she was a real piece of work and married to John Conyers (D-stolen frozen turkeys) who remains a Congressional Black Caucus and Demo party stalwart. Wish he could join her Classic? 0
JihadJane, an American woman, faces terrorism charges (unveiled photo at link)
A petite, blond-haired, blue-eyed high school dropout who allegedly used the nickname JihadJane was identified Tuesday as an alleged terrorist intent on recruiting others to her cause, as federal prosecutors unsealed criminal charges that could send her to prison for life.
Colleen Renee LaRose, 46, has been quietly held in U.S. custody since October on suspicions that she provided material support to terrorists and traveled to Sweden to launch an attack, according to federal officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is continuing to unfold.
Across the ocean Tuesday, Irish police conducted morning raids in Cork and Waterford, arresting four men and three women who had been under electronic surveillance by U.S. and Swedish authorities. The seven were suspected of plotting with LaRose to attack a Swedish artist, Lars Vilks, whose 2007 drawing of the prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog enraged Muslims, according to Irish news accounts.
Mark Wilson, a lawyer for LaRose at the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia, declined to comment. LaRose has not yet been scheduled for an arraignment on the charges, according to a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Michael L. Levy.
The path that LaRose, who is 4 feet 11 inches tall and weighs barely more than 100 pounds, may have taken to jihad remains murky. She has been married at least twice and, over several years since the mid-1980s, had been arrested in South Texas for writing bad checks and driving while intoxicated, according to court records obtained by The Washington Post.
She's not been successful, as the world measures such things.
Investigators suggest that she turned to the Internet a few years ago, using the names JihadJane and Fatima LaRose.
In a December 2007 Internet posting located by The Post, "Fatima LaRose," who said she lived in Pennsylvania, asked for advice about how to bring an Egyptian boyfriend with whom she had been corresponding for more than a year to the United States for Christmas.
By March 2009, LaRose had reached out to the Swedish Embassy for information about how to acquire permanent residency in Sweden. The man identified as her potential fiance sent her instructions to "go to sweden . . . find location of" the target and "kill him . . . this is what i say to u."
FBI agents interviewed LaRose in July 2009 in Pennsylvania, where she told them that she had not solicited money for terrorism or posted on a terrorist Web site, according to the indictment, nor used the handle "JihadJane."
In August, LaRose removed and hid the hard drive from her home computer, authorities said. The same day, she traveled to Sweden "with the intent to live and train with jihadists, and to find and kill" her target, the indictment said. LaRose took with her the U.S. passport of a man identified only as "K.G.," with whom she lived, to give it to "the brothers," the indictment said.
K.G. testified to the grand jury that he had not given her his passport.
In September, she performed online searches to find her target, joined an electronic community that he hosted and journeyed to his artists' enclave in Sweden, the indictment said. By Sept. 30, LaRose e-mailed the man identified as her fiance, saying it would be "an honour & great pleasure to die or kill for" him and asserting that "only death will stop me here that i am so close to the target!"
Ladies, if your man wants you to kill or die for him, that's a sign he is not your Prince Charming.
LaRose ultimately returned to the United States, where she was charged in October in a criminal complaint with helping transfer a U.S. passport belonging to K.G.
K.G. is Kurt Gorman, the boyfriend of five years. He had no idea what she did all day at home while he was running the family company. She disappeared the day after his father's funeral.
She appeared in court in Pennsylvania on Oct. 16, where she was appointed a public defender, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney and a representative in the public defender's office.
Authorities declined to address Tuesday why the grand jury indictment of LaRose remained under seal for so long and whether she may have helped law enforcement during her months-long incarceration.
Boyfriend: 'Jihad Jane' Suspect Wasn't Religious
Her boyfriend of five years said LaRose had never hinted at Muslim leanings or attended religious services of any kind. Kurt Gorman, 47, of Pennsburg, said that he met LaRose in Texas and that nothing seemed amiss until she moved out of their apartment without warning in August. "I came home and she was gone. It doesn't make any sense," he said Wednesday outside his small business in nearby Quakertown. "She was a good-hearted person."
LaRose, 46, of Pennsburg but with close ties to south Texas, has been held without bail since her Oct. 15 arrest in Philadelphia.
LaRose had targeted Vilks and had online discussions about her plans with at least one of several suspects apprehended over that plot Tuesday in Ireland, according to the U.S. official.
Irish police said Wednesday those arrested were two Algerians, two Libyans, a Palestinian, a Croatian and an American woman married to one of the Algerian suspects. They were not identified by name.
U.S. Attorney Michael Levy said the indictment doesn't link LaRose to any organized terror groups.
The New York Times adds:
A police statement issued Wednesday in Dublin said the Irish arrests followed a joint investigation by police in Ireland, the United States and "a number of European countries," and that the suspects were being held at four police stations in an area about 100 miles south of Dublin, under a law that allowed for them to be held for up to seven days for questioning.
News reports in Ireland said that the seven being held were from Algeria, Croatia, Palestine, Libya and the United States, and were aged between their mid-20's and late 40's. The Irish Times reported that American investigators believe that the leader of the group was an Algerian who has been living in Ireland for the past 10 years.
The MySpace page appears to have been pulled. The NYT's embedded link yields a 404-Page Not Found.
Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas last night threatened to support a primary challenger against Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio) if he doesn't support the health-care bill. "What he is doing is undermining this reform," he said. "He is making common cause with Republicans. And I think that is a perfect excuse and a rational one for a primary challenge."
Filing deadline for federal candidates in Ohio for the 2010 election: February 18. Best be working on that filing right quick, there, Markos. Classic? 0
The powerful House Appropriations Committee announced Wednesday it will no longer approve earmarks directed at for-profit companies.
Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) and newly appointed defense appropriations subcommittee Chairman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) made their ruling less than an hour after House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) asked that House Republicans meet to take up a unilateral moratorium on earmark spending.
In a statement Obey said that "these new policies are not intended to be a one-year experiment. They are intended to be a long-term proposition."
A number of Democrats and Republicans have undertaken efforts to rein in so-called "pork barrel" spending in recent days, sparking a battle between the parties over who can best reform the earmark process.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has lobbied members of her party in recent days to impose a moratorium on earmarks in order to get out in front of Republicans on the issue.
Republicans discussed enacting a ban in the last Congress, but a vote never materialized.
That the Appropriations Committee decided to bar for-profit earmarks signals that Democrats are looking to make a splash with their effort.
Dicks' successor atop the defense appropriations subcommittee, the late Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), was known for handing out millions of dollars in earmarks to defense contractors to create projects in his district. Murtha's propensity to dole out cash for his district sparked several probes by the ethics committee and federal prosecutors.
Government watchdogs have for years decried the use of earmarks, saying that they are wasteful and cause corruption.
Several lawmakers have pushed for reform for several years, but spending has ballooned under both Republican and Democratic Congresses.
Obey and Dicks claim that 1,000 earmark requests would have been turned down last year if the rule was in place on their panel. The ruling also requires agencies to audit at least 5 percent of non-profit earmarks.
They also announced the creation of a program that allow companies that don't have connections to the Pentagon to present their products to Defense Department officials.
In a release, the two Democrats also touted earmark reforms enacted by Democrats in 2007 and 2009 related to earmark disclosure.
But earmark disclosure reforms pushed by the Obama administration has not reduced the amount of spending, according to a recent report by Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Two Republicans have taken up the issue in addition to Boehner.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has indicated he will force a vote on a one-year moratorium on earmarks when the Senate takes up its extenders bill, which is expected to happen Wednesday.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) is planning to offer a privileged resolution on the House floor requesting better guidance from the ethics committee on taking campaign contributions from companies that accept earmarks.
Republicans have argued that Democratic proposals won't go far enough in cutting earmarks. In a statement, Flake praised the committee's move but said more is needed.
“Banning earmarks to private companies leaves untouched the millions of dollars wasted every year by earmarks, but it is a good first step in addressing the corruption that stems from the practice,” he said. “I hope that Republicans take these restrictions a step further and impose a moratorium on all earmarks this year." Classic? 0
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#2 So basically, this means that stuff like Defense work, which is mostly done by for-profit companies, will be outside the earmark mechanism, while less venally-driven ventures, like the non-profit ACORN, will still be eligible.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain|| 2010-03-10
2010-03-10 19:32
The twisted scheme by which Democratic leaders plan to bend the rules to ram President Obama’s massive health care legislation through Congress now has a name: the Slaughter Solution.
The Slaughter Solution is a plan by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Democratic chair of the powerful House Rules Committee and a key ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), to get the health care legislation through the House without an actual vote on the Senate-passed health care bill. You see, Democratic leaders currently lack the votes needed to pass the Senate health care bill through the House. Under Slaughter’s scheme, Democratic leaders will overcome this problem by simply “deeming” the Senate bill passed in the House - without an actual vote by members of the House.
An article in this morning’s edition of National Journal’s CongressDaily breaks the story, starting with the headline: “SLAUGHTER PREPS RULE TO AVOID DIRECT VOTE ON SENATE BILL.” Excerpts:
House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter is prepping to help usher the healthcare overhaul through the House and potentially avoid a direct vote on the Senate overhaul bill, the chairwoman said Tuesday.
Slaughter is weighing preparing a rule that would consider the Senate bill passed once the House approves a corrections bill that would make changes to the Senate version. Classic? 0
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The propaganda campaign by the US government is trying to mask the fact that the economic recovery plan is failing and that America is rapidly losing confidence in Team Obama.
You cannot have a sustained recovery without changing the underlying conditions that caused the failure in the first place.
In addition to the media blitz dissected by Yves Smith in the essay excerpted below, I have never seen such a load of rubbish being put forward with regard to the markets in US financial assets and commodities, and I have seen quite a bit in the last twenty years. In particular, the campaigns against gold and silver in particular are heavy-handed, obvious, and reaching the point of hysteria.
The shorts are trapped, hopelessly trapped, and unable to deliver on their massive short positions. They are only able to manipulate the price in short term bursts, and continue to dig themselves deeper as the world demand continues to drain them.
Whoever heard of a bubble in which the major money center banks are so perilously short it? A bubble requires a broad participation and belief, and the encouragement of the market makers. And now a statement from an "SEC official" that there is a gold bubble. This, from the very people who allegedly could not see the tech, housing and credit bubbles until they fell on top of them.
And of course there are the funds and the wealthy, who mouth the same party line while lining their portfolios with huge positions and personal holdings.
