled oil giant Rosneft.

Moscow has intensified trade ties with Caracas in recent years, but after this summer's military campaign in Georgia, which sent relations with the West plummeting, the Kremlin stepped up military cooperation with the government of Chavez, a fiery leftist and critic of the United States.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ION WAFF > RUSSIA TO MODERNIZE NICARAGUA'S ARSENAL [aging Soviet weponry].

* SINO-DEFENSE > RIAN - US VULNERABLE TO TU160'S AND KH-555 CRUISE MISSLES.

* WORLD MIL FORUM [China] > DEFENSE NEWS - CHINA PLANS TO DEPLOY NEW LONG-RANGE ICBM CAPABLE OF HITTING WASHINGTON DC; + CHINA IS THE NEUTRON BOMB TERROR. Milyuhns and Zilyuhns of low-yield, Personnel-only killing nukes, + CHINESE PLA HEAD ZHENFENG TO MEET WID PAKISTAN ARMY CHIEF ON MAGNITUDE OF CHIN MILITARY AID [e.g. AIR DEFENSE SYS], + CHINA SUCCESSFULLY DEPLOYS SOSUS-TYPE SUB DETECTION NETWORK TO DEFEAT US NAVY, + CHINA INTO THE GLOBAL MILITARY THREAT UNTIL AT LEAST 2050, Chin better off being strong than weak, and should seek closer National-Military Econ Cooper wid JAPAN to offset US-NATO advantages and empower pan-Asian independence [Asia for Asians], + SOUTH CHINA SEA: CHINA's PLAN USES 12 OF MOST ADVANCED SUBS IN ANTI-TAIWAN, US NAVAL EXERCISE [9 AIP + 3 Nuke Subs].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 1:55 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Scores of Somalis flee Mogadishu
Scores of Somali civilians have fled their homes as fighting intensifies between African Union troops and insurgents in the capital. Officials say an estimated 16,000 people have left their homes in Mogadishu for safer places.

Mogadishu has been the scene of escalating violence since Monday after the city came under attack by insurgents who fired mortars at the capital's main airport and the presidential palace. They also fired mortars at the AU base in south of the city.

On Tuesday, some 60 civilians were killed in the crossfire between AU soldiers and militants at Mogadishu's Bakara market.

According to a Press TV reporter in Mogadishu, the sounds of deafening gunfire could be heard throughout the city and civilians were fleeing their homes on minibuses, donkey carts or on foot.

"I am moving because I cannot endure the sound of the mortar fire. I don't know where to move to but I'm looking for a peaceful place for my family to live in," a Mogadishu resident said.

"I have escaped from my house because throughout last night artillery shells had been pounding on us," another resident said.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic Courts

#1  So where are they going? Nebraska?
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 9:41 Comments || Top||

#2  tu3031, you're funny as hell. but on the other hand they are probably headed toward GA since we seem too have a safe haven for them here also
Posted by: sinse || 09/25/2008 11:06 Comments || Top||

#3  Minnesota.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 09/25/2008 11:20 Comments || Top||

#4  "Scores of Somali civilians have fled"
16,000 -- that's a lot of scores!
Posted by: Darrell || 09/25/2008 12:16 Comments || Top||

#5  Maybe they can all move to Sudan, and be the target of the Lord's Resistance Army.

Seriously, something needs to be done in Somalia, I just don't know exactly what at this point. The Ethiopian military doesn't seem to have the expertise for counter-insurgency operations, and there aren't any military forces available that do. Crushing Eritrea and seriously breaking Sudan might help, but the pipeline from the Saudis and Iranians is probably still in place.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 09/25/2008 13:25 Comments || Top||

#6  Quit feeding them and they will settle down.
Posted by: ed || 09/25/2008 13:48 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Suspected Marriott bombing 'mastermind' Qari Zafar emerges
(AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - The alleged mastermind of last Saturday's deadly truck bombing of the Marriott hotel in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, has emerged.

The suspect, Qari Zafar, has become part of Al-Qaeda's hardline Takfiri inner circle. He enjoys the protection of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud and is believed to be hiding out in the lawless South Waziristan tribal area of North West Frontier Province.

Zafar is not only the suspected mastermind of the Marriot bomb blast, but has created a network which will shortly target strategic installations belonging to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, military headquarters in Karachi and police stations across the country, according to security officials. "Zafar is behind the planning, arrangement of transportation and procurement of explosives for the attack against the Marriott Hotel on 20 September," a top security source told Adnkronos International on Thursday on condition of anonymity. "Some of his men have been arrested in Punjab which further confirms his involvement in the whole scheme," the official added.

The connection to Zafar was established from phone numbers found on the mobiles of some of those arrested in Punjab.

According to security agencies, the chances of arresting Zafar are slim as he rarely moves from his alleged hideout in South Waziristan to visit the various cities of North West Frontier Province.

To most Pakistanis he is an obscure figure, and is considered by security agencies to be a ghostlike figure whose trail went cold after he managed to escape from custody last year. But he is known to international intelligence services which credit him with fox-like cunning and great bravery when organising and carrying out attacks against identified targets.

Originally from Karachi, Zafar was previously named as the leader of the banned militant Laskhar-i-Jhangvi group.
Originally from Karachi, Zafar was previously named as the leader of the banned militant Laskhar-i-Jhangvi group. In 2007, he escaped from the custody of security services in the Punjabi capital, Lahore. The United States government has put a 5 million dollar bounty on Zafar, according to the Rewards for Justice website.

Zafar is wanted for questioning in connection with the 2 March, 2006 bombing of the US Consulate in Karachi. The attack killed three Pakistani citizens and US diplomat David Foy. Zafar is suspected of being a key figure involved with this attack.
This article starring:
BAITULLAH MEHSUDTTP
QARI ZAFARal-Qaeda
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan

#1  Another reason that Wazoo needs to be systematically kinetically sterilized until the people quit harboring the perps or the perps are all gone. Afghanistan, for the US, has been going on for 7 years now. They respect power, and little else.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 09/25/2008 1:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Another reason that Wazoo needs to be systematically kinetically sterilized until the people quit harboring the perps or the perps are all gone.

Alaska-Paul, Old Patriot haz the solution and it begins with some sweet ole aircraft referred to as a *BUFFS*. The rest is fun to contemplate...
Posted by: Red Dawg || 09/25/2008 1:22 Comments || Top||

#3  I am beginning to suspect most everyone in Pakistan is blind because there seem to be an awful lot of one-eyed men who want to be king.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 09/25/2008 7:08 Comments || Top||

#4  but has created a network which will shortly target strategic installations belonging to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency

So has one of their pit bulls turned on them? Or is this the cover story?
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 9:43 Comments || Top||

#5  W is waiting for Israel to declare D-Day on taking out the Iranians and then on the same day our buffers hit the Taliban in wazooland.
Posted by: Jack is Back! || 09/25/2008 10:33 Comments || Top||

#6  AQ going after ISI? There's room for skepticism here. But consider all the chaos created by AQ in Iraq where they had to contend with US troops. Then think what they could do in Pakiland where there are no US troops, only Pak soldiers whose commitment is doubtful. AQ might be seeing Pakiland as a soft target compared to Afghanistan where they keep dying at the hands of those pesky Americans. Or maybe they think they can have both. They must be thinking about how to choke our supply lines. But wait. There's more. If they destabilize Pakiland there's a chance they could get their hands on the nukes. Then you start to see how an arclight over wazoo makes sense. Let the Paks bitch and moan about their sovereignty all they want. It's for their own good.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 09/25/2008 11:51 Comments || Top||

#7  If they destabilize Pakiland there's a chance they could get their hands on the nukes.

If it ever looks like the Talibunnies are about to lay their paws on the nukes, we'll cauterize the whole damn place. Need to do it now. Damn primitives.
Posted by: Unise Turkeyneck3835 || 09/25/2008 13:03 Comments || Top||

#8  Ebang, I have to agree with you. While it is a dirty bird that shits in its own nest, these are decidedly dirty birds. Pakistan is a soft target. The government and the military have shown neither the will nor the ability to defend themselves effectively against these swine.

Your points about our supply lines and the nukes are also spot-on. These are rich and very achievable targets. However accomplishing the task is going to require patience and unanimity within the Al Q/Taliban side. They will have to muster a substantial force, or turn a subtantial component of the Pak military. I'm not sure they are going to be able to do it piecemeal with terrorist-style attacks. But I am confident that they are going to try.

Few things hone the mind like survival. Should the Al Q/Taliban really make a push to consume Pakistan, then I think the gloves will come off internally and there will be widespread killing. I think the threatened powers might even ask us to perform multiple arc-light raids.

All speculation, but count on the fact that it is going to get ugly and we likely will have an absolute weenie in the white house when it does who won't be able to capitalize on the opportunity/deal with the threat.
Posted by: remoteman || 09/25/2008 13:08 Comments || Top||


Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I am. A little bit. It's those eyes. I feel strangely hypnotized.
Posted by: Scott R || 09/25/2008 0:29 Comments || Top||

#2  Ima scared
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 09/25/2008 0:50 Comments || Top||

#3  Those eyes pre-date the special effects on Stargate.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/25/2008 2:03 Comments || Top||

#4  I am definitely not scared. But perhaps I would if I were very, very close to her. I need to test my courage.
Posted by: JFM || 09/25/2008 5:15 Comments || Top||

#5  I'm not scared of Virginia unless she works for Wall Street or Washington.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/25/2008 7:19 Comments || Top||

#6  Not much in common with her cousin Tammy I dare say.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 9:26 Comments || Top||

#7  She sang Cole Porter's 'I've got you under my skin'(1936). I, for one, am not scared. I'm thrilled with her temptrous look.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon || 09/25/2008 11:24 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Israeli FM: Iran's Security Council bid ''absurd''
(Xinhua) -- Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Wednesday that Iran's bid to become a member of the UN Security Council "absurd", local daily Ha'aretz reported. The newly elected Kadima leader made the remarks in response to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

While calling the Iranian bid "absurd," Livni denounced that Iran "threatens the security of its neighbors and calls for the destruction of another country."

Such a country how can become "a member of an organization whose goal is to contribute to global security," she questioned.

Livni, meanwhile, noted that "Iran is currently subjected to the Security Council's sanctions because it produces nuclear weapons and supplies arms to terror groups."
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  It is absurd.
Posted by: newc || 09/25/2008 17:27 Comments || Top||

#2  Any Islamic country being a full rights member of any international body is absurd.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/25/2008 19:09 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Pakistan: Taliban war now threatens to reach beyond tribal areas
(AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - The Taliban rebellion which has gripped Pakistan's North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan is gaining strength and threatening to escalate in other parts of the country.

The tribal areas of the NWFP that border Afghanistan are steadily falling to a creeping Taliban-led militancy. Military operations have proved ineffective and the militants have rejected offers of any ceasefire while government offices, the Chief Minister's house and military camps are now under attack in the area as well.

More than 100 Pakistani soldiers have been captured during operations to control militants in the Bajaur agency and the armed forces do not know about how to handle operations in the tribal areas. If security forces use jet fighters, militants slip into the thick forests of Kunar in Afghanistan through the maze of mountains on the border and if they advance overland, they immediately come under attack.

On Wednesday, all exit and entry routes leading to the Chief Minister's House and the Governor's House were closed, after the provincial capital of Peshawar came under intense attack this week,

Four rockets were fired on the airport on Monday and again Tuesday. The main oil depot of the city which provides the city's fuel supplies and power generating stations, came under attack on Sunday but fortunately the target missed or the city would have been plunged into darkness for two weeks.

The Kohot Tunnel, the main trade route of the province has been closed for the last sixteen days due to military operations in the Dara Adam Khail.

On Tuesday, the impartial Taliban commander Abdul Wali declared war on the security forces in the adjacent Mohmand Agency, immediately to the south of Bajaur, and sent hundreds of new militants to attack security forces there.

The region around Peshawar, capital of the North-West Frontier Province, including Shabqadar, Charsada, Matni has been a battle ground between the security forces and the Taliban.

In the Swat Valley, the Taliban have once again reinforced their position by renewing attacks on security forces. In the strategic Khyber Agency which is a main NATO route for the supplies to Afghanistan, a jirga (or tribal council) announced the closure of offices belonging to all religious and social organisations in the tribal agency.

The Taliban seized four containers there this week and militants told Adnkronos International (AKI) that the containers were carrying food items and water for NATO troops.

"As our national defence strategy appears to have collapsed, our own proxies -- the Taliban and the Jihadis -- are now waging a war on Pakistan itself and have killed 10,267 Pakistanis in five years, which is 6,000 more deaths than the total number of Pakistani lives lost in the Pakistan-India War of 1965, " wrote Farrukh Saleem, Executive Director of Center for Research and Security Studies, a regional security think tank recently. "It's neither about religion nor about tribal traditions.

"Our national defence strategy has long been dependent on the use of the Taliban in the West and the Jihadis pinning down elements of India's 9, 10, 14, 15 and 16 Corps in the north-east." Saleem said.

After the devastating suicide attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad killed more than 80 people and injured 260 others on Saturday the sense of vulnerability to the militants has deepened in Pakistan.

"As a military officer who served for 40 years I can tell that we can defeat any army of the world but cannot motivate our men to fight against our own people," said Retired Major General Jamshed Ayaz in a local TV talk show. Jamshed is the head of a national think-tank called the Institute of Regional Studies.

According to the senior government sources, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari talked to US officials about establishing a joint force comprising Americans, Afghans and Pakistanis to hunt down the Taliban.

The prime minister advisor on Interior Affairs, Rehman Malik tried to approach Taliban commander, Baitullah Mehsud, in South Wazirsitan and Tehreek-e-Taliban leader, Maulana Faqir Muhammed, in Bajaur to solicit a ceasefire agreement. But militant sources told AKI that the government offer was rejected by the militants.

"After 9/11, we have lost at least two legs of our national defence strategy. As if losing two legs wasn't enough, our Jihadis and our Taliban, the very tools of our foreign policy, are on the loose," said Saleem.

"Our ex-proxies are hitting back at the very soul of Pakistan. It's neither about religion nor about tribal traditions. This is an active insurgency whereby our ex-proxies are struggling to suck the soul out of the nation-state called the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and then hold physical terrain from where they can affect their agenda.

"Our one-time proxies have challenged the state for control of a portion of its territory. The outside world, meanwhile, is out to contain us and stop our violence from spreading. Our national defence strategy has long been due for a major makeover. But, we have long been in a state of denial. Pakistan is truly under siege; under siege because of the proxies we keep."
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP

#1  Move along, Boyz, NO US-ISLAMIST WAR FOR ASIA HERE.

ION REDDIT > MCDONALD'S DOUBLE-CHEESEBURGERS TO BE TAKEN OFF THE [Discount]MENU.

USSA = USR Rising.

D *** NG IT, "OH THE BURGER-MANITY"!?
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 1:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe we should give India some initiative too restart the war with Pakistan. This would give the "jihadist" something too do while also getting alot of them killed.Since this is all these ppl seem too know how to do and IMHO don't seem too good at it either
Posted by: sinse || 09/25/2008 11:23 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Palin Sits Down With Karzai, Uribe
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin made her diplomatic debut Tuesday, meeting with two heads of state who traveled to New York for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly.

Palin, who met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, engaged in small talk and policy discussions as part of her effort to augment her foreign policy credentials. Palin, who has traveled outside North America once, also met with former secretary of state Henry Kissinger at his New York office.

