India today rubbished reports that China's warships on anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden caught an Indian Navy submarine snooping on it in the international waters.
Vehemently denying that two Chinese Destroyers had "forced" an Indian submarine to surface, Navy officials here said the vessel "was not Indian" at all. "None of our submarines surfaced in the Gulf of Aden region as reported in a section of the Chinese media," a Navy official said here.
I'd deny it too whether it happened or not ...
Chinese newspapers and websites had reported a couple of days ago that their warships sent to fight piracy in waters off Somalia were stalked by an Indian attack submarine and the two sides became locked in a tense stand-off for at least half-an-hour. They also claimed that after rounds of manoeuvring during which both sides tried to test for weaknesses in other's sonar system, the two Chinese warships managed to force the Indian submarine to surface.
Indian Navy, however, said there was no such face-off with the Chinese Navy vessels. "This seems to be a psychological warfare indulged in by the Chinese Navy," an official said.
Asked if the Navy had any submarine currently deployed in the region, officials said they were operating submarines in a range of theatres and that deployment patterns could not be discussed.
Correct. Submarine deployments, especially, are never discussed.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/04/2009
17:23 ||
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#1
Just me, or is this a new verb spotting - "rubbished"? In any case I like it - a definite sub-continent flavor!
#5
Compare wid WAFF > WPR - CHINESE PERSEPECTIVES ON A RISING INDIA; + CHINESE MIL FORUM > PENTAGON's GROWING CONCERN OF CHINESE ANTI-SHIP BALLISTIC MISSLES, as per precluding US CVBGS from operating too close to TAIWAN = TAIWAN STRAITS as to be effective.
Also on CMF, NAVAL INTEL Report on CHINA'S GROWING SUBMARINE THREAT [more dangerous to USN than Russia = Russian Subs-Fleet]???
#6
Conventional submarines like Kilo need to recharge batteries, for that they need to put diesel engines to work which need to breath. "surfacing" means snorkel depth. Snorkel is a tube that makes possible a submarine diesel engine to breath while submarine is beneath surface but very close to it.
Posted by: Large Snerong7311 ||
02/04/2009 22:41
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Voters won't have to worry about Senator Richard Burr pulling a Tom Daschle. The gentleman from North Carolina pulled away from the Capitol yesterday in a 1974 VW Thing he's owned for 18 years. And here's the thing -- he drove with the top down in the middle of a snowstorm.
#3
VW came out with this clone of the WWII German 2WD military equivalent of the jeep in the early 70's. Looked like fun but was a bit impractical and expensive for me at the time.
Today's installment of "Kennedy's in the News"...
WASHINGTON -- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday said he thinks hog farmers are a greater threat to Americans than Osama bin Laden. I thought it was windmill manufacturers?
Mr. Kennedy, son of the the slain New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, is an environmental kook law attorney who was testifying before a House Judiciary subcomittee when Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican, asked him if a quotation attributed to him in 2002 about hog farmers representing a greater threat than the leader of al Qaeda was accurate. I'll tell ya, Rep. King. With all this bad news, we could use a little comic relief at the subcommitee.
I got a real, live Kennedy ready to testify. Would that do it?
"I don't know if that [quotation] is accurate, but I believe it and I support it," said Mr. Kennedy, who has been involved in a vigorous legal effort against the meat industry for some years, arguing that manure and other products associated with large livestock producers emit toxic wastes that threaten the environment. Mr. Kennedy also has said that a single hog consignment can put out more pollution than a city of a million people. He has also said that every public official in North Carolina has been corrupted by the pork industry. He cited as evidence an editorial in a Raleigh newspaper, although he also said there may be some exceptions. Maybe a Democrat here or there but that's it ...
Mr. Kennedy was convicted for for possession of heroin in 1984 and sentenced to 800 hours of community service. He fulfilled that sentence by doing volunteer work for an envoronmental foundation and later became a vociferous critic of the meat industry and large meat producers. Sounds like he still should be pissing in a cup.
Mr. Kennedy has said that he plans to go after all large farms in the country, not just pork producers. He has also said that the "right" lawsuit against livestock producers could bring damage awards of up to $13 billion. The Kennedy's continue on their recent roll... He's just plain nuts. Used to be the kooky relations of famous families puttered around the estate and grew orchids or something ...
A blast from the past...
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Federal agents on Wednesday searched the home of a man linked to the fatal 1982 Tylenol poisonings in the Chicago area that triggered a nationwide scare and prompted dramatic changes in the way food and medical products are packaged.
No one was ever charged with the deaths of seven people who took the cyanide-laced drugs. The FBI would not immediately confirm that the search at the home of James W. Lewis was related to the Tylenol case, only that it was part of an ongoing investigation. Lewis served more than 12 years in prison for sending an extortion note to Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 million to "stop the killing." No statute of limitations for murder ... Continued on Page 49
Actors, actresses and businessmen were victims of a Dubai-based Egyptian accused of fraud and of stealing millions of dollars from his clients, it emerged Wednesday.
A list of some of Nabil al-Boushi's alleged victims was published Wednesday, one day after the Egyptian billionaire was arrested in the United Arab Emirates.
More than 35 complaints were filed against al-Boushi, who owns a brokerage company, by Egyptian and Emirati claimants.
They accused him of taking about $37 million with the alleged aim of investing them in the London and New York stock markets, after promising them a 40 percent monthly profit.
The list includes famous actress Laila Olwi, said to have lost more than $500,000 dollars, Mervat Amin, another cinema star, losing almost the same amount, and her ex-husband, actor Hussein Fahmi, who lost $2 million.
Mahmoud al-Khatib, former footballer and the current vice chairman of Egypt's Al-Ahly Club (lost $6 million) and Hassan al-Gabali, the brother of Egypt's Minister of Health Hatem al-Gabali (lost $12 million) are also among those named as victims, according to the list published by Rose al-Youssef Egyptian daily.
A police source was quoted as saying that al-Boushi, who was arrested in the glitzy emirate of Dubai, will not be extradited to Egypt until after his trial in the UAE.
#1
They accused him of taking about $37 million with the alleged aim of investing them in the London and New York stock markets, after promising them a 40 percent monthly profit.
Construction workers are anxious and investigators are puzzled. Someone has been sending San Francisco's portable toilets up in flames in a wave of potty pyromania.
"It's an outrage," said Scott Johnson, a 57-year-old contractor who has been working on apartment building renovations on Russian Hill, the elegant neighborhood that is home to famously crooked Lombard Street and has had most of the fires.
Since November, at least 20 of the ubiquitous construction site toilets have been set afire in the city, creating a trail of malodorous wreckage and causing an estimated $50,000 in property damage, according to fire officials. Quick! Put in an appropriation in the stimulus bill for new crappers! A million or so should do it, right, Pelosi?
Investigators have little to go on. Apparently, so do the construction workers.
Most of the fires have been set at night, although one portable potty burst into flames during a recent afternoon.
"Somebody's getting very bold," said Fire Department Lt. Mindy Talmadge. It's not unheard of for vandals to strike the portable restrooms but "this is unusual," she said.
Contractors have been trying to foil the attacks by securing or camouflaging their industrial outhouses. A walk around Russian Hill last week found almost none of the familiar bright blue toilets, save for one lashed to a large metal trash bin and another tucked discreetly behind folds of black material. It's so slimming, too!
Theories vary on who is responsible. "Kids would be my guess," said Johnson.
Posted by: ed ||
02/04/2009
14:43 ||
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If these are paid militias like the Sons of Iraq ($200 a month), I think we'll be fine. Their incentive to help us will be the SOI's incentive to help us - a regular paycheck. Ultimately, the unemployment problem is such that simply paying people not to fight us will work. In Iraq, it even led to the dismantlement of al Qaeda in Iraq.
#2
I trust Petraeus. But these are different situations that will need different solutions. I suspect he knows that and is developing a different strategy this story notwithstanding.
But the big foot print and the logistical support required subjects us to blackmail with a landlocked country. The sooner the foot print gets small the happier I'll be. Frankly, I don't think the place is worth the amount of nation building it will take to make it a full fledged their world country. Aside from denying it to al-Q I can't figure out what national interest we have involved. But Petraeus gets the benefit of the doubt.
#3
Russia Offers Obama Help on Afghanistan
By Peter Fedynsky
Moscow
23 January 2009
President Dmitri Medvedev is seeking to reassert Russian influence in Central Asia, offering to help the United States in Afghanistan and striking an energy deal with Uzbekistan. He announced these moves during a meeting with his Uzbek counterpart, Islam Karimov, in Tashkent.
The judges in Minnesota's Senate election trial threw Republican Norm Coleman a lifeline on Tuesday, opening the door to adding nearly 5,000 rejected absentee ballots to a race that Democrat Al Franken leads by just 225 votes.
It wasn't a total victory for Coleman, who had wanted the judges to look at about 11,000 such ballots. He also has to prove the absentees were unfairly rejected, and it's likely that Franken would gain votes from the pile too.
But his attorneys had said the absentees were the centerpiece of his court challenge, and they cheered the ruling. "This is a victory for thousands of Minnesotans whose rejected absentee ballots will now be properly reviewed in this election," Coleman attorney Ben Ginsberg said in a prepared statement.
While the judges limited Coleman's field of potential new votes, they allowed many more ballots than Franken had wanted. His attorneys had argued Coleman should be limited to about 650 the specific figure given in his initial Jan. 6 lawsuit.
The judges, however, ruled that the Jan. 6 filing laid out additional categories of ballots that should be examined. The judges said they would look at two categories of rejected absentees: those where it appeared the voter had met the legal requirements, and those where voters might have run afoul of the law through no fault of their own.
Posted by: ed ||
02/04/2009
14:16 ||
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I don't see why we don't end this kabuki theater and just seat Senator Franken. After all, he stole the election fair and square.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/04/2009 17:39
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Homosexualists who want to use government power to impose their agenda on the military know that in the new Obama administration, gpeople are policy.h To achieve their most radical goals through the courts, these activists surely are counting on Elena Kagan, Pres. Barack Obamafs nominee for Solicitor General of the United States. If confirmed by the Senate, Kagan will be in a position to make or break scores of government policies and laws affecting the military, without the inconvenience of having to deal with elected representatives of the people in Congress.
The Solicitor General, who is legally required to be glearned in the law,h supervises and conducts government litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court. He or she determines which cases to appeal to the Supreme Court, and usually presents oral arguments in the most high-pressure environment any lawyer can face. (Ms. Kagan, Dean of Harvard Law School, has no experience before the Supreme Court.)
The Solicitor Generalfs office participates in the preparation of petitions, briefs, and other papers filed by the government in Supreme Court proceedings. In addition, the office reviews gall cases decided adversely to the government in the lower courts to determine whether they should be appealed and, if so, which position should be taken.h
When the Solicitor General allows adverse decisions to stand without appeal, lower-court judges sometimes are empowered to reinterpret, weaken, or incrementally nullify duly enacted laws. An example relevant to the Kagan nomination involves the Solomon Amendment, a law named for the late New York Republican congressman and former Marine Gerald Solomon. In 2003 a consortium of law schools and faculty called the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR) challenged the Solomon Amendment in the federal courts.
FAIR argued that Congress erred in passing a law that withholds federal funding for colleges and universities if they deny access for military recruiters on the same basis as civilian employers invited to participate in on-campus career days. This mandate, they said, is not fair to colleges and universities that forbid discrimination based on several factors, including sexual orientation.
FAIR further maintained that colleges and universities should be permitted to accept federal funds even if they refuse to provide equal access to any employer, including the military, which does not accept homosexual applicants. This presentation wrongly implied that the armed forces are no different than any other gequal opportunity employer.h
In November 2004 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit agreed with FAIRfs argument and declared the Solomon Amendment unconstitutional. The Solicitor General appealed the case, FAIR v. Rumsfeld, to the U.S. Supreme Court. Prof. Elena Kagan was one of 54 law school faculty members who filed an amicus brief supporting FAIRfs legal argument against the amendment.
Voting 8-0, (new Justice Sam Alito had not heard oral arguments) the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the legislation, and firmly rejected FAIRfs argument. If the Kagan amicus brief had any merit at all, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and other liberals on the court would have found a reason to agree. Instead, the Supreme Courtfs opinion was a unanimous rejection of the FAIR/Kagan argument.
The outcome of this case would have been dramatically different if Dean Kagan had been the Solicitor General instead of a law professor endorsing a losing argument. Absent an appeal, the Third Circuit ruling would have nullified the Solomon Amendment by judicial fiat, without any review by the Supreme Court.
Army veteran Flagg Youngblood of the Young Americafs Foundation, who advocates for student rights, takes issue with elite schools that claim they have a right to taxpayer funding while simultaneously barring our military. In a Washington Times op-ed titled gSolicitor General FlimFlam,h Youngblood noted that six major universitiesStanford, Caltech, Columbia, the University of Chicago, Harvard, and his own alma mater Yaleare still assigning gsecond-class, back-of-the bus statush to students who want to serve their country.
In 2006-2007 Youngbloodfs gShameful Sixh schools accepted almost $5 billion in taxpayer funding while continuing various strategies to circumvent the Solomon amendment. Students must travel miles away to other campuses if they want to take advantage of military opportunities that academic elites disdain with haughty contempt. Even Pres. Barack Obama, who was asked about this issue during the 2008 campaign, said that he disagrees with anti-military policies on college campusesthe same practices that his own nominee, Elena Kagan, has endorsed.
Members of the Senate should question Dean Kagan closely and determine whether her elitist views in the Solomon Amendment case place her so far out of the judicial mainstream that she does not merit confirmation. Questions are even more important because easy confirmation would put Kagan on the short list for possible nomination to the Supreme Court.
For starters, members of the Judiciary Committee should ask Kagan whether she can put aside her personal views and vigorously defend the Solomon Amendment, which protects the militaryfs right of equal access to inform college students of available opportunities.
The senators also should ask Kagan whether she will defend the 1993 law stating that homosexuals are not eligible to serve, Section 654, Title 10, which is usually mislabeled gDonft Ask, Donft Tell.h The federal courts of appeal have upheld that statute several times. Will she follow those courts and zealously defend the law, or will she take the opposite position and undercut existing law by declining to appeal adverse lower-court rulings?
Senators and the American people need to know whether Kagan really believes that the military is no different from other employers. If this is her view, will she respect Supreme Court precedents recognizing the principle of gdeferenceh to the executive branch and Congress on matters of regulation and law affecting the military?
If Dean Kaganfs answers are not satisfactory, senators should not vote to confirm her as America's next Solicitor General. Enormous power should not be entrusted to an official whose liberal philosophy and skewed priorities would do great harm to the all-volunteer force.
The Saudi government acknowledged Wednesday that 11 men on the country's most wanted list are former Guantanamo prisoners who went through rehabilitation, raising doubts about a program intended to counter extremist religious ideology.
President Barack Obama signed an executive order closing down the prison in Cuba on Jan. 22 his second day in office leaving nations scrambling over what to do with a potential flood of released detainees.
Some 133 of Guantanamo's over 700 inmates were Saudi, according to Interior Ministry spokesman Gen. Mansour al-Turki, and 117 have returned to Saudi Arabia and been through rehabilitation programs.
Posted by: ed ||
02/04/2009
14:06 ||
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A narrow majority of Americans supports shutting down Guantanamo on a priority basis.
Really? Can I see where your getting your numbers, Paul Schemm of the AP, or do I just take your word for that? And just what is a "priority basis"?
IBM has just announced that it has signed an agreement that will enable it to build its next-generation BlueGene supercomputers, for the Department of Energys National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). IBM is expected to deliver two systems, one of which will be dubbed Sequoia, will provide a performance of 20 petaflops and will be based on future BlueGene technology.
The longstanding partnership of NNSA, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and IBM is ushering in an era of multi-petaflops computing, said NNSA administrator, Thomas DAgostino. These powerful machines will provide NNSA with the capabilities needed to resolve time-urgent and complex scientific problems, ensuring the viability of the nations nuclear deterrent into the future. This endeavor will also help maintain U.S. leadership in high performance computing and promote scientific discovery.
The Sequoia is set to be delivered starting in 2011 and will be deployed in 2012. With a speed of 20 petaflops, the system is expected to be the most powerful supercomputer in the world, consequently being 10 times faster than todays similar machine. The Sequoia will be built on another system, called Dawn, which will be capable of delivering a speed of 500 teraflops, and which is scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of 2009.
According to the available specifications, Sequoia will have 1.6 petabytes of memory, 96 racks, 98.304 compute nodes and 1.6 million cores. An IBM spokesman said that Sequoia would not be designed as a hybrid system, like the Roadrunner. It will be based on a future generation of IBM Power processors.
To better put into perspective what 20 Petaflops actually means, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said that if each of the 6.7 billion people on earth had a hand calculator and worked together on a calculation 24 hours per day, 365 days a year, it would take 320 years to do what Sequoia will do in one hour.
#1
So who checks the Sequoia for accuracy and how?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
02/04/2009 13:57
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#2
Considering the "value" of climate computer models, I'm thrilled to know that components of our nuclear deterrent will also depend on computer "models" for reliability...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/04/2009 14:55
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#3
So will this bastid run Flight Sim X okay or what?
Terrorism? Mob hit? Vengeance for adultery? McVeigh wannabe?
AP WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. -- The chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board was critically injured Wednesday when his car exploded as he was leaving home for work, an attorney said. Trent P. Pierce was taken to Regional Medical Center in Memphis, Tenn., where he was listed in critical condition, hospital spokeswoman Sandy Snell said.
Neighbor Julanne Ingram said the explosion happened around 8 a.m. "It was a huge explosion. It rattled the windows in this house," she said.
William Trice, an attorney for the medical board, said he knew of no heated disputes involving Pierce and said as chairman, Pierce often doesn't take part in board votes. "This is just off the wall," Trice said. "It's just such bizarre circumstances."
The board oversees the practice of medicine in Arkansas and can discipline doctors for wrongdoing, including revoking their medical licenses.
Police blocked off the street outside Pierce's home, and officers walked back and forth with dogs. Investigators from the Arkansas State Police bomb squad and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives could also be seen. ATF agents did not return a call for comment Wednesday.
West Memphis Police Chief Robert Paudert said he planned to meet with ATF agents. He did not elaborate.
Trice said he believed Pierce drives a hybrid, but said he had no information on what might have caused the explosion.
Pierce, who is in his 50s, was expected to attend board subcommittee meetings Wednesday in Little Rock. He was appointed to the board in January 1997 and reappointed in 2005 by former Gov. Mike Huckabee.
#5
JFM knocked this one out of the park--and considering that "France" and "baseball" don't exactly have the strongest connection to each other, that just makes it all the more impressive.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/04/2009 16:04
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#6
Good possibility it's domestic.
As in hate/jealousy/screwing around domestic.
I probably watch too much Forensic Files....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/04/2009 16:05
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H/T Blackfive
The Kenyan government has agreed to try pirates captured by the U.S. military, a senior Defense Department official said here today. The agreement came about earlier this month through a memorandum of understanding signed by U.S. State Department and Kenyan government officials, spokesman Bryan Whitman told Pentagon reporters. Britain also has a similar agreement with Kenya.