Various exigencies can compel the big players to make statements swearing gold and silver are no good, no store of value against all the evidence of history. But the fact remains that the US dollar reserve currency regime is falling apart, tumbling like the humpty-dumpty construct that it is. And the status quo is shitting their collective pants about it, and the likely backlash from the public when their deceptions are exposed.
Don't expect the Ancien Régime fiancier to fall easily, quietly, or quickly. But it will change; change is the only inevitability. And we all suspect what will remain standing when the dust settles. All this noise seems more like haggling over a larger quantity for a better price, and a clearer path to the exit.
Even the liberals are beginning to notice and take heed. Classic? 0
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#1 These morons in Washington have screwed up the economy royally. You can't have a sustained recovery without a manufacturing base that provides good long-term jobs for people. About the only people doing well in this recession [depression] are politicians, government workers, and the financial people on Wall Street that helped get us in this mess. You cannot have a healthy economy when it is all directed from Washington and when it ignores the private sector.
#2 JohnQC and all knowledgeable Ranties, can someone explain what kind of manufacturing base is even possible in this day and age that would provide large scale job potential?
It seems that all the mass employment areas have long since been transferred to computerized equipment and that there are no auto-industries that could gainfully employ large numbers of relatively untrained workers. This isn't the depression when thousands of backs with shovels are needed.
I'm not a luddite and not averse to progress but I don't have a vision for a new economy with a high number of well paid jobs. Heck, there's even less need for programmers than 25 years ago do to the amount of automation in that business. (30+ years in software here so I know what I'm talking about)
Where are the jobs that make good money in the new world and how are people going to be trained to fill them? It seems that high paying jobs for most people was also a bubble that is bursting.
Sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that that "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican", according to the Holy See's chief exorcist.
Father Gabriele Amorth, 85, who has been the Vatican's chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession, said that the consequences of satanic infiltration included power struggles at the Vatican as well as "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon".
Father Amorth, who has just published Memoirs of an Exorcist, a series of interviews with the Vatican journalist Marco Tosatti, said that the attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II in 1981 had been the work of the Devil, as had an incident last Christmas when a mentally disturbed woman threw herself at Pope Benedict XVI at the start of Midnight Mass, pulling him to the ground.
Father José Antonio Fortea Cucurull, a Rome-based exorcist, said that Father Amorth had "gone well beyond the evidence" in claiming that Satan had infiltrated the Vatican corridors.
"Cardinals might be better or worse, but all have upright intentions and seek the glory of God," he said. Some Vatican officials were more pious than others, "but from there to affirm that some cardinals are members of satanic sects is an unacceptable distance."
Father Amorth told La Repubblica that the devil was "pure spirit, invisible. But he manifests himself with blasphemies and afflictions in the person he possesses. He can remain hidden, or speak in different languages, transform himself or appear to be agreeable. At times he makes fun of me." Classic? 0
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#3 sex abuse scandals in my Catholic Church were a demonstration of the powerful to hide, obfuscate, and enable disgusting and (sinful and morally) unacceptable behavior. The offending parties are being rooted out (have been for the most part) and hopefully prevented forever. Evil has a face, and sometimes it's simply "the convenient over the difficult, but necessary". Sad to say, fallible human nature includes the clergy, but one expects, and rightfully demands, more
#1 Dusty hypotheticals make for interesting books I suppose. I must be the only one who isn't writing one. Does all of this mean we can no longer...blame Bush?
What could go wrong?
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is trying to encourage public retirement funds that control more than $2 trillion to buy all or part of failed lenders, taking a more direct role in propping up the banking system, said people briefed on the matter.
Direct investments may allow funds such as those in Oregon, New Jersey and California to cut fees for private-equity managers, and the agency to get better prices for distressed assets, the people said. They declined to be identified because talks with regulators are confidential.
Oregon's retirement fund may contribute $100 million as regulators seek "the support of state pension funds to solve the crisis surrounding ongoing bank failures," Jay Fewel, a senior investment officer at the Oregon State Treasury, said in a presentation at the fund's Feb. 24 meeting. New Jersey's fund may also participate, said Orin Kramer, chairman of New Jersey's State Investment Council.
The FDIC shuttered 140 lenders last year and expects the tally may be higher in 2010. Regulators have avoided signing up private-equity firms as rescuers on concern that they might take too much risk. Pension funds, whose 100 largest members manage $2.4 trillion, could provide capital to acquire deposits and outstanding loans from collapsed banks, according to the people.
Welcome Mat
"The FDIC is constantly looking at structures where we can get the greatest opportunity to tap into capital that we have not had the success reaching through previous disposition methods," FDIC spokeswoman Michele Heller said in an e-mailed statement. "We welcome and work with all investors."
Current rules don't prohibit pension funds from buying failed banks. Until now, they have typically chosen to invest through private-equity firms using limited partnerships, which gives pension funds little to no control over the day-to-day management of the investments. They also pay management fees levied on the amount of money committed as well as a percentage of any profit.
"We've been examining a broad range of alternatives to take advantage of what I believe are attractive transactions coming out of the FDIC," said New Jersey's Kramer. The state pension system faced a shortfall of about $46 billion as of last year because of investment declines and a failure to make full contributions, according to annual financial reports.
Oregon State Fund
Oregon would invest in Community Bancorp LLC, a bank being formed by Sageview Capital LLC, according to the Oregon presentation. Sageview was founded by former Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. executives Scott Stuart and Ned Gilhuly. Sageview is looking to raise about $1 billion from pension funds and similar investors, the presentation said.
While the structure makes sense, pension funds would be better off investing in existing banks, said Chris Whalen, managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics of Torrance, California. At those lenders, management will oversee details of buying failed lenders and save pension funds the time and effort needed to launch a new bank, he said.
"If they are really interested in playing this area, they should put their money into a larger bank that's already playing here," Whalen said. "If you look at the risk-reward and the distraction involved, it's not worth it" to back a new bank, he said.
Investing in distressed banks doesn't always pay off, as the U.S. Treasury Department learned with the Troubled Asset Relief Program. At least 60 lenders skipped some of their promised dividends to the TARP fund, according to SNL Financial, and a $2.33 billion stake in CIT Group Inc. was wiped out last year when the lender went bankrupt.
Amegy's Paul Murphy
Sageview, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Palo Alto, California, would get yearly fees as an adviser and would also invest about $100 million of its own. Ruth Pachman, a spokeswoman for Community Bancorp, declined to comment.
Community Bancorp will look to buy three or four banks in the next three years and will be run by Paul Murphy, the presentation said. Murphy built Houston-based Amegy Bank into a $12.3 billion-asset lender over more than a decade, and it's now owned by Salt Lake City-based Zions Bancorporation.
"We're pleased with the Oregon decision," Murphy said in an interview. He declined to comment further as the group is still raising capital and in a "quiet period."
Spokesman James Sinks at Oregon's Treasury said the state is still negotiating its commitment, and declined elaborate.
Calpers Presentation
After the credit crisis ate into private-equity returns, pension managers started looking for ways to trim fees and boost returns. The California Public Employees' Retirement System, the largest U.S. public pension fund, said in a Feb. 16 presentation that one of its goals is to increase its "co-investments" in transactions alongside money managers. That kind of structure could give the pension fund an actual stake in firms purchased, rather than the private-equity firm's buyout fund, according to the people.
Known as Calpers, the pension fund plans to "explore unique structures with select general partners," according to the presentation. The fund's investment portfolio was valued at $203.3 billion as of Dec. 31, according to the Calpers Web site. Spokesman Brad Pacheco didn't respond to a request for comment.
Regulators have been debating how much leeway to give private buyers of failed banks on concern that they're more likely to put federally insured deposits at risk, or will look to flip the bank for a quick profit.
Longer Horizon
Private-equity managed funds typically promise they'll return funds to their investors in about 10 years. Pension funds are aiming to fund retirements that are decades away and thus can hold on to investments longer, which would help ease the FDIC's concern, said one of the people.
FDIC guarantees may soften the risk of investing public pension money in distressed banks, Whalen said. When the FDIC sells a failed bank, it typically shares a portion of the loan losses.
"Financially sophisticated people do not assume that banks have recognized all of their real estate losses," Kramer said, adding that it can still be a bad deal if a buyer overpays for a deposit franchise or if loans perform worse than expected. "We are in the early innings for commercial real estate."
#1 Dead horse. Stick. If they had rechartered Hamilton's Bank of the United States for 20 years back in the fall of 2008 to absorb all these banks and institutions, taking not just the debt but the assets as well would we still be here with crap like this? You would have seen the Wall Street firms pay big bucks for a lot of the banks and the like and take the debt in order to get their hands on them rather than see the assets disappear for 20 years. We're killing little ones so that the Big Ones won't have competition in the future rather than consolidating our own Big One from the market. Instead we pass the assets on and suck up the debt in the continuing wave of FDIC closures.
#2 "Seriously. Two Words. 'Gigli 2'. It will be a guaranteed box-office smash. Trust me. The public is dying to see Ben Affleck and J-Lo together again. You'll make a fortune!...Hello?...Hello?"
Reuters) - A suspected mastermind of the Bali bombings was killed in a police raid in Indonesia in the latest blow to an Islamist militant movement in the world's most populous Muslim country. Dulmatin, who once trained with al Qaeda in Afghanistan, was one of three militants killed in a shootout with police at an Internet cafe and a house nearby, Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Wednesday.
"Today I can announce to you that after a successful police raid against the terrorists hiding out in Jakarta yesterday, we can confirm that one of those that was killed was Dulmatin, one of the top Southeast Asian terrorists," Yudhoyono said in a speech in Australia's parliament house in Canberra.
The series of police raids that led to Dulmatin's death will be seen as a coup in Indonesia's fight against Islamist radicals ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit March 20-22. But analysts said Dulmatin's emergence in Indonesia with a new group showed a worrisome ability of local militants to forge international links, including with al Qaeda-affiliated outfits.
Police shot dead Dulmatin, who they said fired at officers with a revolver he was carrying, and two others in a series of coordinated raids on the outskirts of Jakarta on Tuesday.
Dulmatin's body was identified after DNA tests and also by his chin shape, eyebrows and freckles, police said on Wednesday. The other two men killed were said to be his bodyguards.
Dulmatin, an electronics specialist, was a top bomb technician for the Southeast Asian Islamist militant group, Jemaah Islamiah. Authorities say he helped plan the suicide bombings that ripped apart two night clubs in Bali and killed 202 people in 2002.