The campaign of Sen. John McCain sought to highlight the sessions with several photo ops, though they limited the news media's access, at one point barring print reporters from observing Palin's initial exchange with Karzai.

Shuttling from one meeting to another, Palin traveled across New York with the buzz of a high-profile personality. Her motorcade shut down traffic, and for a time police barred entry to her Midtown hotel. Tourists pulled out video cameras to film the Alaska governor, prompting several police vehicles to drive onto the sidewalk to protect the SUV in which she was riding. Traffic backed up, crowds gathered behind the barricades and a supporter yelled, "We love you, Sarah!"

Palin also received her first national security briefing on Tuesday from the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, and several of his aides -- a standard practice for the two parties' nominees.

In a briefing with reporters, Palin's senior foreign policy adviser, Stephen E. Biegun, said the governor did not issue policy pronouncements during the sessions with Karzai and Uribe, each of which lasted about half an hour. Biegun said her goals were "to establish a relationship and to listen." Meetings with foreign leaders, he added, "are a very important part of her being prepared on Day One."

Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  funny how they say, "Palin.. who has traveled outside North America once" but fail to tell us about Obama's many questionable trips to Pakistan where he stayed with a high level member of their government.

Besides - how do we know if Obama has been anywhere? He refuses to release his passport records, medical records, law records, school records, etc. etc. He even refuses to tell us which hospital he was born at in Hawaii (there are only two).
Posted by: Betty Grating2215 || 09/25/2008 13:09 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Georgia Claims to Have Shot Down Russian Drone
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Are they really that difficult for an army to shoot down or otherwise disable? Seems like short range missles could be taught to focus in on small, slow moving objects that fly up to about 20,000 feet. Can't knock them down with AK-47's by guerill's, to be sure, but if you have even a bit of the gear of a modern army, they seem vulnerable.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon || 09/25/2008 12:51 Comments || Top||

#2  Can't knock them down with AK-47's by guerill's,

I'd think that soviet/russian 14.5mm would do just the trick, and they're both cheap and plentiful in the third world and in ex-soviet republics.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 09/25/2008 13:00 Comments || Top||

#3  Why would you announce you'd done it? Far better to keep it quiet and just pick off as many of them as you can. Don't give the Russians free intel about what happens to their drones.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 09/25/2008 16:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Don't give the Russians free intel about what happens to their drones.

Because true or not, the propaganda value of it is greater for Saaki than any potential intel value.
Posted by: General_Comment || 09/25/2008 23:15 Comments || Top||

#5  ION GEORGIA, TOPIX > US has warned RUSSIA it will take strong punitive measures iff Russia does NOT withdraw all of its troops from ABKHAZIA + SOUTH OSSETIAN SECURITY ZONES by OCTOBER 10th.

Also from TOPIX > SCHROEDER [Germany]: GEORGIAN ADMISSION INTO NATO MAY SPARK WAR WITH RUSSIA; + BELGIAN MP'S DEMAND NATO NOT ADMIT GEORGIA [at this time] + BEIJING ORDERS WEST CHINA MILITARY FORCES ON HEIGHTENED ANTI-TERROR ALERT.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 23:29 Comments || Top||


Abkhaz parliament approves treaty with Russia
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
'The Perfect Stranger' By Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama is an immensely talented man whose talents have been largely devoted to crafting, and chronicling, his own life. Not things. Not ideas. Not institutions. But himself.

Nothing wrong or even terribly odd about that, except that he is laying claim to the job of crafting the coming history of the United States. A leap of such audacity is odd. The air of unease at the Democratic convention was not just a result of the Clinton psychodrama. The deeper anxiety was that the party was nominating a man of many gifts but precious few accomplishments -- bearing even fewer witnesses.

When John Kerry was introduced at his convention four years ago, an honor guard of a dozen mates from his Vietnam days surrounded him on the podium attesting to his character and readiness to lead. Such personal testimonials are the norm. The roster of fellow soldiers or fellow senators who could from personal experience vouch for John McCain is rather long. At a less partisan date in the calendar, that roster might even include Democrats Russ Feingold and Edward Kennedy, with whom John McCain has worked to fashion important legislation.

Eerily missing at the Democratic convention this year were people of stature who were seriously involved at some point in Obama's life standing up to say: "I know Barack Obama. I've been with Barack Obama. We've toiled/endured together. You can trust him. I do."

Hillary Clinton could have said something like that. She and Obama had, after all, engaged in a historic, utterly compelling contest for the nomination. During her convention speech, you kept waiting for her to offer just one line of testimony: I have come to know this man, to admire this man, to see his character, his courage, his wisdom, his judgment. Whatever. Anything.

Instead, nothing. She of course endorsed him. But the endorsement was entirely programmatic: We're all Democrats. He's a Democrat. He believes what you believe. So we must elect him -- I am currently unavailable -- to get Democratic things done. God bless America .

Clinton 's withholding the 'I've come to know this man' was vindictive and supremely self-serving -- but jarring, too, because you realize that if she didn't do it, no one else would. Not because of any inherent deficiency in Obama's character. But simply as a reflection of a young life with a biography remarkably thin by the standard of presidential candidates.

Who was there to speak about the real Barack Obama? His wife. She could tell you about Barack the father, the husband, the family man in a winning and perfectly sincere way. But that only takes you so far. It doesn't take you to the public man, the national leader.

Who is to testify to that? Hillary's husband on night three did aver that Obama is 'ready to lead.' However, he offered not a shred of evidence, let alone personal experience with Obama. And although he pulled it off charmingly, everyone knew that, having been suggesting precisely the opposite for months, he meant not a word of it.

Obama's vice presidential selection, Joe Biden, naturally advertised his patron's virtues, such as the fact that he had 'reached across party lines to ... keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists.' But securing loose nukes is as bipartisan as motherhood and as uncontroversial as apple pie. The measure was so minimal that it passed by voice vote and received near zero media coverage.

Thought experiment. Assume John McCain had retired from politics. Would he have testified to Obama's political courage in reaching across the aisle to work with him on ethics reform, a collaboration Obama boasted about in the Saddleback debate? 'In fact,' reports the Annenberg Political Fact Check, 'the two worked together for barely a week, after which McCain accused Obama of 'partisan posturing'' -- and launched a volcanic missive charging him with double cross.

So where are the colleagues? The buddies? The political or spiritual soul mates? His most important spiritual adviser and mentor was Jeremiah Wright. But he's out. Then there's William Ayers, with whom he served on a board. He's out. Where are the others?

The oddity of this convention is that its central figure is the ultimate self-made man, a dazzling mysterious Gatsby. The palpable apprehension is that the anointed is a stranger -- a deeply engaging, elegant, brilliant stranger with whom the Democrats had a torrid affair. Having slowly woken up, they see the ring and wonder who exactly they married last night.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Clinton 's withholding the 'I've come to know this man' was vindictive and supremely self-serving I dislike HRC also, but give her some credit for being honest.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/25/2008 7:31 Comments || Top||

#2  The man's forty-something years old and has already written two books about...

HIMSELF!
Posted by: Parabellum || 09/25/2008 7:58 Comments || Top||

#3  With the root causes of market and lending failures (green flags to unqualified minority and illegal immigrant borrowers) beginning to surface and all that is going on right now I would give Obama a snowball's chance in HELL! I remember my father sitting down to pay bills in the 1950's and asking..."where is it all going to end." He didn't live to see it, but it appears I may.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 8:52 Comments || Top||

#4  My error...should read I wouldn't give Obama a snowball's chance in HELL! Peoria is not as stupid as the Beltway elites would like you to believe.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 8:58 Comments || Top||

#5  After the way BO's supporters treated Hillary (kinda/sorta the same sort of BS they are aiming at Sarah....they've got serious female problems in his base), to ask her to vouch for his wonderfulness and sterling qualities is a bit much.
Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie || 09/25/2008 10:07 Comments || Top||

#6  "Nobody's perfect."
Posted by: mojo || 09/25/2008 10:21 Comments || Top||

#7  But still it looks like 50% of the country is set to vote for him.
Posted by: Kelly || 09/25/2008 11:27 Comments || Top||

#8  Besoeker, the difference between snowball statements is insignificant because the snowballs chance is zero.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 09/25/2008 11:53 Comments || Top||

#9  Keeriste, the stoopid A-hole's numbers are going up, not down, since this mess emerged. F**king fool populace seems to believe His Nothingness is preferable to the current crew. Their transference to McPain is 100%. And, every time McPain ought to be making points, he screws it up and does something self-defeating. Instead of pulling away, he's dropping back. This, of course to me, is insane. Buuttt, I conclude that there are many insane voters. This is what scares the living crap out of me.
Posted by: Woozle Elmeter 2700 || 09/25/2008 12:15 Comments || Top||

#10  Woozle, you are seeing the effects of mass advertising dollars as well as the constant fawning media coverage. Turn on the TV and you will see many times more Obama commercials than for McCain. The polls reflect what has most recently been implanted in the viewing public's mind.
Posted by: ed || 09/25/2008 13:04 Comments || Top||

#11  while i think McCain was right to go to DC, i also think he was wrong to drop his campaing commercials and announce he was suspending his campaign. that has led to all the buzz about inability to multi task, his age, etc. Noble ideals, but i fear it has cost him the election.
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 09/25/2008 14:53 Comments || Top||

#12  I watched The One this morning for as long as I could stand it, then went to the barber shop. No escaping the issue there. People are really fired up about this piece of Kak and his constant references to starving children in Kenya and unrest in Africa.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 14:53 Comments || Top||

#13  My GP's receptionist was very annoyed that Candidate McCain was deserting the campaign to swan around the Senate, until I explained he was taking his entire team to really work on the bailout plan. Now she thinks Candidate Obama is a ponce for avoiding the difficult work of government when it's critical.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 15:09 Comments || Top||

#14  USN, a week is a long time in politics. I suspect the money spent on ads right now will have been wasted and McCain will have a new message after the rescue deal is done, and especially after the next debate. Remember, there's two to go and Bambi won't be getting better.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 09/25/2008 15:40 Comments || Top||

#15  Obama as Gatsby is brilliant. Charming, shallow, obsessed with his own desires and ultimately destructive to himself and those around him. Obama is an American archetype, but not one who offers much after the party, inevitably, comes to an end.
Posted by: Baba Tutu || 09/25/2008 15:54 Comments || Top||

#16  The BO show is becoming the show of the audacity of self-aggrandizement.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/25/2008 17:58 Comments || Top||

#17  [online poker has been pooplisted.]
Posted by: online poker || 09/25/2008 18:10 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
El Al flight from Paris lands safely in Israel after bomb scare
An El Al plane flying from Paris to Tel Aviv landed safely on Wednesday after security officials received a warning that al-Qaida may have planted a bomb on board, but this proved to be false, Israeli police said.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yeah, right. The day AQ can succeed in planting even a kiss on an El Al flight is the day we really have to get worried.
Posted by: Jack is Back! || 09/25/2008 10:34 Comments || Top||

#2  But AQ can still play hell just phoning this crap in; do you want to be the guy in the hot seat that decides its another false alarm when /if the plane 'spoleds?

i can only wonder why they haven't invoked this play in the US commercial air system. knowing how porous the TSA (spit) screening system is and the public releases about 'red team' successes for sneaking pretend bombs through, nobody in their right mind would take a chance ignoring that call. the system would be on its knees in hours with a dedicated effort.
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 09/25/2008 14:15 Comments || Top||

#3  i can only wonder why they haven't invoked this play in the US commercial air system

Because they love to kill
Posted by: JFM || 09/25/2008 14:55 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Afghanistan: Taliban attacks increase in new strategy, says NATO general
(AKI) - By Giovanni Del Re - NATO's top military commander, General John Craddock, has expressed concern about the growing number of civilians being killed or wounded in Afghanistan by a resurgent Taliban. In an exclusive interview with Adnkronos International (AKI), Craddock said that the Taliban had changed its strategy and there was greater insecurity in Afghanistan.

"There is greater insecurity, increased violence, but it is generally located in the east and the south, (and) it is not unexpected," Craddock said. "There is growing activity on the border of Pakistan-Afghanistan, there is an increased number of border fighters, I think there is an increased complexity."

Craddock spoke to AKI during a visit to NATO's ISAF mission, the international force which includes 52,000 troops from 40 countries. Speaking about the Taliban in Afghanistan, Craddock said there had been an increase in the deployment of improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers.

"They have changed tactics, there is an increased number of civilians killed or wounded, Afghan police forces are targeted and attacked," he told AKI. "I am concerned about the increase of violence, concerned about the governance, it seems not to be working in the way it should."

Craddock expressed particular concern about the dangers along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. "The border with Pakistan if not the problem, is the problem we focus most in terms of security," he said. "We have got to have coordination with forces on the ground: Afghan forces, ISAF forces, and Pakistani forces on the other side."

He said ISAF has opened the first border coordination centre at the Khyber pass and there are plans for five others on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. "That's a start to get a common picture on the ground and be able to trade information back and forth on the Taliban invaders," he said.

Craddock said while there was no increase in attacks in Kabul, there were more IED bomb attacks and suicide bombings elsewhere. "It is very difficult to understand what's going on because of the complexity of tribal affiliation. I think what we are seeing here is also due the fact that, when the efforts in the south are effective, they push the insurgency to the west and mostly in the central part of the country."

He said attacks in Kabul should be seen in perspective. "Of course, every suicide bombing, every attack reported will be seen as lack of security. But in a city of that size you can't prevent every IED, every attack, and insurgency knows that an attack captures the attention of the media, and will reported over and over again."
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban

#1  Spread poppy diseases.
Cause an opium crop failure.
Rinse and repeat.

Same for the marijuana growing there.

Posted by: 3dc || 09/25/2008 0:21 Comments || Top||

#2  IMO Radical Islam had caused RUSSIA to become unsettled ala GEORGIAN WAR, plus of course INDIA - can they do the same vee Paki ally CHINA [NOKOR + Taiwan issues]???

As argued or inferred times before, NUCLEARIZING IRAN desires to keep a MSM/DIPLOM-CORRECT "LOW -PROFILE" AMAP ALAP, at least until it conducts its first official indigenous NUKE BOMB TEST(S) which IMO must ideally occur NLT 2010. Thusly PAN-ISLAMIST NUCLEARIZATION + POST-DUBYA POTUS PERIOD = the PDENIABLE BURDEN OF WAR + JIHAD MUST OVERTLY AND PREDOMIN FALL ON THE MILITANT-TERR GROUPS.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 1:30 Comments || Top||

#3 
You may be right, Joe.   Certainly the islamicists are playing a long, deep game - longer and deeper than the west seem to recognize or respond to.    Bush's attempt to secularize / free up Iraq and to intervene in Afghanistan as a proxy for  confronting Pakistan (actually, pressuring the ISI from within and outside Pakistan) is the only counter-example that comes to mind.
Posted by: lotp || 09/25/2008 7:53 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Pakistan's president tells Palin she is 'gorgeous'
Sarah Palin and the foreign leaders she has met with in New York have said very little to reporters over the last two days, but the press happened to be in the room on Wednesday for one eyebrow-raising exchange, as the new president of Pakistan lavished praise on Palin's looks.

On entering a room filled with several Pakistani officials this afternoon, Palin was immediately greeted by Sherry Rehman, the country's Information Minister. "And how does one keep looking that good when one is that busy?," Rehman asked, drawing friendly laughter from the room when she complimented Palin.

"Oh, thank you," Palin said.