Seagoing pirates operating off the coasts of Somalia and Yemen have lately preyed on commercial shipping, often holding captured vessels, cargo and crews for millions of dollars in ransom money. The problem seemed to worsen until the recent stand up of a multinational, anti-pirate consortium known as Task Force 151.
The U.S.-Kenyan memorandum "adds to the range of possibilities in terms of being able to attack this problem," Whitman said. And, "having a place to prosecute these people," he added, should help to discourage pirate activity in the region.
The legal system is based on the 1963 constitution, the Judicature Act of 1967, and common law court precedent. Kenya accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction with reservations.
Customary law, to the extent it does not conflict with statutory law, is used as a guide in civil matters concerning persons of the same ethnic group.
The judicial system consists of the Court of Appeal, which has final appellate jurisdiction, and subordinate courts. The High Court, sitting continuously at Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, and Kisumu, and periodically at Eldoret, Kakamega, Nyeri, Kitale, Kisii, and Meru, consists of a chief justice and 24 associate judges, who are appointed by the president of the republic.
The High Court has both civil and criminal jurisdiction, serving as an appellate tribunal in some cases and as a court of first instance in others.
Lower courts are presided over by resident magistrates and district magistrates. Questions of Islamic law are determined by qadis' courts. Military courts handle court-martials of military personnel.
Although the constitution provides for an independent judiciary, the president has considerable influence over the judiciary. The president appoints the High Court Judges with the advice of the Judicial Service Commission.
The president also has authority to dismiss judges, the attorney general, and other officials upon recommendation of a tribunal appointed by the president.
#2
The poor guy was just misunderstood. She didn't give him a chance to take the first shot. She should have waited until the police arrived.
/liberal bs
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/04/2009 17:37
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#3
Morale: Never bring a knife to a SMG fight.
OK so in how many states would she be up on charges?
Too bad she had to break all that glass. (Don't give a shit about the goblin...)
With the reduction of violence in Iraq, foreign militants were now flooding into Afghanistan to join Taliban insurgents battling Afghan and international troops, the Afghan defence minister said on Wednesday.
There was a 33 percent rise in insurgent attacks in Afghanistan in 2008, according to NATO-led forces.
Violence is expected to rise further in 2009 as Washington prepares to send up to 25,000 more troops into new areas of the southern Pashtun heartlands.
Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said there were about 15,000 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan but their numbers were being swelled by foreign insurgents moving in from Iraq, where violence has fallen after a U.S. troop "surge" and other measures.
"Since last year, as the result of the success of the surge in Iraq, there has been a flow of foreign terrorists into Afghanistan," Wardak told a news conference.
"There have been engagements ... in 2008, and in some of these engagements, actually 60 percent of the total force which we have encountered were foreign fighters," he said. Wardak was speaking after he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai held talks with NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, U.S. General John Craddock.
The talks focussed on training and equipping the Afghan army, which the U.S. military aims to increase from some 80,000 troops now to 134,000 in 2012, the planned deployment of the extra U.S. soldiers and ways to reduce civilians casualties, Wardak said.
U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to approve as early as this week plans to send up to 17,000 more combat troops to Afghanistan to add to the 36,000 American soldiers already battling Taliban insurgents in the country.
The additional U.S. forces will focus on hitting militant communication lines and their cross-border infiltration into Afghanistan from Pakistan. The extra troops will reduce reliance on air strikes, cutting civilian deaths, Wardak said.
Civilian casualties caused by international forces have eroded support for Karzai and the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan more than seven years since the Taliban's removal.
More than 2,100 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in 2008, the United Nations said on Tuesday, more than a third of them by Afghan and international troops.
Wardak said the issue had been a source of tension with the foreign troops.
BRITAIN scolded its NATO allies today for not stepping forward to share combat duties in Afghanistan, warning that there could be no freeloaders in the fight against Taliban-led insurgents.
"An alliance worth its name must be one that shares the burden of membership equally amongst its members, because there can be no freeloading when it comes to collective security," British Defence Secretary John Hutton said.
"Volunteering, not waiting to be asked, must be the hallmark of a proper relationship between the transatlantic members of this alliance," he told ambassadors at North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) headquarters in Brussels.
NATO is embarked on its biggest and most-ambitious operation ever trying to spread the influence of the weak Afghan government across the strife-torn country and help foster reconstruction.
But the Taliban and its cohorts, including al-Qaeda, drug lords and criminal gangs, have been waging an increasingly tenacious insurgency and seriously undermining NATO's goals.
Britain, Canada, the United States and the Netherlands - supported by Australia - have troops on the frontline of that fight in southern Afghanistan, but other allies have proved reluctant to put their forces more in harm's way.
"Afghanistan underlines the need for NATO's institutions today to develop and sustain a wartime culture - urgency, ambition, a can-do attitude - rather than a peacetime mentality of bureaucracy, process, minimalism," Mr Hutton said.
"Failure in Afghanistan is unthinkable. The consequences would be far reaching," he warned the ambassadors, according to an extract of his speech.
"Failure would be an open invitation to any would-be aggressor - state or non-state - to test our resolve and try their luck. It simply cannot be allowed to happen," he said.
He also urged the Afghan government to do more to fight corruption.
"Military gains cannot be consolidated nor political progress advanced without effective governance at every level: district, local, regional and national," he said.
#2
MOSCOW-BASED ANALYST PAVEL FELGEHAUE > As per Kyrgyzstan's just-announced closure of the MANAS US Air Base, RUSSIA DESIRES FOR THE US TO RECOGNIZE ITS AUTHORITY IN CENTRAL ASIA [aka NO US MILBASES OR MILFORS WITHIN RUSSIA'S SPHERE OF INFLUENCE IN ASIA].
Artic > The MANAS US Base in Kyrgyzstan was more SYMBOLIC, NOT PRACTICAL ala US-NATO Afghan re-supply like AMER's ALSO-CLOSED UZBEKISTAN BASE.
THE United Nations has retracted a claim that an Israeli strike which killed more than 40 people in northern Gaza city of Jabaliya last month hit a school run by a UN agency.
"The humanitarian coordinator would like to clarify that the shelling, and all of the fatalities, took place outside rather than inside the school," the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its latest weekly update on the situation in Gaza.
It stressed that its initial report of the January 6 incident correctly stated that Israeli shells hit outside the school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, but that it later referred to "the shelling of the UNRWA school in Jabaliya".
The Israeli military initially said its forces had responded to hostile fire from within the UN school but later reportedly retracted that statement.
The attack sparked widespread outrage in the midst of Israel's deadly offensive in Gaza.
#2
Only a week after photos and eyewitness accounts became public. That's progress for the UN.
Posted by: ed ||
02/04/2009 13:01
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#3
But how will the International Criminal Court in The Hague be able to continue their arraignment of the nation of Israel when the primary accusation has been withdrawn so perfunctorily?
A senior British Army officer has been arrested in Afghanistan for allegedly supplying civilian casualty figures to a female human rights campaigner he is said to have befriended. Lieutenant-Colonel Owen McNally, 48, was held on suspicion of breaching the Official Secrets Act. The Ministry of Defence said that the officer was being sent back to the UK for questioning, where his case has been referred to the Metropolitan Police.
According to The Sun newspaper, Lt-Col McNally had access to the figures through his work for Nato's International Security Assistance Force, which is running military operations in Afghanistan. American generals in the Afghan capital Kabul were reported to be furious about the allegations.
The campaign group Human Rights Watch said last year that civilian deaths in Afghanistan from US and Nato air strikes nearly tripled to at least 1,633 between 2006 and 2007. The group said that it used "the most conservative figures available".
The MoD said in a statement: "We can confirm that a British Army officer has been arrested in Afghanistan on suspicion of breaching the Official Secrets Act. He is being returned to the UK for questioning. The investigation has been referred from the MoD to the Metropolitan Police and is now under consideration. No further details will be released at this stage."
Lt-Col McNally joined the Army as a private in 1977 and worked his way up through the ranks before being commissioned in 1995. He is thought to be one of the Army's most senior former non-commissioned officers.
#7
Yeah, I'd be real interested in the "befriended". Call it healthy curiousity in seeing how hard up this guy was.
Foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan have to deal with the fact that the local women are (a) in perpetual purdah and (b) off-limits to them anyway based on orders from up high.
Two senior British judges have expressed their anger and surprise that President Barack Obama's Government has put pressure on Britain to suppress evidence of torture in US custody.
Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones said they had been told that America had threatened to stop co-operating with Britain on intelligence matters if evidence were published suggesting that Binyam Mohammed, a British resident held at the US prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, had been tortured into confessing crimes.
The judges said that lawyers for the Foreign Office & Commonwealth Office had assured them that the threat still held good, even since Mr Obama had come to power and reversed many of his predecessor's policies on the torture and detention of terror suspects.
In a withering ruling that condemned America for a lack of principles, the judges said: "We did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials . . . relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be.
We had no reason . . . to anticipate there would be made a threat of the gravity of the kind made by the United States Government that it would reconsider its intelligence-sharing relationship, when all the considerations in relation to open justice pointed to us providing a limited but important summary of the reports.
The ruling concerns the case of Mr Mohammed an Ethiopian national who came to Britain as a teenage refugee who was arrested and taken into US custody in Pakistan in 2002 and who has been held at Guantánamo Bay since September 2004 on suspicion of terrorism.
Mr Mohammed, 31, claims that he was tortured and mistreated into falsely confessing to being involved in an alleged dirty bomb plot claims that the US denies. However, the charges against him have been withdrawn and no new charges brought gainst him before Mr Obama's order on January 22 freezing all proceedings against Guantánamo detainees, pending a review.
Mr Mohammed wants reports written by US intelligence officials, which it is understood may back his claims of torture, to be published.
In an initial ruling on his claims in August, the two judges tantalisingly revealed that MI5 had taken part in unlawfully interrogating Mr Mohammed. They ruled that the British Government was under a duty to disclose evidence that it held about Mr Mohammed's treatment after his detention in Pakistan.
The US Government objected, and they edited out of their ruling any details from reports written by American intelligence officials and supplied to the British courts.
Various media organisations then mounted their own legal challenge to have the US reports made public. Today the judges issued their verdict, declining to publish the US reports, but lashing America for bullying Britain to conceal information that posed no threat to America's national security.
The peaceful polling was remarkable and so were the results. All the Islamic parties lost ground, especially that associated with the so-called "Shia firebrand", Moqtada al-Sadr, whose share of the vote went down from 11% to 3%. The principal Sunni Islamic party, the Islamic Party of Iraq, was wiped out.
The only Islamic party to gain ground was the Dawa party of the Shia prime minister Nouri al-Maliki - and even that party dropped the word Islamic from its name. The power of Maliki, who has emerged a stronger leader than expected, is further enhanced by these elections. Now no Islamic parties will be able to control any provinces on their own. The election is thus a big defeat for Iran which had hoped that Shia religious parties would control the south and enable Iran to turn them into a mini Shia republic.
Instead, a new generation of Iraqi politicians is coming forward. Many of them are young and secular. They have lived always in Iraq, not in exile; they are Iraqis with local roots first and foremost - they are not pan-Arabs or pan-Islamists. Nor do they have connections to the US.
But in the last two years the "surge" of US troops under General David Petraeus appears to have destroyed much of the terrorists' infrastructure and support. Now, as US troops begin their phased withdrawal, the new American-trained Iraqi army is defending the country against Islamist violence.
There will be further setbacks. But who knows, Iraq may yet even become a model for democratic change in other Arab countries. If so, who deserves some credit? The much maligned President Bush. And Tony Blair.
#1
A new generation of politicians emerging after only two years of practicing democracy? And they're secular instead of religious? The Iraqis are climbing an impressively steep learning curve.
Must be "Hamas is Full of Shit Day"...
Multiple recent media reports have charged that Israeli shelling destroyed Al Quds Hospital in Gaza City. The Associated Press, for example, reported that:
On Friday, health workers went through the smoldering wreckage of the five-story Al Quds hospital run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which was hit by three Israeli shells the day before.
There was nothing left to salvage inside the blackened hulk. (Jan. 16, 2009, UN says Gaza hospitals in crisis)
And the Times of London reported that:
Worst hit was the al-Quds hospital in Tel al-Hawa. Hospital staff had to remove 500 patients in the middle of the night as fire raged.
"I was sitting on the ground floor when suddenly there was a huge explosion," said Mohammed al-Helou, an ambulance worker.
"I rushed to help carry some of the patients down to the lower floor, and I heard another explosion. That was when I realised the hospital itself was under fire." (Jan 18, 2009, Israel declares ceasefire as it hails success of bloody Gaza onslaught)
However, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which can hardly be accused of pro-Israel sympathies, reported that services at the supposedly destroyed hospital would be "back to normal in three to five days" after the repair of damaged water pipes:
Repair work at Al-Quds Hospital, which is run by the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), is under way after a quick assessment jointly carried out with ICRC staff. Water pipes supplying the facility were badly damaged by the shelling. Hospital services are expected to be back to normal in three to five days. The PRCS warehouse, which was also shelled on Thursday, was reduced to ashes. Very substantial stocks of relief goods were destroyed. (Jan. 17, 2009, Gaza: Civilians continue to suffer despite hopes for imminent cease-fire)
That is, according to the ICRC report, it was a neighboring warehouse that was destroyed, not the hospital. Despite this, the AP and the Times of London and many other news sources credulously parroted false Palestinian claims that the hospital had been destroyed by Israel.
Furthermore, it is not even clear that Israeli shells set the warehouse alight. Since there was an intense battle in the area, it may well be that it was hit by Palestinian fire. The battle near the hospital was described in a January 15 AFP report (as usual for the French agency quite critical of Israel), which stated that an Israeli advance into the area triggered "furious battles with Palestinian fighters." The report continued:
A deafening cacophany (sic) of tank shells, missiles, artillery, helicopter gunships and automatic rifles filled the air as battles unfolded less than 300 metres (yards) from the facility beneath a thick pall of smoke.
Palestinian fighters met the advancing troops with mortar and anti-tank rockets. Tanks fired shells on the ground and planes hit the area with missiles from above.
Armed Hamas fighters dressed in blue and black uniforms, one of them carrying the green flag of his Islamist movement, ran down a street 100 metres from the hospital, firing Kalashnikov rifles.
Considering the intensity of the battle and the Palestinian use of mortars, it seems difficult to say at this point exactly whose shells hit the warehouse, or exactly what set it on fire. However, it should be noted that in recent days Palestinians have fired at least one mortar with a white-phosphorus warhead into Israel, so if the warehouse was hit by white phosphorous (which starts fires that are difficult to extinguish), it may well have been fired by Hamas.
Unfortunately this is not the first time that the international media has simply parroted false Palestinian claims intended to paint Israel as committing war crimes, while ignoring genuine Palestinian war crimes that have placed both Israeli and Palestinian civilians squarely in the line of fire.
In doing so these reporters and editors only prolong the conflict and the undeniable suffering on both sides.
But, according to Ma'an, "Shut up, boys! We've found a mark"...
Bethlehem -- Ma'an/Agencies -- The government of France plans to rebuild a hospital in Gaza that was partly destroyed by Israeli bombing last month, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Tuesday.
"France has approved a project to rebuild the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza and this is an extremely important humanitarian project," Abbas told reporters following a lunch meeting with Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in Paris, according to the news agency AFP."We hope that it will be implemented as quickly as possible."
Kouchner confirmed that he had discussed "urgent" plans to rebuild the Al-Quds hospital and help other health centers in Palestinian territory following Israel's three-week onslaught that killed more than 1,350 Palestinians.
The Red Crescent-affiliated hospital in the Tal Al-Hawa area of Gaza City was hit on January 15 by an Israeli shell and caught fire, forcing hundreds of patients to flee on stretchers and in wheelchairs after dark.
#1
Only 3 weeks into the Obama administration and already we have seem some record incompetence and bungling. This is gonna be a long 4 years.... if we make it that long.
#2
Lock and Load! Seeing an increase in Afghani and Pakistani looking men coming through the Amtrak station in downtown Dallas, Texas towind considerable luggage during the past week from the Amtrak train and from the train servicing the Dallas Ft Worth International Airport.
These types are wasting no time coming into America, now that the left is running the big show.
#5
Seeing an increase in Afghani and Pakistani looking men coming through the Amtrak station in downtown Dallas...
There is a substantial Muslim population in the DFw area, mostly concentrated in the Mid Cities. Irving, Euless, Bedford, Arlington...etc. I have also taken note of the increased influx of these vermin. And so have a lot of others.
Through acquaintances in a few of the local police departments, I've heard that they are watching them closely, along with the Texas State police. Not sure what the Feds are doing, doesn't matter anyway. If these folks cross the line the feds will be the least of their worries.
Lots of gun tottin' and bible clutchin' RedNecks here in the Lone Star State...still. I was at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo the other day, speaking with some of the livestock producers, and these country folk are ready to answer the call. Talk about being fed up, I tell you.
#10
Seeing an increase in Afghani and Pakistani looking men coming through the Amtrak station in downtown Dallas, Texas towind considerable luggage during the past week from the Amtrak train and from the train servicing the Dallas Ft Worth International Airport.
Weirdly enough, I wonder if the huge spike in airfares combined with luggage restrictions is causing more people to travel via Amtrak. One forum commenter mentioned that Amtrak is the cheapest way to move across the country if you're moving a few hundred pounds worth of luggage.
#15
If I were on that team, I'd refuse to leave the United States. I WILL NOT wear a chador, and WILL NOT be harassed by asshole islamonuts. And, unless something's drastically changed in the past two looooong weeks, Bambi doesn't own the team - it's not his to send.
What the hell are they thinking?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/04/2009 16:14
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#16
Through acquaintances in a few of the local police departments, I've heard
Thank you for a useful and comforting report, Trader_DFW.
#17
CNN + FOX NEWS this AM > seems IRAN has decided to FORMALLY DENY ENTRY to the team, CLAIMING TOO LONG LEAD TIME(S) IN THE NORMAL PROCESSING OF ENTRY DOCS IRAN REQUIRES FOR FOREIGN [sports]VISITORS???
Read - POTUS OBAMA HASN'T APOLOGIZED YET TO IRAN FOR ALLEGED "US CRIMES" AGZ IT???
'We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California,' Steven Chu says. He sees education as a means to combat threat.
Reporting from Washington -- California's farms and vineyards could vanish by the end of the century, and its major cities could be in jeopardy, if Americans do not act to slow the advance of global warming, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said Tuesday.
In his first interview since taking office last month, the Nobel-prize-winning physicist offered some of the starkest comments yet on how seriously President Obama's cabinet views the threat of climate change, along with a detailed assessment of the administration's plans to combat it.
Chu warned of water shortages plaguing the West and Upper Midwest and particularly dire consequences for California, his home state, the nation's leading agricultural producer.
In a worst case, Chu said, up to 90% of the Sierra snowpack could disappear, all but eliminating a natural storage system for water vital to agriculture.
"I don't think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen," he said. "We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California." And, he added, "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going" either.