He fled to the southern Philippines in 2003 and the U.S. government had a $10 million reward for his capture. The 40-year-old who was born in Central Java is said to have been wounded after escaping a raid by Philippine security forces.
JIHADIST BASE
Indonesia's counter-terrorism unit, Detachment 88, has launched raids across the archipelago following the discovery of a militant Islamist training camp in Aceh last month. Books on jihad, rifles and military uniforms were found during the raids in which 21 suspected members of the group were detained in Aceh and Java.
Aceh's governor, Irwandi Yusuf, was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying on Tuesday the group planned to set up a Southeast Asian jihadist network in the Sumatran province. Analysts said Dulmatin had the capability to succeed Noordin Mohammad Top, a Malaysian-born militant and bomb maker killed by police last year during a raid in central Java.
Top, who set up a violent splinter group of Jemaah Islamiah, masterminded a series of bombings including suicide attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta last July.
Sidney Jones, an expert at the International Crisis Group, said the new group was also a splinter of Jemaah Islamiah, likely calling itself the Aceh branch of al Qaeda for Southeast Asia (Tandzim Al Qoidah Indonesia Wilayah Serambi Makkah) Jones said that the militants were probably planning attacks but the recent arrests and deaths should have damaged their capacity to carry them out for now.
But the analyst said it was unclear if there were other Aceh-like cells and the re-emergence of Dulmatin in Indonesia showed the worrying extent of the international links Indonesia militants have forged. "This means that there probably was far more coordination with the Philippines over the last five years than we had any appreciation of," she said.
In the Philippines, Dulmatin was last thought to be operating with the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group, along with another Indonesian wanted over the Bali bombings, Umar Patek.
National Police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri told a news conference that the raids in Jakarta had turned up remote controls that could be used to detonate bombs. He also said that Dulmatin was more dangerous than some other well known militants, including expert bomb-maker Azahari Husin, who was killed by Indonesian police.
Dulmatin's group had secured 500 million rupiah ($54,500) to buy weapons and for military training, with more money available, he added. Security analyst Dynno Chressbon said Dulmatin's group was believed to have supplied about 27 weapons, including M-16s and AK-47s to the group in Aceh.
Since the 2002 Bali bombings, Indonesian authorities have captured or killed around 440 militant suspects, with around 250 convicted in courts and three executed by firing squad. Classic? 0
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#3 identified after DNA tests and also by his chin shape, eyebrows and freckles
Does this imply that said parts were not ummm, contiguous when ID was made?
Militants armed with guns and grenades stormed the offices of a US-based Christian charity in Pakistan on Wednesday, killing six aid workers in an attack blamed on Islamist rebels.
The gunmen stormed the World Vision building near the town of Oghi in the Mansehra district of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), where Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants have waged a deadly campaign.
The aid group condemned the attack as "brutal and senseless", and indefinitely suspended all of World Vision?s operations in Pakistan, where the charity has about 300 staff.
World Vision said six Pakistani employees, including two women, were killed and seven others wounded when up to 15 gunmen arrived in pick-up vehicles and began firing on the aid workers.
"They gathered all of us in one room. The gunmen, some of whom had their faces covered, also snatched our mobile phones," said World Vision administration officer Mohammad Sajid, who was in the office at the time. "They dragged people one by one and shifted to an adjacent room and shot and killed them... After that one of them said: 'It is enough, we should leave now'. While leaving they lobbed grenades."
Rienk van Velzen, World Vision's regional communications director, told AFP by telephone from the Netherlands that all staff in the office were Pakistani.
"We have four male and two female staff members killed," he said.
The organisation has operated in the area since October 2005, when aid workers flooded into the northwest after a 7.6-magnitude earthquake killed more than 73,000 people and left about 3.5 million homeless. Classic? 0
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#1 WV is one of the best clean charities out there. They don't suck up a lot of money into salaries, etc. They do good work and get the money to the people who need it with minimal loss.
These Mulsims are beasts. And this is who Obama wants to favor over India.
LEADING papers have published a cartoon of Prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog by a caricaturist who was the target of an assassination plot.
The Dagens Nyheter newspaper said it was publishing the cartoon of Muslims arrested in Ireland as a sign of solidarity with the artist Lars Vilks.
"Lars Vilks is not alone in this conflict. A threat against him is, in the end, a threat against all Swedish people," Dagens Nyheter said in an editorial which reproduced the controversial cartoon.
Irish police arrested seven Muslims suspected of conspiracy to murder Vilks because of his cartoon. The four men and three women were arrested yesterday in the towns of Cork and Waterford in an operation coordinated with US and European security agencies.
Police said there was a plot to assassinate Vilks, who has a $100,000 bounty on his head from an Al Qaeda-linked group.
Dagens Nyheter called on the Swedish state to give Vilks "all the protection he needs."
It said authorities must take action "against an attack aiming at one of our most fundamental rights, freedom of expression."
The Expressen tabloid also published the cartoon with a picture of Vilks. "Expressen decided to publish the drawing for two reasons: To allow readers to see the controversial work and to defend freedom of expression which is more and more threatened," it said in an editorial. "An open society must show that (it) will not give in to threats, that it is ready to fight for freedom of expression."
The regional daily Nerikes Allehanda first published Vilks' satirical cartoon on Aug. 18, 2007, to illustrate an editorial on the importance of freedom of expression. It caused controversy in Sweden and abroad, and a group linked to Al Qaeda offered $100,000 for the killing of Vilks.
Vilks said Tuesday he was not worried by the arrests in Ireland or the threats on his life. "I'm not shaking with fear, exactly," he told Swedish news agency TT. Classic? 0
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Committee members find ways to excuse colleagues' bad behavior.
What does it take for a member of Congress to get in real trouble with the House ethics committee?
Quite a lot.
In fact, only one lawmaker -- Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. -- has merited even a wrist slap since Democrats were swept into the majority in 2007 on a wave of voter revulsion to scandals engulfing Republicans in Congress. Back then, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through more stringent rules, vowed stricter enforcement and famously promised to "drain the swamp."
Well, she's going to need a bigger pump.
So far, the supposedly invigorated bipartisan House ethics committee has:
Handed down its limpest discipline, an "admonishment," after finding that Rangel had taken two free trips to Caribbean conferences even though he should have known that big corporations indirectly financed them in violation of House rules.
The committee has yet to finish reviewing Rangel's more serious ethical problems, such as glaring omissions on his congressional financial disclosure statements. (Pending the outcome, Rangel has taken a "leave of absence" from his powerful post as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.)
Exonerated five others who took the same trips as Rangel. The committee bought their stories that they didn't know about corporate sponsorship. Funny, conference photos show lawmakers standing in front of a bunch of corporate logos. Maybe they were blinded by the Caribbean sun.
Essentially gave lawmakers a go-ahead to solicit campaign donations from business executives and lobbyists who apparently believe they're paying for federal contracts. Last month, the committee cleared seven members despite the findings by an independent investigative panel that two of them -- Reps. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., and Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan. -- might have tacitly tied requests for campaign donations to legislative earmarks profiting specific companies.
Visclosky, according to the panel's report, solicited contributions from a lobbying firm and its clients and gave the companies special access to himself and his staff one week before an earmarking session. Even though the committee found nothing wrong, federal prosecutors are investigating.
Issued guidance telling lawmakers how to get around one of the more hated of the new ethics rules, which was supposed to end the practice of lobbyists throwing lavish parties to fete members. In 2008, the 10-member ethics panel said such parties are OK if they honor multiple members.
All of this is a far cry from the Democrats' vows to improve the Republicans' old see-no-evil ethics apparatus. The Democrats like to point out that they created an independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to investigate allegations, recommend action to the ethics committee and issue public reports. But they promptly emasculated their new creation by failing to give it subpoena power and ignoring its findings in several cases, despite evidence that members violated House rules.
Sadly, there is nothing new about ethically challenged lawmakers or ethics committees that act more as enablers than policemen. The solutions, too, have been obvious for a long time. The House needs an OCE with real investigative powers, an ethics committee that actually cares about ethics, and a speaker willing to stand up for strict rules when powerful members get caught breaking them.
Until honest, ethical members take a stand, the sleazy behavior so accepted on Capitol Hill will continue to tar them all. Classic? 0
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#2 [Pelosi] promised to "drain the swamp."
Well, she's going to need a bigger pump.
Or someone who is up to the task. Or a much, much smaller swamp as the result of the November 2010 election.
#4 She didn't intend to drain it. She has dredged it so now it's deeper and the water "cleaner" so as not to endanger the Dems that are wallowing in C Musso's hot tub.
#1 Never heard the expression, something like an urban version of the Post Turtle or is it more cutting like surrounded by the modern world with no escape but to bark, bite and piss?
#3 From Wikipedia:
A roundabout dog (Swedish: rondellhund, originally Östgötsk rondellhund, "Ostrogothian roundabout dog") is a form of street installation, which began occurring during the autumn of 2006 in cities and towns all over Sweden. Anonymous people put out homemade dog sculptures, typically made of wood (or sometimes plastic, metal and textile) in roundabouts. The phenomenon has been reported all over Sweden and has also started occurring in other countries, such as Spain after it was being mentioned on Spanish television (PuntoDos).[1] Swedish tabloid paper Expressen even placed one at Piccadilly Circus.[2]
#6 Sooo...kinda a garden gnome..or as a sort of civil protest? Just trying the understand the context.
I mean, if someone did a Boticelli style painting of mo looking into a pool and seeing a million faces of mo and none of the matching his perfection, a mockery of sorts, then yeah I would put that there with piss cross if grading on a level of uproar potential. As it was said this looked like bathroom graffitti. It could have been see-through mo with the thin skin, a ton of other things. Just trying to understand why get upset about this (which is the point of course).
Just seven minutes into Glenn Beck's hour-long interview of Eric Massa on Tuesday evening, things had already gone very wrong.
Conservatives had hopes that the now-former Democratic congressman from Upstate New York, who resigned abruptly under an ethics cloud, would deliver the goods about corruption and strong-arm tactics in the Obama White House and Congress. But instead, Massa served up an icky new confession.
"Now they're saying I groped a male staffer," he volunteered. "Yeah, I did. Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn't breathe and then four guys jumped on top of me. It was my 50th birthday." Classic? 0
Continued on Page 49
#1 Massa was just looking for another soap box. I don't get him; he was an Annapolis graduate and a career naval officer. Turns out he is kind of goofy. Perhaps what he had to say was true; maybe not.