Pakistan's recently-elected president, Asif Ali Zardari, entered the room seconds later. Palin rose to shake his hand, saying she was "honored" to meet him. Zardari then called her "gorgeous" and said: "Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you."

"You are so nice," Palin said, smiling. "Thank you."

A handler from Zardari's entourage then told the two politicians to keep shaking hands for the cameras. "If he's insisting, I might hug," Zardari said. Palin smiled politely.

The Alaska governor did not answer questions from reporters at her first two appearances on Wednesday, when she joined McCain in meetings with Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili and Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko, and then traveled downtown to meet with Iraqi president Jalal Talabani.

But she did offer brief remarks to a reporter at the Zardari meeting who asked about her day. "It's going great," Palin said. "These meetings are very informative and helpful, and a lot of good people sharing appreciation for America."
Posted by: john frum || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They think she's like one of the screen actresses they like to drool upon, rather than potentially the second most powerful person in the world, who happens to be female. The more fools they.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 7:47 Comments || Top||

#2  As a teenager, I was told by my Dad many times "Fools aren't born, they're made every day by pretty girls."

Underestimate the womenfolk at your own peril.
Posted by: GORT || 09/25/2008 8:05 Comments || Top||

#3  I think the handshake and threatened hug are interesting. The Pakistani women I know will not shake hands with any men outside their immediate families, so I think he was already getting out of bounds before the threatened hug.
Posted by: Darrell || 09/25/2008 9:07 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Shin Bet: Separation fence fueling attacks by East Jerusalem Arabs
The West Bank separation barrier is fueling attacks by East Jerusalem Arabs who feel isolated from fellow Palestinians and are increasingly likely to lash out independently, the Shin Bet security service said on Wednesday, two days after an East Jerusalem resident plowed his car into a crowd in Jerusalem, wounding 17.

The findings by the Shin Bet, which has usually championed tough tactics against a Palestinian uprising that erupted in 2000, appeared to dovetail with Palestinian arguments that a peaceful resolution of Jerusalem's status is key to addressing the causes of political violence in the city.

Citing a need to keep out suicide bombers, Israel has been erecting a network of fences and barricades in the West Bank which loop around Jerusalem. Palestinians see it as a de facto border designed to cut their political ties to East Jerusalem. "Awareness of the fence is creating a long-term estrangement between Jerusalem and the West Bank," the Shin Bet said in a statement, adding that some Palestinian attacks had been motivated by a grassroots desire "to ensure Jerusalem does not disappear from the political agenda".
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So...Is that better or worse than no fence at all? A few folks getting run over is better than a dozen or so every week.
Posted by: tipover || 09/25/2008 0:43 Comments || Top||

#2  "a dozen or so BLOWN TO BITS every week"
Posted by: tipover || 09/25/2008 0:45 Comments || Top||

#3  There is a very simple solution.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/25/2008 19:07 Comments || Top||


Sri Lanka
No talks with LTTE unless it eschews violence: Rajapaksa
(PTI) Sri Lanka today said it would not hold negotiations with the "illegal armed terrorist group" LTTE unless it eschews violence and accused the Tamil rebels of pulling out of earlier rounds of talks on "flimsiest of excuses".

Addressing the 192-member UN General Assembly, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa also said the government has always been ready to effectively implement political and constitutional solutions to meet aspirations of minorities.

"What the government would not, and could not, do is to let an illegal and armed terrorist group, LTTE, to hold a fraction of our population, a part of Tamil community, hostage to such terror in the northern part of Sri Lanka and deny those people their democratic rights of dissent and free election," he said.

Rajapaksa charged the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a "malicious group," of turning the harmony between the Sinhalese and the Tamils "upside down" and walking out of talks on "flimsiest of excuses." All successive Sri Lankan governments, he said, had edeavoured to resolve the problem for more than 25 years through Norwegian and international co-chairs overseeing the peace process but the rebels treated it with "contempt".

"On each occasion that talks were held seeking peace, the terrorists of LTTE walked out on the flimsiest of excuses and reverted to terrorism of the worst kind, indiscriminately targeting innocent civilians," he added.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Peres accuses Ahmadinejad of echoing Protocols of Elders of Zion
Israel's President Shimon Peres on Tuesday criticized the speech by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressing the U.N. General Assembly in which he attacked the Zionist State.

The president of Iran's speech to the United Nations attacking "Zionist murderers" was reminiscent of one the most notorious anti-Semitic tracts in history, Israel's president said.

In an address that opened with a long discourse on God, justice and morality, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the 192-nation U.N. General Assembly that a few "deceitful" Zionists were manipulating Americans and Europeans and controlled the world's financial and monetary systems. "This is the first time in the history of the United Nations that the head of a state is appearing openly and publicly with the ugly and dark accusations of the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion,'" Israeli President Shimon Peres said after Ahmadinejad's speech. "It never took place in this building or in the United Nations," Peres said, adding that it recalled the "the darkest accusations in an air of hatred" and anti-Semitism.

He reiterated Israel's position that Iran has become a "center of terrorism" with its support for the militant groups Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Ahmadinejad, who has said in the past Israel should disappear, said there was growing resistance in the world to the aggression of "bullying powers," a phrase he used repeatedly during his speech to refer to the United States and its allies. "The Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse, and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters," he said, referring to Israel. "American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road, and its next rulers must limit their interference to their own borders," Ahmadinejad said.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


Iraq
Gunmen kill 20 in Diyala Province
Gunmen ambushed and killed 12 policemen and eight US-backed Sunni militiamen in Diyala Province north of Baghdad on Wednesday as rebel violence continued despite a security force crackdown. The gunmen struck at around 3:30 p.m. in the village of Al-Dulaimat in Diyala of which Baqouba is the capital, a security official said.

He said the policemen and the militiamen had gathered in the village when they were ambushed by the gunmen. Doctor Ahmad Fouad of Baqouba hospital confirmed it had received 20 dead. "The bodies are riddled with bullets," he told AFP.

The security official said the area surrounding the village was a longstanding Al-Qaeda stronghold. He said the slain policemen included three officers - a colonel, a lieutenant colonel and a captain.

The ambush took place as the police detachment deployed in the village to take part in a raid against Al-Qaeda militants alongside militiamen of the Sahwa, or "Awakening, Council." "They were in three vehicles when several armed men ambushed and killed all of them," the official said.

Diyala is the most dangerous of Iraq's 18 provinces despite a US-backed offensive which the security forces launched against Al-Qaeda and other insurgents in May. The province has seen a spate of suicide bombings, many of them carried out by women.

On September 15, a woman suicide bomber blew herself up in a crowd of people during a feast in the town of Balad Druz in Diyala, killing 22 people and wounding dozens more.

A few days before he left Iraq earlier this month, the outgoing commander of US forces, General David Petraeus, told AFP that Al-Qaeda was still capable of launching lethal attacks in the country. He said the group had been significantly damaged but was still not defeated.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State of Iraq


India-Pakistan
Pak determined to eradicate menace of terrorism: Gilani
(PTI) Expressing dissatisfaction over the law and order situation in Pakistan, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani today underlined his government's commitment to fight terrorism.
"Yeah! They're really gonna get it! Just you wait and see!"
Chairing a meeting of his cabinet here, Gilani stressed the "need for stringent measures with utmost vigour and strategy to eradicate the menace of terrorism from society".
Omar Saeed Sheikh's still alive. He's the Kandahar hijack laddy, who killed Daniel Pearl. He's been in jug for six years, going through appeal after appeal, probably with a "spectacular escape" in his future.
He also called for an "effective strategy to deal with terrorist incidents in a more coordinated manner" to provide an environment of peace and security to the people.
Hafiz Saeed, the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba is not only still alive, he's free as a bird and respected throughout the Land of the Pure. His boyoz are making special guest appearances in the mosques of Peshawar, preaching jihad, rolling their eyes and hollering "death to the infidel" whilst looking just as fearsome as can be. His collection boxes are freely available for the rubes Faithful to drop their hard-earned into to help finance global jihad.
An official statement said Gilani, "while expressing dissatisfaction over the overall law and order situation in the country, has reaffirmed the government's commitment to fight terrorism".
Masood Azar is also at large. He's a member of the Supreme Council of Global Jihad and the head of Jaish-e-Mohammad, the most prominent Deobandi terrorist organization, and its several false nose and moustache organizations. He was one of the hard boyz freed in Omar's Kandahar hijack operation.
While discussing law and order, he said "criminals do not have any ground to stand on (and) therefore they must be pursued in the hottest way. The law of the jungle cannot be allowed to persist as we are deeply concerned about the life and property of the people of Pakistan."
Sufi Mohammad, head of the TNSM that turned Swat from a fairly peaceful tourist destinaiton into a source of refugees and mindless violence, was released from jug for "health reasons." His son-in-law, Mullah Fazlullah, remains at large and doesn't appear to be pursued with any specific vigor even while the Mighty Pak Army is "suppressing" his minions. Fazlullah's issued edicts declaring girls' education 'un-Islamic' and declaring polio vaccination un-Islamic. He operates an illegal FM radio station that exhorts the faithful to jihad against the government and that's apparently impervious to radio direction finding.
Referring to Saturday's deadly suicide attack on the Marriott Hotel that killed 53 people, including Czech Ambassador Ivo Zdarek, and injured 266, Gilani said: "Today's cabinet (meeting) is haunted by the legacy of the Marriott Hotel suicide bombing." The meeting offered prayers for the dead and observed a minute's silence for the foreigners who died in the attack.
On various occasions we've given the Paks Mullah Omar's address and probably his phone number in Quetta. We know when and very likely where Mullah Omar's Quetta Shura meets, and we know when and very likely where Jalaluddin Haqqani's Northern Shura meets. We have a handle on where Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's headquarters and staff are in FATA.

Every now and then there's a report that bin Laden is "hiding" in Pak territory and those reports are always immediately and firmly denied even in the face of evidence to the contrary. NWFP and FATA are crawling with Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens, and similar Islamic lice. U.S. drone strikes, that rouse indignation -- and calls for jihad -- among Pak legislators routinely eject this or that Qaeda big turban from the gene pool, including any number of Qaeda Numbah Threes. In the case of the first strike on Damadola we almost got Zawahiri.

When big turbans are snagged it's often not from NWFP but from Pak's big cities: Abu Zubaydah from Faisalabad, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad in Rawalpindi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Tawfiq Attash Kallad in Karachi, just off the top of my head.

I joke every now and then about Binny living in Qazi's guest house -- but it's not really a joke. Probably he's got a house in a nice neighborhood in Faisalabad or someplace like that, with a garden and a driver, and he commutes to his command post -- probably in Chitral, at the end of the highway and a little beyond, that you just never hear about in the news -- for major operations. It's entirely likely that, clean shaven and un-beturbanned, wearing a neat business suit and a rep tie, he routinely flies Pak Airlines or Saudia to visit friends and relatives and to attend this or that wedding or funeral as "Abdul Rehman" or "Mr. Abdullah."

The members of the cabinet desired that "stern action" must be taken by law enforcing agencies as "their intelligence agencies are failing miserably to lay hands on the perpetrators" of attacks.
Failing miserably and failing intentionally, I'd say.
This article starring:
Chitral
Damadola
Faisalabad
Karachi
Rawalpindi
ABU ZUBAIDAHal-Qaeda
GULBUDIN HEKMATYARHizb-e-Islami
HAFIZ SAIDLashkar-e-Taiba
JALALUDIN HAQQANITaliban
KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMADal-Qaeda
MASUD AZARJaish-e-Mohammad
MULLAH FAZLULLAHTNSM
OMAR SAID SHEIKHal-Qaeda
RAMZI BIN AL SHIBHal-Qaeda
SUFI MOHAMADTNSM
TAWFIQ ATTASH KALLADal-Qaeda
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Jaish-e-Mohammad

#1  I read this as "...menace of tourism."

That too, I suppose.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/25/2008 0:07 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Obama Accepts Bush Invitation To Meet In Washington
WASHINGTON -- With extraordinary stakes on the line, President Bush has invited both presidential candidates and the leaders of the House and Senate to the White House on Thursday in hopes of securing a bill to rescue the economy.

Bush took the unusual step Wednesday night of calling Democratic Sen. Barack Obama directly to invite him to the meeting, White House press secretary Dana Perino said. An Obama spokesman said the senator would attend. The White House has also invited Republican Sen. John McCain. Perino said the goal of the session is to make progress -- fast -- on a bipartisan solution to the biggest economic crisis in decades.

Shortly after the announcement was made that Obama would attend the meeting, the presidential candidates issued a joint statement Wednesday night in which they said the American people are facing a moment of economic crisis. Moments before Bush's scheduled address to the nation, the Republican and Democratic candidates said now is the time for both political parties to come together in the spirit of cooperation for the sake of the American people. They said the $700 billion plan the administration has proposed to bail out the financial industry is flawed, but that the effort to protect the U.S. economy must not fail.

Perino said the call between Bush and Obama lasted several minutes and was "a good conversation."

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the Democratic presidential contender "will continue to work in a bipartisan spirit and do whatever is necessary to come up with a final solution."
Posted by: Steve White || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Skin me, Brer Fox, 'snatch out my eyeballs, t'ar out my yeras by de roots, en cut off my legs, but do please, Brer Fox, don't fling me in dat brier-patch...Washington mess."
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 9:47 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Taliban claims credit for Kabul kaboom
(AKI) - The Taliban has claimed responsibility for a bomb blast that killed two people in the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday.

The bomb blast is believed to have targeted Kabul's police chief of criminal investigations, Ali Shah Paktiawal, who was wounded in the attack. An Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman said two of the police official's bodyguards were killed.

The explosion occurred as police were investigating the scene of a crime, where three officers were killed by a roadside bomb the previous night.
This article starring:
Ali Shah Paktiawal
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
IDF soldiers foil attempted attack at West Bank roadblock
Israel Defense Forces troops foiled a terror attack on Wednesday, stopping a convoy of Palestinian vehicles as it attempted to run them over after having burst through a West Bank roadblock.

Soldiers positioned near the Palestinian village of Singil, north of Ramallah, fired warning shots into the air after noticing the three vehicles, including a tractor, speeding toward them. The troops, who were IDF reservists, succeeded in detaining four Palestinians who have been handed over to police for interrogation. Troops also confiscated the tractor.

No IDF soldiers were wounded in the incident, nor was any property damage caused.

Meanwhile Wednesday, a 16-year-old Palestinian was arrested at the Hawara West Bank checkpoint on suspicion that he had planned to stab an IDF soldier with a 10 cm. knife. When the Palestinian teen took out the knife, the soldier wrestled the weapon away from him and successfully subdued him. The young Palestinian was detained for questioning.

This incident was the second violent attack at the Hawara checkpoint this week. Earlier this week, a Palestinian woman threw acid in the face of an IDF soldier, who subsequently lost his vision in one eye.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Speeding Tractor?"
Oh that's right, nothing runs like a John Al-Deere....
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 09/25/2008 14:16 Comments || Top||


Europe
Transsexual Turkish singer takes on the army
A popular Turkish transsexual singer who infuriated the country's powerful armed forces by questioning a military campaign against Kurdish separatists told a court on Wednesday she would rather die than be silent.

Bulent Ersoy is on trial on charges of "turning the people against military service" in a case that has raised concerns about free speech in the European Union candidate, where criticizing the armed forces is taboo. Ersoy, one of Turkey's most famous singers, caused a stir in February by saying that were she able to give birth to a son she would not allow him to fight in neighboring Iraq, where the military had launched operations against Kurdish rebels.