A pair of recent studies raise similar warnings. One, published in January in the journal Science, raised the specter of worldwide crop shortages as temperatures rise. Another, penned by UC Berkeley researchers last year, estimated California has about $2.5 trillion in real estate assets -- including agriculture -- endangered by warming.
Chu is not a climate scientist. He won his Nobel for work trapping atoms with laser light. He taught at Stanford University and directed the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he reoriented researchers to pursue "clean energy" technologies to help reduce the use of greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil fuels in the U.S., before Obama tapped him to head the Energy Department.
He stressed the threat of climate change in his Senate confirmation hearings and in a video clip posted on Obama's transition website, but not as bluntly, nor in as dire terms, as he did Tuesday.
In the course of a half-hour interview, Chu made clear that he sees public education as a key part of the administration's strategy to fight global warming -- along with billions of dollars for alternative energy research and infrastructure, a national standard for electricity from renewable sources and cap-and-trade legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
He said the threat of warming is keeping policymakers focused on alternatives to fossil fuel, even though gasoline prices have fallen over the last six months from historic highs. But he said public awareness needs to catch up. He compared the situation to a family buying an old house and being told by an inspector that it must pay a hefty sum to rewire it or risk an electrical fire that could burn everything down.
"I'm hoping that the American people will wake up," Chu said, and pay the cost of rewiring.
Environmentalists welcomed the comments as a sharp break from the Bush administration, which often minimized research about global warming.
"To say the least, it's a breath of fresh air," said Bernadette Del Chiaro, who directs the clean air and global warming program for Environment California. "We've been worried about the impacts of global warming for years, even decades. He's absolutely right -- California stands to lose so much in our way of life."
Global warming skeptics were not swayed. "I am hopeful Secretary Chu will take note of the real-world data, new studies and the growing chorus of international scientists that question his climate claims," Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement. "Computer model predictions of the year 2100 are simply not evidence of a looming climate catastrophe."
#2
Cause everyone knows warm weather is a disaster for plant growth. I wonder how the rest of the country stores water? Perhaps in those little plastic Evian bottles the Greenies are always toting around.
Posted by: ed ||
02/04/2009 12:13
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#3
The only thing threatening Kaliphornia's farms is suburban sprawl.
#4
"I'm hoping that the American people will wake up," Chu said, and pay the cost of rewiring.
Another idiot physicist who uses ridiculous analogies to explain things.
As Dirac said, if you can't explain what you are doing in a way that's understandable to the average person, then you don't understand what you are doing.
This kind of 'explanation' is extremely condescending.
As an example of how to do it right, here's Einstein's extremely subtle description of radio:
When asked to explain radio, Einstein said that telegraph is like a long cat with its tail in New York and its head in San Franscisco. When you pull the tail, the head yowls.
"Radio is like that, except there's no cat."
There is nothing that the USA can do to stop AGW, assuming you accept the flawed premise. Maybe nuke China and India. But let's get out the sackcloth and ashes.
#5
The only thing threatening Kaliphornia's farms is suburban sprawl.
There is in fact a serious water problem in CA. It's made worse by various environmental controls, but it exists.
CA's central valley provides a good portion of our fresh fruits, vegetables and livestock. Petaluma is the center of a major poultry producing area. If in fact agriculture crashes there we will indeed feel the impact in our budgets and in grocery store offerings.
#6
We can always resurrect plans to redirect the Peace river from Alaska, resulting is a net generation of green renewable hydro-power and an immense supply of fresh water.
#8
I'll also take this guy seriously when he starts warning about the certain risk to the US when the New Madrid fault lets loose again and destroys all the nuke plants in the mid west and south. And don't forget the Yellowstone caldera that's bound to bust open and cover the eastern US in feet of volcanic ash. What's he doing about hose certainties?
#9
California agriculture wastes a tremendous amount of water whose cost is subsidized by taxpayers across the nation. What reason is there to grow rice in a arid/semiarid climate except that water is almost free?
Posted by: ed ||
02/04/2009 13:23
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#10
Science to the rescue. There is a new type of low maintenance nanotube water filter that uses only 1/4th of the energy of reverse osmosis. It is also scalable. Then all they have to do is pump seawater converted to freshwater, ashore.
#14
Suburban sprawl exacerbates water problems. For example, a few years back San Diego County damn near went to war against neighboring Imperial County, a major agricultural center, over access to Colorado River water. The reason for the dispute was rampant, virtually uncontrolled suburban sprawl in San Diego County creating an ever growing demand for more and more water. San Diego County is an arid climate that averages 10 inches of rain a year. The past several years we have received far less than the average. But don't bother asking the pols about the drought when they're approving massive new housing tracts because they plug their ears with the dollars they get from developers. An agreement was finally worked out between San Diego and Imperial Counties. But now the mayor of San Diego is telling us that mandatory water rationing is a real possibility this summer. Meanwhile, San Diego County's avocado growers, long a staple of local agriculture, have begun cutting their trees because they can't afford to water them. The trees might grow back if we ever get some rain or the growers might just sell out to developers. We've had droughts before but competition between farmers and suburbs for access to water has never been so intense. We don't need global warming...we're losing our farms without it. But I think the vineyards will be OK. We can do without fruit and vegetables but we gotta have wine.
#17
We can't grow Oranges in Orange Park Florida anymore either. I'ma thinking of a law suit, a big Mother of one. Also no Mandarins grown in Mandarin, same reason, too damn cold, has been since about 1914... bastids, I blame big oil, big tobacco, low gravity and a massive, general insensitivity to what I want.
Hasn't this been tried before? And not too well as I remember...
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed Wednesday that a German battalion will shortly be stationed on French soil for the first time since World War II. So...who or what will they be defending against? Godzilla?
"France will host a German unit permanently on its soil," the two leaders wrote in a joint statement published by French daily Le Monde, stressing "the historic significance of this new step in Franco-German friendship."
The hundreds of German troops will be serving in the Franco-German brigade set up in 1989, which currently has 2,300 French soldiers and 2,800 German forces stationed side-by-side in southwest Germany.
Sarkozy and Merkel were to meet this weekend at a security conference in the Bavarian capital Munich and might then reveal details of the agreement, such as where the German troops would be stationed.
Der Spiegel magazine reported last month that 500 German soldiers would be stationed in the border town of Colmar but reports in the French press cited Strasbourg, Metz or Bitche as possible bases. German troops occupied much of France during World War II and the eastern Alsace-Lorraine region has a patchwork history of annexation and occupation under both countries.
The two leaders also called for "real cooperation" between NATO and the European Union, saying the "strategic partnership" between them was not strong enough. "To our great regret, the 'strategic partnership' between NATO and the EU has fallen short of our expectations due to disagreements that persist between certain nations," they wrote.
After meeting Saturday at the Munich security conference, an annual meeting called the "Davos of defence," the two were to celebrate the 60th anniversary of NATO on April 3 and 4 on both sides of the Rhine, at Strasbourg and Kehl.
The Franco-German Brigade was set up by then French president Francois Mitterrand and German chancellor Helmut Kohl to increase military cooperation between the two former enemies. There are German officers based in Strasbourg in eastern France who are engaged with the NATO mission Eurocorps, but no German military unit has been stationed in the country since the end of World War II over 60 years ago.
There are also regular exchanges between the two countries including German officers who study at French defence academies and helicopter pilots who train in France.
#8
I thought we tried that once before and it didn't work?
Will the trains run on time where the Germans are stationed and will the public toilets not stink to high heaven as they normally do in France?
I thought DeGaulle threw out NATO because they were corrupting the frogs....heaven forbid efficiencies and timeliness.
Posted by: James Carville ||
02/04/2009 20:19
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#9
HMMMMMM, HMMMMMM, IMO this should be intrepreted as GERMANY'S BUNDESWEHR being independent but tied to FRANCE [read, EU = EUROZONE wid UK MoD in EU STRATEGIC RESERVE], as the latter did and remains to US-NATO [pro-NATO Independent Milfors-Missle command].
THIS ALSO TELLS ME THE EUROS HAD SSSSSHHHHHHH INDIR + PDENIABLY RECOGNIZED THE ISLAMIST-LED/WROUGHT GEOPOL INSTABILITIES OCCURRING IN EAST-SOUTH ASIA RIGHT NOW.
#10
ION TOPIX/WAFF/OTHER > FORMER VPOTUS DICK CHENEY WARNS OF CATASTROPHIC NUCLEAR, BIOLOGICAL TERROR ATTACKS TO OCCUR AGZ USA IN COMING YEARS [BAM-MAN's NEW ADMIN POLICIES more likely to contribute to the final SUCCESS OF SAIDSAME TERROR ATTACKS, NOT FAILURE]!?
IOW, 2009-2012/2016 CHENEY expects the new OBAMA ADMIN TO TURN AMER ISOLATIONIST + ON THE GLOBAL MIL DEFENSIVE AZG RADICAL TERROR INCLUD PRO-ISLAMIST STATE + MIL-TERR ORG NUCLEARIZATION.
When will our luminaries stop making excuses for terror?
By JUDEA PEARL
This week marks the seventh anniversary of the murder of our son, former Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. My wife Ruth and I wonder: Would Danny have believed that today's world emerged after his tragedy?
The answer does not come easily. Danny was an optimist, a true believer in the goodness of mankind. Yet he was also a realist, and would not let idealism bend the harshness of facts.
Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later his abductor, Omar Saeed Sheikh, according to several South Asian reports, would be planning terror acts from the safety of a Pakistani jail. Or that his murderer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now in Guantanamo, would proudly boast of his murder in a military tribunal in March 2007 to the cheers of sympathetic jihadi supporters. Or that this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of "the resistance." Or that another kidnapped young man, Israeli Gilad Shalit, would spend his 950th day of captivity with no Red Cross visitation while world leaders seriously debate whether his kidnappers deserve international recognition.
No. Those around the world who mourned for Danny in 2002 genuinely hoped that Danny's murder would be a turning point in the history of man's inhumanity to man, and that the targeting of innocents to transmit political messages would quickly become, like slavery and human sacrifice, an embarrassing relic of a bygone era.
But somehow, barbarism, often cloaked in the language of "resistance," has gained acceptance in the most elite circles of our society. The words "war on terror" cannot be uttered today without fear of offense. Civilized society, so it seems, is so numbed by violence that it has lost its gift to be disgusted by evil.
I believe it all started with well-meaning analysts, who in their zeal to find creative solutions to terror decided that terror is not a real enemy, but a tactic. Thus the basic engine that propels acts of terrorism -- the ideological license to elevate one's grievances above the norms of civilized society -- was wished away in favor of seemingly more manageable "tactical" considerations.
This mentality of surrender then worked its way through politicians like the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. In July 2005 he told Sky News that suicide bombing is almost man's second nature. "In an unfair balance, that's what people use," explained Mr. Livingstone.
But the clearest endorsement of terror as a legitimate instrument of political bargaining came from former President Jimmy Carter. In his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Mr. Carter appeals to the sponsors of suicide bombing. "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Road-map for Peace are accepted by Israel." Acts of terror, according to Mr. Carter, are no longer taboo, but effective tools for terrorists to address perceived injustices.
Mr. Carter's logic has become the dominant paradigm in rationalizing terror. When asked what Israel should do to stop Hamas's rockets aimed at innocent civilians, the Syrian first lady, Asma Al-Assad, did not hesitate for a moment in her response: "They should end the occupation." In other words, terror must earn a dividend before it is stopped.
The media have played a major role in handing terrorism this victory of acceptability. Qatari-based Al Jazeera television, for example, is still providing Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi hours of free air time each week to spew his hateful interpretation of the Koran, authorize suicide bombing, and call for jihad against Jews and Americans.
Then came the August 2008 birthday of Samir Kuntar, the unrepentant killer who, in 1979, smashed the head of a four-year-old Israeli girl with his rifle after killing her father before her eyes. Al Jazeera elevated Kuntar to heroic heights with orchestras, fireworks and sword dances, presenting him to 50 million viewers as Arab society's role model. No mainstream Western media outlet dared to expose Al Jazeera efforts to warp its young viewers into the likes of Kuntar. Al Jazeera's management continues to receive royal treatment in all major press clubs.
Some American pundits and TV anchors didn't seem much different from Al Jazeera in their analysis of the recent war in Gaza. Bill Moyers was quick to lend Hamas legitimacy as a "resistance" movement, together with honorary membership in PBS's imaginary "cycle of violence." In his Jan. 9 TV show, Mr. Moyers explained to his viewers that "each [side] greases the cycle of violence, as one man's terrorism becomes another's resistance to oppression." He then stated -- without blushing -- that for readers of the Hebrew Bible "God-soaked violence became genetically coded." The "cycle of violence" platitude allows analysts to empower terror with the guise of reciprocity, and, amazingly, indict terror's victims for violence as immutable as DNA.
When we ask ourselves what it is about the American psyche that enables genocidal organizations like Hamas -- the charter of which would offend every neuron in our brains -- to become tolerated in public discourse, we should take a hard look at our universities and the way they are currently being manipulated by terrorist sympathizers.
At my own university, UCLA, a symposium last week on human rights turned into a Hamas recruitment rally by a clever academic gimmick. The director of the Center for Near East Studies carefully selected only Israel bashers for the panel, each of whom concluded that the Jewish state is the greatest criminal in human history.
The primary purpose of the event was evident the morning after, when unsuspecting, uninvolved students read an article in the campus newspaper titled, "Scholars say: Israel is in violation of human rights in Gaza," to which the good name of the University of California was attached. This is where Hamas scored its main triumph -- another inch of academic respectability, another inroad into Western minds.
Danny's picture is hanging just in front of me, his warm smile as reassuring as ever. But I find it hard to look him straight in the eyes and say: You did not die in vain.
Mr. Pearl, a professor of computer science at UCLA, is president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, founded in memory of his son to promote cross-cultural understanding.
One woman stopped at nothing to achieve her twin dreams: a 38KKK bust, and a world record
We were already fairly impressed last April, when we heard (via ABC) that one Sheyla Hershey traveled to Houston for a boob job. And not just any boob job: An enhancement bound for the record books. Because after eight surgeries and a full gallon of silicone, the petite model/actress was a staggering 34 FFF.
Still, Hershey wanted more! And she was determined to get it. When her boyfriend begged her to stop, she broke up with him (note to men: You have to support our dreams, no matter how deluded and life-threatening silly they might seem!).
But Hershey was forced to settle with her FFF mosquito bites because "the state of Texas has limits on the amount of silicone that can be injected into breast implants," noted ABC. Reading this, we found ourselves impressed by Texas, because we didn't think it was the kind of state to impose limits on such things, what with the Dallas Cowboys cherleaders and the state priding itself on everything being bigger there and whatnot.
But, as Hershey discovered through diligent research, they have no such restraint in Brazil! And so now, after a ninth surgery, she's the proud owner of both a 38KKK bust (according to Britain's Daily Star) and the world record for largest breasts. We wonder if Guinness has a category for worst back pain.
She actually has had 18 surgeries according to her own official website. So 9 surgeries were to improve other parts of her body (the face must have gotten a few because she is beautiful there too).
This website also says that she is a wife and mother and speaks 5 languages.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/04/2009 20:31
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#10
them ain't breasts, them're dock fenders. Aye.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/04/2009 21:18
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#11
Clearly 'tis the the REAL REASON for the OWG CAL-ZONE + ARIZONA DECLARING ITS STATE SOVEREIGNTY FROM WASHINTON DC UNDER THE TENTH AMENDMENT [Reddit]???
GLOBALISTS, RIGHTEOUS BOUNTIFUL TWIN GLOBALISTS, I SAY!
D *** NG IT, does anyone know iff Confederate Cannoneers wid 34 FFF's helped fire the guns at FORT SUMTER on that hot sweathy slinky Good-for-Bikinis-and-Some-Cannon-Shooting-at-Yankees/
Unionists-and-Abe-Lincoln Day back in 1861???
#7
It was just an honest mistake.. I question any number that ever gets spieled by anyone. It depends where the number comes from and what their agenda is..
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
02/04/2009 12:07
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#8
So...did anyone there call her on it?
Why do I doubt it?
#10
Silly R'burgers!
Nancy was including the work force in Obama's 57 states:
51) China
52) India
53) Brazil
54) Indonesia
55) Kenya
56) Somalia
57) Pakistan
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/04/2009 12:12
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#11
NaTzi Pelosi is in Congress, where thousands are paltry numbers. Think billions for a while and millions become paltry. Lawyers are't noted for being good at math or economics either.
Honest mistake? Sheeit. 500 million is close to twice the population of the United States which is a tad over 300 million - and that includes everybody, not just the employed. And every month?
#16
I'm sure she just mis-spoke, and she doesn't really think that--and I say that as someone who can't stand the woman and would crawl over landmines to vote against her.
...but if Sarah Palin had said something similar, it would have been irrefutable proof of her unsuitability for elective office, right?
Posted by: Mike ||
02/04/2009 13:41
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#17
This is probably a good time to remind ourselves that as Speaker of the House Ms. Pelosi is two heartbeats from the Presidency.
Posted by: Matt ||
02/04/2009 14:02
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#19
Third option. She's not lying. She didn't misspeak. She just doesn't have any idea. She probably doesn't know the population of the US or the world for that matter. She probably doesn't know what a gallon of gas costs or how many liters are in a gallon. She doesn't know the difference between a fixed and variable rate mortgage. She doesn't know jack shit about the world, which is why she has the perfect job for her qualifications.
#2
Tipper,
The tactics in your article are not such a big departure from normal Jihadi practice. It's been know for some time that many of the male suicide bombers are teenage victims of seduction/rape by adult men. These victims tended to see martyrdom as a way regain status as well as atone for sins.
The idea of holding the rape victim (male and female) reponsible for the crime is well documented in Islam.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/04/2009 11:54
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Wow. Sounds worse then the Blue Angels practicing for Fleet Week. I can imagine the whining...
The U.S. Coast Guard is deploying armed helicopters to head off a possible terrorist raid on Bay Area waters. No quotes on "terrorists". Now that Barry's president, I guess they don't have to use them any more.
In what looked like one of those action movies on late-night television, the Coast Guard showed off its new weapon Monday in a simulated air-and-sea, small-boat gunbattle in the choppy and windy San Pablo Bay in a training exercise.
Two small black boats, manned by crews dressed all in black and carrying simulated rocket-propelled grenades, were intercepted by an orange-colored Coast Guard H-65C Dolphin helicopter. The sinister-looking black boats were "playing the role of the adversary," a Coast Guard officer said - pretending to be terrorists on a raid against a cruise ship, a tanker or one of the bay bridges.
The Coast Guard helicopter was out to stop them. The black boats twisted and dodged, throwing up clouds of spray, and the helicopter swooped down on them like a bird of prey. A marksman aboard the copter fired blank rounds, the sound echoing across the water: rata-tat-tat. It looked like great fun, but the exercise was deadly serious.
"The terrorist raiders in Mumbai in November came by sea," said Cmdr. Sam Creech, the officer in charge of the Coast Guard's Air Station San Francisco. "An attack by a small boat on a cruise ship, or a tanker, or one of the bridges here could be devastating."