#3 --This is now the 4th vacancy in the House with the potential to be a YES to the bill, just sayin? (Fl 19, Pa 12, Hi 1, now NY 29)--
(Senate bill officially expires 12/24/10)
#4 I get the storyline: like Tiger Woods all these incidents with the various D's were not common knowledge but well known so why are they all coming out now? New York snubbed the overauthority of KSM, various other deeds by the WH, this guy and others like Kucinich catching hell for being their own instead of blanks for the party vote. I get that, not a Beck fan, long shot interview to say the least.
In September 2006, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislative leaders treated AB 32's enactment as a huge milestone. Meant to reduce the emissions that contribute to global warming, the law forced a shift to cleaner-but-costlier forms of energy. This shift would be accomplished with a "cap-and-trade" system in which companies would buy and sell their emission rations, creating market incentives to reduce pollution.
The landmark legislation was meant to inspire other states, the federal government and the rest of the world to follow suit with similar laws. The governor was so sure this would happen that he declared the bill "will change the course of history."
Forty-two months later, this claim looks silly. No other state has imposed a similar law. The Senate has grown increasingly cold to a measure the House approved last summer. Most tellingly, a December summit in Copenhagen meant to build a global cap-and-trade consensus went nowhere.
Why? Because there is a widespread assumption that it is not a good idea to suddenly force the use of costlier energy during an economic downturn that has wiped out tens of millions of jobs around the world.
This common sense is on display in Washington. On Jan. 20, seven Senate Democrats -- including California's Dianne Feinstein -- called for "cap-and-trade" to be put aside in favor of an intense focus on jobs and reviving the economy.
But in Sacramento -- even with unemployment at a 70-year high of 12.7 percent -- this common sense is assailed. Even as the respected, nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office warns that AB 32's implementation would force the loss of jobs, proposals to suspend AB 32 by Republican lawmakers and GOP gubernatorial candidates are ridiculed by the governor and the likely Democratic candidate to replace him.
Schwarzenegger calls the idea a throwback to the "Stone Age." Attorney General Jerry Brown is similarly contemptuous.
What is driving this immense disconnect?
Why would they dismiss what looks like common sense to the rest of the world?
Why are they so blithe even as the LAO warns AB 32 is likely to make the state's astronomical unemployment rate even higher?
The answer with Schwarzenegger lies in his abiding conviction that the 2006 law will lead to his being remembered as a global green giant -- even as the evidence accumulates that its main effect was not to inspire the world but to kneecap California's economy.
The answer with Brown lies in his determination to woo greener-than-thou West Los Angeles and Bay Area liberals -- even as the evidence accumulates that AB 32 will destroy blue-collar jobs held by the folks Democrats are supposed to care most about.
Either way, these key leaders aren't helping Californians. Perhaps when state unemployment reaches 15 percent, what's common sense to the rest of the world will finally register with the governor and his would-be successor.
#1 its main effect was not to inspire the world but to kneecap California's economy.
The INTENT of the global equivalent is to kneecap the US economy. California is demonstrating the effectiveness.
The economic crisis and the resulting growing unrest offer the EU government in Brussels a welcome opportunity to quietly test the deployment of a 'secret' EU force, which was established to put down uprisings in the EU. This secret unit is called EUROGENDFOR, has its headquarters in northern Italy, and is now preparing to leave for Greece, to be deployed against the population of an EU country.
In Brussels, all preparations are being made to for the first time employ the 'secret' EU force to crack down on uprisings. Most Europeans have never heard of this 'secret' unit.
The staff of the European task force of 3,000 troops has its headquarters In the Italian town of Vicenza [in the "Generale Chinotto" barracks], and is called "EUROGENDFOR".
It was initiated by the former French Defense Minister Alliot-Marie after the French had to deal more and more frequently with internal uprisings of Muslim immigrant youth with street battles and looting.
With the powers of the secret service, the equipped unit must in close cooperation with the European military guarantee the 'security in European foci of crises'. It is its duty as a police force to crush rebellions. More and more EU countries are joining EUROGENDFOR.
From the Eurogendfor website: "...the EGF HQ is now developing a comprehensive and coherent operational system, which will permit to be ready in case of prompt deployment to crisis areas. EGF goal is to provide the International Community with a valid and operational instrument for crisis management, first and foremost at disposal of EU, but also of other International Organizations, as NATO, UN and OSCE, and ad hoc coalitions."
Note: Turkey joins the European Gendarmerie force as Observer. "Furthermore," Furthermore EGF states: "...it is excellently suitable for deployment parallel with or immediately after a military operation to maintain public order and safety as well as in situations where local police services are not (sufficiently) deployed. Since January 2007, the EU has in theory always had two battlegroups on call, each comprising at least 1500 combat soldiers."
EUROGENDFOR is nothing else but a paramilitary police unit which in times of crisis can be deployed instead of the regularly army, so as not to raise the impression that an army of the country itself would fire on its own citizens.
To that purpose the secret unit EUROGENDFOR exists. The European Gendarmerie Force could theoretically be deployed anywhere the EU sees a crisis -- for example, when an EU country does not ratify the Lisbon Treaty, or against the will of the central government in Brussels wants to leave the EU. It's in the Lisbon Treaty, which regulates the deployment of EUROGENDFOR. Classic? 0
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#2 Well, if it was needed, this is a perfect statement that there is no such thing as national sovereignty left in the EU. Greeks no longer control their country and every other "nation" in the EU is the same.
Who will be the next to feel the weight of the EU? Portugal? Italy? Spain? If the EU goes after a larger "province" with its police might, things could get a trifle interesting, no?
#3 Where do they get the idea this force is going to Greece? It sounds like a glorified policeman's association to me. The sort of thing that could muster a few thousand troops of lousy quality, not some sort of ridiculous fascist boot brigade.
#5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EUROGENDFOR
Call it a hunch, but I suspect that the European intent is to model this after one of the 40+ US national police agencies. Which one, I have no idea.
#6 If they do go to Greece, I hope they get butchered. I want to see the complete collapse of the EU and then a disbanding and return to its individual Nation States & currencies.
Posted by: Don Vito Uleash|| 2010-03-10
2010-03-10 15:49
#7 The Brussels Journal is getting a little paranoid here. So far in Greece, all that has happened is a few Lefties and trade unionists have instigated some minor disturbances.
Wait till next year and the year after when the austerity measures really bite and the Greek economy goes into a major slump. You may well see large scale disturbances then.
It has been said well and famously that politicians only really commit a gaffe when they tell the truth without meaning to. Add House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the list.
Speaking Tuesday to the 2010 Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties, Pelosi began the windup of her healthcare pitch by alluding to the controversies over the healthcare bill and the process by which it has reached its current state. Then, just after saying, "It's going to be very, very exciting," Pelosi gaffed, telling the local elected officials assembled that Congress "[has] to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it, away from the fog of controversy."
This is the same Nancy Pelosi who, only weeks earlier, was bragging about the transparency of the process that produced the bill that is currently stalled in Congress. The same Pelosi who brushed aside concerns raised by organizations like Let Freedom Ring!--where I am a senior fellow--that members of Congress actually commit to reading the bill before voting for it and that it be posted online for at least 72 hours before any vote so that the American people can read it, too.
In fact, as supporters of the current healthcare bill will no doubt point out, the bill Pelosi and the White House are trying to move to the president's desk passed the Senate at Christmas. It has been on the Web for well over 72 hours; indeed it has been discussed and dissected by healthcare policy experts repeatedly over the last two months. But if that is the case, why is Pelosi telling the National Association of Counties that the bill has to pass before they--and the rest of us "can find out what's in it." What is she hiding?
#3 This is just outrageous! She wants the American people to buy a "pig in a poke." These people will do anything to pass this abortion of a bill. It is not about health care for the Amercian people but about a sheer, raw grab for power.
Road signs warning drivers that intoxicated people may be in the road have been put up as Romania tries to reduce the number of accidents.
The signs read "Attention — Drunks" and show a reveller crawling along with a bottle in his hand.
Petru Antal, the Mayor of Pecica in Romania said his town had a vibrant nightlife.
"We are a border town and have lots of cars thundering through here all the time," he said. "But we also have a very vibrant nightlife and the two don't mix. We have to target the drivers because by the time they get to this state the pedestrians are beyond caring."
#2 The crosswalk would only be 1 line perp. to the road?
Reminds me of the joke of the city driver out in the country upset at hitting the deer b/c the deer didn't cross at the sign.
China's exports jumped by 46% in February compared with a year ago, raising hopes of a strong recovery in global trade. The increase was higher than analysts' expectations of a rise of between 35% and 40%.
The recovery seems to have gained legs and this will give China's government more confidence to start revaluing the yuan.
Ren Xianfang, IHS Global Insight
It is likely to increase pressure on the Chinese government to raise the value of the yuan, which the US in particular complains is undervalued. China's imports also rose strongly, increasing by 44.7% last month.
The rise in imports reduced China's trade surplus to a one-year low of $7.6bn (£5bn) for February. Classic? 0
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Is the Middle East about to go officially nuclear?
Dual announcements Tuesday by bitter rivals Israel and Syria that they want to pursue atomic power plants could complicate the diplomatic storm over Iran's nuclear program and fuel a widening web of suspicion across the Middle East.
In a region where few trust each other to keep a nuclear program peaceful, Israel -- which is widely thought to have a secret nuclear weapons program -- is unlikely to accept Syrian assurances its program is civilian. Looming in the background Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates also have ambitions to develop nuclear power.
Israel's Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau dodged regional politics in announcing his country's intentions at a nuclear energy conference in Paris, painting them instead in earth friendly tones.
"We need this energy source because it is environmentally clean," Landau told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the conference. Nuclear fission contributes far less to global warming than burning of coal, but it worries many because of the risks of long-term waste storage and proliferation of potentially deadly nuclear technology.
Building atomic power plants would enable Israel to reduce its dependence on imported fossil fuels and meet its long-term energy needs. Such construction could also increase pressure on Israel to open its facilities to inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which would shine a spotlight on an area the country has long kept secret.
The Jewish state is used to being accused of nuclear hypocrisy. It demands a nuclear-free Iran when no one doubts Israel has nuclear weapons of its own.
Charges of double standards could intensify -- making it harder for Israel to argue that Iran must open all its facilities to world scrutiny.