Dressed in white flowing linen, golden gem-studded sandals and matching accessories, the flamboyant Ersoy struck a defiant tone at the court in Istanbul. "I spoke completely on behalf of humanity. I will continue to speak and say the same things even if they execute me," she was quoted as telling the judge by state-run Anatolian news agency.

Outside the courthouse, a group of fans held signs in Kurdish reading "Long Live the Diva!"

Insulting the military, a powerful and respected institution, is a crime in Turkey. Found guilty, she could face up to 2 1/2 years in prison.

Ersoy made her comments on a television show at a time when the Turkish army was conducting a major operation against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels in northern Iraq.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  That's a creepy headline. Surprised it didn't go to Roadside America.
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 9:53 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
House To Launch Investigation Into Rep. Rangel
Less than it appears to be. The investigation folds when the House adjourns and would have to be re-authorized by the next House in January. If the Dhimmis make the gains they're hoping for, expect this to be buried as 'old news'.
WASHINGTON (CBS) ― CBS 2 has learned the House of Representatives will conduct an inquiry into Rep. Charles Rangel, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The ethics committee of Congress announced they established a subcommittee to investigate Rangel, who has already been in plenty of hot water recently.

One stunning part of the determination is that the committee decided to investigate his use of congressional stationery in three separate years to seek donors for a public policy institute in his name at City College. The committee will also investigate Rangel's use of four rent-stabilized apartments leased in the Lenox Terrace apartment complex in Harlem, the financing of the beachfront villa leased in the Dominican Republic, and his questionable storage of a late-model Mercedes Benz in the house garage.

In a statement the committee said it will determine whether Rangel "violated the Code of Official Conduct, or any law, rule, regulation or other standard of conduct applicable to his conduct in the performance of his duties." The committee gave no indication of how long the probe will take.
Long enough to die quietly.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Keep playing dumb, Charlie. They'll buy it.
And it's such an easy sell.
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/25/2008 9:55 Comments || Top||

#2  but, but, he's such a kindly-looking old gentleman......
Posted by: Slats Thrusotch9428 || 09/25/2008 14:49 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Egypt: Kidnapped tourists reported to be in Sudan
(AKI) - The 19 people who have been kidnapped in Egypt are reported to have been taken to a secret location 25 kilometres across the border in Sudan, according to a Cairo media report.

The Cairo daily, al-Hayat, reported that the group - which includes five Italians, five Germans and a Romanian - have been taken across the border.

But there are mixed reports about the nationality of the kidnappers. Security sources told al-Hayat that the kidnappers originated from the tiny north African nation of Djibouti. But the daily, al-Sharq al-Awsat, cites Sudanese authorities who say that the kidnappers are Egyptian, while others have said the group is made up of one Chadian and three Sudanese.

Egyptian officials are believed to be continuing negotiations in a bid to secure the release of the group abducted near the southern city of Aswan on Friday.

Apart from the 11 Europeans, eight Egyptians were kidnapped with the group during a safari tour in the remote region. The kidnappers are believed to be seeking a hefty ransom.

Diplomatic officials from Italy and Germany are also closely involved in efforts to free the hostages. The Italian Foreign Affairs Minister, Franco Frattini, called on the media to exercise restraint to enable the authorities to continue their efforts to free the hostages. "I believe that it's important for the media to keep quiet, in an effort to stop the spread of information that could damage the work of the authorities," Frattini said on a visit to New York.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
EU: Iran moving closer to making nuclear warhead
Iran is moving closer to the point of being able to arm a warhead with a nuclear core even if it insists its atomic activities are peaceful, the European Union warned Wednesday.

In comments prepared for the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35 board members, the EU also asserted that Iran appeared to have had a past nuclear arms program despite denials from Tehran.

The statement was made available to reporters as the agency's board turned its attention Wednesday to Iran's nuclear defiance. The group is concerned about Tehran's refusal to freeze uranium enrichment despite sets of three United Nations Security Council sanctions and its stonewalling of IAEA attempts to follow up on intelligence suggesting it was developing a nuclear arms program up until several years ago.

Iran insists its nuclear activities are geared only toward generating power. But Israel says the Islamic Republic could have enough nuclear material to make its first bomb within a year. The U.S. estimates that Iran is at least two years away from that stage, and some experts say Iran could reach that stage in as little as 6 months through uranium enrichment.

An IAEA report drawn up for the International Atomic Energy Agency's board meeting says that Iran has increased the number of centrifuges used to process uranium to nearly 4,000 from 3,000 just a few months ago.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  To Whom it may concern;

Who ever does the deed. Please make sure the damage done exceeds the damage needed by 5 Times the damage needed to knock them out of the running to even desire to build NUKES.
Posted by: Red Dawg || 09/25/2008 1:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Lest we fergit, RUSSIA itself [among others] had claimed that Iran may already possess TACNUKE DEVICES [e.g. Post-Soviet Black Markets + Ukrainian sale of TLCMS includ possib covert nukes]???

AND THEN THERE'S NORTH KOREA ....
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 1:38 Comments || Top||


Home Front Economy
E pluribus hokum
What can I say, it's Spengler
Why should American taxpayers give US Treasury Secretary "Hank" Paulson a blank check to bail out the shareholders of busted banks? Why should the Treasury turn itself into a toxic waste dump for their bad loans? Why not let other banks join the unlamented Brothers Lehman in bankruptcy court, and start a new bank with taxpayers' money? Or have the Treasury pay interest on delinquent mortgages, and make them whole? Even better, why not let the Chinese, or the Saudis or other foreign investors take control of failed American banks? They've got the money, and they gladly would pay a premium for an inside seat at the American table.

Paulson's dreadful scheme will become law, because Americans love their bankers. The bankers enable their collective gambling habit. Think of America as a town with one casino, in which the only economic activity is gambling. Most people lose, but the casino keeps lending them more money to play. Eventually, of course, the casino must go bankrupt. At this point, the townspeople people vote to tax themselves in order to bail out the casino. Collectively, the gamblers cannot help but lose; individually they nonetheless hope to win their way out of the hole.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Studies done on gambling addiction have shown that the thrill of the chronic gambler does not come from the hope they will win but the anxiety they feel when they fear losing.

FWIW.
Posted by: no mo uro || 09/25/2008 5:44 Comments || Top||

#2  700 Billion? Recharter the Bank of the United States and become the prime lender rather than those who 'got their piece of the action' when the going was good and the now want to make the public basically financial serfs to their life style and careers. [Didn't we do that already in history, like how the original serfdom was initiated?]

The base argument is that capital is 'drying up'. It can be just as well infused into the market by a Bank of the United States as it can by other organizations who are looking out for their next big dividend to make the brokers happy or their next big bonus. Cut out the middlemen.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/25/2008 6:47 Comments || Top||

#3  The base argument is that capital is 'drying up'. It can be just as well infused into the market by a Bank of the United States What has really happened is a huge misallocation of resources (overpriced housing sold to people who can't repay their loans). This capital has been wasted more than dried up, & this has rendered many lenders insolvent. They may as well go out of business & new lenders get the new capital. Warren Buffet put $5-10 billion into Goldman Sachs recently -- this could as well have been put into starting an entirely new bank. Or, as suggested, the Treasury could start its own bank with this kind of money.
Our esteemed representatives (M.C. could mean Member of Congress, or Misguided Child) continue to drink the slime-green Koolaid of "preventing foreclosures" and "helping homeowners" rather than face this reality. The MOAB (Mother of All Bailouts) will just waste more precious resources and delay the inevitable.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/25/2008 7:19 Comments || Top||

#4  Spengler doesn't seem to understand how c4sinos are designed to work. Something about a house percentage, if I recall correctly.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 7:20 Comments || Top||

#5  The most interesting thing about the Congressional hearings so far is that not a single independent economist has testified about the MOAB. The MC's don't want to hear any alternative views. They just want to be seen as part of the consensus. If/when disaster happens, they will be sure to avoid the blame for their inaction, as they have so far.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/25/2008 8:06 Comments || Top||

#6  I would okay the bailout if all the principles and their deputies were drawn and quartered in Central Park on live TV and it was mandatory for all bankers and stockbrokers to attend in person to learn a lesson.

Anything less I am against.
Posted by: 3dc || 09/25/2008 8:54 Comments || Top||

#7  I suppose we could start a government bank, but that seems short-sighted considering how well governments run businesses.
Posted by: Mike N. || 09/25/2008 10:55 Comments || Top||

#8  “I have the South in front of me, and I have the bankers behind me. And for my country I fear the bankers more.”
Abraham Lincoln
Posted by: tipper || 09/25/2008 11:09 Comments || Top||

#9  great quote tipper.

Posted by: Broadhead6 || 09/25/2008 11:14 Comments || Top||

#10  I would add lawyers as well to bankers...
Posted by: Broadhead6 || 09/25/2008 11:14 Comments || Top||

#11  that seems short-sighted considering how well governments run businesses. Not so short-sighted considering how well BUSINESSES have been running businesses lately.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/25/2008 11:55 Comments || Top||

#12  One help that they never seem to think of is to give the money to the debtors. They're talking about buying discounted mortgage packages to get them out of the system. Last night, one talking head was talking about paying ten cents on the dollar for these loans. How about offering a piece of that to me? Only a few per cent of those loans will default. Most of us can and will pay them off. Supppose, that for every dollar extra that I paid on my mortgage, I would get ten off my balance. Rest assured, I would make sacrifices to add every additional dollar possible to my payment. Nothing else could possibly give me a return for my money like that. Bean and rice three days a week would be a joy if I could get that kind of deal. Cash flow for the mortgage holders would increase, reducing the need to borrow. Less pressure on the borrowing would ease conditions throughout the econmy. I've just solved the economic crisis for the country and paid my mortgage off in three years!
Posted by: Richard of Oregon || 09/25/2008 12:21 Comments || Top||

#13  Only a few per cent of those loans will default. At present we have no way of knowing the ultimate percentage of defaults. Your guess is as good as mine, which is a great deal higher. The market in mortgage securities has cast its vote -- by their extremely low bids on the securities. That market has not failed -- it just won't pony up the cash the holders of the securities want.
Some regions have been reporting price drops of 40%, and the situation is still progressing. Many buyers signed for mortgages far beyond their ability to pay, others signed for mortgages on grossly overpriced houses, other mortgage holders are experiencing drops in income -- for many of these buyers, foreclosure is the best choice available to them.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/25/2008 12:41 Comments || Top||

#14  So, if we are nation of gamblers then we should have no problem in letting this problem run its course with a bailout. Take the risk that the banks won't fall like dominoes and that everyone's IRA, 401K, real estate and other assets will maintain or even increase in value. And if news reports are correct, most American's are against this bail-out/rescue plan. Everyone said all this about Superfund and other big programs but then all those "toxic" sites that have been cleaned up and are now "brownfield" have sold well and have been redeveloped for economic gain. This is a $700bn gamble - all in - do you play or take your chips and stay home hoping for the best?
Posted by: Jack is Back! || 09/25/2008 13:20 Comments || Top||

#15  Sorry, first sentence above should read "without a bailout".
Posted by: Jack is Back! || 09/25/2008 13:21 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Stopgap Funding Measure Passes House, now at Senate
Key points:

* Government will continue to function once the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
* Funds most government programs at fiscal 2008 levels until March 6.
* Exceptions include fiscal 2009 funding for military construction, DoD, DHS, VA.
* If enacted, it would make a lame-duck session unlikely.
* No extension of the moratorium on offshore drilling, allowing the ban to lapse.
* Text of the measure not released until late Tuesday.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yes, but we had all sorts of time for hearings and investigations of nothing. So why haven't the appropriations bills made it to the floor and out by 30 September? If you think Obama is THE threat to the Republic, think again. The abject failure of the legislative body to perform its fundamental duty, regardless of party control, will in the end kill the republic just as much as any perceived or real tyrant, for it gives the tyrant the basis to act.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/25/2008 6:58 Comments || Top||

#2  The abject failure of the legislative body to perform its fundamental duty... Hear, hear. Yet most incumbents will be re-elected as per usual.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/25/2008 7:23 Comments || Top||

#3  Hear, hear. Yet most incumbents will be re-elected as per usual.

If the MOAB passes I wouldn't bet on that outcome.
Posted by: badanov || 09/25/2008 7:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Maybe we could form a betting pool (just for fun) on the %-age of incumbents being re-elected in 2008. Unless the economic roof caves in by Election Day, I think it will be re-elections as usual, despite the vocal minority against the MOAB. The electorate tends to hate Congress but love their incumbent.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/25/2008 8:43 Comments || Top||

#5  We had a serious problem with our county commission; violating the State sunshine law, nepotism, there was no transparency in our government, decisions make out of self interest, ignoring term-limits, abuses in spending, voters ignored, cronyism, closed-door politics, etc. Needless to say, the voters were very angry. We finding cleaned house and we were successful in get these jokers term-limited and changing the county charter. We finally got these jokers to obey the law rather than to be the law. We finally got our county charter changed. We finally got term limits enforced in the courts.

Our country commission was a microcosm of our Federal Government. We need similar reform in our Federal Government. We need reform in our Federal Government today. We have the vote. Our founding fathers had a lot of wisdom. We need to return to our roots. Our Constitution has an on-going revolution built into it. We need to keep the spirit of our Constitution alive. Partisan politics has to go. Our country needs to come first. If the old politicians need to go to bring about reform so be it.

Personally, I am betting on the lesser of two evils and that is McCain. BO is a big spender, big taxer, and big socialist.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/25/2008 9:28 Comments || Top||

#6  Congratulations to your county, JohnQC. Unfortunately, most citizens are content to let others run things, regardless how corrupt the party machine might be.

Separately, with regard to letting the ban on offshore drilling lapse, I read via Lucianne.com that Representative Reid is working to sneak through a ban on extraction from oil shale. One step at a time, I suppose.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 18:30 Comments || Top||

#7  TW: Harry Reid did try to slip through the oil-shale legislation. Al Gore has suggested that peaceful protests should be used to try to affect coal mining. The Congress has let the limits on off-shore drilling expire but Pelosi then put forth legislation that would limit drilling to 50-100 miles offshore. Meanwhile, China is drilling 50-100 miles off our shores. The Democrats are engaging in fraud on the American people. Brazil's economy is taking off with new offshore finds. They have energy and they are creating jobs. The right and left in Brazil have been marginalized. They are becoming an economic powerhouse.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/25/2008 23:26 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Pakistan: Al-Qaeda linked militants threaten new attacks
(AKI) - The Islamist militant group, Fidayeen-e-Islam, on Wednesday threatened to carry out fresh terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

The Al-Qaeda-linked group that claimed responsibility for the devastating bomb attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad at the weekend, threatened to target those "who help American forces in the country".

A mobile text message signed by an alleged spokesman for the group was sent to the Arab television network Al-Jazeera. It had the same initials that had been used to claim responsibility for the Marriott attack that killed at least 53 people and injured 266 others.

It also threatened to attack Sadruddin Hashwani, proprietor of the hotel targeted in central Islamabad on Saturday. "What the Pentagon said concerning the death of two marines in the attack on the Hotel Marriott is false," the text message said. "Because at the time of the hotel attack it was full of marines, CIA agents, the FBI and European diplomats."