The Coast Guard's biggest fear is terrorists on a small boat coming out of a marina and firing a missile at a cruise ship carrying thousands of passengers, or a loaded tanker, causing a huge oil spill. Or an attack on one of the famous bridges - "hitting an icon like the Golden Gate Bridge, for example," he said - "could cause a lot of damage to the American psyche." Like, we don't want your war machine here, man. U.S. HANDS OFF OF SAN FRANCISCO!!!
The trick, of course, is to have advance intelligence of a possible attack and then intercept it. "America expects we should be able to do more than shake our fists at them," Creech said. Wait a second, buddy. You're in San Francisco, right?
"If we could prevent an attack, we could save lives." But what about the lives of the "freedom fighters"? What will Code Pink say?
One of the anti-terrorist weapons is the Coast Guard's Dolphin helicopters. There are four stationed at the San Francisco International Airport, and more at other Coast Guard locations at major ports. The helicopters have been equipped with 7.62mm machine guns and what Creech called "a precision firing rifle." The machine guns, said Creech, "would kill everybody " on the boat being attacked from the air. The rifle is for "selective" targets.
He said the Coast Guard training exercises include "judgmental training." This is the key question that has haunted military personnel for centuries: when to open fire. "Judgemental"? That sounds judgemental. And who are we to judge?
The helicopters have also been given some protective armor, but Creech would not describe how much armor or other defensive equipment the copters carry.
Within months of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 1991, the Coast Guard deployed a fleet of 25-foot patrol boats armed with machine guns. It has taken longer to deploy the armed helicopters. San Diego and Port Angeles, Wash., were the first cities to have them. San Francisco's helicopters were armed in January.
The 87-foot Coast Guard cutter Tern acted as a floating headquarters for Monday's exercise. San Pablo Bay, which is wide, fairly shallow and relatively free of ship traffic, is usually used for blank ammunition training. The Coast Guard also trains in the Pacific Ocean using live ammunition, and Creech said the service conducts surveys in advance to ensure that no marine animals are harmed. Yeah, it's San Francisco all right...
#1
The Coast Guard also trains in the Pacific Ocean using live ammunition, and Creech said the service conducts surveys in advance to ensure that no marine animals are harmed.
What about the kelp and plankton? Don't they have rights? If PETA's concerned, what about PETV?
All God's creatures, great and small, deserve our love - with the possible exception of the Palestinians who could use a good ass-kicking. Once we stop caring about the lives of kelp and plankton it it a recipe for inhumanity. Or maybe soup.
New Delhi: An Indian Kilo class submarine spooked Chinese warships that were sent to patrol pirate infested waters in the Gulf of Aden and the two navies engaged in an hour long game of 'hide and seek' in international waters last month, Chinese media reports have said.
In the first such incident involving Indian and Chinese warships that has come to light, media reports from China said that its warships 'forced' the Indian submarine to surface after over an hour of maneuvers during which anti submarine choppers were scrambled from the Chinese destroyers.
While officers in the Indian Navy have acknowledged that track was being kept of the Chinese warships that transited from the Malacca Straits to Somalia waters, they denied that the India sub was forced to surface during the 'encounter'. "It is a routine procedure. We do keep track of warships transiting near Indian waters through all means possible. However, the reports of the Indian submarine having surfaced are incorrect," a senior Navy Officer said.
Chinese media reports said that the incident took place on Janaury 15 in the waters near the Bab Al-Mandab Strait that separates Yemen and Djibouti. They said that the Chinese warships picked up the Indian submarine on sonar and after 'rounds of manoeuvring during which both sides tried to test for weaknesses in the other's sonar system' the Indian submarine was forced to surface.
However, the Indian Navy has denied that any of its submarines surfaced in the Gulf of Aden. A senior officer said that the Chinese ships were being tracked through various means throughout their transit near Indian waters but submarines were in the area at the time that the reports suggest. The Chinese reports said that the submarine tried to escape by diving into deeper waters but anti submarine choppers were sent to trail the Indian vessel that forced it to surface.
China had for the first time sent two destroyers to Somalia last month to patrol the waters, its first deployment to far away waters. India already has a warship in the area and has been patrolling the region for more than three months.
#1
The more I think about this, the more I think this should be filed under the rubric of "the economy may be bad this year, but at least the Party is showing the unwashed barbarians outside of China's borders who the boss is."
#2
Sounds like the navies are making their extended Aden cruise a regular matsuri. Since the rules of engagement keep them from actually doing anything much about pirates - and Thai lawfare bottomfeeders are enforcing their own unwritten rules of engagement on those that don't want to care, like the Indians - they're starting to entertain themselves by wargaming each other.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/04/2009 11:22
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#3
How does a helicopter for a submarine to surface in peacetime without committing an act of war?
#4
That's the problem with those plug-in hybrid submarines. One never gets the mileage advertised on the window sticker.
Posted by: ed ||
02/04/2009 13:45
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#5
Kilos are conventional submarines so from time to time they need to get to surface to recharge batteries via dieasel engines that need to breath air... "surfacing" for journalistas might just means snorkel depth.
Posted by: Large Snerong7311 ||
02/04/2009 17:58
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Colorado Springs police are looking for a man who hit two 7-Eleven convenience stores early Wednesday, armed with a Klingon sword inspired by the Star Trek science fiction series.
The first robbery was reported at 1:50 a.m., at 145 N Spruce St. The clerk told police a white male in his 20s, wearing a black jacket, blue jeans and wearing a black mask, entered the store with a sword.
The suspect demanded money and left with an undisclosed amount.
A half hour later, police received a call from a 7-Eleven at 2407 N Union Blvd, where a male matching the previous description entered the store with a sword. He also demanded money from the store clerk. The clerk did not give him any money and the suspect transported himself out of the store on foot.
Both clerks described the weapon as a Star Trek Klingon type sword, called a "Batleth."
#3
I concur tu but if my memory serves from a long ago rerun that jig sticker could hurt seriously someone, especially an unarmed clerk. A 45 would quickly alter the odds though.
From the NPR's "Now it can be told" files...
CIA-directed airstrikes against al-Qaida leaders and facilities in Pakistan over the past six to nine months have been so successful, according to senior U.S. officials, that it is now possible to foresee a "complete al-Qaida defeat" in the mountainous region along the border with Afghanistan.
The officials say the terrorist network's leadership cadre has been "decimated," with up to a dozen senior and midlevel operatives killed as a result of the strikes and the remaining leaders reeling from the repeated attacks. "The enemy is really, really struggling," says one senior U.S. counterterrorism official. "These attacks have produced the broadest, deepest and most rapid reduction in al-Qaida senior leadership that we've seen in several years." Another senior U.S. official described "a significant, significant degradation of al-Qaida command and control in recent months."
#2
I hope they're more than decimated. That's only 1 in 10.
I'm hoping for 9 in 10, at least.
Is there any word for that? Half (which would also be nice) would be demi-mated, I guess, but I don't think that's a word.
Any Latin scholars out there who can chime in?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/04/2009 11:20
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USAGE NOTE Decimate originally referred to the killing of every tenth person, a punishment used in the Roman army for mutinous legions. Today this meaning is commonly extended to include the killing of any large proportion of a group. Sixty-six percent of the Usage Panel accepts this extension in the sentence The Jewish population of Germany was decimated by the war, even though it is common knowledge that the number of Jews killed was much greater than a tenth of the original population. However, when the meaning is further extended to include large-scale destruction other than killing, as in The supply of fresh produce was decimated by the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, only 26 percent of the Panel accepts the usage.
(answer.com)
#6
Just keeping Al Q under pressure and keeping the network stressed out by seeing comrades killed is about the best we can expect for the present.
FWIW, this is what Israel did to Hamas. This is what has not been done to many other such groups, e.g. Hezbollah, Lashkar-e-Taiba , Jaish-e-Mohammed, Jemaah Islamiya, etc.
a senior U.S. military intelligence official who is an expert on al Qaeda's organization wrote in an email to me earlier today, a portion of which is excerpted below:
"I'm not even going to get into the karmic quality of these types of cavalier declarations being offered on the day that our supply lines got cut into Afghanistan. With Swat now recognized by the press as being under TNSM control after more than a year's worth of fighting there and Peshawar essentially in a state of siege, these types of triumphalist declarations from Langley are dubious at best."
Of the 7 senior Al Qaeda leaders killed in these strikes, only three were members of al Qaeda Shura Majlis,or executive council. "Losing three Shura Majlis members in the span of 12 months is probably considered acceptable losses to AQSL [al Qaeda senior leadership] given the far more horrific tallies that were inflicted against them in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004," the official stated.
We need to recognize successes in the war, but need to be extremely careful about making such over-optimistic statements. Taliban and al Qaeda control in Pakistan and Afghanistan has expanded since the 2007 NIE. The U.S. attacks have had an impact on al Qaeda's ability to strike at the United States, but by no means does this mean the group has been "decimated." Making such overly optimistic claims only damages our ability to properly assess the nature of the threat.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/04/2009 15:29
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#9
I don't like the commonly used definition of decimate, so I'll change it.
It means to snap rabbit heds until they sing in unison.
What? Today?
JERUSALEM Hamas police in Gaza seized thousands of blankets and food parcels meant for needy residents, a U.N. spokesman said Wednesday, threatening to fracture relations between the international agency that cares for most of Gaza's residents and the territory's militant rulers. We eliminate the middleman and pass the savings onto us...
Hamas policemen forcibly broke into an aid warehouse in Gaza City on Tuesday evening and confiscated 3,500 blankets and over 4,000 food parcels, said Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Gunness said the incident was "absolutely unacceptable." So what are ya gonna do about it?
I'll wait...
He said police confiscated aid meant for 500 families after U.N. officials refused to voluntarily hand it over to the Hamas-run Ministry of Social Affairs. Similar U.N. aid packages had already been distributed to 70,000 residents over the past two weeks. Can we have it back?
No.
Oh. Okay. Just figured we'd ask.
Ahmad Kurd, the Hamas Minister of Social Affairs, did not deny the seizure of the aid Wednesday. He charged the U.N. was giving the aid to local groups with ties to Hamas opponents. "UNRWA did not do what it said it would do, and began distributing its aid to groups that tie their activities to political activism," Kurd said. ...and we'll know because they're the ones limping from foot wounds.
Israeli officials have charged in the past that the militant group routinely confiscates aid meant for needy Gazans, but Gunness said this was the first time Hamas had seized its goods since taking control of the territory in 2007. That's bullshit...
Hamas is under pressure to provide aid to Gazans, who are facing more hardship than ever since Israel's devastating three-week military offensive, which ended Jan. 18. The operation, aimed at halting rocket fire from the territory, killed hundreds of civilians and left thousands destitute after their homes were damaged or destroyed. Smells like..."victory".
Tensions between Hamas and the U.N. could make it difficult for the international agency to continue providing desperately needed services. Some international donors had expressed concern that funds meant to rebuild Gaza could fall into Hamas' hands, and the U.N. had been trying to assuage those concerns. Yeah, sounds like they're doing a helluva job.
The United Nations is expected to take a leading role in rebuilding Gaza, because Israel and the international community will not deal with Hamas.
Some of us have been warning that it was not healthy for the U.S. media to have deified rather than questioned Obama, especially given that they tore apart Bush, ridiculed Palin, and caricatured Hillary. And now we can see the results of their two years of advocacy rather than scrutiny.
We are quite literally after two weeks teetering on an Obama implosionand with no Dick Morris to bail him outbrought on by messianic delusions of grandeur, hubris, and a strange naivete that soaring rhetoric and a multiracial profile can add requisite cover to good old-fashioned Chicago politicking. . . .
This is quite serious. I can't recall a similarly disastrous start in a half-century (far worse than Bill Clinton's initial slips). Obama immediately must lower the hope-and-change rhetoric, ignore Reid/Pelosi, drop the therapy, and accept the tragic view that the world abroad is not misunderstood but quite dangerous. And he must listen on foreign policy to his National Security Advisor, Billary, and Sec. of Defense. If he doesn't quit the messianic style and perpetual campaign mode, and begin humbly governing, then he will devolve into Carterismangry that the once-fawning press betrayed him while we the people, due to our American malaise, are to blame.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/04/2009
09:32 ||
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To hear the politicians tell it, taxes are really hard, and you just can't blame a guy (by which we mean an ex-Senator) for not being able to tell whether, say, a car and driver provided by a major party contributor constitutes compensation, or just a massive "gift."
Now would be a good time for Obama to clear this up:
MEMORANDUM
To: Anyone who sent his or her resume to my transition team
From: The President of the United States
Please pay your taxes. We kinda need them, what with the financial crisis and the massive stimulus spending and whatnot. Thanks.
____________
PS: In case you're confused -- personal gifts are things like sweaters and bottles of wine, or -- if you're really lucky -- maybe a Wii or Sox-Yanks tickets or something. If you're honestly deluded enough to believe that daily use of a goddamn Town Car and a goddamn chauffeur is a "gift," you're probably too divorced from everyday reality to work for the people of the United States.
Do not mock Trapper John the Kos Kiddie, for what you see here are the first stirrings of Figuring It Out. Our friend Trapper here has just noticed that Tom Daschle, that pillar of the Party of Working People, is an elitist bastard who is "too divorced from everyday reality to work for the people of the United States." At some point, if he continues on this path of clear-eyed perception, he will come to the same realization about Pelosi, Reid, various Kennedys, and, ultimately, about the Obamamessiah Himself. Let us be encouraging and supportive of him, and of any other Obama fans who are starting to figure it out.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/04/2009
08:55 ||
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#1
Indeed. We are here for Trapper John when the time comes.
#2
Why? Washington corrupts people. The Republicans came to change Washington, but Washington changed them. The founders knew this, even 250 years ago. That is why they did not set up a democracy. We have spent the last 100 years dismantling the finely balanced machinery they designed. We should not be surprised to see that it has become corroded. Perhaps some new Josiah will find a copy of the Constitution behind a desk in the Old EOB. We've certainly no shortage of Jeremiahs.
That was actually a snark related to Daschle's trademark expression whenever Democratic legislation failed to make it through the Senate, back when Daschle was Senate Majority leader.
#4
The reason why Washington corrupts is that it is too powerful.
Lots of govt.
Lots of govt. spending
Lots of regulations.
Anyone with inside information on these things who is willing to sell their access to people who are affected by the spending, regulations, etc. is worth a lot of money. But if there were less spending and regulation, these people would be worth less.
#6
Aw come on! Washington corrupts people in the same way that guns kill people. That is, not at all. People are the only natural corrupters( I'll probably get clobbered for making that overly broad statement, but I couldn't resist the tempttaion). Corruption flourishes where there is opportunity. Careful scrutiny, and only careful scrutiny can reduce the corruption to manageable levels. Our central government has been set up to be the checks against a wide variety of excesses. But balances are necessary to adjust for changes. We are the balances and we haven't been doing our jobs. That's why Washington is careening out of control. we've fallen asleep at the wheel.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
02/04/2009 10:50
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#7
Heh. Maybe the Alzheimer's is more advanced that I remembered.
#9
That old Pontiac looks like a gross polluter to me. The way it burned all that oil they certainly wouldn't allow it to be registered in Kaliphornia, at least not without an expensive ring and valve job. Hope by now he's traded it in on a nice, sensible Prius.
#1
Reciprocy only works one way with many Moslems. It's kind of like half a hinge. They stick it on a door deviding them from the west, complain about the broken hinge and push the door down into anyplace that does not resist and proceed to take over. It's been that way since Mohammed started this warrior religion. Not all Moslems agree with it's domination style but many do and far too many others go along.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
02/04/2009 11:05
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Iraq's peaceful elections and strong voter turnout last weekend were a major success for both that country and the United States not that there was much celebration in American news coverage. Critics of the Iraq war claimed that overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 2003 strengthened Irans position. Had we left Mr. Hussein in power, the theory goes, Iran would be less of a global threat. This argument is fundamentally wrong.
Long before the American ouster of Mr. Hussein, Iran was supporting terrorist groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank. It was seeking hegemony in Syria and Lebanon, and was well along in its clandestine program to acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. After Mr. Husseins conviction and execution, Iran increased efforts to advance its radical brand of Shiite Islam in Iraq. But the success of the election should substantially retard those efforts.
Mr. Hussein defended his repressive regime and his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction in the name of protecting Arab nations from Iran. Western critics of Mr. Husseins removal are basically parroting the arguments of a tyrant. Surely some other Iraqi government could have advanced the Arab cause without invading Kuwait, or using chemical weapons against its own citizens.
Iraqs provincial elections actually weaken Tehrans hand. First, they were not entirely dominated by Shiite voters. After mostly boycotting the 2005 Iraq elections, Sunnis participated on Saturday in large numbers. Many of them seem to recognize that their abstention had been a mistake. If they follow through in the general elections that should be held later this year, the composition of Iraqs Parliament will change substantially.
Moreover, its unfair to assume that Tehran calls the shots among Iraqi Shiites. This gives too much credit to Iranian propaganda, and too little to the good sense of the Shiites themselves. Now they must decide whether taking orders from mullahs in Tehran is really more attractive than electing their own representatives in Baghdad.
Despite these successful elections, the sectarian and communal violence will not necessarily end, and we may even see the ultimate fragmentation of Iraq. Nor will the elections put an end to Irans ambitions. Tehran appears to believe that its influence in the region is expanding, and that its neighbors and the United States have failed to respond effectively. This belief is unsurprising, given the Obama administrations acquiescent attitude toward Tehran.
Still, the elections could make a deep impression on the citizens of Iran and its vassal, Syria. Young, educated, sophisticated Iranians, dissatisfied with their countrys religious orthodoxy and economic failures since the 1979 revolution, will draw their own conclusions from Iraqs peaceful democratic process.
Uncomfortable though it may be for some on the American left to admit, the surge continues to work, politically and militarily. The moment has come for the Obama administration to acknowledge what those fingers dipped in purple ink truly represent a triumph for democracy.
#1
Uncomfortable though it may be for some on the American left to admit, the "surge" continues to work, politically and militarily. The moment has come for the Obama administration to acknowledge what those fingers dipped in purple ink truly represent -- a triumph for democracy.
The implication is that the left supports classical democracy. That is a false assumption beyond the modern Marxist concept of Peoples' Democratic Republics. What the left supports is the facade of democracy while they retain the power. That is why democracy in Iraq will not be celebrated by the usual suspects. It's always been about power.
#1
For all the bad press the pirates get, once you actually look at where they came from, it makes a lot of sense. Sure, piracy is illegal, but they're not particularly bloodthirsty.
In the 1990s, a group of fisherman in settlements there banded together to prevent illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste off their shores. When some ships illegally fishing were boarded in attempts to police the region, the reward offered for the boats return was enormousamounts that were many times the monthly income of entire villages.
Who can blame them? Their shore was being efficiently stripped bare by Taiwanese factory fishing boats. When all that money got dangled in front of their faces, they put 1+1 together and got 2, which is a lot more than most African societies can manage.
Chesley Sullenberger has a problem. He borrowed a book from the Danville Library and its overdue. To complicate matters, the book was an interlibrary loan from Fresno State.
Sullenberger contacted librarians and asked for an extension on the loan and a waiver on the overdue fine. The reason? The book is in the cargo hold of the US Airways plane that made an emergency landing last month in New Yorks Hudson River. Sullenberger is the pilot who made that landing. No one was seriously injured.