Landau said his country would open any nuclear power plants to international inspections -- but said "we don't see a reason" to allow inspectors into sites that are believed to house Israel's nuclear weapons, or to sign the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The situation could also complicate U.S.-led efforts to level a new round of U.N. sanctions against Iran for refusing to cooperate with nuclear inspectors. Tehran says its uranium enrichment activities are peaceful but many world powers suspect the Islamic republic is seeking weapons.
"Israel's probably trying to create an exemption for itself, but I don't think people will buy it. Too many Arab countries and too many non-aligned countries would react pretty badly," said David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear weapons inspector who now heads the Institute for Science and International Security.
The Iran standoff and Israel's own case illustrate how hard it is for the U.N. watchdog to keep nuclear technology confined to producing electricity and out of the arms sphere.
Syria, meanwhile, has its own nuclear ambitions.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Mekdad, also at the Paris conference, said his country would like to consider alternative energy sources, "including nuclear energy," to meet rising demand.
So far those dreams appear distant. Syria has little know-how or money to invest in building nuclear power plants, which are enormously expensive. They do, however, reflect rising regional interest in the technology.
The United States is providing financing and training for nuclear power plans in Jordan. The United Arab Emirates in December awarded a South Korean consortium a contract to build energy-producing nuclear reactors. Egypt has two small nuclear reactors used for research and is pursuing power-producing reactors.
Israel has acted in the past to keep regional enemies from pursuing nuclear programs.
In 2008, Israeli warplanes struck a Syrian site the U.S. alleged was a plutonium-producing reactor secretly being constructed with help from North Korea. Syria has maintained the site was an unused military installation.
An Israeli raid in 1981 destroyed Iraq's partially built Osirak nuclear reactor.
Landau called Israel's need for nuclear energy "imminent" but gave no timeline for building a nuclear plant.
Israeli energy expert Amit Mor estimated it would take 15 to 20 years for Israel to build a reactor. The country will also have to find someone willing to sell it the equipment to build the nuclear power plants, which could prove challenging since Israel is not a signatory to non-proliferation treaty.
India could be one source, as well as a possible example for Israel to follow. India has avoided signing the non-proliferation treaty but has developed nuclear energy and weapons with international help, including from the United States.
Landau said his country would like to build a reactor in cooperation with scientists and engineers from "our Arab neighbors" -- a prospect that appears unlikely in the current atmosphere of particularly strained Arab-Israeli relations.
In the past Israel floated the possibility of cooperation with Egypt on nuclear energy; the current talk is of a possible French-Israeli-Jordanian project.
Jordanian officials dismissed the idea.
"It's too early to talk about any regional cooperation with Israel before a solution is found to the Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts," said Khaled Toukan, chief of Jordan's Atomic Energy Commission.
Landau met several months ago with the French Energy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo to discuss possible joint nuclear efforts. France derives more of its electricity from nuclear power than any other country and Paris sees export potential.
It was France that, beginning in the 1950s, helped Israel build its nuclear reactor at Dimona. Israel is believed to have used that reactor to construct a stockpile of nuclear weapons. Israel also has a smaller nuclear reactor for research at Nahal Soreq, not far from Tel Aviv. Classic? 0
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#1 But this election is a big deal because Iraqis — with the help of the U.N., the U.S. military and the Obama team, particularly Vice President Joe Biden — overcame two huge obstacles. - Thomas Friedman
nuff said. A$$hole of the day award. The man loves authoritarian China over the rough and base politics of American democracy. He lauds his masters, to whom he's sold his soul to, ignoring the blood and sacrifice of the American soldier and W's surge effort his masters denounced as failed. Note to NYT, there is no memory hole with the internet.
#3 I'm no Friedman fan, but at least he does give some credit to Bush:
Former President George W. Bush’s gut instinct that this region craved and needed democracy was always right. It should have and could have been pursued with much better planning and execution. This war has been extraordinarily painful and costly. But democracy was never going to have a virgin birth in a place like Iraq, which has never known any such thing.
As for those who, "argue that nothing that happens in Iraq will ever justify the costs.", they are either willfully ignorant or think nothing is worth fighting for. What do they have to say about the cost and sacrifice incurred to give birth to our own democracy? What do they have to say about the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WWII? Were those not worth the costs, as well?
"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
-John Stuart Mill
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
-Samuel Adams
#5 "If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
-Samuel Adams
Makes me yearn more for the writings of our founding fathers. We have strayed too far away from their wise guidance...
#6 Methinks Obama needs to read less of Saul Alinsky and more of Sam and John Adams and Thomas Payne and Jefferson and Hamilton...but he won't he's an America hater from way back and we were played by the media who were played by the Obama team who were played by Obama.
Newsflash to all of you dingbats that voted for the moron that is President....ITS TIME TO SCRAP OFF THE BUMPER STICKERS. You don't want anyone to know you willingly voted for him!!!
Posted by: Karl Rove|| 2010-03-10
2010-03-10 10:13
#7 Former President George W. Bush's gut instinct that this region craved and needed democracy was always right. It should have and could have been pursued with much better planning and execution.
My take on the whole thing is that W didn't want to fight both wars at the same time. The region and the type of enemies we are fighting demands the kind of fighting we are doing today with restrictive ROEs and therefore insane numbers of troops. Can't do both at the same time. So he fought to settle the war in Iraq first, and left Noblahblah to figure out how to deal with Afghanistan since his mouth already wrote the check that "Afghanistan is the right war" and Noblahblah's political promises wouldn't allow him to walk away from it without crushing results. I'd say W did as well as anyone could possibly have imagined once he saw the path through the chaos, which was impossible to foresee. With as many armchair generals as we have, myself included, some of them will see it before the rest but the trick for those in charge is to recognize whose vision is correct in foresight, not hindsight.
#8 Good job Iraqis, doin just fine, lots to do still, keep it up.
I know much has been made concerning Obama's Dad's view of the British. Those names listed were not exactly fond of the British as well. Would it be irony or (classical) tragedy for Obama to ruin a country designed and built by men who shared some deep opinions and/or goals similar to his dad?
#10 The reason the Left hates Bush is that according to Marxist theory, individulas can't influence the course of history, only social forces can.
Bush's invasion of Iraq was a project to shape the 21st century in the ME by bringing democracy to the region. It may yet fail and you can argue it wasn't worth the cost, but GW Bush has done more to influence the course of the 21st century than any other man.
Succeed or fail in Afghanistan, it will and can never be more than a sideshow.
This is the reason for the deranged hatred of Bush on the Left.
#11 It needs to be said, apparently again and again, for the amnesiacs who were pushing containment as the alternative to going in. By the time of the two major sweetheart oil deals in late 2002 between Saddam and a) ChIrak's TotalFinaElf and b) Putin's LUKoil, the containment regime was kaput, finito, shredded. Saddam was signing major, multi-billion $$$$$$$$ oil deals with two of the five UNSC members who had pledged not to do business with him! He was most assuredly out of the "box" that, we were told, containment had placed him in.
#12 Bush's invasion of Iraq was a project to shape the 21st century in the ME by bringing democracy to the region. It may yet fail and you can argue it wasn't worth the cost, but GW Bush has done more to influence the course of the 21st century than any other man.
That right there sums up the strategy in a nut shell. We could have done the status-quo, or tried to change things in a way that hasn't been tried before. It may fail, it may work, but now Iraq's future is in the hands of Iraqis.
The only other option we have is to slaughter vast numbers of the guilty and the guiltless. Rubble don't make trouble.
#13 The only other option we have is to slaughter vast numbers of the guilty and the guiltless. Rubble don't make trouble.
This would be my preferred approach. Not only does rubble not make trouble, but the Victor gets to dictate to the Vanquished how their rehabilitation proceeds. Additionally, stomping your adversary flat sends a powerful message to other would be miscreants.
Might always makes right...always. That is natures law.
A Spanish official says the country's foreign minister has met with President Moammar Gadhafi to try to resolve a simmering diplomatic dispute between Libya and Switzerland. The official told AP Tuesday that Miguel Angel Moratinos came away from Monday's meeting in Tripoli feeling there was hope for ending the conflict. Classic? 0
A Delhi court today sentenced a Bangladeshi national and his Kashmiri associate belonging to banned militant organisation Harkat-Ul-Jihad-al-Islami(HuJI) to life imprisonment for possessing explosives and waging war against the country.
Additional Sessions Judge Nivedita Anil Sharma sentenced Md Amin Wani, a Jammu and Kashmir resident, and Lutfur Rahman, the Bangladeshi national who is alleged to have received training at the instance of Pakistan-based Jamaat-Ud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed to life imprisonment and said they did not deserve capital punishment as the case was not the rarest of rare. Classic? 0
The U.S. State Department has apologized for remarks made by its spokesman, joking about Moammar Gaddafi's call for jihad against Switzerland.
The State Department says a senior U.S. diplomat will travel to Tripoli to try to smooth over relations.
Tripoli has been denying entry visas to Americans since the remarks made on February 26.
Speaking to the press, U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley had said Gaddafi's call for jihad on Switzerland reminded him of a previous address by the Libyan leader which, he said, involved "lots of words and lots of papers flying all over the place, not necessarily a lot of sense."
Tripoli retaliated by denying visas to Americans and warning U.S. oil companies that this could have consequences for them as well. Rumsfeld called it "provocative weakness."
#5 Another troubling aspect:
Will Gaddafi interpret this as the Obama administration's official green light for Libyan sponsored terrorist attacks on Switzerland?
The alleged driver for a terrorist group led by the late Noordin M. Top faced his first hearing Tuesday at the South Jakarta District Court. Supono faces charges of harboring known fugitives and obstructing a police investigation, and could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
“Supono was fully aware that Noordin and his accomplices were terrorists, yet he failed to report the matter to the police,” said prosecutor Lila Agustina. “We therefore charge him with harboring terrorists.”
Supono previously worked at a factory before joining a Koran recital group led by Bagus Budi Pranoto in Surakarta, Central Java. Bagus was one of the suspected terrorists killed on Sept. 22 last year alongside Noordin during a police raid in the town. Other wanted terror suspects killed in the incident were Aji and Adib Susilo. Supono has claimed Bagus had indoctrinated him on jihad, or holy war.
Lila alleged Bagus had taught Supono that jihad was obligatory for all Muslims, particularly in light of the “oppression by Western powers”.
“Supono was fully aware that Noordin and his accomplices were terrorists, yet he failed to report the matter to the police. He was told that everyone must perform their own personal jihad in revenge for their Muslim brethren,” she said.