Until this week, the Fedayan al-Islam was a little known militant organisation. The group is based in Pakistan's tribal areas and connected at the hip to leading militant Baitullah Mehsud. It said the aim of the Marriott attack was to remove "American crusaders" from Pakistan and stop them interfering in the government, the military and the media.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan

#1  See also GUAM PDN OP-ED > TO IGNORE THE THREAT OF RADICAL ISLAM IS PERIL. World risks empowering and promoting ITS OWN EVENTUAL DEMISE/DESTRUCTION.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 21:36 Comments || Top||

#2  Go for it, Fidayeen-e-Islam. Turn even more Pakistanis away from your cause. See this.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 21:42 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Too Connected to Fail
Russia has allocated 3 trillion rubles ($127.7 billion) to support the country's financial markets.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Standard & Poor's warned Russia that if they did this, their credit rating would be lowered from BBB+. It will be interesting to see if they follow through, or if times have changed.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/25/2008 0:12 Comments || Top||

#2  ** BREAKING NEWS ** > FUTURE MUSLIM RUSSIA [circa Year 2050?] DECLARES JIHAD AGZ "SOUTH PARK" + "SIMPSONS" + "FAMILY GUY" decadent Americanski TV Toons.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 1:11 Comments || Top||

#3  First TURKEYS = HOLIDAY MEALS, most recently CHOCOLATE [Valentine's Day] + CANDY {Halloween] + Greeting Cards, now TV TOONS.

AL BUNDY hasn't eaten in the 20 years he's been married to PEG, since before his Wedding + Honeymoon, and now RUSSIA = VLADVEDEV WANTS TO MAKE SURE HE STAYS THAT WAY???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 1:15 Comments || Top||

#4  Russia is more of a criminal enterprise than a country.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/25/2008 7:21 Comments || Top||

#5  Russia desperately needs a take-charge, country first kind of guy. The thugs will drown in their own self interest. We have the white haired knight from Arizona who does take charge and does put country first. We're not sharing him with the Russians. Sorry, guys. You're on your own.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon || 09/25/2008 12:59 Comments || Top||

#6  AH9418, Seems like more and more of the world is meeting that definition.

The entire ME sans Israel, China, most of LA etc.

And if it's left up to 0 then we'll be well on our way too. It's the Chicago way.
Posted by: AlanC || 09/25/2008 16:11 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Iraqi Parliament Approves Provincial Elections Law
After months of impasse, Iraq's parliament passed a provincial elections law Wednesday that paves the way for elections in most parts of the country by Jan. 31 and could help bolster efforts at national reconciliation.

But Iraqi lawmakers decided to postpone debate over one of the most contentious issues facing Iraq -- a dispute among ethnic Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen over power sharing in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. The legislators also decided to delay discussions over how to best achieve political representation for Iraq's Christians and other minorities.

The legislation was approved only after Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen lawmakers agreed to a U.N.-brokered compromise that calls for a parliamentary committee to review the status of Kirkuk, which the Kurds seek to incorporate into their autonomous region in northern Iraq.

So for now, elections will be held in 14 Iraqi provinces by Jan. 31, 2009, lawmakers said, acknowledging that it would be difficult to hold any elections this year, as originally scheduled. Not included in the legislation were three provinces in the Kurdish region and Tamim province, of which Kirkuk is the capital.

Iraq's three-member Presidency Council led by Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, still needs to approve the vote. He vetoed the last attempt by parliament to pass a measure, but this time the presidency was expected to approve it.

Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Haniyeh says road to Palestinian dialogue looks 'impassable'
Deposed Palestinian Premier Ismail Haniyya cast doubt Wednesday on Egyptian-brokered Palestinian unity talks between his Hamas movement and President Mahmoud Abbas' rival Fatah party. "What is happening on the ground in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank indicates that the road to dialogue is impassable and faces major obstacles," Haniyya, who now heads a rump government in the Gaza strip, said in a statement.

"There is one hand asking for dialogue and another hand holding a knife behind its back," he added.

The two main Palestinian movements have been bitterly divided since Hamas won democratic elections and formed a government in 2006. A power struggle ensued as Israel and its Western allies tried to force Hamas out of office, eventually descending into street battles in June 2007. The divisions deepened when Hamas fighters routed their Fatah rivals in Gaza, prompting Abbas to depose the Hamas-led Cabinet and appoint a replacement by decree.

On Tuesday, Fatah agreed to an Egyptian proposal to create a new Palestinian "unity government" acceptable to the international community and welcomed the idea of dispatching Arab forces to Gaza to help implement it.

The proposal appeared to be a non-starter because such a government would have to include strong representation from Hamas, which Israel, the United States and other Western powers refuse to have truck with because they regard it as a "terrorist" organization.

Hamas was to send a delegation to Cairo in the coming weeks to discuss the plan, but it was far from clear whether the Islamist movement - which has always opposed the presence of foreign forces in Gaza - would agree to it.

Israel and the West have blacklisted Hamas and boycotted Palestinian governments that include the movement.

Abbas has said he would meet with Hamas leaders, but only after they return Gaza to his control. Hamas has refused to relinquish control of Gaza but said it would meet Abbas without preconditions.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Hamas


Bangladesh
Bail to over 500 extended by HC
The High Court (HC) yesterday extended bail for four months to over 500 people accused in different criminal cases filed under the Emergency Power Rules (EPR).
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Bosnia: Muslim leader's UN speech sparks controversy
(AKI) - A Muslim member of Bosnia's rotating presidency has provoked a controversy after demanding the abolition of the Serb entity, Republika Srpska, and correcting what he called 'war errors', during his speech before the United Nations.

Haris Silajdzic, who currently chairs Bosnia's three-man rotating state presidency, told the General Assembly on Tuesday that the RS was "created by genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina".

Silajdzic also added that the "UN should correct the errors made during the war in Bosnia and send a clear message that the genocide will not be rewarded".

The statement provoked immediate condemnation by Bosnian Serb leaders who called for an emergency meeting of the RS Parliament to take a position on Silajdzic's speech. The session was set for 7 October, but RS opposition parties said it was an intolerably late date.

According to the Dayton peace accords which ended the 1992-1995 civil war, Bosnia was divided into two entities, the RS and a Muslim-Croat Federation with most state prerogatives. But majority Muslims and the international community have been pushing for the abolition of entities and the creation of a strong central government.

RS Prime Minister Milorad Dodik said Silajdzic's speech represented his own views, and not those of the presidency, comprising Muslim, Serb and Croat representatives. Dodik accused Silajdzic of "trying to devalue any attempts of a consensus in Bosnia-Herzegovina", saying Muslim political parties have started "an orchestrated campaign to destroy the Dayton agreement and the RS".

Silajdzic has spearheaded the campaign since the International Court of Justice ruled last year that Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide in the eastern town of Srebrenica in July 1995, when up to 8,000 Muslims were killed.

Dodik responded that Bosnian Serbs would not accept the abolition of the RS or revision of the Dayton accords, but would sooner resort to a referendum on independence.

Silajdzic, on the other hand, said that the present situation amounted to "ethnic apartheid in Bosnia-Herzegovina" and was intolerable.

The high representative of the international community in Bosnia, Miroslav Lajcak, criticised Bosnian political leaders of tending only to their parties' interests, instead of those of the state. "I have seen only twice in my life the atmosphere like the one between Sarajevo and Banja Luka (RS's capital)," said the Slovak diplomat. "The first time it was in relations between Bratislava and Prague, and the second between Belgrade and Podgorica," Lajcak said, referring to the separation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia and Serbia and Montenegro.

"We all know how it ended," Lajcak concluded.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front Economy
Kill the bailout: The Big Lies
The Biggest Lie of the bailout pimps is this: Give us $700 billion of your money and we promise we'll give it back someday.

The Second Biggest Lie of the bailout pimps is this: Give us $700 billion of your money and not only do we promise we'll give it back to you, but you'll actually make money back off your "investment." Later. Someday. Really.

HAAAAHHHH! Did you feel a tremor? That was me, laughing my you-know-what off. I think it registered 7.0 on the LMAO Richter Scale.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: tipover || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  email sent to a UK banker by somebody...


"With redundancies at investment banks around the globe looming, now is the time for us to show the world how much we care. It's just not right. Hundreds of investment bankers in your very own country are living at or just below the seven-figure income level! Atrocious!

And, as if that wasn't bad enough, they will be deprived of pay for several weeks, possibly a whole year, as a result of their redundancy. But now you can help!

For about two thousand pounds a day - less than the cost of a large screen projection TV - you can help an investment banker remain economically viable in his time of need. Two thousand pounds a day may not seem like a lot to you, but to an investment banker it could mean the difference between a holiday golfing in Florida or a Mediterranean cruise. For you, two thousand pounds is no more than three months' rent or mortgage payments. But to an investment banker, it will almost replace his pay.

Your commitment will enable an investment banker to buy that home entertainment centre, trade in the year-old BMW for a new Ferrari, or enjoy a weekend in Rio.

Each month, you will get a complete financial report on the investment banker you sponsor. Detailed information about his stocks, bonds, property portfolio and other investment holdings will be mailed to your home.

You'll also get information on how he plans to invest the £5 million lump severance package he will receive upon redundancy. Plus you will receive a photo of the banker. Put the photo on your refrigerator to remind you of other people's suffering."

Posted by: 3dc || 09/25/2008 0:15 Comments || Top||

#2  3dc: that is too rich...

just forwarded it to my sister. thanks!
Posted by: Abu do you love || 09/25/2008 1:03 Comments || Top||

#3  :)

We are SAPS,
Everyone is stealing from us. EVEN BANKERS, LAWYERS, and CEOs want More Money from us CITIZENS.

Even a million ILLEGAL Immigrants who ILLEGALY bought a house with variable-interest-loans and now can't or refuse to pay them back, are DEMANDING YOU AND ME TO BAIL THEM OUT!!

Go ahead you SAP CITIZENS bail the Illegals Immigrants and CEOs out!

OH I almost forgot, DON'T FORGOT The Corporate Lawyers who sheltered the Corporate Executives from any CONSPIRACY, FRAUD, or STEALING LAWS. Well quite naturally they also DEMAND some hand-out walk-around-money too!

grrrr
Posted by: Red Dawg || 09/25/2008 2:09 Comments || Top||

#4  The toxic debt was issued by Fannie/Freddie Mae. The banks bought it because they thought it was guaranteed by the US government and the current bailout proves they were right.
Posted by: phil_b || 09/25/2008 6:32 Comments || Top||

#5  Dawg,

Don't forget all the greedy citizens borrowers who bought houses they couldn't otherwise afford with no down interest only adjustable mortgages that their citizen popularly elected legislators told banks to issue mortgages to the worst citizens credit risks in the worst neighborhoods and who planned to flip them in a year...whoops, that's us stealing from us. There's plenty of blame to go around. The only innocents in this game are hermits.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 09/25/2008 7:02 Comments || Top||

#6  3dc, that's a classic! ;)
Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie || 09/25/2008 7:24 Comments || Top||

#7  My own modest proposal:

1. Nationalize the offending institutions and sell their stock to responsibly managed private interests as resources and conditions warrant.
2. Fire their cooked or foolish managers, and limit their severance pay to $20 in quarters and cab fare to the Brooklyn Bridge.
3. Foreclose all the bad mortgages, deport non-citizen borrowers and move the rest into redundant FEMA trailers.
4. Round up the Clinton appointees who ran Fannie and Freddie into the ground; especially including Jamie Gorelick; and send them to Gitmo.
(Gorelick is the Typhoid Mary of national policy, having now done the same thing for the economy that she did for the World Trade Center.)
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 09/25/2008 8:16 Comments || Top||

#8  Ok. If Banks aren't bailed out we will have 1929 all over again. Right?

If Banaks are bailed out they will never learn right?

Solutions? Bail out banks but sent managers and members of the board to firen squad or, if you are soft hearted to Sing Sing (not in one of those nice prisons for white collars) or, still better to had labor.

I fear that is the only solution.
Posted by: JFM || 09/25/2008 8:26 Comments || Top||

#9  Meanwhile, back in reality:
Bloomberg: FDIC may need $800 150 Billion Bailout as Local Bank Failures Mount


IndyMac's failure in July 2008 (the most expensive failure covered by FDIC ever) took a large bite out of FDIC reserves, and if scores of other banks fail in the year ahead, the fund will be depleted. Taxpayers will have to step in. By the end of 2009, about 100 U.S. banks with collective assets of more than $800 billion will fail, predicts Christopher Whalen, managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics, a Torrance, California-based firm that sells its analysis of FDIC data to investors. The FDIC has some idea of which banks are at risk; it has a watch list with 117 institutions. The agency won't disclose their names because doing so could cause depositors to panic and pull out all of their funds.
The FDIC insures about $5 trillion in deposits at US branches of FDIC member banks. An additional $2.6 trillion in deposits is uninsured.
Investors are now worried that Washington Mutual (WaMu) may be the next bank to go TU. An FDIC takeover would cost taxpayers another $24 billion.
The FDIC had fallen into the same trap as member banks, relying on the recent past to predict the near future. In March it estimated 2008 costs to cover bank failures as $1 billion, which wasn't even close. Critics of the FDIC say chairman Bair's currently optimistic rhetoric matches the FDIC's failure to grasp the scope of what is likely to come in the next 18 months.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/25/2008 8:30 Comments || Top||

#10  I'm certainly no economic guru, but I do remember the stories my father told of the last depression. This situation looks amazingly similar. Bailout or no, if this crash isn't the knock out punch, the knock out punch isn't far behind. Consumer spending on non-essentials is plummeting, traveling and motoring are off, at least in the SE. I suspect we may see a run on the market and banks in the very near future. I think we're in for a history making ride over the next few years, possibly a decade.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 8:43 Comments || Top||

#11  I think we're in for a history making ride over the next few years, possibly a decade. I agree completely. I liquidated my stock holdings, personal & tax-protected, in 8/2007, preserved a ton of money that way. Can only hope my nest egg retains its value.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/25/2008 8:47 Comments || Top||

#12  In 29 the fund players and bankers at least had the decency to jump off the high buildings.
I don't see that kind of honor in the current group.
Posted by: 3dc || 09/25/2008 8:49 Comments || Top||

#13  Yes, and I don't really appreciate Barney Fags joking and sorry attempts at humour in these hearings. The guy is an absolute oxygene thief.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/25/2008 8:53 Comments || Top||

#14  Watching Paulson and his Merry Band of Thieves takes me back to Sunday school. Darn, I should have paid more attention to what they were saying. Paulson will be out of a job in six weeks, right! Hence the need for urgency.
Posted by: tipper || 09/25/2008 10:08 Comments || Top||

#15  "Can only hope my nest egg retains its value."