Fresno State library officials were impressed with Sullenbergers sense of responsibility and waived all fines and fees, even the one for losing the book. The librarys going one step further: when the replacement book goes up on the shelf, it will have a special template in front, dedicating it to Chesley Sully Sullenberger.
Oh, by the way. The topic of that book? Professional ethics.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/04/2009
06:25 ||
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#1
Totally disqualified to hold public office above anything local in our existing partisan environment.
Leon County
Strozier FSU
Florida State Archives
Pinellas Central
Mirror Lake
Broward County (all)
UF Central
Gainesville
Above is list of places that won't gimme a lieberry card. :(
(for good reasons)
Ima clean with them now.... still no go.
I've had a ittle problem since Ima 'bout oh... 8. I steal books. I can't help it. Always have. It's an obesssion. I've paid well over $5,000 in fines and repayments. It's been worth it. :). the problem is now mostly under control. However, friends, ifn you see a 1973, 1988 or 1991 Janes Fighting Ships... please let me know. So I can go read it. Tks in advance.
Stole quite a few books from public libraries in my days too (just remove the Id thingie with a razor car, plus the book are covered & all, that's a nice feature for someone who's anal about keeping his books clean), for example the whole Cordwainer Smith Instrumentality serie, but that was then, now, I don't read, I surf for pr0n, it's cardio as well.
I've permanently borrowed an entire set of A History of the English Speaking Peeps (not the books, the way overdone glossy periodicals)... Dawg in his wisdom is send me a sent of the 1st American of the books via Marriage... :)
Ima sorry, srsly, I can't hep it. Just a couple more Janes and Ima be okay. Trust me.
#6
Hey, speaking of stolen library books......
In September of 1968, I was on a helicopter trip up the Colleen River in NE Alaska on minerals reconnaissance. We camped in this open area. I wandered about one evening and found this old rickety cabin. Door closed, but part of the roof fallen in over the bed. I found a bunch of books:
Traplines, gold mining, building log cabins, hunting, the whole ball of wax. All stolen from the Santa Monica Public Library in 1946. Kept them in Kobuk till the place we rented burned down in 1973.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/04/2009 21:24
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A seemingly innocuous letter sent to the Clerk of the House of Representatives last Thursday by President Obama's Secretary of Labor nominee Hilda Solis raises serious and troubling legal questions about her nomination and apparent violation of House ethics rules. Not only was she involved with a private organization that was lobbying her fellow legislators on a bill that she has cosponsored, but she apparently kept her involvement secret and failed to reveal a clear conflict of interest. I see BHO's nominees are consistently loose with ethics.
Solis was a co-sponsor in 2007 of the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act," the card check legislation that would effectively eliminate the secret ballot and destroy the ability of employees to make an anonymous decision (without fear of retribution) on whether they want to join a union. She was also a co-sponsor of the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, legislation that would force states to allow public safety officers to form unions. At the same time, however, Solis was a board member of a pro-union organization, American Rights at Work, that has been lobbying Congress on both of these bills.
According to a letter filed by Solis with the House Clerk on January 29, 2009, she was not just a director of the ARW, along with fellow travelers like David Bonior, Julian Bond, and John Sweeney, she was actually the treasurer. In other words, she is the official legally charged with the fiduciary duty of approving and signing off on all spending by the organization. And to make matters worse, she did not reveal to her colleagues in the House of Representatives that membership on her financial disclosure forms, which may constitute a separate ethical violation.
#3
This is a bit like an unpaid member of the board for the Sierra Club pushing a bill on Wilderness without mentioning the conflict of interest.
Or a senior member of ACORN legislating on voting regulations with no notice of conflict... It is the secrecy and no declaration of recusal that is the problem, not the membership in the organization.
Two people were injured in a presumed insurgency-related bombing in the southern border province of Yala early Wednesday morning. Police believed the closed circuit television at an automated teller machine booth opposite the bomb scene may have recorded evidence to help identify the attackers.
Police and a bomb squad from Yala provincial police station inspected the scene a 7-Eleven convenience store on Ruam Mitr Road in the Yala provincial seat. Police said the explosion occurred at 6.40am Wednesday morning and that two people were wounded and sent to a Yala hospital. One victim was a volunteer provincial Ranger while the other was a local resident. The glass wall of the 7-Eleven store was shattered by the explosion, and two pick-up trucks were also damaged.
Police found electronic circuitry and fragments of iron rod scattered around the area which were retained as evidence. It was believed that the device was a three-to-five kilogramme home-made bomb hidden in a tin box and placed in a garbage basket in front of the shop.
Police said the bombing occurred opposite an ATM booth with a closed circuit video camera which they believed had recorded the movement of attackers.
On February 3, Iran fulfilled its promise to launch its first satellite, Omid (Hope), into orbit by its own carrier rocket before the end of the Iranian year (which ends in March).
The world media reported that it has already transmitted a message from the Iranian leader to the effect that the successful launch "officially seals Iran's presence in space."
The technical details of this start may be very interesting, but they are not decisive. What difference does it make if the satellite works in orbit for the declared several months, or merely makes a suborbital flight?
The bottom line is that by deciding to become a fully-fledged space power, Iran will do so by any means. In any other case, the launch of a national satellite into space would not give rise to any apprehensions, let alone fear. In this case, however, Western experts associate what Iran has long declared as its "peaceful space program" exclusively with the development of nuclear missiles.
Are these apprehensions well-grounded, especially considering that the launch was a success? In principle, the answer is affirmative. A number of successful launches of medium-range ballistic missiles and suborbital carriers suggest the scientific and technical ability to test strategic ballistic weapons in the near future.
But that's about it. There is no reason to fear that a country that has made several successful space launches will be equipped with full-fledged nuclear missiles in the near future.
These weapons require certain parameters, such as combat readiness and the ability to complete a very sophisticated flight. Moreover, an attempt to use even a single successfully tested nuclear missile is doomed to failure by current early warning systems and interceptors. What interceptors?
High combat readiness of a nuclear missile force is determined by a prompt reaction to rapid situational changes and the ability to make the right decision.
In the Soviet Union, preparations to launch the famous R-7 missile took 10 hours, but Soviet leaders kept repeating that it had the ability to strike U.S. territory. This was true only in theory, and in practice was highly unlikely. There are no grounds for thinking that Iran will be able to make its strategic weapons combat ready simultaneously with their development. For the time being, it does not even have such weapons.
Moreover, launching a satellite is one thing, while delivering a warhead via intercontinental missile is another. At one time, the Soviet Union was pulling out all the stops in order to get the nuclear stick as soon as possible. However, Sergei Korolev and his team had to make countless tests before they managed to prevent the destruction of warheads in the dense layers of the atmosphere. The triumph of the fall of 1957, when the first satellite produced its "beep, beep" sound, was precipitated by a lack of ideas on how to deliver warheads to targets.
The first sputnik was designed to distract a government that was bent on nuclear arms development. The effect exceeded all expectations, but that is a different story. This might overstate the case against an immediate threat, but it makes some of the same points I and others made yesterday: There is a sizable gap between the ability to launch a satellite of some kind and the deployment of an operational ICBM. A satellite launcher is a big step along that path though.
We also don't know what kind of work the Iranians have done on re-entry and guidance or what sort of technology might have been transferred. Keep in mind that they would pay almost anything for that capability. A billion dollars might look pretty good to a down-and-out ex-Soviet engineer or even certain cynical and disillusioned types in other countries. The existing Shahab guidance, whose accuracy (CEP) is probably no worse than .3% of range, could well be adequate for a terror strike over intercontinental distances. The real hold-up is the warhead itself. A crude and barely workable nuclear device of the kind the Iranians are likely to build is a long way from an ICBM payload, but even that step is not insurmountable with outside assistance.
See Iranian missiles at Global Security, lots of analysis and great graphics by the renowned Charles Vick. (Mr. Vick is the private analyst who correctly determined many then-secret aspects of the Soviet missile and space programs during the Cold War, ie many years before the information was officially released by successor governments.)
Finally, Democrats have found a tax-cut they can support - one that puts even more money in the pockets of Barbara Streisand, Michael Moore and the rest of their pals in Tinseltown.
Big Hollywood opened its hearts - and fat wallets - to get President Obama into the White House and give Democrats both chambers of Congress and now it's time to return the love.
A provision in the current "stimulus" bill would allow Hollywood moguls to write off half the production and filming costs of big-budget films and TV shows.
Backed by Walt Disney and the Motion Picture Association of America, the provision amounts to an estimated $246 million Hollywood tax break over 11 years.
It's the least Democrats can do for some of their richest and most generous supporters, who gave nearly $20 million in campaign contributions to Democrats during the 2008 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org.
Currently, only the first $15 million of production costs can be written off - a rule aimed at keeping low-budget film-makers in the U.S.
Republicans on Capitol Hill noted that Hollywood seems like an odd choice of bailout since it appears to be the one sector of the economy unaffected by the current meltdown.
Last month alone, the industry raked in a record $1 billion in box office receipts, according to industry watchers.
#3
1. If you made movies people wanted to see rather than 'art' or self constructed homages to egos, you wouldn't need help.
2. For killing public domain by corrupting the original intent of American copyright to the pre-Revolutionary inheritable functional grant of royal patents, die if you can't live on that.
The motion picture industry's record-setting month at the box office may have cost it $246 million in tax breaks, as the Senate on Tuesday stripped a provision from the economic stimulus bill that critics derided as an unnecessary Hollywood bailout.
In denying the tax breaks on new film projects, senators cited the $1.03-billion haul from movie ticket sales in January, a 19% year-over-year increase, according to industry tracking firm Media by Numbers.
"They had their best January ever," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who led the charge against the tax breaks.
But the arguments of Coburn and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), punctuated by January's surprising box-office figures, proved persuasive. The Senate voted 52 to 45 to remove the provision -- 13 Democrats and one independent, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, joined with 38 Republicans to pass Coburn's amendment removing the studios' tax breaks from the legislation.
#5
That's right. What we need is more movies. That's get this country moving again.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
02/04/2009 11:16
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#6
So, what you're saying Sherry is that while the Academy snubbed old Clint on Gran Torino, Clint's movie gets to torpedo Hollyweird's chance at "mor' money, mor' money!". Revenge is a dish best served cold.
#10
So, what you're saying Sherry is that while the Academy snubbed old Clint on Gran Torino, Clint's movie gets to torpedo Hollyweird's chance at "mor' money, mor' money!". Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Couple that with
But the arguments of Coburn and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), punctuated by January's surprising box-office figures, proved persuasive
No-longer presidential candidate Senator McCain gets payback on the many Hollywood bigshots who campaigned against him, too. Defeating this bill isn't just a dish of revenge, but an multi-course feast.
The Taliban and its allied groups have killed hundreds of Shia Muslims during some last months in the north-west Pakistan, local media reports say.
The Taliban linked militants have been killing 25-30 members of Shia community in Parachinar, Hangu and much of the Kurram tribal agency during last six months on a daily basis, Pakistani media reports said on the weekend. Military forces based there usually do not intervene to end the sectarian wars, according to the reports.
Human rights and religious groups in Kurram have warned of a humanitarian crisis in the Shia areas. The groups have been holding protests in major cities against the killings of Shia Muslims in Kurram Agency and Parachinar.
The Taliban fighters usually target the community members in the region. Although Shias are the majority in Kurram, but they are surrounded by the Taliban-linked aggressive militants who have cut off road routes since some past months. The militants are also accused of kidnapping or killing those trying to get supplies to the Shia areas during the past months.
Pakistan's main media outlets had earlier said that the democratic forces in the country should take immediate notice of the killings of innocent Shias in the region. Moderate Pakistani Sunni groups believe that leaving more than 500,000 Shias at the mercy of the Taliban is a conspiracy against the country.
Taliban's influence is also rapidly increasing in the major cities and so-called settled areas of the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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Grassroots level leaders of BNP yesterday proposed to party high-ups that it should not continue ties with Jamaat-e-Islami considering the new generation's sentiment, and drop all controversial leaders from party committees at all levels.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwes President Robert Mugabe must demonstrate true power-sharing with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change before the U.S. will send new development aid and lift sanctions, the State Department said. The success or failure of such a government will depend on credible and inclusive power sharing by Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party, the department said in a statement from Washington late yesterday. We urge the SADC to fulfill its obligation to guarantee that Mr. Mugabe proceeds on a new path toward reconciliation and genuine partnership with the MDC.
The U.S. imposed sanctions in the past, including freezing government assets, to show disapproval of Mugabes rule. The U.S. will only consider new development assistance and easing of targeted sanctions when we have seen evidence of true power-sharing as well as inclusive and effective governance, the State Department said. We will continue to provide humanitarian assistance.
The international community must scrutinize Mugabes actions to ensure he adheres to the agreement with the MDC and respects human rights and the rule of law, it said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/04/2009
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#1
"The U.S. will only consider new development assistance and easing of targeted sanctions when we have seen evidence of true power-sharing as well as inclusive and effective governance,"
Nothing mentioned about the seizure and "redistribution" of white owned farms and propery. I guess that's still ok.
Fifteen landmines were defused as security forces targeted militantsÂ' positions in Pindyali tehsil of Mohmand Agency on Tuesday. Security forces continued to advance and regained control on Pindyali tehsil while two anti-aircraft guns and a vehicle were also seized during search operation. According to sources, security forces have taken control over area, up to eight kilometers. "Honey! Have you seen my landmines?"
"The man came by to defuse them, dear!"
"Damn! I was gonna use them tonight!"
"Well, I'm sure they have more down at the mosque!"
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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A pro-government militia group in the Democratic Republic of Congo has released some 85 child soldiers, UNICEF has announced. The children, aged between 7 and 17, were freed after months of talks with the Mai Mai militiamen, UNICEF spokeswoman Veronique Taveau said on Tuesday. Some children were released in the province of North Kivu Thursday and the rest on Sunday. They included five girls. Taveau stated that the children were starving and traumatized when they were handed over to UNICEF.
There are an estimated 2,000 child soldiers in North Kivu, Taveau said. She declined to say if the militiamen were paid for the release of the children.
The Geneva Convention, which governs the protection of human rights in warfare, prohibits the use of soldiers under the age of 15, while the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child draws the line at 18.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Aswat al-Iraq: Police forces on Tuesday arrested four gunmen, believed of having kidnapped two shepherds in south of Jalawlaa, a police source said.
"Emergency police force on Tuesday (Feb. 3) arrested four gunmen in Baniera village, south of Jalawlaa," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
"The suspected al-Qaeda gunmen believed of having kidnapped two shepherds in the region a few months ago and freed them after receiving a ransom," he explained.
Jalawlaa is one of the disputed areas between the federal and Kurdish governments.
It is located 155 northeast of Baaquba, the capital of Diala, which is 57 km northeast of Baghdad.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The US military says it has begun releasing 50 detainees a day to meet the US-Iraqi security agreement that requires those in custody not wanted by the Iraqis be released.
The military said in a statement on Tuesday that it will release 1,500 detainees a month - 50 a day - to meet the requirements of the agreement that took effect on January 1.
The statement also says those being released this month are among the first whose case files have been reviewed by Iraqi authorities, as required by the agreement.
Posted by: Fred ||
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North Korea on Monday repeated its position that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, currently being pursued under the six-party talks, covers weapons programs in both North and South Korea. The official Korean Central News Agency also quoted an unnamed spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army as saying that steps to verify nuclear information should be applied to both Koreas.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
I understand starvation (Or just plain insufficient food) addles the brain, causes an IQ drop of around 15,20%, and later plenty does NOT cure the problems. you're dull for life
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/04/2009 14:29
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The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have arrested twelve Palestinians from the West Bank cities of Bethlehem, Jenin, al-Khalil, and Nablus.
Israeli forces detained three young men (two 15-year-olds and one 17-year-old) from Beit Fajjar and raided Ad-Duheisha Refugee Camp in southern Bethlehem. They also entered a number of houses and searched them.
In Jenin, the IOF stormed houses of civilians and arrested two men, aged 30 and 21. They also confiscated a computer from one of them and searched a cell phone store nearby.
In addition, Israeli soldiers detained a Palestinian youth in the West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron)during clashes following a rally celebrating the victory of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Several hundred Hamas supporters held what they called a victory rally in the town of al-Khalil on Friday, throwing stones at Israeli troops, who responded with tear gas. No serious injuries were reported.
Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers detained two young Palestinians from Orta village south of Nablus, a member of the village council told the Maan news agency Tuesday.
Soldiers also demanded that three brothers should "give themselves up" to Israel, according to four young men who were threatened after being accused of hiding the men.
Village Councilman Hani Darwasheh said that Israeli troops overran the village, raiding several homes and detaining a 21-year-old youth.
He added that troops raided another two houses and told the parents of Majed, Mazen and Samer Sharab and Majdy Qawariq to convince their children to "hand themselves over" to Israeli forces.
The father of Qawariq said in a telephone call with Maan that Israeli soldiers demolished a gate leading to his home's entrance and confiscated his other son's mobile phone.
All the raids were conducted in the early hours of Tuesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
"21 year old youth".
Jeebus, what's next? 41 year old youths? 76 year old youths? LOL, idiots.
"Syria will wait for the results of the elections in Israel before making a decision on whether or not to renew indirect negotiations," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said Monday at a press conference in Damascus with his Irish counterpart, Micheal Martin.
Moallem added that "the matters on the top of the agenda at the moment are alleviating the Gazans' suffering caused by the siege, opening the borders and stabilizing the cease-fire."
Also Monday, Syrian President Bashar Assad called on Europe to play a "more active role" in Middle East peace efforts.
During a meeting with the Irish foreign minister, Assad stressed the "importance of activating the European role" in finding solutions in the Mideast, according to Syria's official news agency SANA.
SANA reported that the talks focused on the situation in the region after last month's IDF offensive in Gaza. Assad and Martin underlined the need for Israel to lift its blockade on Gaza and reopen border crossings, according to the report.
Last year, Syria and Israel held indirect talks, mediated by Turkey, but the talks made no significant headway.
Posted by: Fred ||
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With two private jets on call and a Hollywood wife, the Turks and Caicos prime minister lived like the rich and famous who have made the Caribbean island chain one of the hottest stops for celebrities.
Michael Misick says his lifestyle allowed him to court high-end developers and helped put the British territory southeast of the Bahamas on the map.
But his financial dealings are now the focus of a British investigative commission that is wrapping up hearings this week on the main island of Providenciales.
The Turks and Caicos still answers to a London-appointed governor, who formed the commission last summer after a British Parliament report found complaints of rampant corruption on the islands. The commission could call for a criminal investigation based on what it finds.
The hearings that began Jan. 13 at the Regent Palms Hotel have included sworn testimony from Misick's estranged wife, actress LisaRaye McCoy, that she used a government-leased jet to vacation in Africa, visit her daughter in Switzerland and commute from Los Angeles. The couple also leased a Rolls-Royce and spent more than $1 million on the interior design of their home. Misick has denied abusing public funds.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
I see another prime demographic for a Federal bailout.