The trial has been adjourned until Wednesday next week, when the court will hear from the defense team led by lawyer Ashluddin Adjani.
Also facing terrorism-related charges in a separate hearing at the court Tuesday was Muhammad Jibriel Abdulrahman, who ran the online Arrahmah network allegedly to raise funds for terrorist activities.
Jibriel had earlier moved to be transferred to Cipinang Penitentiary in East Jakarta from the Kelapa Dua Maximum Security Penitentiary in Depok, West Java. His father, Abu Jibriel, said the motion had been filed following repeated visitation denials by wardens at Kelapa Dua.
Jibriel has also moved for his trial to be heard in South Tangerang, pointing out he had been arrested at his home there and should thus stand trial in that jurisdiction. Prosecutor Firmansyah objected to the motion, saying the trial should proceed in the capital where Jibriel’s security and that of the trial itself could be guaranteed. Classic? 0
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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts said Tuesday the scene at President Barack Obama's first State of the Union address was "very troubling" and that the annual speech to Congress has "degenerated into a political pep rally."
Responding to a University of Alabama law student's question about the Senate's method of confirming justices, Roberts said senators improperly try to make political points by asking questions they know nominees can't answer because of judicial ethics rules.
"I think the process is broken down," he said.
Obama chided the court for its campaign finance decision during the January address, with six of the court's nine justices seated before him in their black robes.
Roberts said he wonders whether justices should attend the address.
"To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I'm not sure why we're there," said Roberts, a Republican nominee who joined the court in 2005.
Roberts said anyone is free to criticize the court and that some have an obligation to do so because of their positions.
"So I have no problems with that," he said. "On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court -- according the requirements of protocol -- has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling."
Breaking from tradition, Obama used the speech to criticize the court's decision that allows corporations and unions to freely spend money to run political ads for or against specific candidates.
"With all due deference to the separation of powers, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections," Obama said.
Justice Samuel Alito was the only justice to respond at the time, shaking his head and appearing to mouth the words "not true" as Obama continued.
In response to Roberts' remarks Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs focused on the court's decision and not the chief justice's point about the time and place for criticism of the court.
"What is troubling is that this decision opened the floodgates for corporations and special interests to pour money into elections -- drowning out the voices of average Americans," Gibbs said. "The president has long been committed to reducing the undue influence of special interests and their lobbyists over government. That is why he spoke out to condemn the decision and is working with Congress on a legislative response."
Justice Antonin Scalia once said he no longer goes to the annual speech because the justices "sit there like bumps on a log" in an otherwise highly partisan atmosphere.
Roberts opened his appearance in Alabama with a 30-minute lecture on the history of the Supreme Court and became animated as he answered students' questions. He joked about a recent rumor that he was stepping down from the court and said he didn't know he wanted to be a lawyer until he was in law school.
While Associate Justice Clarence Thomas told students at Alabama last fall he saw little value in oral arguments before the court, Roberts disagreed.
"Maybe it's because I participated in it a lot as a lawyer," Roberts said. "I'd hate to think it didn't matter."
#2 Roberts said he wonders whether justices should attend the address.
I'd say yes, don't boycott such charades although tempting. The power of the Supreme Court needs to be maintained within the Constitutional framework of our country. There is a need to maintain the balance of powers between legislative, judicial, and executive branches. Currently, the executive branch would probably love nothing more than to have this balance ignored.
#4 Noobama wasn't considering that even if he does manage somehow to get HC Takeover through Congress, there will be constitutional challenges. His behavior at the SOTU will not tip the scales in his favor, that is for sure.
#5 The SOTU has become so silly that some brave POTUS should just send in a written SOTU, as was done in the early days of the republic. But the POTUS are such egomaniacs that they would never dream of doing this.
In many ways, it is like the stupid requirement that the Queen of England has to annually address parliament, even though they write her speech for her.
#7 Just as Obama and his comrades became dictators of US Congressmen, it was a barroom slam and intimadation tactic against another segment of US government that this tyrant wants to "rule over". Congress was viewed as Obama's hood, and the Supreme Court was on his turf and surrounded by his gang. It will get worse.
Posted by: Bob Gleanter3083|| 2010-03-10
2010-03-10 10:49
#8 Obama could have voiced the same concerns about the USSC in another venue. It would have been in better taste, and more diplomatic. 0 has poor taste and is undiplomatic, but we already knew that.
NEW YORK -- Bank of America customers will soon be unable to spend more than they have in the accounts linked to their debit cards. It's a step that may become a common move ahead of new regulations limiting overdraft fees.
Rules set by the Federal Reserve that will ban banks from charging such fees, without first getting permission from the customer, are set to take effect July 1.
But Bank of America is going a step further than the regulations require. It will simply no longer allow debit card purchases to go through if there isn't enough money in the account.
That's how it should be: no money, no purchase.
For ATM transactions, customers who try to withdraw more than their balance will have to agree to pay a $35 overdraft fee before they can get the money.
"The majority of our customers who overdraw their account do so with everyday debit purchases," said Susan Faulkner, senior vice president of consumer banking for Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America. "They're doing this unknowingly, because they aren't aware that they are about to overdraft."
Since the bank doesn't have the ability to notify the customer when they're at the register and give them the chance to agree to a fee, it will simply reject such transactions.
Consumers have demonstrated a willingness to pay overdrafts for covering the mortgage and the car payment, said Greg McBride, who follows the banking industry for Bankrate.com. "But not if it's things like covering a latte and a scone."
The bank's new policy will kick in on June 19 for new accounts, and in early August for existing accounts. It will replace the bank's current terms, which allow overdrafts to go through but only charge a fee if the deficit is greater than $10.
Bank of America likely won't be the last to make the change. That's because while the new rules will save consumers from surprising dings on their accounts, they will also cut deeply into the more than $1.77 billion annual revenue overdraft fees generate for the banking industry.
Faulkner would not estimate how much such fees pulled in for Bank of America in the past.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. estimates about 41 percent of that total is from point-of-sale debit transactions. About 8 percent was from ATM transactions. The rest were from bad checks and online bill payments, which are not addressed in the regulation.
What's more, 93 percent of overdraft fees are generated by just 14 percent of customers.
The 80/20 rule in action.
Because most of the fees were paid by what Robert Meara, a banking analyst with the consultant Celent, called "serial overdrafters," the rules may not save the average consumer much money. In fact, because banks will look to make up that lost revenue, it may actually cost most individuals more.
"What this may do really is produce the unintended consequence of creating the demise of free checking," said Meara. Banks jumped into free checking in the last decade because of competition, but at the same time started allowing overdrafts that generated huge sums. If they can't charge those fees, it's likely they won't offer the free products anymore either.
Or, he suggested, consumers might start seeing deals advertised where free checking kicks in after a certain number of transactions, or if a customer has several accounts linked together.
"I think banks will use this as an opportunity to be creative and differentiate themselves in ways that was really hard to do when everybody had a free checking account," Meara said. "There's a way this can be a win-win for everybody, but in the short term I think it's going to be challenging for banks to make up for that lost revenue." Classic? 0
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With just 29% of likely Republican primary voters approving of his job performance, Gov. Charlie Crist's Senate campaign appears on the verge of defeat. A new Public Policy Polling survey finds Marco Rubio leading Crist in the primary by 32 points -- a stunning collapse of a candidate many assumed a year ago would be serving in the Senate in 2011.
Rubio's campaign is boosted significantly by his support among conservatives, who favor him by a 71%-17% margin. Crist wins among moderates, 49%-36%.
Rubio 60
Crist 28
Und 12
Rubio leads by 16.8 points in the RCP Average. The survey was conducted March 5-8 of 492 GOP LV with a MoE of +/- 4.4%. Classic? 0
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In Beck's defense, the title on this YouTube video is misleading, Beck doesn't explicitly call Wilders a fascist. He does (after labeling Wilders "far-right") claim in Europe, all of the far-right is fascist. Still, Beck is talking out his ass, how many so-called "fascists" like Wilders have unwavering support for the Jewish state? What is Beck thinking? Have some knowledge of what you're talking about before making an ass of yourself in front of millions of informed people... When he said that he read the qur'an front to back and came away that islam is unequivocally a religion of peace told me all I needed to know how he feels about islam. Classic? 0
#2 I think Beck did a great job explaining Progressivism to an ignorant audience of millions. While they give him a lot of rope, he does have to toe the line.
#3 What does fascism have to do with support or opposition to Israel? If you're talking about Nazism it's a different story.
Actually in the (small) portion of France occupied by Italy, the Italian authorities banned the enforcement of Vichy's antisemitic legislation. I don't know if the initiative came from Italy's (fascist) civilian authorities. from the (monarchist) Army with Mussolini looking the other way.
Anyway, most of post-war fascist movements have lent to antisemitism. Also, the left has used the F bomb on anyone it disliked. We shouldn't brand somenone with it just because the left has told so.
#4 Glenn Beck is full of Shit himself.
He is also pretty much a fool and vastly ignorant on many issues about which he pontificates.
He is just an opportunist trying to piggyback himself on the Teaparty movement.
As for him "losing" me, he never had me.
Throw him in the dumb-ass talking-head bin, right next to O'Reilly (but on opposite side of the rabid insane Olberman).
#5 "He does (after labeling Wilders "far-right") claim in Europe, all of the far-right is fascist.”
Ummm…no Mr. Weaselzipper…he didn’t. Beck was attempting to illustrate the difference between the American experiment and the polarized governing of old Europe. His thrust was that by adhering to constitutional principles America has, thus far, avoided the pendulum of extreme governing ideologies. Moreover, the context of his presentation was to show how by the Progressive movement’s penchant for shifting the US to a European style might result in dramatic swings both to the left and right. In this context using The Dutch Party of Freedom as an example of a movement that, in a crisis, could move towards fascisism is not unreasonable. And it’s hardly the same as insinuating that Wilders himself is a fascist.
#6 It's too bad that Fox News tends to generate more heat than light. I never watch it. It's not that I trust ABC. I just can't stand all the shouting.
#7 I'm with Old Spook as well. He never had me.
Fox's news shows are pretty good. Brit Hume's show was full of WIN. I haven't it in the last few years (in Europe), but from what I hear, it's become the video version of talk radio.
#9 Politics has little to do with this. Viewed accurately, Beck is a successful entrepreneur in the entertainment industry who from time to time will reposition his product so as to maintain/extend market share.