That's really the trouble AH9418, it won't. This whole charade is going to result in monumental inflation. It's going on now. Just as recently as the Peanut Farmer's term we saw this. The only things of value were hard physical assets. Every dollar your granddad had in 1908 has the purchasing equivalence of $.10 now. This is going to happen to monies we hold today. The issue we have to try and perceive is whether these same geniuses who created this mess can wave the magic wand and extract us. Doubtful. Some very basic adjustments must be made. We cannot continue to exist on foreign credit. They will quit loaning. This is the Washington Panic. This globalization scheme by the wealth holders of exporting American jobs to make things at greatly reduced cost, yet try to sell back into the only major market, the US, to extract maximum profit for the few wealth holders, is non-sustainable. You don't even have to be a fifth-grader. Second graders can handle this. This does resemble many of the conditions existing around 1930, when Hoover kept telling the public that the basic economy was sound, don't worry. As recently as two weeks ago Bush was repeating this same mantra. Now, suddenly, we must bailout "the system". If this mess crashes, it will take several years to regain smooth functionality, as in the 1930's. If some resolution is reached, it's going to greatly devalue our assets. And, this continued living on borrwed cash must be halted. Anyone want to talk about lifestyle adjustments.
Posted by: Woozle Elmeter 2700 || 09/25/2008 12:00 Comments || Top||

#16  I liquidated my stock holdings, personal & tax-protected, in 8/2007, preserved a ton of money that way. Can only hope my nest egg retains its value.
Excellent move Anguper, as for the foreseeable future, cash will be king. For most people their house is their main source of wealth.
Stabilization in the U.S. housing sector is nowhere in sight: inventories and vacancies are at a record high and continue to put downward pressure on home prices which continue to free fall translating into trillions of real wealth losses for the engine of the economy: the U.S. consumer. You just can't gouge that amount out of any economy and not expect the engine to seize up.
We are moving into an era characterized by the Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times"
Posted by: tipper || 09/25/2008 12:47 Comments || Top||

#17  Blaming illegal immigrants. Well that didn't take long!
Posted by: Lonzo || 09/25/2008 13:45 Comments || Top||

#18  All those empty houses? It depends on the city and state. It isn't so bad out here in the center of the Midwest. Detroit is apparently another story... for several reasons.

One thing to consider, though, is that there would have been empty houses anyway. The Baby Boomers have started to retire. Sooner or later they would have left the houses in which they reared their children and moved either to something smaller, in with their children, to Florida or Arizona, or to a retirement home.

Lonzo dear, all those illegal workers in the construction business needed somewhere to live... and they were earning pretty good money. Not to mention that after all the other borderline borrowers had been serviced, the mortgage brokers had to find clientele somewhere. Hence all the advertising in Spanish in the last few years.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 14:24 Comments || Top||

#19  Unless we can only see a few minutes forward, that hotdog truck out front only takes cash, which means, yes, cash will be king for the foreseeable future.
Posted by: Mike N. || 09/25/2008 14:56 Comments || Top||

#20  #7 Atomic Conspiracy git's my vote,

[#17 For Lonzo: AND AC gits all my EXTRA VOTES that I manage to either mail in or vote at various precincts on election day to off-set some of the millions of Illegal Immigrants stealing Votes in our sovereign elections.]
Posted by: Red Dawg || 09/25/2008 15:44 Comments || Top||

#21  No, Lonzo, we are asserting that illegal aliens are not entitled to free housing at the expense of the US taxpayer. Do you disagree? If so, why? Are citizens similarly entitled to free housing? If so, who is going to pay for it?
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 09/25/2008 18:00 Comments || Top||

#22  Meanwhile, the largest bank failure in US history came down this afternoon.
"Washington Mutual, the largest U.S. savings and loan, was closed by the federal Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp was named receiver. Customers should expect business as usual on Friday, the FDIC said. The FDIC said the transaction will not affect its roughly $45.2 billion deposit insurance fund. Washington Mutual's roughly $227 billion book of real estate loans put the thrift at the top of the critical list of U.S. lenders, analysts said. More than half of this portfolio was in home equity loans and in adjustable-rate mortgages and subprime mortgages that are now considered risky. "
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/25/2008 22:18 Comments || Top||

#23  More than 150 prominent U.S. economists, including three Nobel Prize winners, urged Congress to hold off on passing a $700 billion financial market rescue plan until it can be studied more closely.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/25/2008 22:22 Comments || Top||

#24  The bozos at WaMu were still doing zero down Option ARM programs up till a few months ago. The guy who ran the place into the ground seriously needs to be persecuted.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 09/25/2008 23:23 Comments || Top||

#25  persecuted.

Prosecuted.
Posted by: General_Comment || 09/25/2008 23:27 Comments || Top||

#26  persecuted.

I kind-of like that phrasing....
Posted by: 3dc || 09/25/2008 23:38 Comments || Top||

#27  It implies harassment on religious or otherwise political grounds. For criminal matters it is "prosecuted." Otherwise makes no sense.
Posted by: General_Comment || 09/25/2008 23:40 Comments || Top||

#28  as a Commie symp troll, you would know about "persecuted", as in "enemies"
Posted by: Frank G || 09/25/2008 23:52 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Sudan troops besiege kidnappers' desert hideout
Sudanese forces were laying siege on Wednesday to a remote desert hideout where bandits are holding 19 people captive, including European tourists, but said they would not storm the area. The tourists, along with Egyptian drivers, guides and a guard, were snatched by masked gunmen on Friday during a desert safari to view prehistoric art around Gilf el-Kabir in southwestern Egypt and then taken to Sudan.

A Sudanese official said the hostages were alive and that negotiations were continuing with the kidnappers, who have reportedly demanded a ransom of up to 15 million dollars.

Sudan said on Tuesday its forces "are besieging the area," a no-man's land straddling the Sudanese, Libyan and Egyptian borders.
Is that a Saoodi-style 'besieging'?
"Their position has been pinpointed and there is coordination between Sudan and Egyptian authorities in this regard (but) there is no intention of storming into the area so as to preserve the lives of the kidnapped persons," foreign ministry undersecretary Mutrief Sadiq said.

An Egyptian security official told AFP the kidnappers were "most likely Chadian" after Sudan said they were Egyptian nationals. Sudan has said the group is being held 25 kilometers (17 miles) inside its territory at Jebel Uweinat, or mountain of small springs.

Egypt, which has sent a team to Sudan to try to secure the release of the hostages, has said the hostages are in good health and have enough food and water. The tourism ministry in Egypt, which relies heavily on earnings from foreign visitors, has said it was "an act of banditry not of terrorism."
"No, no, certainly not!"
Egypt has also denied reports the kidnappers had threatened to kill the hostages if any attempt were made to rescue them, in particular to "reach them by aircraft."

Sudan has authorized Egypt to use aircraft to "chase the kidnappers of tourists," the Sudan Media Center, which is close to the intelligence services, reported on Wednesday, without elaborating.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan


Africa North
Moroccan officials close shisha cafes
Authorities in Casablanca have shut down shisha cafes throughout the city after receiving several complaints during the holy month of Ramadan that the cafes promote vice and spread disease.

Moroccan preacher sheikh Abdul-Bari al-Zamzami, a member of the Moroccan Scholars Association, told AlArabiya.net that the cafes were dens of vice and corruption. "Shisha cafes are a disgrace to the city and to all Morocco. They are a way to seduce minors and spread corruption," he said.

Zamzami added that that nepotism has played a role in keeping the cafes open in spite of their negative influences and that he hoped the closure would extend beyond Ramadan.

In addition to the personal health risks of smoking sihsha, which include lung cancer, shisha cafes have been linked to the increased prevalence of tuberculosis in several Arab countries. According to the World Health Organization regional office in Cairo, about 17 percent of TB cases in the eastern Mediterranean are attributable to smoking the water pipes.

University professor and member of Casablanca city council Dr. Moustafa al-Haya told AlArabiya.net that he had been waiting for this decision for a long time, noting the close link between the rise in the number of cafes and the prevalence of tuberculosis in Casablanca. Recent statistics issued by the Ministry of Health indicate that Casablanca has the highest number of TB cases out of any Moroccan cities, with 25,562 cases reported in 2007 alone. The rate of infection was estimated at 82 cases for every 100,000.

Haya added that in addition to health problems cafes encourage many ethical violations since men and women "mingle in a shameful way."

Casablanca mayor Mohamed Sajed declined to comment on the decision to close the cafes.

The controversy over shisha cafes started in the City Council where many members considered them hotbeds of indecency and accused many of its regulars of replacing tobacco with pot or other narcotics.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Oh, I was thinking of the perfidy of the shiskabob den.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/25/2008 13:57 Comments || Top||

#2  Hell, at first glance I thought this was gonna be about Shiksa Cafes.
Posted by: Abdominal Snowman || 09/25/2008 14:42 Comments || Top||

#3  Morocco has cafes devoted to Indian shisha mirror embroidery? Who knew?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/25/2008 18:41 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
20 refugees feared drowned in Sudan
More than twenty Somali and Eritrean refugees are feared to have drowned after their overloaded boat capsized in eastern Sudan. The boat was crossing the Atbara River at night to evade police checkpoints. It was smuggling refugees from Shagarab refugee camp in eastern Sudan's Kassala state to the capital Khartoum. The boat was meant to carry 15 passengers at most, but was packed with 26. Three other boats loaded with refugees were also crossing the river.

"Four Eritrean men survived by swimming to shore along with one Somali woman who clung to a floating log," the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Wednesday. Those feared dead include eight women and at least three children.

Survivors said they had paid around 100 dollars to smugglers for a safe passage. Police has held two suspected smugglers, who are refugees themselves. The refugees were trying to reach Khartoum seeking better living conditions, jobs or a way to immigrate to Europe.

According to UNHCR, there are about 130,000 refugees in Sudan, mostly from Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. A large number of the refugees live in camps.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Pres. Bush addresses Nation on Bailout Plan
Text of the President's address.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Mr. Wife said it was one of the most effective speeches of President Bush's career.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 7:49 Comments || Top||

#2  It put me out like a light...
Posted by: badanov || 09/25/2008 7:50 Comments || Top||

#3  The two means used to stop financial problems in the post-WWII economy are growth and inflation.

Neither will work this time, because both use credit to overcome problems in credit. Like using one credit card to pay another maxed out credit card's bill, yet still spending like a drunken sailor.

Bush is trying to get around the problem with growth. Obama wants to use inflation by spending huge amounts of money.

In other news today, the FDIC has announced it needs $170B right now to insure savings accounts because of dozens of anticipated bank failures.

And China has directed all its banks to stop interbank loans with any US banks.

Nobody has yet proposed that the US must immediately have a balanced budget, and that to pay for economic recovery, they must have at from $100-$500B annual revenue surplus.

The cuts must either come from Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Defense, or every other part of the government which when put together about equals one of these big four.

Perhaps 25% of the federal expenditures will have to be stopped.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/25/2008 9:44 Comments || Top||

#4  Balancing the budget right now is an immediate way to recession. Immediate.

The chinese thing interests me. Does that include American banks that the Chinese have bought pieces of?
Posted by: Mike N. || 09/25/2008 10:24 Comments || Top||

#5  The Washington Post has an article on alternative solutions for your mental delectation, Mike N.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 11:01 Comments || Top||

#6  W looked like a naughty little boy who'd gotten his pecker caught in a ringer. He might be right about the $700 billion but it makes me furious that he let it get to this point. Of course, it's not all his fault. There is plenty of blame to go around for all the crooks in Congress. They should have seen this coming. It didn't take a psychic to see that all those loans were gonna go south. But they were all too busy riding the gravy train.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 09/25/2008 12:05 Comments || Top||

#7  I commented on this last night, but will repeat here that I think Bush's domestic record is abysmal. He not only let this stuff happen under his watch, he did nothing to set an example of limiting expenditures for his first 6 years in office. Cripes, he didn't veto a thing during his first term. Then he introduces the largest new entitlement program in 40 years. Just nuts, especially during a time of war.

I admire what he has done in the war on islamo-nuts. But, other than lowering taxes, he has done nothing on the domestic front that any big government democrat wouldn't do.
Posted by: remoteman || 09/25/2008 13:47 Comments || Top||

#8  President Bush has been submitting proposals to fix this thing for years. Congress, especially dear Barney Franks and some others who have gotten lots of money from Fannie and Freddie, have buried Bush's proposals. Remember that since 9/11 President Bush has been spending his political capital making sure the military can fight the war on terror, which left him precious little for demonstrably unwinnable fights. Also remember, he's been fighting the Democrats, the media, and the Conservatives angry that he didn't impose every single one of their desires.

What I saw last night was the Cassandra who'd been ignored, the afternoon of the day after the Trojan Horse had been pulled by the cheering crowd through Troy's gates.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 14:05 Comments || Top||

#9  TW, I agree that there were lots of cards stacked against him, but Bush did not make this a priority back when it could have been dealt with. He did not hold one or several national broadcasts on the subject and specifically call socialist fools like Barney Frank to task. He did not get on Greenspan to tighten the money supply and raise interest rates. Bottom line is he could have done a whole lot more and did not do it.
Posted by: remoteman || 09/25/2008 14:28 Comments || Top||

#10  Yeah, he had a real war to fight and these were the same bastards who were trying to defeat him and the nation in that war. He could only do so many things. Thanks to 9/11 and the donks, he got to do only NCLB.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 09/25/2008 14:35 Comments || Top||

#11  As I said, there's blame enough to go around and Barney Frank deserves special mention. But Bush had the bully pulpit. Sure, he was busy with two separate wars and God knows what else. But it's gonna be a lot tougher paying for those wars now and it's gonna be a lot harder for McCain to win this election. And Bush's Treasury secretary kept telling us everything was fine. You'd think he'd have spent a little more time considering all the ramifications of sub prime mortgages for illegal immigrants. Maybe the first thing Bush should've done was to fire the guy. Hell, even I could see this coming. I didn't know it'd be as bad as it is. I didn't know it was nationwide because I'm not the Treasury secretary. I thought it was just a San Diego thing where the cost of an average home is half a million bucks. Nobody makes enough to pay that kind of a mortgage. That's insane.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 09/25/2008 15:40 Comments || Top||

#12  It could still be Snow.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 09/25/2008 15:42 Comments || Top||

#13  Bush spoke many times in public -- just because the media wouldn't cover what he said, doesn't mean he did not take it before the people --

I heard him lots of times, but that's because I either watch most of his major speeches, press conferences or read them, cause I know the press will not report what he has said --

Check out this link for a detail description

Just like they haven't reported that Iraq has agreed on elections (one of those major benchmarks they so demanded)

And I'll bet, I'm like most Americans, I heard it, but since all this is not one of my "issues" I didn't really hear. Yea, I knew housing was in a slump, it's been there before. Even hearing what I heard, it never crossed my mind this could happen, and I lived through the bust in the 80's and the dot com mess.

I'm pretty sure if Bush had screamed to me, it probably wouldn't have had me standing on the street corner, yelling for someone to do something. I'm just not wired into the economy, so again, not an issue for me.

Most Americans, don't focus on "the economy" until it's election time, and someone has to say, "It's the economy, stupid," and then it becomes an issue.

So I'm not sure I can blame Bush, cause I wasn't listening to him when he brought it up.

Chris Dodd and Barney Franks really do need to be mention right along with Bush...
Posted by: Sherry || 09/25/2008 16:35 Comments || Top||

#14  I don't trust anyone in Washington or Wall Street anymore. I don't trust Congress. I don't trust the main stream media. I don't trust our educational institutions. I don't trust our insurance companies. I don't trust any of the lobbyists. I don't trust regulation. And the current people in government don't trust its citizens anymore.

Bush has tried to bring about reform but there were too many Democrats blocking him at every turn in Congress. Harry Reid, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Nancy Pelosi ought to be tried for treason. There are others to blame too.

The military is about the only group I trust and respect.

This country has the greatest economic engine in the world if the friggin politicians would get out of the way. Please unshackle this economic engine. If they got out of the way, you would see an economic resurgence the likes of which has not been seen. There would be plentiful, good jobs again in this country. They wouldn't be outsourced. We have too much regulation that is strangling our growth. There ought to be a freeze on any new bills that require new spending for about five years. Earmarks should be eliminated altogether. Instead of Biden saying it is patriotic to pay taxes we ought to be saying it is patriotic for Congress to not be spending our hard-earned money. We truly have reached a point where we don't have taxation with any kind of representation. We just have a bunch of self-serving politicians having a feeding frenzy at the public trough.