Posted by: ed ||
02/04/2009 12:47
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The Marine Corps is starting to deploy a jeeplike vehicle called the Growler, 10 years after conception and at twice the contract price, after delays that were caused by changing concepts and problems in contracting, development and testing, according to two reports.
Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sought investigations by the Government Accountability Office and the Defense Department inspector general in light of complaints by the unsuccessful bidder on the project. But a spokesman for Levin said the inspector general's report, released last month, showed that cost increases and delays are so normal in defense contracting, particularly in contracts involving hundreds of millions of dollars, that they don't raise great concerns.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, however, stressed the importance of reforming procurement in remarks before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, saying that all services are feeling the effects of weapons programs that have "had repeated — and unacceptable — problems with requirements, schedule, cost and performance."
The idea for such a vehicle was developed in 1999 by the Marine Corps, which wanted a vehicle that could be carried in the V-22 Osprey aircraft to support assault operations and that would tow a 120mm mortar and an ammunition trailer. Today, instead of one vehicle that could serve both functions, there are two — one for reconnaissance and a shorter version that tows the mortar and ammunition trailer — built by the same company.
The first Growlers in the mortar program — officially called internally transportable vehicles, or ITVs — have been deployed to Marine units, but with limited combat capabilities. Because of their light armor and ammunition safety problems, "you can't run it up the highway in an urban area such as Iraq," said John Garner, the Marines' program manager for the vehicle. "But it could accompany foot-mobile Marine infantry in a not-built-up area such as Afghanistan," he added.
The inspector general report said that the average cost of a single Growler has risen 120 percent, from about $94,000 when the contract was awarded in 2004 to $209,000 in 2008. The unit cost for the vehicle with mortar and ammunition trailer has grown 86 percent, from $579,000 to $1,078,000.
The first six mortar and ammunition systems have been sent to Marine units, as have about 20 ITVs. "It is up to unit commanders who receive them as to whether they will take them when deployed abroad," Garner said. The Army has 81 ITVs under contract and is awaiting bids on 70 more; there are 12 mortar and ammunition trailer systems under contract and 20 more out for bids, according to Garner.
Troubles with the two systems started in 2004 during the final competition between two bidders for the vehicle contract. One bidder was a team of the giant defense contractor General Dynamics Corp. and a small company called American Growler Inc. of Ocala, Fla., known primarily for building a successful dune buggy using surplus, customized Army M151A2s, a popular version of the military jeep. The other was a contractor in Michigan called Rae-Beck Automotive LLC, which built a popular neighborhood electric car.
By choosing General Dynamics and American Growler, the Marines were able to procure an existing vehicle that was equipped with components that could be purchased "off the shelf," avoiding costs of research and developing an entirely new vehicle. While the Rae-Beck entry was found to be superior in some tests, the Growler, according to Garner, was better "in the most important ones."
But after the contract was awarded, Garner said, "there were significant additions made for capability." For example, an air suspension had to be added to allow the Growler to get on and off the Osprey because it could raise and lower its height. The makers added a new cooling system, power steering and power brakes, along with a beefed-up General Motors engine similar to the one used in the GMC Yukon. Altogether, Garner said, about $50,000 of the cost growth was in additional off-the-shelf items that now permit the Growler to travel up to 45 mph on a highway.
#5
Let me see if I understand: lightly armored check, can tow a 120mm mortar check, can reach 45 mph on road (and much more). Humm, I think the WWII Jeep could have exceeded specifications hands down at a fraction of the cost.
#6
Built by Ocala, Fla.-based American Growler, the original Growler is made partly from salvaged M151 jeep parts and is available in several versions for as little as $7,500 in kit form. At the high end, there's a $14,500 upgraded "tactical dune buggy" with a "bikini top."
$14,500 -> $209,000, bikini top extra. Does not compute.
Posted by: ed ||
02/04/2009 10:19
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#7
Sounds like they re-built it from the ground up to put in "low rider" hydraulic suspensions and other weird crap to get them to fit into Ospreys. Stupid goddamn technophilic waste of time and money.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/04/2009 11:18
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#8
If you look at the version the Dominican Republic paid $14,500 for, and to the version the Marines got, you'll notice the Dominicans got twice the seating capacity for 7% of the price. They also did not have to wait 10 years to get it.
The solution seems obvious to me: Have the Dominicans purchase all the Marines' gear! Even taking Dominican bribes into account, it will cost less than sending it through the Pentagon.
/;-p
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/04/2009 11:39
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#9
Bet the Dominicans only have 1) 5% of the paperwork and process that DON/DOD/GSA procurement has. and 2) only one interest group group to satisfy.
#11
I think something like a Suzuki Samurai would fit nicely in a V-22. Even w/ a JP-8 fueled engine it would probably be around $20K. Or 4 ATVs in it's place. 1 mortar carrier, 1 ammo carrier, 2 recon.
Posted by: ed ||
02/04/2009 12:25
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#12
Ed, you stole the idea right off my keyboard, but I was thinking diesel Isuzu. (Chevy)
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/04/2009 14:23
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#14
A. Change orders cost money.
B. General Dynamics had to get their cut.
C. Major Change Orders cost MAJOR money.
I suspect the folks at American Growler could have done the original item for $15 to $20,000 plus whatever is required to set them up for commo. Like the M151 the Growler is/was a tactical vehicle, not a highway cruiser. An armored vehicle is not an option for internal carry in a helicopter or V-22.
FORMER prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, now a fugitive abroad, has pledged that he would return to take up the premiership again if the people wanted him to. It was the first time in months that he has specifically mentioned the possibility of being prime minister again.
In a 20-minute telephone call to members of the opposition Puea Thai party on Monday, Thaksin said: 'I will fight on no matter what happens. I'm ready to be prime minister again if people support me. If people voice their call that they want me, I will come back to carry out my duty (as prime minister).'
'But if the people give up, it will be tantamount to my defeat as well,' he said.
Striking an emotional note, he added that he would rather 'sneak back' into Thailand and die in the north-east Isan region than in exile overseas.
The phone call, which elicited prolonged applause, was clearly a morale-booster for the party, which has suffered from factional splits and made no headway in a round of by-elections last month.
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U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said the United States is "gravely concerned by reports of intense aerial bombardment"--at least 28 bombing raids Tuesday morning alone--by Sudanese forces on the outskirts of the town in southern Darfur.
Sudan's government on Sunday asked the U.N.-African Union peacekeepers, on a mission known as UNAMID, to leave the town before bombing began, but U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said they won't go.
While Sudan has regularly challenged the U.N.'s fragile presence in the country, the request was the first of its kind from Sudan, U.N. officials said. U.N. and Sudanese officials meet in Khartoum to discuss the request, a spokeswoman for the U.N. mission has said.
Akuei Bona Malwal, Sudan's ambassador to the African Union, said the Sudanese government was requesting--not demanding--that peacekeepers leave.
Thousands of civilians sought refuge with the peacekeeping mission after the aerial bombing raids began Monday.
Ban has urged "maximum restraint" on Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and asked the Justice and Equality Movement rebels to withdraw from the town to protect civilians displaced by the six-year civil war in Sudan's arid western region.
But Rice said Sudanese forces were bombing the town of Muhajeria, despite the withdrawal of rebel forces to more than 30 miles away. The rebels seized the town in mid-January.
"The bombardment continues and the government of Sudan has prevented UNAMID personnel from moving into the area to investigate, impeding the freedom of movement of these personnel which is a violation of the status of forces agreement between UNAMID and the government," Rice said.
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Afghan security forces have arrested a group of Taliban militants they say were behind a series of suicide-bomb strikes in the capital, Kabul, including one outside the German Embassy, an intelligence official has said.
The group of 17 men, led by a 23-year-old Pakistani national, had direct links with six suicide attacks in the past two years in various parts of the city, said Said Ansari, a spokesman for the National Security Department.
The arrests were made in several parts of the capital last month, days after a suicide car-bomb attack outside the German Embassy that killed four Afghan civilians and one U.S. soldier, Ansari told a news conference.
All the suicide bombers in the six attacks were Pakistani nationals and had received training in the country's lawless tribal area.
"The responsibles for national security...managed to identify and arrest one of the very dangerous terrorist networks in Kabul after the suicide attack close to the German Embassy," he said.
The group of arrested men had facilitated the attacks, which were organized by a Pakistani militant group and the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior Taliban commander based in Pakistan's border tribal region, Ansari said.
According to the arrested men, all the suicide bombers in the six attacks were Pakistani nationals and had received training in the country's lawless tribal area, Ansari said. Twenty Afghans were killed and more than 120 wounded in the attacks.
Asked if Pakistan's ISI intelligence service had any links with the attacks, he replied: "Who arms Haqqani and organizes [him] and where has he established his bases?"
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Suspected militants ambushed a police check-post located at Shamozai area in Swat and killed at least five policemen. Meanwhile, curfew is still in force in Matta, Khwazakhela, Kabbal and other areas for 10th straight day. According to sources, five policemen were killed by militants after they captured a police check-post located at Shamozai area, sources said. In another incident, one woman was killed and a minor girl injured when missile hit a home in Shamozai area. Security forces and continued to clash in Qambar and Balogram areas in Mangora. Forces bombed the adjoining areas of Matta and Charbagh tehsils.
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Amnesty planned to release a letter to Harper in Ottawa on Wednesday in which it notes the pending visit of U.S. President Barack Obama on Feb. 19 affords an ideal opportunity for Harper to press the Khadr case.
"We'll be addressing the prime minister with a request that he raise the issue of the repatriation with President Obama," Gloria Nafziger, refugee co-ordinator with Amnesty, said Tuesday. "It seems like an opportune moment for Canada once again to show some leadership and repatriate its citizen."
The Amnesty push comes after 185 Canadian organizations and public figures signed a letter to Harper calling on him to repatriate Khadr, one of the largest such efforts.
The letter, released Tuesday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada, said many Muslims have interpreted Harper's inaction on the Khadr file as a sign his government considers Canadian Muslims to be "second-class citizens."
It was signed by Muslim and civil-liberties groups as well as by documentary filmmaker Alexandre Trudeau, son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, former UN special envoy Stephen Lewis, author Naomi Klein and Maher Arar, a Canadian victim of U.S. rendition.
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Minister for Information and Broadcasting Sherry Rehman on Tuesday said that public consensus against violence in Swat served as a boost to the government efforts for the restoration of law and order in the region.
Talking to a private TV channel, she said: "The government action to control militancy in Swat is fully backed by the public and this reflects complete rejection of the regressive policies and agenda of militants." The minister said the Swat militants had been ideologically alienated and were considered enemies of Pakistan.
Sherry said the government had only decided to deploy the Army and the paramilitary troops at educational institutions in Mingora to fight the Taliban attack on schools. She said that they preferred dialogue over force. But when the writ of the government was challenged, the government had to act, she said. Sherry said they were committed to reopening as many schools as they could after the winter break.
Replying to a question on the statement of the prime minister regarding a new strategy to address violence in Swat, she said the government was keen to explore all options to ensure peace, restore law and order and restrict collateral damage in the region.
"We cannot leave our people at the mercy of the terrorists. At the same time, it is important to pursue a strategy that incorporates political and social measures to build the architecture of sustainable peace in Swat and the tribal areas," she said.
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IAF jets attacked targets in Khan Yunis and Rafah on Tuesday afternoon, several hours after a Grad-type rocket landed in Ashkelon, Palestinian sources reported.
Around 6:00 p.m. a car was hit in the Rafah area at the southern Gaza Strip. Earlier a Hamas outpost in the Bani Swaheil area east of Khan Yunis was destroyed. Several smuggling tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor were also struck.
The IDF said that Tuesday's targets included a total of five smuggling tunnels, a rocket launching site and a Hamas outpost.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who was speaking at the Herzliya Conference, told attendees that "the IAF is operating in the Gaza Strip right now."
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#1
"the IAF is operating in the Gaza Strip right now."
Do tell.... how long they beena doing that?
Dawg bites man stoooooreeee.
Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday promised that a government under his leadership would topple the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip.
"[Kadima leader] Tzipi Livni and the people of Kadima scoffed at the predictions regarding rocket fire. A government under my leadership will overthrow the Hamas rule in Gaza and bring about a cessation of rocket fire," Netanyahu said during a tour of Ashkelon following the first Grad rocket attack since the conclusion of Operation Cast Lead some two weeks ago. "The policy of blindness followed in the past years has brought us to this situation," Netanyahu continued. "Residents can no longer count on miracles and Kadima policy."
Livni herself hinted that Hamas may come up against another IDF operation should rocket fire continue hitting the south of Israel.
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#1
If I were an Israeli, this is the only campaign promise that would matter to me.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
02/04/2009 11:24
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#2
Hey, he's got my vote.
Except, of course, it doesn't count cuz I am not an Israeli citizen.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/04/2009 19:51
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An Egyptian court suspended an earlier ruling aimed at halting a much-criticized deal to export Egyptian natural gas to Israel pending further review, court officials said Monday.
In November, after opposition groups filed a suit alleging that the 15-year fixed price deal sold the gas too cheaply, an Egyptian court ordered a halt to exports. The ruling was immediately appealed and at no time did the flow of Egyptian gas to Israel, which began in March, ever halt, said a spokesman for Israel's Infrastructure Ministry, Asaf Asulin.
Egypt's Supreme Administrative court on Monday suspended the November ruling, pending a review of the situation by a panel of independent experts, a court official reading from the court papers said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. A further hearing was scheduled for March 16.
The original court ruling said that the government needed parliament's approval before authorizing contracts related to the country's natural resources, but cabinet spokesman Magdy Rady, said the government had full sovereignty over any deal with a foreign country. "Contracts with foreign countries are part of the government's job. The government did it in a way that it deemed right," Rady said. "At this stage, this will help us to continue exporting."
The deal is between a private Egyptian company, partly owned by the government, and the state-run Israel Electric Company. The 2005 deal licensed Cairo-based East Mediterranean Gas to sell 1.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas to the Israeli company at a price critics say is set at $1.50 per million British thermal units - a measure of energy.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
I think that the gas company is run by one of Mubarak's sons.
Police in Tanjung Jabung Barat, Jambi, have confiscated approximately two metric tonnes of marijuana, portioned in different sized packages, suspected to be intended for delivery to Jakarta.
Jambi Police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Syamsuddin Lubis said Tuesday that the police were investigating the case.
"The confiscation was the biggest one on marijuana Jambi Police have ever done," he said as quoted by Antara.
Syamsuddin said the marijuana was confiscated from a load truck during a routine security checkpoint operation at the Eastern Trans-Sumatra Highway on Monday afternoon.
"The truck driver ran away knowing there was a checkpoint. The marijuana was found covered by bananas," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
Meanwhile, Michael Phelps has just announced an exhibition tour of SE Asia....
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
02/04/2009 0:04
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#3
Had one on the local news last night, cops stopped to investigate a school bus stopped on the side of the interstte, found it full of 4 TONS of Grass, investigation is underway if he bus was stolen, or bought used from the school district.
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/04/2009 20:44
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Vice President Pakistan Muslim League-Q Senator Muhammad Ali Durrani on Tuesday asked the government to abandon the use of air power and heavy artillery in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and Swat.
"The government should order an end to the use of air force and heavy artillery in the Fata and Swat regions in order to avoid collateral damage," he said while addressing a press conference here on Tuesday.
He urged the government to raise the issue of drone attacks at the United Nations, convene federal and provincial cabinet meetings in Fata and Swat and provide facilities to 600,000 internally displaced people (IDPs).
He also advocated collaboration between the PML-Q and the PML-N, making an important offer that the PML-Q was ready to sign the Charter of Democracy (CoD) as a confidence building measure (CBM) on the pattern of London CoD.
Durrani asked the government to immediately shift its focus on restoring its writ in Fata and Swat. He said unfortunately, it seems that the government functionaries have been restricted to the federal capital while armed forces are battling the militants in Swat and Fata.
Durrani said the rulers are busy in roaming around the globe or in drawing room politics. "The rulers should now leave their bunkers and visit Swat and Fata". Rather, he said the next meetings of the federal and NWFP cabinets should be convened in Fata and Swat respectively just to convey a message to the inhabitants of the areas that the government shared their concerns. He said around 600,000 people affected by Fata and Swat operations had migrated from their areas and this was the largest internal migration in the history of the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that criticism of Israel's offensive in Gaza should not be regarded as anti-Semitism, even as his country's small Jewish community looked to police and lawmakers for protection.
Last week, Erdogan publicly scolded President Shimon Peres over casualties among Palestinian civilians and walked off a stage during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Many Turks hailed him as a hero. But the Turkish government, which has been an important Israeli ally in the Muslim world, is campaigning hard to reassure its Jewish citizens that they are safe.
"There has been no anti-Semitism in the history of this country," Erdogan told ruling party lawmakers. "As a minority, they're our citizens. Both their security and the right to observe their faith are under our guarantee."
There are 23,000 Jews in the predominantly Muslim country of more than 70 million. Most live in Istanbul, and many have prominent roles in banking and education. Their ancestors arrived five centuries ago, and a recent comment by the prime minister that the Ottoman Empire welcomed Jews bothers some today who feel they are viewed as guests, not citizens.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
The gentleman clearly has a problem with dictionary definitions... were he not due honour and respect as president of his country, one might even say he is a liar.
#2
Well, LBJ was a profane individual who in private company could cop the 'n' word not only as a pronoun but also as an adjectival descriptive concerning some noted and famous Americans. However, LBJ was also one of the last presidents who could not only bend an arm or two, but could politically break them as well and was critical in getting the both the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts passed in the mid-60s. So, as they say - watch what the man does, not what he says.
#4
Everett Dirkson was critical in getting the Civil Rights legislation passed, not LBJ. The donk Klansmen were far from supporting it.
But Barry Goldwater was right in his reservations and the overly coercive aspects of the legislation have now redounded to the detriment of minorities achieving actual equality and assimilation because they broke the bonds of civil society.
#5
You are wrong on this one NS. LBJ broke arms in the Southern Senate Leadership while Majority Leader.... leading the way towards 1965. He neutered the good ole bulls from the south. Spessard Holland had more to do with passing the Act that Everrett Dirkson ever did.
#6
I'm not sure who deserves the most credit for the Civil Rights Act but LBJ needed support for his Vietnam War effort and the only way he could get it from the Republicans and Liberals was to support and push passage of the Civil Rights Act. Just my $0.02.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/04/2009 18:55
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#7
See also STRATFOR > THE LONG-TERM GROWTH OF TURKISH POWER IS INEVITABLE.
One worshipper was killed and 25 others were injured when unidentified miscreants hurled a hand-grenade at a mosque in Kumharanwala locality here on Tuesday.
Eyewitnesses said two unidentified persons arrived on a the Madani Masjid when worshippers were offering the Maghrib prayers. One person, Khurram Shehzad, died on the spot while 25 others were injured in the explosion, which created panic in the area.
The injured persons were identified as Abdur Rasheed, Kalimullah, Shahid, Abdul Qayyum, Gul Anwar, Muhammad Iqbal, Muhammad Irfan, Asif, Muhammad Aashiq, Amanullah and Jehanzeb while the identities of 14 others could not be ascertained.