Whoops, I think we just lost Crist. Even if it were true, he should be careful of accusing someone with that much testosterone of anything like this as he might just get his arms pulled out of their sockets.
Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio has been taking heat for charging a $130 barber shop visit to his Republican Party of Florida credit card when he was the state House Speaker.
Now his GOP primary opponent, Gov. Charlie Crist, is insinuating that Rubio was paying for something other than a haircut. A back wax, to be precise.
During an interview Monday evening on Fox News, Crist attacked Rubio for "trying to pawn himself off as a fiscal conservative."
"And yet just in recent weeks, two weeks ago it has come out in news accounts he had a Republican Party of Florida credit card that he charged $130 haircut, or maybe it was a back wax," he said. "We are not sure what all he got at that place."
Host Greta Van Sustern interrupted. "Wait a second, stop. A back wax? Wait a second."
"I don't know what it was, you know," Crist continued.
Van Sustern responded, "I know, but was there a suggestion it was for a back wax? Or a haircut? Or are you being flip?"
"I don't know what it was," Crist replied. "Initially we were told it was a haircut. And then he said it wasn't a haircut."
"The detachment from reality is stunning to me," he continued. "And to try to say that you're a fiscal conservative, yet you spend $130 for maybe a haircut and maybe other things, I don't know what you do at a salon when you are a guy."
"I get my haircut for $11 from a guy named Carl the Barber in St. Petersburg, Florida where I grew up. And to me that's real fiscal conservatism."
Rubio has said he later paid for the personal charges on his party credit card, including the barber shop visit, out of his own pocket. While Rubio did charge for a haircut at the Miami barber shop, his campaign said his tab also included several other items purchased as gifts.
His campaign called Crist's interview "disastrously bizarre."
"Today, Charlie Crist is the sitting governor of the 4th largest state who has fallen so far and so fast that he's now reduced himself to making up stories about his opponent's grooming habits," said Rubio spokesman Alex Burgos. Classic? 0
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#2 for someone who uses enough spray-on tan to look like an Ooompa-Loopma, he should refrain from criticizing others' grooming habits. He has no idea what the charge was for, and is just flinging feces throwing mud. What a putz. Bye Charlie
#4 I haven't followed the Florida press on this, and am certainly no fan of the Governor, but regardless of whatever Mr Rubio spent, has anyone asked why the chief law enforcement officer of the state is discussing someone's credit card receipts? And why that person should become a Senator opining on all matter of financial reform, privacy, and security issues?
Back wax, back rubs, back to the future Mr. Fusion machines - it hardly matters given how tone deaf and amateurish the Crist campaign is proving itself. You'd think this guy had never run a competitive race. Come to think of it . . .
#5 sniff. sniff. Ahhh.
I love the smell of desperation in the morning. Its smells like victory. Sorry Charlie.
Charlie is done. The only question is: will he go third party and throw this senate seat to the Dems.
And FYI, it was a $20 haircut that included a razor cut in the back.
#6 One ohter thing: the receipts he is discussing were STOLEN by his ally at GOP HQ, before they booted his ass out.
Crist is a crook, old school country club liberal powermongering POS who deserved to be thrown oon his head.
#7 The only question is: will he go third party and throw this senate seat to the Dems.
Or he could just endorse the Dem. That's happened and more than once: a moderate Pub, defeated in the primary, endorses the Dem instead of the conservative Pub.
Frankly if I were the Florida state party chair, if Charlie does anything other than endorse Rubio after the primary (assuming Rubio wins, of course), I'd spend the rest of my political days ensuring that Charlie loses at everything he tries.
Posted by: Steve White|| 2010-03-10
2010-03-10 12:35
#8 That's happened and more than once: a moderate Pub, defeated in the primary, endorses the Dem instead of the conservative Pub.
If you are referring to Scozzafava, she is not a moderate Pub, she is a full blown Liberal pretending to be a moderate Pub.
#8 From the stories I've heard, JohnQC, the ladies with expat friends wear the latest designer fashion in excessively low-cut, indecently short, and skin tight, at least when socializing. Basically the message is, "Here's what he got, envy him!"
#10 gorb dear, I think you may be mistaking indecent with undesirable...the difference between attire appropriate for public appearances and that which is appropriate for very, very private ones.
DOHA (AFP) — Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar warned Tuesday that Tehran has "great means of deterrence" to face any possible attack over its nuclear programme.
"We are highly confident about our capacities, and our great means of deterrence," he said during a visit to Doha, where he signed a security agreement between Iran and Qatar -- a major regional US ally. "We do not feel in danger... If someone tries to endanger our national security, we will retaliate and make him regret his action," he added.
Israel has not ruled out striking Iran's nuclear sites.
Najjar said on Tuesday that Iran was working on strengthening relations with its Arab neighbours in the oil-rich Gulf region to "ensure security and stability in the region."
His country's security agreement with Qatar focuses mainly on the issue of combating crime, drug trafficking and money laundering, as well as the protection of borders. Qatar, which maintains good relations with Iran, hosts the US Al-Udeid air base and As-Sailiyah camp, which is the headquarters of the US Central Command since 2002. Classic? 0
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#2 Does that 'great means of deterrence' also apply to power plants and those almost on-line refineries? A country without electricity is a country without spinning gas centrifuges.
#7 I believe the "deterrent" that Iran is indirectly referring to would be trying to attack Israel after getting their a$$ handed to them. I'm sure they know they don't stand a chance.
#9 And we now turn to a live interview with Mahmoud al-Mabahouh coming to us from our newsroom in Abu Dhabi.... Can you hear us Mahmoud? Salaam Mahmoud, can you hear us our brother?
We seem to be having technical difficulties. Zionists dogs jamming our signals obviously.
GENEVA - United Nations human rights investigators called on the Obama administration on Tuesday to prosecute the accused Sept 11 masterminds in a civilian court, declaring that US military tribunals would not be fair. Usual nonsense from the usual, meddling suspects.
The White House is reviewing options to bring the 9/11 detainees to justice and US officials said on Friday senior administration officials may recommend that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspects in the 2001 attacks face a military trial.
'I take the view that the Military Commissions Act is fundamentally flawed. It is very far from international fair trial standards and probably cannot be fixed,' said Martin Scheinin, UN special rapporteur on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. Not that we care what Marty thinks ...
Mr Scheinin and other UN rapporteurs are independent investigators reporting to the UN Human Rights Council, whose 47 members include the United States. The Finnish international law professor, who has visited the US-run detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, also said it would be a mistake for the Obama administration to try to reform the Military Commissions Act, proclaimed under President George W. Bush, to try to provide for fair trials.
'To me the only safe option is to go to regular federal criminal courts which also have a much better track record in dealing with terrorism cases than the very unfortunate military commissions,'Mr Scheinin told a news briefing in Geneva.
Military trials allow for evidence obtained by cruel or degrading treatment of detainees and have a 'backdoor' for using confessions obtained under torture by allowing hearsay, he said. Classic? 0
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#1 The UN has no jurisdiction in US domestic legal matters. If the UN has a problem with the Geneva Conventions, it should take their problem up with that body.
#2 So what did this flaming idiot had to say about the people who got their heads sawed off on video? Did they get a civilian trial? How about the Korean women who were kidnapped and probably raped? Did they get even a military tribunal?
What does the grand UN special rapporteur have to sat about that?
Nothing?
Then he should sit down and shut-the-fuck-up.
#9 We get a harrrrumph from Marty every so often. Probably just to remind everybody that he's still around and he can protect his phony baloney job. And keep getting his expense accounts approved...
Still allegedly dead
JAKARTA - AN ALLEGED mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings is believed to be one of three suspects shot dead by Indonesian anti-terror police yesterday. The authorities said they were still trying to confirm whether the man was Dulmatin, a leader of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terrorist network and an explosives expert. It could take up to two days to identify the body.
Dulmatin, nicknamed 'Genius', has been wanted by the police since 2002.
The suspect was killed in a shootout when members of the anti-terror Detachment 88 (Densus 88) raided a shophouse in Pamulang district in Tangerang around noon. About an hour later, the other two suspects, said to be his bodyguards, were shot dead near the shophouse, which houses an Internet cafe.
The trio had been the target of a series of raids across the country following the discovery of a terrorist training camp in Aceh last month. Police operations conducted in Aceh and Java have so far nabbed 21 people suspected of being members of an Aceh-based terror group with links to JI. Classic? 0
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Washington -- The operation that American and coalition forces are planning for Kandahar in southern Afghanistan won't look like D-Day, the top commander there said Tuesday. Fresh off a recent success, so far, in Helmand Province, American military planners are thinking ahead to the next phase of challenging the Taliban in southern Afghanistan: Kandahar.
But the fight for Kandahar -- described as the New York City of Afghanistan for its cultural, political, and economic significance -- is expected to be more measured than the operation in Marjah in Helmand, which was a precision strike that began with the insertion of hundreds of US marines by helicopter.
"There won't be a D-Day that is climactic," said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander there told reporters in Kabul, during a trip in which he escorted Defense Secretary Robert Gates. "It will be a rising tide of security when it comes."
The operation in Marjah included about 2,500 marines and 1,500 Afghan soldiers with as many as 10,000 troops in support. The top Marine commander in Marjah said last week the objective there was to come in "big, strong, and fast, [to] put the enemy on the horns of a dilemma."
By contrast, the mission in Kandahar, expected to begin by summer, will be more gradual. Few details are clear, even in a counterinsurgency in which the NATO command has telegraphed its intentions before starting an operation, such as in Marjah last month.
But military officials say Kandahar will require a more nuanced, measured approach in which forces will build up slowly, probably on the outskirts, before entering the city itself perhaps months later. Kandahar is a much larger city and province, and coalition forces will take their time to enter due to the area's more complex political and tribal nature.
McChrystal has had his eye on Kandahar, which the Taliban took over years ago, for a long time. But when he took charge of the mission last year, many American forces were already amassed in Helmand to the west.
While Helmand was a Taliban stronghold and much of the poppy crop that provides financial support for the insurgency grows there, many experts say it is not a strategic prize. Nonetheless, McChrystal mounted his first operation there under the new US strategy (and increased troop strength), as a demonstration of what could be done. Citing the clear-hold-build approach, military officials say that most combat operations are over in Marjah and that it is now in the "hold and build" phase.
That leaves room to begin planning for Kandahar and the districts that surround it, including Zhari, Panjawai, Khakrez, Arghandab, and Dand. Counterinsurgency experts say these outer areas hold the key to success for coalition forces entering Kandahar itself.