Washington is greedy for both money and power. Money seems to bring power.

If reform is going to come it is going to have to come via the vote.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/25/2008 17:02 Comments || Top||

#15  We need to get some of the taxes off our backs too. Obviously Washington doesn't know better than we do what to do with citizens' money.

Would it be any worse if we (the voters) voted directly for what money gets spent in D.C. and eliminated Congress. We seldom notice when the government is shut down for several days. The technology is probably here to do that.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/25/2008 17:09 Comments || Top||

#16  JohnQC, I agree wholeheartedly re regulation and government spending. The big non-defense spending items are Medicare and Social Security. Those have to be reigned in/cut back. Not going to be pretty or popular, but it has to be done.

We have to get a handle on medical costs too. The friggin trial lawyers have to be reigned in. They certainly add to the costs. I would argue that the patent protection for pharmaceuticals need to be extended, with the caveat that advertising to the general public for these drugs ceases. That way the pharma companies don't need to recoup their R&D costs so quickly and can accept a lower margin/lower price in the drugs. We should also enable health insurance to go national, not state by state, each with its own rules. There has to be a benefit to economy of scale with paperwork, with pools of those covered etc.

Anyway, time for some real change, none of which Obambi is going to bring.
Posted by: remoteman || 09/25/2008 18:54 Comments || Top||

#17  Congress and their little slimy cousins in the financial sector have almost succeeded in sinking the US economy, which, by the way, was one of the objectives of Bin Laden's 9-11 attacks.

We have enemies foreign, and we have enemies domestic. They are both equal danger to the survival of the Republic. I am not being funny in this one.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 09/25/2008 22:33 Comments || Top||

#18  I'm a retiree. I've worked all my life and paid into Social Security and since the mid-1960s into Medicare. I still do some consulting and I pay income taxes on the income. I also pay a self-employment tax that is about 13% of the earned income. I still pay a fair chunk of change every month for Medicare and a Medicare supplement. I pay taxes on income earned and now I pay taxes on income, thanks to Clinton on retirement funds (invested funds) as I withdraw the money. This is double taxation. When I hear that Social Security is an entitlement, I don't know why that term is used. If the government cannot manage these funds, I'll suggest that I keep my money and I'll mange my own health care. One problem is that government has looted the Social Security trust fund for other things and now it is going broke. The Medicare prescription drug benefit was a bad decision. That was a costly sop to older Americans and elderly lobby groups.

There is considerable room for reform in the insurance company, drug company, doctor interface. Doctors tend to push the new high priced drugs whereas an old inexpensive drug would work just as good or better. Some doctors in Kentucky were fined for taking perks in sweetheart arrangements with the drug companies a couple of years ago. The doctors were receiving perks from the drug companies for prescribing Lupron, an expensive drug used control the spread of prostate cancer. The drug was thought to control testosterone which was thought to be linked to the spread of prostate cancer. Now it's not clear that testosterone is linked to PC. Lupron has some considerable risks and some nasty side effects.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/25/2008 23:10 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Lebanese rivals hold direct talks
Saad al-Hariri, leader of the parliamentary majority, has held talks with five leaders of Hezbollah, a Shia organisation which leads the country's opposition, in the first direct meeting between the factions in two years.

Wednesday's meeting between the two rival Lebanese factions was part of a bid to defuse sectarian and political tensions in the country, Lebanon's state-run news agency said.

Tensions boiled over in May, when fighters of the opposition, which demanded a greater share of power in the government, took control of west Beirut in unrest that left 65 people dead - the worst internal conflict since Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. An Arab-brokered deal defused the crisis and installed a power-sharing government and a new president.

Reconciliation
Wednesday's meeting was meant to set the stage for reconciliation between al-Hariri and Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader.

Mohamed Raad, head of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, spoke after the meeting, saying: "Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Saad Hariri will meet soon."

Raad said discussions with al-Hariri were "frank" but did not specify when talks with Nasrallah would occur.

Lebanon's rival political leaders have been working toward reconciling their differences ahead of a national dialogue that will set the tone for next year's parliamentary elections. A first round was held on September 16, while a second has been set for November 5.

The focus of the talks is on forging a defence strategy for Lebanon, including how to deal with Hezbollah's weapons. Hezbollah has sought to expand the number of participants in the national dialogue to include more of its allies, but has faced stiff opposition from al-Hariri's coalition.

Hezbollah set off a war with Israel in the summer of 2006 after its fighters captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. The ensuing 34-day conflict left more than 1,000 Lebanese dead and the infrastructure of southern Lebanon devastated.

When much of the country then rallied behind the group, Hezbollah and its opposition allies demanded a greater share of power in the government.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Hezbollah


Bangladesh
Govt fights Hasina's bail bid
In a move contrary to an apparent understanding with the Awami League (AL), the government yesterday strongly opposed a bail prayer of Sheikh Hasina at the High Court (HC) in an extortion case filed by businessman Noor Ali.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


China-Japan-Koreas
North Korea Bars International Nuclear Inspectors
North Korea plans to restart nuclear fuel processing next week and has banned international inspectors from its Yongbyon reactor, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced Wednesday.

Acting on a North Korean request, inspectors from the Vienna-based agency removed all their surveillance equipment and seals from the reactor Wednesday and will have no further access to the reprocessing site, the IAEA said.

Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the IAEA, told his board that North Korea intends "to introduce nuclear material to the reprocessing plant in one week's time."

North Korea's action comes after several weeks of increasingly defiant threats that it would soon restart its nuclear program. The United States and five other nations are trying to persuade the reclusive and poverty-stricken Stalinist state to abandon its nuclear program in return for food, fuel and a phased end to diplomatic isolation.

Earlier this month, though, North Korea angrily announced that it is no longer interested in being removed from a U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism. Press reports in South Korea said last week that North Korea was testing a new engine for an intercontinental missile with sufficient range to hit targets on the West Coast of the United States.

Coming at a time when North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is believed to be ailing from a stroke he suffered in mid-August, the IAEA announcement is the strongest signal that North Korea might be turning its back on negotiations. Still, brinkmanship and over-the-top rhetoric have long been part of North Korea's negotiating style.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters at the United Nations on Wednesday that the North Korean announcement would not end the efforts by the United States and five other nations to negotiate an end to the country's nuclear program, Reuters news service reported. "Everyone knows what the path ahead is, the path ahead is to have agreement on the verification protocol. The North Koreans know that," she said.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Have you ever noticed how the NORKs do this s**t everytime there is a little crisis like the current financial one.
Posted by: Jack is Back! || 09/25/2008 10:31 Comments || Top||

#2  The North Koreans use the Iranian playbook: continuing the program while doing anything to stall their adversaries. Clinton and Albright fell for it, and now it appears that they will get away with it on Dubya and Condi's watch too. Both the Norks and the Iranians probably already have enough material for lots of dirty bombs. Are we ready to decontaminate major cities?
Posted by: Darrell || 09/25/2008 12:25 Comments || Top||

#3  The Norks have enough plutonium for 6-10 bombs. There is enough uranium missing from declared Iranian stocks for 4-5 bombs. The Iranians also mine their own uranium, so the world really doesn't know how much has been diverted to the Iranian's bomb program. But, it boggles the mind to think the mullahs haven't been running undeclared centrifuges for the past 10 years.
Posted by: ed || 09/25/2008 12:47 Comments || Top||

#4  ION TOPIX > NORTH KOREA ACCUSES THE USA OF PLANNING SURPRISE ATTACK + NORTH KOREA MAY RESUME PLUTONIUM PRODUCTION NEXT WEEK + DEFECTOR [Hwang Jang-op]: NORTH KOREA HAS PILED UP ENRICHED URANIUM. Also allegedly completed requirements for conducting an undergound nuke test(s) back in 1996???

Methinks the NOKORS have read MOUD's comments on how the USA IS ISOLATING/SURROUNDING IRAN, plus MSM-Net Reports on US-SK "OPLAN/CONPLAN 5029" options in case of NOKOR collapse.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 22:50 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Peres: Iran unwanted guest in Mideast
Israeli President Shimon Peres points the finger of blame at Iran over Tel Aviv stonewalling the establishment of a Palestinian state. In an address to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, Peres claimed that the Israelis occupying Palestinian lands enjoy a 'democracy' that suffers because Iran 'divides the Middle East'.

Since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has refused to recognize Israel for its occupation of Palestinian lands as well as the numerous crimes committed against Palestinians - crimes which have been condemned by even close Israeli allies.

"It (Iran) built a danger to the entire world. Its quest for religious hegemony and regional dominance divides the Middle East and holds back chances for peace, while undermining human rights," said the Israeli president, who administrates a regime notorious for genocide and the imposition of 'collective punishment' on natives of the land. "Israel has shown that democracies can defend themselves. We do not intend to change," he said.

Peres also accused Iran of providing support to the Hezbollah Movement, which played a major role in repelling the Israeli invasions of Lebanon.
Now for the obligatory Israel-bashing:
Several UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli actions against Palestinians have been defied by Israel. The US, Israel's number one ally, has also exercised its veto powers to prevent the adoption of 42 anti-Israeli resolutions sought by the council since 1972.

Since 2004, Washington has vetoed three resolutions which called for Tel Aviv to halt its operations in the Gaza Strip - which had been occupied by Israeli forces from 1967 to 1994.

The exercise of veto powers by the US has led to a continuation of rocket launches by Tel Aviv into the strip, causing the death of a large number of civilians.

After declaring the strip 'a hostile entity' in September 2007, Israel curtailed travel into Gaza and cut fuel and electricity supplies to the region.

As Gaza depends upon external healthcare systems for the provision of a broad range of medical treatments, the Israeli imposed military blockade forced chronically ill and terminal patients to desperately seek passage out of the coastal strip.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel released a report in August, titled Holding Health to Ransom, exposing 'the methods of coercion' Israel has employed to pressure Gazans and to spy on the strip.

According to the report, the regime prevents such patients from leaving Gaza to receive medical treatment unless they can provide desired information about their relatives.

Medical treatment for 'the most helpless members of society', reads the report, 'is explicitly or implicitly made contingent upon collaboration' with Israel on a 'regular' basis.

"I decide and set the rules, and you'll see that if you do as I say, I'll let you go to Ichilov Hospital," the report quotes an interrogator as telling a patient. "It depends if you accept my demands."

The situation in Gaza is such that Iran has on numerous occasions called on the United Nations to stop the 'collective punishment' imposed on Palestinians. Tehran also demands the enforcement of UN resolutions against Tel Aviv.

While Israel leads the world in its efforts to supress the Palestinian people, Tel Aviv continues to point the finger of blame at Iran.

Iranian 'support for Hamas split the Palestinians and postpones the establishment of the Palestinian state,' Peres said, referring to the Palestinian democratically-elected government. "At the center of this violence and fanaticism stands Iran," Peres continued in his address to the 192-member assembly.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  Israel should have long ago talked turkey with Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia about getting a Sunni army into Lebanon to counter the Shiite threat.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/25/2008 0:10 Comments || Top||

#2  Anonymoose, which of their war-making tools and tactics are the Saudis and the Egyptians actually capable of using effectively?
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 7:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Moose, wouldn't work. The Shi'a are a plurality and near-majority in the country now. Sunnis, Druze and Maronites are each minorities. We might not like it much, but a Shiastan in Lebanon is a reality. Problem is, it's controlled by Hezbollah. Better strategy is to push for a non-Hezbollah controlled Shi'a state. Best way to do that is to kill the Hezbies.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/25/2008 11:34 Comments || Top||

#4  Other day Saad Hariri paid a call on our own old friend Ayatollah Sistani. What was a Leb Sunni doing chatting up an Iraqi Shiite Grand Ayatollah? talking about the need for a more pluralist Shia politics not controlled from Teheran. Hezb uses its control over South Leb (and the winner take all Leb electoral system) to suppress alternatives within the Leb Shia community, IIUC.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 09/25/2008 16:38 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Top talks on Iran's nuclear program called off
The United States and five other powers on Tuesday called off plans for high-level talks here this week to debate further sanctions against Iran, after Moscow opposed the move and complained of U.S. attempts to "punish" it.

Russia's decision to pull out of the Iran talks appeared to be a tit-for-tat gesture after the United States balked at another high-level meeting of the so-called Group of Eight industrial nations that would have included Russia, said Germany's foreign minister.

The cancellation of the meeting in New York involving U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterparts from Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany came amid rising U.S.-Russian tensions over the crisis in Georgia.

"There is not going to be a P5-plus-one ministers meeting" on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

The Iran meeting would have brought together foreign ministers from the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - France, Britain, the United States, China, Russia plus Germany. The six countries are involved in diplomatic efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Russia's foreign ministry, angered by U.S. calls for Moscow to be penalized over its war with Georgia, said it saw no need for major powers to meet over Iran's nuclear program on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. "We see no 'fire alarm' which would require us to put off other things in the extremely busy week of the U.N. General Assembly and meet in emergency session on the Iranian nuclear problem," Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said.

However, U.S. State Department spokesman McCormack said that Rice would hold a one-on-one meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov here on Wednesday.

McCormack did not acknowledge that Georgia was the stumbling block, but said "we agree with them (the Russians) that the time is not right to have a meeting at the ministerial level." The various State Department and foreign ministry "political directors can continue on their assignments regarding a future (U.N.) resolution," McCormack said.

The six political directors met in Washington last week. The State Department issued a statement afterward saying the six were "committed to exploring possible further" U.N. Security Council sanction resolutions against Iran, which is already under three sets of U.N. sanctions.

But Russia said Saturday it had rejected U.S. proposals for new U.N. Security Council measures against Iran. China said September 16 that U.N.-imposed sanctions would not resolve the stalemate over Iran's nuclear program.

Nonetheless, McCormack said "there is no question about the two track process. It remains in place." He was referring to the carrot-and-stick approach to induce Iran to stop its uranium enrichment program, which the West suspects is being used to build an atomic bomb but which Iran says is for peaceful nuclear energy.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


India-Pakistan
Pakistan: Deadly suicide bomb hits Quetta
(AKI) - A suicide bomb attack killed at least one person and injured over a dozen others in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, reports said. An 11-year-old girl died in the blast while 19 others, including 13 security personnel were injured in the attack that took place at a checkpoint on the road to the airport.

The deadly blast occurred when Pakistani soldiers stopped a vehicle at the checkpoint and the driver detonated an explosives belt.

The girl killed in the explosion was reportedly travelling aboard a school bus with other female students, four of whom were injured, Al-Jazeera said.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Afghanistan
Afghanistan: NATO commander calls for more to fight drug trade
(AKI) - By Giovanni Del Re - Afghanistan's drugs trade has become a key obstacle in international efforts to stabilise the country, according to NATO's top European commander, General John Craddock. "I requested additional authorisation to permit ISAF to directly go after drug bosses and drug traffic facilities," Craddock told Adnkronos International (AKI).

Craddock was on a visit to the Afghan capital, Kabul, for meetings with commanders from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). "Afghanistan is gaining in capability and size but is it adequate to the task?" Craddock asked.

"The authorisations for ISAF in the operation plan are to provide assistance to Afghan anti-narcotics forces, but these authorisations are not enough," Craddock added. "The UN estimates a total of 60 to 100 million dollars go to the insurgency," he said. "They buy the explosives (and) the bomb makers pay the soldiers who pull the triggers who kill our soldiers. We cannot let this go on, we must do this to reduce risks for ISAF soldiers."