The injured were rushed to the District Headquarters Hospital where six of them were stated to be in critical condition.The police reached the scene soon after the explosion and cordoned off the locality to evacuate the injured to the hospital where an emergency was declared.
"We are investigating and cannot say anything at the moment," a police official said.Several people have been killed in sectarian violence in the city so far, but the official said it was too early to determine whether it was an act of terrorism or sectarianism.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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Nine Arab foreign ministers who met in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday declared their support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Foreign Minister, said.
Shaikh Abdullah told WAM after the meeting that it was held "as part of the ongoing consultations among Arab states to boost Arab solidarity, as outlined by the speech made by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the Kuwait Economic Summit."
The ministers have also reaffirmed their support to the Egyptian initiative to secure a durable ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and discussed steps to pave the way for the Gaza reconstruction conference, to be held in Cairo on 22 February.
Shaikh Abdullah said the ministers have "reaffirmed their support for the Arab peace initiative and reiterated their strong support for the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) under the leadership of President Abbas and to the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of Palestinians."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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Aswat al-Iraq: Police forces on Tuesday arrested ten wanted men and seized an explosive belt and weapons found with them during crackdown operations in separate areas of Basra, the media office of the Basra police said. "Police forces waged security raids in separate areas of Basra, where they arrested ten wanted men," the office told Aswat al-Iraq news agency, noting that the forces found an explosive belt in their possession. "They confessed that they were planning to detonate an exchange office in central Basra to rob it," it added. "Two Kalashnikovs and a hand grenade were found with them," it noted.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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The Israeli-owner of a Ukrainian-flagged arms-loaded ship held by Somali pirates pays 3.2 million dollars in return for the vessel's release.
The MV Faina and its crew-- 17 Ukrainians, three Russians and one Latvian national-were captured on September 25 in the notorious Somali waters. The vessel was carrying with a cargo of 33 Soviet-type battle tanks, rocket launchers and ammunition, allegedly expected to reach rebels in the Sudanese violent Darfur region.
On Tuesday, a plane from South Africa carrying $ 3.2 million dropped the demanded ransom onto the Faina upon an agreement between the pirates and the ship's owner, Press TV correspondent reported. The pirates said they will release the ship in a few hours, as soon as they count the sum and confirm there are no warships to hunt them.
The news comes after the Israeli owner of the vessel had earlier refused to hold talks with the bandits, who had repeatedly threatened the lives of the crew members unless they were paid a multi-million ransom.
The capture of the arms-laden ship four months ago triggered a controversy over the cargo's final destination.
The pirates' spokesman Sugule Ali said in October that the ship was originally destined for Sudan using the Kenyan port city of Mombasa as a stopover. Sudan's state media also revealed the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), Darfur's most powerful rebel group, has received considerably heavy military logistical support from Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
The Israeli-owner of a Ukrainian-flagged arms-loaded ship held by Somali pirates
Which was designed by our German Scientists from plans stolen from their German Scientists... follow?
#2
Sudan's state media also revealed the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), Darfur's most powerful rebel group, has received considerably heavy military logistical support from Israel.
I wondered when they'd get around to blaming the Juice
The United Nations has reversed its stance on one of the most contentious and bloody incidents of the recent Israel Defense Forces operation in Gaza, saying that an IDF mortar strike that killed 43 people on January 6 did not hit one of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency schools after all.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
Well, it was either that or admit that they a) do not screen employees for terror group membership and b) do not prevent terror groups from using their buildings, ambulances etc. Peres alluded just lightly to this at Davos and it sent them scurrying for cover. Wonder just what would happen if the cover were really pulled off their activities.
Japan on Tuesday warned North Korea against any moves to use missiles, with the Foreign Ministry spokesman describing the missile issue as a ''serious problem'' for world peace but declining to confirm or deny reports of Pyongyang's preparations for a missile launch. The North Korean missile issue ''is a serious problem not only for Japan's national security but also world peace and stability, as well as from the viewpoint of nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction,'' Press Secretary Kazuo Kodama said while withholding all comment on intelligence and other details.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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Al Qaida's deputy leader on Tuesday dismissed U.S. President Barack Obama's expression of concern over killings in Gaza as an empty gesture on Tuesday and said Washington remains a main enemy of Muslims.
"I remind our mujahideen brothers that our enemy in Gaza is not only Israel but the Zionist-crusader coalition, with America, the leader of evil ... at its head," Ayman al-Zawahri said in an audio recording posted on Islamic websites.
"Obama said he was concerned about the killings of civilians in Gaza. We thank Mr. Obama for his concern which we received with thousands of shells and ... white phosphorous," Zawahri said, referring to Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.
"But Obama's concern did not seem to last long as he did not say a word about Gaza in his inauguration speech, as if nothing had happened," he added.
"The Zionist-crusader [Israeli-Western] campaign against Islam and the Muslims cannot be defeated without warfare," Zawahri said, calling the devout to join a jihad (holy war).
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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Unknown militants fired rocket on Essakhel police checkpoint in Mianwali but no casualty occured, Geo News reported on early Wednesday.
Police sources said, a rocket was fired from an unknown direction onto the backwall of checkpoint, which slightly tampered wall however, no loss of life was reported. Meanwhile, security forces have cordoned off the area.
There were as many as seven policemen deployed on the checkpoint when militants launched rocket offensive while, taking stringent notice of the incident, police have commenced investigation, sources added.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders said Tuesday he would challenge a court order that he be put on trial for inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims.
Wilders said he had appointed an advocate and intended to submit an application to the Supreme Court to overturn last month's judgment by the Amsterdam appeals court. "I have appointed the best advocate in the Netherlands to fight against this charge hanging over my head," he said in a statement on the website of his PVV party.
Wilders, 45, is the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV), which has nine seats in parliament. He is also the maker of a 17-minute film, "Fitna", which has been called "offensively anti-Islamic" by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Precisely because it shows Muslims quoting the Koran ...
The appeals court had found that Wilders should be prosecuted for a series of public anti-Muslim statements, particularly for comparing Islam to Nazism. The judgment had followed numerous complaints from citizens over the prosecution service's refusal to press charges against Wilders.
The screening of the "Fitna" in the Netherlands prompted protests in much of the Muslim world including Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iran and Pakistan.
Wilders has called for the banning of the Quran in the Netherlands, calling it "fascist".
In June, the prosecutor's office said "Fitna", though offensive to Muslims, did not give rise to a punishable offence. But the appeals court ruled that politicians, given their special responsibility, ought not to be permitted to make "statements which create hate and grief", and ordered the prosecution to put Wilders on trial.
In April 2008 a son of the Netherlands' military chief was killed by a bomb in southern Afghanistan, in what Taliban militants said was direct retaliation to "Fitna."
While in July, a Jordanian prosecutor charged Wilders with blasphemy and violation of publishing laws over his film judged anti-Islamic.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
killed by a bomb in southern Afghanistan, in direct retaliation to "Fitna."
Iraqi police have arrested a woman who has confessed to recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers and who helped orchestrate dozens of attacks, a senior officer said on Tuesday.
Samira Jassim, 51, admitted that she had mentally prepared the women for martyrdom operations, passed them on to terrorists who provided explosives, and then took the bombers to their targets.
"She confessed to training more than 28 female suicide bombers, all of whom conducted operations in different parts of Iraq," Baghdad security spokesman Major-General Qassim al-Moussawi said.
The woman was a member of the Sunni Arab militant Islamist group Ansar al-Sunna and was captured Jan. 21 at an undisclosed location two weeks ago, Moussawi said.
"Mother of the Believers"
"We arrested Samira Jassim, known as 'Um al-Mumenin', the mother of the believers, who was responsible for recruiting 80 women" suicide bombers, Major General Qassim Atta told reporters in Baghdad.
Moussawi played a video in which Jassim, a middle-aged woman in a traditional black robe, appeared to confess to training a female bomber who attacked a police station in Diyala.
"I was introduced to her, I began talking to her," Jassim could be heard saying in the video, much of which was difficult to hear when played back at the news conference.
"She sent them to the terrorists, in one of the farms where they provided the suicidal women with bombs, then Jassim took the women to the targeted place," Atta said.
Two of the attacks for which Jassim admitted responsibility in the video confession took place in restive Diyala province, in central Iraq, which is considered one of the most dangerous areas of the country.
Al Qaeda and other groups have increasingly sent women and girls on suicide bombing missions because they are less likely to be detected in searches, a tactic that became more common in 2007 and 2008.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
Samira Jassim, 51, admitted that she had mentally prepared the women for martyrdom operations
Here is a slighty more detailed explanation of "mentally prepared" from the Aussie Herald Sun:
A woman suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has confessed to organising their rapes so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame.
That has to be the most screwed up thing I have ever heard. Religion of peace, my ass.
#2
There's a special place in Hell for a woman who organizes rapes. And at the very bottom is the stratum for one who then leverages the resulting pain.
(RIA Novosti) - The severed head of a schoolgirl who went missing on January 19 was discovered by residents in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, a law enforcement source said. "Residents found the head of a young woman. Presumably it is the head of the victim in the 'Florist and Butcher Case,'" the source said.
The case got its name from the professions of two suspects arrested on Saturday. Yuri Mozhnov worked at a florist's and Maxim Golovatskikh was a butcher in St. Petersburg's main meat market. The two men, who investigators say both have criminal records, were immersed in Goth and Emo culture.
The investigations report states that on the night of January 19 the two young men drowned the girl, an 11th grader in school, in the bathtub, cut her body into pieces and ate some of her internal organs. The remaining body parts were put in bags and thrown in dumpsters and waterways. A criminal case of murder has been opened and if convicted the men face up to 15 years in prison.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
15 years? That's the maximum for kidnapping, murder, and cannibalism?
#7
Actually, it's not Florida. Which is surprising...
Heh. I saw St Petersburg and assumed the rooski thuglets had expanded their range - no doubt due to global warming. Serves me right for browsing the 'burg while the coffee perks.
The police here on Tuesday detained as many as 15 suspects in connection with the kidnapping of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Balochistan chief.
Police sources told the media that the police, along with other law enforcement agencies, raided some parts of the city and held 15 suspects following the kidnapping of John Peloski on Monday while he was on his way to office. His driver identified as Mohammad Hashim Raza was killed while resisting the kidnapping bid.
"Raids are being conducted across the city and there are positive signs of finding a clue of the culprits", the sources said, adding that it had not been confirmed yet who had committed the crime as no one had claimed the responsibility. The suspects had been detained from Kuchlak, Kharotabad, Chandni Chowk, Ghousabad and others areas.
Besides, the vehicles leaving the provincial capital were being strictly monitored and special police checkposts had been set up on entry and exit points of the city, the sources added.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Chris Hill, a career US diplomat who has been Washington's lead negotiator with North Korea, is expected to be named US ambassador to Iraq, a US official who asked not to be named said on Monday. I believe it was Hill whom Rodong Sinmun described as "scum." I guess the Iraqi ambassadorship's a step up.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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The Azeri security service says it has disbanded a group of 'terrorists' who was planning to bomb the Baku-Novorossiysk Pipeline.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Azerbaijan's Security Ministry said the main objective of the group was to destabilize the country by exploding the pipeline and preventing the export of oil.
The statement identified the leader of the group as Azer Misirkhanev aka Abdullah who is one of Azerbaijan's main Salafi figures.
According to the ministry, Abdullah and 12 other members of the group, based in forests in Russia's Dagestan region, had illegally been crossing the border and smuggling arms and explosives into the Azerbaijan Republic.
Abdullah was sentenced to jail over militant activities in 2001 but he reportedly resumed its activities after being released from prison.
The 830-kilometer Baku-Novorossiysk Pipeline annually transfers almost 5 million tons of crude oil from Azerbaijan to the Black Sea coast in Russia.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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An outlaw was killed in a 'shootout' with law enforcers at Kotchandpur bus stand in Jhenidah yesterday.
Been a while since we had a 'shootout' ...
He was identified as Shamsul alias Ali Robin, 32, a regional leader of Biplobi Communist Party.
Is he a new Biplobi, an old Biplobi, or just a dead Biplobi?
Earlier, the outlaw demanded Tk 5 lakh from a trader and asked him to come at Kotchandpur bus stand with the amount at around 11:00am on Tuesday. Being informed by the trader, plainclothes police personnel took position at the bus stand.
As soon as the trader reached there, Robin came to him to take the money. When the police personnel encircled Robin, he opened fire, prompting the law enforces to retaliate.
Of course they did ...
Police sources said Robin received bullets during shootout and died on the spot.
"Rosebud!" [rattle] [twitch]
They said Robin was wanted in 12 systems 19 cases including five for murder.
So his mother likely didn't love him ...
Police recovered two shutter guns, two bombs and three bullets from the spot.
See how slow business has been? Two shutter guns, cheez ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/04/2009
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#1
Hey, look at the top picture in this photo gallery on RAB's website. Could this weird thing be the elusive Shutter Gun?
2nd Lt. Aharon Karov was called up for service in Gaza the morning after his wedding and critically wounded in combat. Today he said saluted the doctors who three weeks ago gave him scant hours to live -- and left the hospital
Three weeks after they gave him mere hours to live, the paratrooper officer critically wounded in Operation Cast Lead saluted his doctors farewell -- and left the hospital.
Platoon commander 2nd Lt. Aharon Karov, 22, was ordered to cut his leave short and report for duty in Gaza the morning after his wedding to Tzvia, 19. She was by his side on Tuesday as he said goodbye to the doctors who saved his life at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva. The young officer will continue his rehabilitation at the Shiba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip on Monday approved the killing of Israeli collaborators but denied allegations it had attacked members of the rival Fatah faction during last month's war. "The government will show no mercy to collaborators who stab our people in the back, and they will be held accountable according to the law... if any collaborator is sentenced to death, we will not hesitate to carry it out," government spokesman Taher al-Nunu told reporters.
"The government differentiates between violations of the law and those acts undertaken by the resistance during a time of war to protect itself from the danger of collaborators," he added.
His remarks came after Palestinian human rights groups and victims accused the Hamas authorities of attacking dozens of members of the rival Fatah party of president Mahmoud Abbas whom the Islamists accused of working for Israel.
The Islamist group -- which drove Abbas's loyalists from Gaza when they seized power in June 2007 -- was also accused of placing Fatah members under house arrest during the three-week-long Israeli offensive.
Hamas government officials insist security forces apply the law equally to all Gazans, regardless of political affiliation.
But Ihab al-Ghusein, a spokesman for the Hamas-run interior ministry, defended the killing of suspected collaborators by armed groups during the Israeli offensive in which more than 1,330 Palestinians were killed.
"The resistance groups have nothing to do with internal security in normal times... because that is the role of the security services," he said.
"But there were collaborators who were killed during the fighting while they were trying to strike the resistance in the back."
Nunu said the government had not yet received any formal complaints concerning the incidents, but was investigating them nonetheless.
Prisoners executed
The Gaza-based Ad-Dameer Association for Human Rights last week said that 10 prisoners were executed after they were accused of collaborating with Israel because Israeli forces bombarded the prison in which they were held.
"There have been dozens of cases of persecution across the territory during and after the war. There have been grave violations of human rights and investigations must be launched," said Samir Mussa, a lawyer with the rights group said.
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The Iraqi military on Tuesday lifted a curfew in Anbar a day after tribal shaikhs sent gunmen into the streets to protest what they claimed was vote rigging in last weekend's elections.
Iraqi commander Major General Murdhi Mishhin said a vehicle ban has been lifted and there have been no reports of violence.
Anbar was one of 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces where voters on Saturday chose members of ruling councils.
Posted by: Fred ||
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US officials are concerned about the possibility of a North Korean ballistic missile launch, saying that any testing of its longest-range missile is provocative.
"North Korea's missile activities and, you know, missile programs are a concern to the region," said State Department spokesman Robert Wood. "And a ballistic missile launch by North Korea would be unhelpful and, frankly, provocative," Wood said on Tuesday.
There were signs that "the North Koreans are preparing for a Taepodong-2 launch," according to a US counter-proliferation official. "Whether it will carry out the launch or not is entirely unclear, as is the timing for a possible launch," the official told AFP.
A source quoted by Seoul's Yonhap news agency said US and South Korean intelligence agencies had recently spotted a train carrying a long cylindrical object believed to be a Taepodong-2 missile, which is theoretically capable of hitting the United States.
Launch preparations were likely to be completed in a month or two at a new west coast site, the source said. The missile has a maximum range of 6,700 km (4,150 miles), meaning it could theoretically target Alaska.
Posted by: Fred ||
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As the International Criminal Court (ICC) launched a "preliminary analysis" on Tuesday to establish whether Israel had committed war crimes in its assault on Gaza, the Jewish state's warplanes bombed a number of tunnels connecting the strip with Egypt after a rocket launched from the enclave struck the Israeli port city of Ashkelon.
Residents of the Gaza border crossing town of Rafah and Hamas officials said Israeli planes were attacking the tunnels, which have been bombed several times since early January.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket launched earlier onto Ashkelon, which caused no casualties or damage, but prompted Israel to threaten to use "great force" in retaliation.
ICC mulls war crimes probe
Meanwhile, the ICC prosecutor in The Hague said he would need to determine whether there was such a legal entity as a Palestinian state, a precursor to a possible probe of war crimes in Gaza.
The prosecutor said he had received a request from the Palestinian National Authority to investigate the recent assault, Luis Moreno-Ocampo said: "My work is now to analyze this in accordance with (international) law."
Documents also showed that the Palestinian National Authority has recognized the jurisdiction of the ICC, in a move designed to allow investigations of alleged crimes in the Palestinian territories.
Moreno-Ocampo said his office had received more than 150 other "communications" on Gaza from individuals and non-government bodies, as well as from Israeli authorities.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay last month called for independent investigations into possible war crimes after Israel's shelling of a U.N. school compound killed 42 people, including women and children, on Jan. 6.
U.N. officials also said war crimes may have been committed after Israeli tank fire killed two boys in another U.N. school.
Once he makes his decision on Palestinian jurisdiction, the prosecutor would next have to determine whether crimes under the court's jurisdiction had been committed in Gaza.
Israel has not signed the Rome Statute, which created the ICC. The ICC can investigate alleged war crimes in the territory of a state party, if the U.N. Security Council refers a situation to the court or if a non-state party voluntarily accepts the jurisdiction of the court.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
The ICC can investigate alleged war crimes in the territory of a state party, if the U.N. Security Council refers a situation to the court or if a non-state party voluntarily accepts the jurisdiction of the court.
Except that, in the previous sentence,
Israel has not signed the Rome Statute, which created the ICC.
I think Israel needs to buy half an hour of prime time on key EU television stations, and simply replay Shimon Peres' half hour at Davos. Send a copy to each member of the ICC, along with the message that the Jews submitted to Europe murdering 6 million once. But they will not do so a second time... and they will consider continued pursuit of this case as an act of genocidal war on the part of the EU and respond accordingly.
Somebody needs to send this and the Davos YouTube link to Rush Limbaugh, et al, and gin up an anti-Europe boycott until the ICC walks away from this too-bright idea.
#7
Relocate the UN and ICC to Gaza City. The diplomats and lawyers can hang out on the beach and give all the Hamas guys jobs as waiters and busboys. Win-win.
#8
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay last month called for independent investigations into possible war crimes after Israel's shelling of a U.N. school compound killed 42 people, including women and children, on Jan. 6.
Except now the UN says it didn't happen. So much for the ICC case.
#9
How about Israel submits war crimes claims for Hamas hiding out among civilians, storing weapons in hospitals and mosques, using human shields, etc etc etc?
Is that crickets I hear?
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/04/2009 17:27
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#10
Luis Moreno-Ocampo said: "My work is now to analyze this in accordance with (international) law."
But this time around Luis, there are people in Israel who'll be analyzing you.
#11
#7 Relocate the UN and ICC to Gaza City. The diplomats and lawyers can hang out on the beach and give all the Hamas guys jobs as bumbuddies waiters and busboys. Win-win.
Fifteen more militants were killed by security forces in fresh raids in different parts of Swat on Tuesday. According to sources, security forces and militants continued to clash in different pars of Swat, killing 15 more militants. While curfew is still in force in Matta, Khwazakhela, Kabbal and other areas for the 10th straight day. On the other hand, suspected militants ambushed a police check-post located at Shamozai area in Swat and killed at least five policemen. In another incident, one woman was killed and a minor girl was injured when missile hit their home situated in Shamozai area. Security forces and militants continued to clash in Qambar and Balogram areas in Mangora. Forces bombed the adjoining areas of Matta and Charbagh tehsils.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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A top Hamas official told The Jerusalem Post late on Monday that he believes an Egyptian-mediated cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas is likely to be reached by Thursday.
Ahmed Youssef, the Gaza-based deputy foreign minister and former political adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said he had not yet heard back from a Hamas delegation in Cairo, which was scheduled to meet Egyptian officials about a cease-fire proposal.
But he said he was optimistic that a cease-fire agreement was imminent. "All I know is that there are positive signals," Youssef told the Post by telephone. "We are heading toward a right direction, toward a cease-fire. I do believe that they will find a way in the next couple of days for them to announce something."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
The guys in Damascus think you're a buncha pussies, boys...
Aswat al-Iraq: Three gunmen were arrested on Tuesday in two separate operations in southern Kirkuk, said the deputy director of the city's Asayesh.
"An Asayesh force on Tuesday arrested two gunmen in al-Askari neighborhood and a third one on the Baghdad road in southern Kirkuk," Colonel Salar Khalid told Aswat al-Iraq news agency, pointing out that one of them is a security guard of Sadrist MP Fawzi Akram Tarzi.
"The detainees were using mortar shells an guns in attacking U.S. forces in the city," he also said, "They guided the forces to a weapons depot on the Baghdad road, which contains a number of mortar shells and guns," he noted.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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Unidentified militants blew up two boys' schools in Salarzai Tehsil of the restive Bajaur Agency on Tuesday.
Sources said militants blew up the Government High School, Pusht, and a primary school in the Salarzai area with explosives. No loss of life was reported as both the schools were closed. The militants have so far destroyed 27 schools in the Bajaur Agency.
Meanwhile, security forces targeted the hideouts of militants in the Mamond Tehsil and Nawagai with heavy artillery and mortar guns. Security forces claimed to have dismantled the hideouts of several militants. However, no casualty was reported in the attacks.
In the meantime, Bajaur Agency Political Agent Shafirullah Khan, along with Bajaur Scouts Commandant Colonel Nauman Saeed and Assistant Political Agent Iqbal Khattak, visited the far-flung areas of the Salarzai Tehsil. It was the first visit of the political administration officials since the writ of the government was re-established in the violence-hit areas of the agency.
The officials visited the remote areas of Pusht, Danqul, Ghaghay, Chargu and Nazakai, where the political agent addressed the local people. He said the government had allocated huge funds for the uplift of tribal people to bring the area at par with the developed areas of the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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Just days after announcing the postponement of Afghanistan's presidential poll, the Independent Election Commission finds itself amidst a storm of controversy. Parliament accuses it of overstepping its legal authority, while politicians are warning of a crisis that could harm the country's fragile democracy.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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Aswat al-Iraq: A security force on Tuesday found a weapons cache during a security raid in the east of Falluja, the chief of the local police said. "A force from the al-Karama police found a weapons depot in al-Shuwertan region in eastern al-Karama in Falluja," Colonel Mahmoud al-Eissawi told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "The force found five bombs, 200 kg pf chlorine, and 25 km of TNT in the depot," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
25 kilometers of TNT? What, was this depot located on a used car lot?
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/04/2009 11:07
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#2
Damn, coulda been worser, there's roumors of a 5 furlong nook missing from Wakistan.
After one of the latest U.S. Predator attacks in North Waziristan, a Taliban commander visited the site. He's seen the results of many air strikes over the past year or two, but this one really impressed him.
The missile didn't just hit the right house; it scored a direct hit on the very room where Mustafa al-Misri ("Mustafa the Egyptian") and several other Qaeda operatives were holed up. The hit was so accurate, the commander says, it's as if someone had tossed a GPS device against the wall. Unfortunately for others at the scene, the mud-and-stone house collapsed, killing several Afghans along with the foreign fighters. Nevertheless, the subcommander told Newsweek, "We are stunned" by such precision.
Al Qaeda's hideouts in Pakistan's tribal areas aren't quite as safe as they used to be. After years in which they were suspected of shielding Osama bin Laden's lieutenants or, at least, not pursuing them very vigorously, Pakistan's intelligence services have finally started helping the Americans track and kill the fugitive terrorists in the frontier belt.
According to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, 11 of the top 20 "high-value targets" along the Afghan border have been eliminated in the past six months. And while the Americans blast the bad guys in the tribal areas, the Pakistanis have been confronting problems in their own ranks. Since September, 140 pro-Islamist officers have been mustered out of ISI, according to a senior diplomatic official in Washington, asking not to be named on such a sensitive topic.
Islamabad has good reasons to work with the Americans. For one thing, Washington is considering an aid package worth as much as $15 billion to Pakistan over the next 10 years. In the midst of that debate, Islamabad is trying to undo the harm to its international image from the ISI's alleged links to the December terrorist rampage in Mumbai. But beyond those details, Pakistanis finally seem to be figuring out that Al Qaeda and its friends are not merely America's problem.
"We may be crazy in Pakistan, but [we're] not completely out of our minds," ISI chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha recently told the German magazine Der Spiegel. "We know full well that terror is our enemy, not India." Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, confirms that Islamabad is working with the Americans. "Pakistan and the United States are partners in the effort against terrorism, and our broad-based effort includes sharing intelligence," he told Newsweek last week.
Taliban sources say Islamabad is right to worry what Al Qaeda is up to. The group's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, wants to destabilize the "apostate" Pakistani government. The Egyptian-born doctor has been promoting fellow Egyptians and other allies to replace senior Qaeda members who have been killed or captured, Taliban sources say. Bin Laden is said to oppose Zawahiri's scheme, fearing blowback from Pakistan, but he hasn't shown up at planning meetings in years. (US intelligence sources say they see no signs of a rift between the two leaders.)
The attacks are creating turmoil in the tribal areas. A witch-hunt against suspected spies has resulted in the deaths of at least a dozen people in North Waziristan, many of them by beheading. And Naqib Khan, a Taliban intelligence operative, says some Qaeda fighters and their Jihadist friends from Pakistan have been relocating to quieter places in eastern Afghanistan.
Even so, the Americans should postpone any plans for a victory party. "Reports that Al Qaeda is on the decline have been frequent in the past and always inaccurate," says former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel, who advised the Obama transition team on Pakistan issues. But the Americans aren't giving up yet either.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
quote of the day "We may be crazy i n Pakistan" ISI chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha
Hawkish Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to topple the Hamas government in Gaza should he win the upcoming elections.
Netanyahu, the front-runner in February 10 elections, said Tuesday that "A government under my leadership will overthrow the Hamas rule in Gaza and bring about a cessation of rocket fire."
"[Kadima leader] Tzipi Livni and the people of Kadima scoffed at the predictions regarding rocket fire" from the Gaza Strip, said Netanyahu regarding to a three-week offensive against Gaza which aimed at destroy the Hamas military power in the region.
Israel's Operation Cast Lead which was aimed at putting an end to the rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, was unilaterally halted on January 18 after killing almost 1,400 people across the sliver. Tel Aviv, which failed to achieve its primary goals during the 23-day war on Gaza, resumed pounding the populated strip two weeks later.
Netanyahu, who has voiced serious discontent with the army's failure in Gaza, vowed to stop the rocket attacks saying "Residents can no longer count on miracles and Kadima policy.
According to Pollsters, Tel Aviv's failure in the Gaza War has greatly increased Netanyahu's chance to win the elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
Netanyahu, who has voiced serious discontent with the army's politico's failure in Gaza
Five soldiers, including two captains, were injured Monday (February 2nd) when a bomb exploded near their army convoy between Aghribs and Iflissen, about 40km north of Tizi-Ouzou, Tout sur l'Algerie reported. Another bomb exploded in the public park of Ain Zaouia, south of Tizi-Ouzou, around 11 pm Monday night. Security officers successfully disabled another bomb around 3 am on Tuesday.
In related news, Algerian security services dismantled a terrorist support network in Boumerdes province on Monday and arrested 12 people between the ages of 23 and 35, El Watan reported. The suspects are from Dellys, Baghlia, Thénia and Zemmouri. The arrests come just a few days after the surrender of Ali Ben Touati, the leader of Al Ansar terrorist brigade, who is also from Dellys.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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(RIA Novosti) - Marking 10 years as Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez said the country has entered a third phase of his "Bolivarian Revolution," local media reported on Tuesday.
A former army paratrooper who styles himself the builder of "21st-century socialism," Chavez summed up the results of the previous phases of the revolution - the first in 1999-2006 and the second in 2007-2009 - and announced the beginning of a new one.
"These 10 years could be characterized by three words: revolution, independence and socialism," Chavez said. "The second phase is coming to its end and the third cycle of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela is beginning."
Chavez, 54, who declared February 2 a national holiday to celebrate his milestone as leader, said the new phase could last for another decade until February 2019.
The oil-rich country nation is due to hold a referendum on February 15 as Chavez pushes to remove presidential term limits from the Venezuelan constitution. Chavez's second term ends in 2012 but he says he needs more time to complete the third phase of the revolution.
Chavez wants to change the wording of the country's constitution from "the president may be reelected only once" to simply "the president may be reelected" before his current term ends. More than 50% of voters rejected a similar proposal as part of a package of constitutional amendments in a referendum in December 2007.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
The EU solution: keep presenting it over and over until the voters make the "correct" choice.
#8
I'm going w/ skipjack. Hugo uses it to mask his body odor.
Posted by: ed ||
02/04/2009 12:15
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#9
Oh, God, I can see the commercials up here now...
"...so call 1-800-JOE-4-FISH. Thanks to our friends in Venezuela, no one, NO ONE, should go without fish."
Sri Lanka's army said yesterday it had captured an elaborate underground bunker complex believed to have been the home of the leader of the Tamil Tigers, as well as the rebels' last jungle airstrip.
Soldiers seized the facilities as fighting escalated in the northeast of the island, where government troops are pressing on with an all-out assault on the remaining patch of jungle held by the guerrillas.
The renewed clashes came as the government said the battle against the cornered Tigers was at a "decisive stage" and that it could not guarantee the security of tens of thousands of civilians trapped in rebel-held territory.
The captured two-storey-deep bunker had sound-proof electricity generators, air conditioning and medical supplies, and was hidden in a coconut grove in Mullaittivu district, the defence ministry said.
It described the site as the "main LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) hideout" and "a major residential site" of rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Pictures released by the defence ministry purported to show that Prabhakaran had left behind a stuffed Tiger, a paintball gun and a bottle of cognac.
At least 20 guerrillas were killed trying to defend the facility and another 32 died in fighting on Monday, the ministry said.
The whereabouts of Prabhakaran, 54, are uncertain, but Sri Lanka's military has said he may have already fled the island by boat.
Also captured was what is believed to be the last of several jungle airstrips used by the Tamil Tigers to launch air strikes across the island, the defence ministry said.
The two-kilometre (1.25-mile) long runway and hangar for light aircraft was seized by troops advancing on the village of Thirivilaru in Mullaittivu. No aircraft were found, but search operations were underway, a military official added.
The Tigers were believed to have five Czech-built Zlin-143 aircraft, smuggled onto the island in pieces and re-assembled. The guerrillas last launched an air attack in early September, when they bombed a military base.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
Who got dibs on the cognac? Bootie in a bottle.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
02/04/2009 11:40
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The bombing of a bridge in Pakistan's tribal region by suspected militants targeting a Western military supply line has left thousands of people and vehicles stranded on both sides of the blast.
Attacks on the route -- which historically links Peshawar with the Afghan capital, Kabul -- have intensified in the past year as militants try to disrupt the Afghan operations of NATO- and U.S.-led forces.
An independent journalist on the scene, Fazlulah Shinwari, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan within hours of the attack that thousands of vehicles -- including ambulances -- were unable to pass.
"The bridge was blown up at a certain point that leaves no alternative for vehicles or personnel to be able to cross to the other side," Shinwari said.
"Thousands of people have been waiting on both sides since the bridge was blown up -- not only officials but also ordinary Afghans trying to get to the other side, including children and women, who are rushing to the area," he added.
Officials said after the explosion took out the 30-meter metal bridge in the early morning hours that all traffic along the route was suspended.
A NATO official declined to comment soon after the attack, but it appeared that the incident had left a main supply route to U.S. and other international forces in Afghanistan at least temporarily closed.
Authorities have not offered an estimate of how long it might take to fix the damage and reopen the highway.
The Peshawar-to-Kabul highway -- which winds through dozens of tunnels and across scores of bridges -- has been choked off twice by militants' attacks since September.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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#1
not only officials but also ordinary Afghans trying to get to the other side, including children and women, who are rushing to the area," he added.
Hahahaha... we can has catastrophe? Let's rush it!
#2
How are we going to put 30,000 additional troops in the Stan with the existing supply lines?
I agree with lowering expectations, actually I would agree with letting this place remaining a shit hole.
#3
PESHAWAR, Pakistan---- Assailants torched 10 trucks stranded in Pakistan by the bombing of a key bridge on the main supply route for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, an official said Wednesday.
Attackers set fire to at least 10 trucks parked overnight near Landi Kotal, a town close to the famed Khyber Pass that connects Pakistan with Afghanistan, local government official Fazl Rabi said. The trucks were returning from Afghanistan and it was unclear if they had carried goods for foreign troops, Rabi said.
Bakhtiar Khan, another local government official, said Pakistan army engineers were working on the bridge with the aim of reopening it by Thursday.
Twelve suspects have pleaded not guilty to charges of plotting terrorist attacks on a Christian church and a cemetery in Jordan.
The men, all Jordanians of Palestinian origin, are on trial before a military court. If convicted, they could be sentenced to death.
The men were charged with shooting and wounding a group of visiting Lebanese musicians, making and hurling improvised bombs at a cemetery and a church.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2009
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
'We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California,' Steven Chu says. He sees education as a means to combat threat.
One woman stopped at nothing to achieve her twin dreams: a 38KKK bust, and a world record
On February 3, Iran fulfilled its promise to launch its first satellite, Omid (Hope), into orbit by its own carrier rocket before the end of the Iranian year (which ends in March).
Grassroots level leaders of BNP yesterday proposed to party high-ups that it should not continue ties with Jamaat-e-Islami considering the new generation's sentiment, and drop all controversial leaders from party committees at all levels.
A pro-government militia group in the Democratic Republic of Congo has released some 85 child soldiers, UNICEF has announced. The children, aged between 7 and 17, were freed after months of talks with the Mai Mai militiamen, UNICEF spokeswoman Veronique Taveau said on Tuesday. Some children were released in the province of North Kivu Thursday and the rest on Sunday. They included five girls. Taveau stated that the children were starving and traumatized when they were handed over to UNICEF. 
Suspected militants ambushed a police check-post located at Shamozai area in Swat and killed at least five policemen. Meanwhile, curfew is still in force in Matta, Khwazakhela, Kabbal and other areas for 10th straight day. According to sources, five policemen were killed by militants after they captured a police check-post located at Shamozai area, sources said. In another incident, one woman was killed and a minor girl injured when missile hit a home in Shamozai area. Security forces and continued to clash in Qambar and Balogram areas in Mangora. Forces bombed the adjoining areas of Matta and Charbagh tehsils.
Iranian researchers have developed an artificial liver to help improve the quality of life in patients suffering from liver failure.
Police in Tanjung Jabung Barat, Jambi, have confiscated approximately two metric tonnes of marijuana, portioned in different sized packages, suspected to be intended for delivery to Jakarta.
The Israeli-owner of a Ukrainian-flagged arms-loaded ship held by Somali pirates pays 3.2 million dollars in return for the vessel's release. 
Iraqi police have arrested a woman who has confessed to recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers and who helped orchestrate dozens of attacks, a senior officer said on Tuesday. 
(RIA Novosti) - The severed head of a schoolgirl who went missing on January 19 was discovered by residents in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, a law enforcement source said. "Residents found the head of a young woman. Presumably it is the head of the victim in the 'Florist and Butcher Case,'" the source said. 
An outlaw was killed in a 'shootout' with law enforcers at Kotchandpur bus stand in Jhenidah yesterday.
The Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip on Monday approved the killing of Israeli collaborators but denied allegations it had attacked members of the rival Fatah faction during last month's war. "The government will show no mercy to collaborators who stab our people in the back, and they will be held accountable according to the law... if any collaborator is sentenced to death, we will not hesitate to carry it out," government spokesman Taher al-Nunu told reporters.
As the International Criminal Court (ICC) launched a "preliminary analysis" on Tuesday to establish whether Israel had committed war crimes in its assault on Gaza, the Jewish state's warplanes bombed a number of tunnels connecting the strip with Egypt after a rocket launched from the enclave struck the Israeli port city of Ashkelon.
Fifteen more militants were killed by security forces in fresh raids in different parts of Swat on Tuesday. According to sources, security forces and militants continued to clash in different pars of Swat, killing 15 more militants. While curfew is still in force in Matta, Khwazakhela, Kabbal and other areas for the 10th straight day. On the other hand, suspected militants ambushed a police check-post located at Shamozai area in Swat and killed at least five policemen. In another incident, one woman was killed and a minor girl was injured when missile hit their home situated in Shamozai area. Security forces and militants continued to clash in Qambar and Balogram areas in Mangora. Forces bombed the adjoining areas of Matta and Charbagh tehsils.
Five soldiers, including two captains, were injured Monday (February 2nd) when a bomb exploded near their army convoy between Aghribs and Iflissen, about 40km north of Tizi-Ouzou, Tout sur l'Algerie reported. Another bomb exploded in the public park of Ain Zaouia, south of Tizi-Ouzou, around 11 pm Monday night. Security officers successfully disabled another bomb around 3 am on Tuesday. 
(RIA Novosti) - Marking 10 years as Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez said the country has entered a third phase of his "Bolivarian Revolution," local media reported on Tuesday. 