"The issue is still controversial. Some countries are dragging their feet. I am very engaged on the issue and will speak with every single ally until they understand what is at stake."

Italy, France and Germany are reportedly among the main objectors to ISAF targeting the Afghan drug lords, according to unnamed AKI sources. ISAF currently has 53,000 troops from 40 countries in Afghanistan, NATO's largest ground operation outside Europe.

Around 100 million dollars from the drugs trade have been poured into the insurgency, especially the Taliban, strengthening them as a fighting force against the international troops. The United Nations estimates that revenues from Afghanistan's drugs trade amounted to 5 billion dollars in 2007, equivalent to half the country's national income.

A massive 90 percent of the heroin that reaches Europe comes from Afghanistan.
Yet the French, Germans and Italians don't want to do anything about it.
One positive trend is that the number of provinces free from opium has increased from 13 to 18 out of 34, according a recent UN report on the drugs trade.

The head of the UN's anti-drugs agency UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa, has called on NATO to give more concrete assistance in eradicating opium cultivation in Afghanistan. Costa suggested that ISAF consider expanding its anti-drug support to destroying heroin processing facilities and to intercepting drug convoys, as well as identifying and disrupting major traffickers.

He also said international forces in Afghanistan needed to regain military control of the provinces where opium is still being cultivated on a large scale.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban

#1  I could kill the drugs trade tomorrow!

Just decriminalise drugs, and criminalise being high in public.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 09/25/2008 5:27 Comments || Top||

#2  Simple, inexpensive way to end most of the drug trade........

ANYONE - teachers, health workers at public hospitals, welfare recipients, SSI recipients, winners of government contracts, public sector employees of all kinds and at all levels, recipients of public sector pension plans, etc. - who gets a government check for ANY reason is made subject to random drug testing, with the result of a positive test being removal of said government check in perpetuity, and a lifelong ban against working in the public sector in ANY capacity at ANY level of government.

Posted by: no mo uro || 09/25/2008 6:17 Comments || Top||

#3  Just tell the Taliban this is the poppy they are growing, problem solved. see: http://www.amazon.com/Danish-Flag-Afghan-Poppy-Seeds/dp/B000SOHVG4/ref=pd_bxgy_ol_text_b
Posted by: bruce || 09/25/2008 6:40 Comments || Top||

#4  You are telling me that with all the bioengineering genius of the world, we haven't come up with an opium blight to wipe it out?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/25/2008 7:01 Comments || Top||

#5  No, they're telling you supply isn't the problem, demand is. Stop the demand. Now. I'd tolerate public execution of junkies my self.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 09/25/2008 7:05 Comments || Top||

#6  We shouldn't shoot 'em. It's not that hard to detox them. It should be easier than it is to put them through that a few times.
Posted by: rammer || 09/25/2008 7:58 Comments || Top||

#7  The UN has lots of (my) money. Let 'em BUY the dope.
Posted by: mojo || 09/25/2008 10:15 Comments || Top||

#8  Slightly used at around $45K. Less Talk and more Rock.

Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 09/25/2008 10:28 Comments || Top||

#9  that was my thought exactly Yosemite.
Posted by: sinse || 09/25/2008 11:21 Comments || Top||

#10  45K? Do tell, maybe I'll do the Lasik thing.
Posted by: .5MT || 09/25/2008 12:58 Comments || Top||

#11  No way Karzai will go for this. It will eat into the growth of his Swiss bank account.
Posted by: remoteman || 09/25/2008 13:19 Comments || Top||

#12  #11: No way Karzai will go for this. It will eat into the growth of his Swiss bank account.
Posted by: remoteman


It won't do half as much damage as a stretched neck would, Remote. Karzai is definitely part of the problem. We need to relocate one of those Talibunny IEDs to where it can do the most good.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 09/25/2008 16:13 Comments || Top||

#13  Wheat is actually more profitable than opium. However, the gas prices and equipment create a lag without roads. The security agreement on the border could fix it.
Posted by: newc || 09/25/2008 17:26 Comments || Top||

#14  It won't do half as much damage as a stretched neck would,

A sudden thought, "How wealthy was Saddam when he made that short drop".

Money can NOT buy everything.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 09/25/2008 18:15 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
Al-Qaeda may be starting its own surge
In the past week followers of Al-Qaeda have launched vicious attacks despite Ramadan on key fronts - Pakistan, Yemen, and Mauritania. These events occurred just after intelligence officials said that the Al-Qaeda threat remains despite reports of "imploding" and US President George W. Bush's announcements concerning a renewed focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al-Qaeda may be starting its own surge; strikes in Europe and the US cannot be ruled out as a strategic distraction may be taken place from West Africa to South Asia.

Al-Qaeda Launches Strategic Chaos
Despite a spate of articles concerning Al-Qaeda's demise due to ideological disputes, criticism from key Sunni clerics, and the loss of public sympathy, the movement is not waning. It was almost exactly 20 years ago this month that Al-Qaeda was born in Afghanistan as a movement of violent jihadis that was prepared to fight and die to protect the Islamic umma, or community, from foreign assault. To this day the movement still discusses defensive jihad, puritanical interpretations of religious doctrine, and the use of various tactics, techniques and procedures to achieve goals. Now Al-Qaeda affiliates may be applying strategic chaos to destabilize various countries and create new battle fronts.

Pakistan
In Pakistan, specifically from the tribal areas of Waziristan, Al-Qaeda appears to be endangering the new Pakistani government through terrorist attacks - such as the Marriott bombing that killed dozens at the start of the iftar meal - is meant to further destabilize the state thereby triggering a crisis between Washington and Islamabad. Al-Qaeda knows what it is doing and announced it would do so before this Ramadan. On August 10, 2008, Ayman al-Zawahri, speaking in English for the first time on As-Sahab Media, called for the Pakistani Army and people "to rise up." The Marriott bombing itself, in terms of targeting, destroyed a well-known land mark in the capital where foreigners and Pakistanis meet to conduct business. Moreover, Al-Qaeda hit hard in the city's center in the vicinity of the Parliament where the new president, Aif Ali Zardari, just finished his acceptance speech targeting Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and rejecting American military intervention on Pakistani soil. More spectacular bombings and possibly assassinations are likely. Ultimately, a rise in violence against the Pakistani government and a further collapse of the state to function may force another armed intervention by the United States. Unlike Iraq, however, the US will face a different type of battle space - one in which a large recruitment base of young, madrasa-trained, politically marginalized Pakistanis already exists. And the United States will come fast because of Pakistan's nuclear weapons inventory; Al-Qaeda may be seeking to draw the US into a trap.

Yemen
In Yemen, the attack on the US Embassy, leaving 16 people dead and the largest attack since September 11, 2001, against a US facility outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, shows how ungovernable the country really is as a result of the evolving extremist threat. The government appears to be unable to successfully interrupt the Yemeni cells to conduct operations against targets. In past attacks against the US Embassy, the operations were immature with unsophisticated tactics. The latest attack was a marked changed clearly influenced by the battlefields of Iraq and/or Somalia - the use of two car bombs, RPGs, gunmen dressed as local police, and automatic weapons. After the attack, the statement by the Organization for Islamic Jihad stated that other targets on the group's hit-list include the diplomatic facilities of Britain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This fact signals specifically a further escalation and expansion of targeting.

Even before the attack on the US Embassy, another Yemeni group, Soldiers of the Yemen Brigades, repeatedly attacked oil facilities. On June 30, the group took credit for rocket attacks against an oil refinery in Safir, located east of the capital Sanaa, in Maarib Province. The group later posted video footage of the attack on a radical Islamist Web site. The attack represented the latest in a series of strikes against oil infrastructure and personnel in Yemen over the last year by militants tied to Al-Qaeda, including a May 30 attack against an oil refinery in the port city of Aden.

Overall, destabilizing Yemen is a key strategic goal of Al-Qaeda because the state lies at the crossroads between East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and South Asia - useful territory in which to possibly launch further violent attacks against neighboring states. Plans for terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia have been recently uncovered during raids in Yemen, most notably the raid in which Yemeni Al-Qaeda leader Hamza al-Qaeiti was killed in Aden. To date, nothing public has been released about the United Arab Emirates. And like in Pakistan, there is anti-American sentiment among portions of the Yemeni population.

Mauritania
In Mauritania, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb appears to be increasing its level of violence to challenge the new military government. The group has claimed responsibility for killing 15 Mauritanian soldiers in a 2005 raid, killing four soldiers and four French tourists in December 2007, and attacking the Israeli Embassy in Mauritania in February 2008. After the August 6, 2008, coup, the group called for a full-scale "holy war" to turn Mauritania, seen as a US ally in the global "war on terror," into an Islamic state. Now, during Ramadan, 12 Mauritanian soldiers who were abducted in an attack on their patrol by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb were found decapitated in what can be seen as a powerful message to the Mauritanian government. In addition, the attacks may be seen as an extension of operations further southwards into sub-Saharan Africa which is a source of crude oil to the West.

Implications for the US and its allies There are two broad implications to consider that may be forthcoming. The first is economic warfare involving the "oil weapon." Al-Qaeda seeks to inspire or launch attacks as part of a long-term strategy to bankrupt the US by engaging in a war of attrition. According to an essay titled "Al-Qaeda and the Battle for Oil" that has been circulating on radical jihadi Web sites, militants are well aware of the economics of oil. The author of the essay goes as far as to claim that Al-Qaeda's strategy to defeat the US rests on bankrupting America by driving up oil prices by any means necessary. The author also mentions that the attacks against oil infrastructure in Yemen, along with past attacks in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, have been critical to Al-Qaeda's battlefield lessons learned to date so far. With the economic chaos on global markets, particularly in the US and Europe, now may be a good time to disrupt these economies further. It is important to recall that in February 2007, Al-Qaeda's Sawt al-Jihad online magazine called for attacks against Western hemisphere oil infrastructure that supports the US economy.

The second implication is an attempt to manipulate the presidential race in the United States. In 2004 Al-Qaeda influenced the elections in Spain by carrying out a series of bombings on Madrid commuter trains. In the week before the 2004 American presidential election, Osama bin Laden recorded a video message to the American people promising repercussions if Bush was re-elected. In later messages, Al-Qaeda's leader claimed credit for helping re-elect Bush in 2004. By enflaming the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Yemen and Mauritania, Al-Qaeda wants to influence public opinion "behind enemy lines" and "egg on" the Obama and McCain campaigns. In addition, Al-Qaeda possibly seeks to show that US attention was minimal to a much more dangerous situation in Pakistan in contrast to America's invasion of Iraq. Overall, by using these countries as platforms, there may be more sophisticated attacks against US allies throughout South Asia, the Gulf littoral and North Africa. Strikes in Europe and even North America cannot be ruled out. The "October Surprise" may not be a confrontation with Iran - as some pundits are arguing - but Al-Qaeda confronting the West and her allies again.

Theodore Karasik is director of research and development at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.
Posted by: Fred || 09/25/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda

#1  Again, RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN CONFLICT/WAR = the US-ALLIES are now in a WAR AGZ RADICAL ISLAMISM FOR THE DE FACTO CONTROL AND DOMINATION OF THE ASIAN MAINLAND [priority], INCLUD ANY "NEAR ABROAD" = LOCAL PERIPHERAL ENCLAVES-AREAS. The Islamists desire both to rebuild and recover from losses received fighting the US = US-Allies in IRAQ-AFGHANISTAN, plus to "hedge" and increase their odds of PAN-ISLAMIST NUCLEARIZATION + STRATEGIC WEAPONIZATION, etc mostly vee PROTECTION AND EMPOWERMENT OF NUKE-AMBITIOUS IRAN, ALREADY NUCLEAR PAKISTAN, MAJOR ASIAN MAFIAS + BLACK MARKETS e.g. DRUG TRADE, + FORCED IMPOSITION OF SYMPATHETIC NEW LOCAL GOVTS-NETWORKS [local anarchy/revolution].

Lest we fergit, UNO > the THIRD WORLD = DEV COUNTRIES, espec in ASIA, are LEADING INTENSIVE INTERNATIONAL EFFORT TO ESTABLISH THEIR OWN INDIGENOUS NUCLEAR [Energy?] PROGRAMS.

* TOPIX/IRNA > AHMADINEJAD: US IS TRYING TO SURROUND AND ISOLATE IRAN; + ASIAN MINORITY GROUPS FEAR SPREADING MILITANT ISLAMISM.

* SINO-DEFENSE FORUM > NATO CHIEF: AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN BORDER NEEDS TO BE BOLSTERED [protect agz Militant-Terror crossovers].

* WAFF.com > FRANCE AND NATO INTENTIONALLY DECEIVING THE PUBLIC OVER FRENCH COMBAT DEATHS? The Taliban, etc. becom BETTER DISCIPLINED, BETTER ARMED, + GENER MORE COMBAT EFFECTIVE AGZ NATO FORCES???

Also from WAFF > FROM THE CAUCASUS TO THE BALKANS: AN UNSTABLE WORLD ORDER [long, but good article]. Besides [well-reported] RUSSIA-specific instabiliies [anti-US ANGRY RUSSIA, ala GEORGIA], many post-Cold War/USSR lessor Nations espec in ASIA are resorting to DEV DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICIES BASED ON MILITANT LOCAL NATIONALISM IN ORDER TO JUSTIFY ENLARGEMENT OF THEIR NATIONAL TERRITORIES BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.

* CHINESE MIL FORUM > Poster Thread > TAI-DUS PREDICTS US ECONOMIC COLLAPSE MAY LEAD TO CHINESE CIVIL WAR!?

I'm trying to watch historically ANTI-WESTERN CHINA's reaction to the new and escalating US-PAKI Truubles, + ISLAMIST THREAT TO WESTERN CHINA [Uighurs], MONGOLIA, SOUTH ASIA, + FORMER SSRS [Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Turkomens].

CHIN NETTERS > opine that iff NORTH KOREA ever becoms destabilized ala KIMMIE's HEALTH PROBS, CHINA SHOULD AND MUST BE THE ONE - AND ONLY ONE -TO TAKE OVER NORTH KOREA [Unilater or as NATION-IN-CHARGE of International Coalition] FROM PYONGYANG, NOT THE US-WESTERN ALLIES NOR US-LED UNSC.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/25/2008 1:01 Comments || Top||

#2  It seems as though any upstart with enough resources to make a car bomb can be called Al-Qaeda now days.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/25/2008 9:02 Comments || Top||

#3  We need to stop referring to everything as a surge. Stop the Buzzwords now!
Posted by: rjschwarz || 09/25/2008 11:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Bring it on. More goat-rapers to kill and allows us to de-infest the rest of Arabic society.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/25/2008 12:10 Comments || Top||

#5  Attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and Mauritania (and even Afghanistan) are not exactly the same as the jihadi heroes attacking the invading unbelievers. What this suggests to me is that Al Qaeda realized they do not actually own the Umma heartland as they had thought when they sent the airplanes into the Twin Towers. But of course, I could be wrong.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/25/2008 15:14 Comments || Top||

#6  The AQ surge consists of escaping from Iraq. All else follows from that.
Posted by: tipover || 09/25/2008 15:30 Comments || Top||



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Thu 2008-09-25
  NKor bans nuke inspectors
Wed 2008-09-24
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Tue 2008-09-23
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Mon 2008-09-22
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Wed 2008-09-17
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