Gates warns of 'dark days' aheadWhile not referring to operations in Kandahar specifically, Secretary Gates sought to prepare the military and the American and international community for the likelihood that the next few months will be no cakewalk.
"Looking forward," Gates said, "there are grounds for optimism as our countries pursue what President Karzai has called an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned initiative to ensure peace and stability." Classic? 0
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#1 As most of our enemies come from Pakistan sealing the border would be more important!
No coincidence all our top targets have been caught/sheltered there!
KHOST, Afghanistan – A suicide attack Tuesday at a joint NATO-Afghan base in eastern Afghanistan killed two international service members and wounded several others, the military alliance said.
The attack in remote Khost province near the Pakistan border was on a compound used by both international forces and the Afghan Border Police, NATO said. Residents in the province's Ali Shir district said they heard a large blast at the base after dark.
A NATO statement later said that two international troops were killed and several others wounded. It gave no further details, but said an investigation was under way. Classic? 0
What will it be, Mr President? So asked the full-page advertisement by the American Civil Liberties Union in Sunday's New York Times. The ACLU was responding to reports that Barack Obama might reverse the decision by Eric Holder, US attorney-general, to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his alleged September 11 co-conspirators in a civilian court and send them instead to a military commission. Beneath panel images of Mr Obama morphing into President George W. Bush, the ACLU noted Mr Obama's campaign pledge to change Bush-era terrorism policies, and urged him to "remind the world that America stands for due process, justice and the rule of law".
If this is surprising to some inside and outside the US, it is because they do not share the US government's view that it is at war and must use the tools of war -- including military commissions and military detention -- to defeat its enemies.
The problem for the ACLU is that America's conception of due process, justice and the rule of law includes military commissions. Commissions are politically damaged and still raise legal questions. But their pedigree reaches back more than 200 years and they have the support of every branch of US government. The Supreme Court invalidated Mr Bush's commissions in 2006 on technical grounds but affirmed their validity in theory. That same year, Congress reinstated commissions after addressing the Court's concerns. It made further revisions in 2009. The Obama administration embraced commissions last year and plans to use them for lower-level alleged terrorists.
American law also permits military detention without trial against members of the Taliban, al-Qaeda and its affiliates until the end of the country's conflicts with these groups. As with commissions, Congress has approved military detention; courts have upheld it; and the administration has embraced it and plans to use it for several dozen alleged terrorists.
Thus when Mr Holder was considering last autumn how to handle Mr Mohammed and associates, he had three options: a military commission, military detention or a civilian trial. His choice of the latter was pragmatic and not required legally. He based it on the overwhelming evidence against the alleged 9/11 plotters, which should make conviction relatively easy, and on the symbolism of using the most demanding standards of American justice. His decision had the effect of distinguishing Mr Obama from the Bush administration in a high-profile case and tamping down criticism by the ACLU and similar groups of Mr Obama's underlying embrace of the basic Bush approach to terrorism.
"This was a tough call," Mr Holder said at the time, "and reasonable people can disagree with my conclusion that these individuals should be tried in federal court rather than a military commission." Reasonable people did disagree -- strongly. Security for the proposed Manhattan trial turned out to be outlandishly expensive and disruptive, and local politicians who originally supported the trial asked the administration to reconsider. Many Republicans argued that the administration had a criminal law mentality and was soft on terrorism -- a position that gained traction after the seemingly passive handling of the underwear bomber in December. Calls have been growing in Congress to cut off funding for the New York trial.
So New York politics and the politics of appearing soft on terrorism are leading Mr Obama to reconsider what to do with Mr Mohammed. Another factor is Mr Obama's desire, three months after a blown deadline, to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. This goal, too, has aroused charges of weakness on terrorism. The administration is reportedly negotiating with Republican senators to move Mr Mohammed to a military commission in exchange for their support in closing Guantanamo.
It is not obvious, however, that commissions are the best choice for Mr Mohammed. They have not been used for a high-profile trial in 70 years, and many legal issues, some thorny, will need to be ironed out over many years before a final judgment on Mr Mohammed can be reached. This is not the ideal setting for what Mr Holder called the "trial of the century".
It might be more prudent to continue to hold Mr Mohammed under the military detention rationale that has justified his imprisonment for more than seven years. Military detention is easier, quicker and no less legally legitimate. Compared with commissions, it would give Mr Mohammed a smaller stage on which to make political mischief.
Using a commission or military detention to put Mr Mohammed away will anger the ACLU and others on the American left who insist on civilian trials, as well as many around the world who expected something different from Mr Obama. It would be the latest in a string of disappointments caused by the continuation of Bush-era policies such as commissions, detention, limited habeas corpus, targeted killing and rendition.
Mr Obama has embraced these policies because the realities and domestic politics of war and the responsibilities of the presidency have led him to use every legally available option to keep America safe. These policies mark a change from the campaign trail, but they enjoy broad political support in the US.
If this is surprising to some inside and outside the US, it is because they do not share the US government's view that it is at war and must use the tools of war -- including military commissions and military detention -- to defeat its enemies.
The writer, an assistant attorney-general in the Bush administration, teaches at Harvard Law School and is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University Classic? 0
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Joe Biden, the US vice-president, condemned a plan by Israel to build 1,600 homes on occupied Palestinian land in an East Jerusalem settlement.
Okay, Israel, you may shake in your boots now, you got Slow Joe coming down on you ...
President Obama sent his Number 2, the self-proclaimed Friend of Israel, to persuade the government of Israel to do nothing while the UN's strengthened sanctions against Iran go forward. Those would of course be the strong sanctions incumbent on every member state except Russia, China, and perhaps a few others I don't remember. Dear VP Biden, Friend of Israel, saw fit to couple love-drenched platitudes with this condemnation of Israeli development in East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel as part of her indivisible national capitol in 1967 following the Six Day War. On the other hand, dear President Obama, friend of Son of Israel Rahm Emanuel and of Palestinian Hamas supporter Whatsisname, at whose Hyde Park kitchen table he wrote his second memoir, will likely never set foot in the Jewish state. Perhaps that's why the Israelis don't trust VP Biden's assurances that Israeli security is the highest priority to America.
Said more briefly: Biden's an idiot.
The Israeli interior ministry's approval of the plan cast a cloud over a visit to the country by Biden just hours after he pledged strong support for the Israeli government.
In an unusually strong statement issued after he arrived 90 minutes late for a dinner with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said: "I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units."
Arriving significantly late for dinner is an insult. So is the first thing public statement dear VP Biden made following his arrival. Israelis may be a blunt and plain-spoken people, but even they notice such things.
He said the blueprint for Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox settlement in an area of the West Bank annexed to Jerusalem, "undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions I've had in Israel".
Oh well. Might as well go home.
The approvals came just a day after the Israeli defence ministry announced that 112 apartments would be built in Beitar Illit, a settlement on the occupied West Bank. The new building comes at a delicate moment in the long-stalled peace process after Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to start indirect negotiations.
These are indirect talks, after Annapolis, etc were face-to-face negotiations. Special Envoy Mitchell has apparently announced that the agreements of the Annapolis negotiations will not be the starting point of this round of talks. There are those who believe this is a distinct leap backward, not a mere step toward the rear, and designed to harm Israel. There are those, of course, who think a leap backward is exactly the right direction for Israel to go.
The interior ministry said the Ramat Shlomo approvals had been passed by the Jerusalem district planning committee. A spokeswoman said there were 60 days to appeal against the decision. Ramat Shlomo, built 15 years ago, is on land captured in the West Bank in 1967 and annexed to Israel in a move not recognised by the international community.
Israel's interior minister, Eli Yishai, who heads a religious party in Netanyahu's governing coalition, said the timing of the plan's approval was coincidental. "There was certainly no intention to provoke anyone and certainly not to come along and hurt the vice-president of the United States," Yishai told Israel's Channel One television.
"Final approval [for the project] will take another few months. I agree that the timing [of the announcement] should have been in another two or three weeks."
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the announcements were "destroying our efforts" in peace negotiations. "With such an announcement, how can you build trust?" he said. "It's a disastrous situation."
Earlier in the day, Biden said Israel and the Palestinians needed to "take risks for peace".
Not that Joe is risking anything, mind you ...
Nor are the Palestinians.
But his talk of a "moment of opportunity" obscures a reality in which the two sides are a long way apart. Although the peace process has been under way for nearly two decades, there have been no direct negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders since Israel's war in Gaza a year ago.
In talks with Netanyahu, Biden appeared to focus not on the struggling peace process but on Iran, saying Washington was committed to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. "There is no space between the US and Israel when it comes to Israel's security," Biden said after their meeting.
"We are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons," Biden said.
In private, he is also believed to have cautioned the Israeli government against any unilateral military strike on Iran, and to have tried to win Israeli support for the US administration's policy, which is moving towards sanctions against Iran.
Netanyahu made clear the Israeli government hoped for a tougher sanction regime against Iran. "The stronger those sanctions are, the more likely it will be that the Iranian regime will have to chose between advancing its nuclear programme and advancing the future of its own permanence," he said. Netanyahu frequently cites the need to address Iran's nuclear ambitions as his priority in government and Israeli leaders have pointedly not ruled out a military option. Classic? 0
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A strong turnout from Iraq's Kurds in national elections on Sunday has enhanced their status of kingmakers in forming the central government, with preliminary voting results expected within 24 hours.
The electoral commission said today that votes had now all been counted, although the official results will not be declared until the end of March.
The ballot appears to have narrowly favoured the political list of the incumbent prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, but the rival bloc of former leader Iyad Alawi is also predicted to have performed well. Whoever wins will have to form a coalition in order to build a government, with the Kurds expected to play a prominent role.
However for the first time, a nascent Kurdish opposition has threatened to splinter the Kurdish alliance, whose truculent factions have invariably united when dealing with post-Saddam Baghdad. The allegiances of a breakaway Kurdish group, Gorran, are an unknown factor in the post-election negotiations. Gorran is thought to have won about 15 seats in the new 325 seat parliament, damaging the bloc of warlord turned president Jalal Talabani, who wants a second term as Iraq's head of state.
Even if Maliki, or his bloc, ends up with the most popular votes, his claim on the prime ministership remains heavily contingent on his ability to appease potential coalition partners and the residual wrath of any enemies he has made during the past four turbulent years. Maliki's supporters were privately claiming today that he has won as many as 85 seats in the new parliament, having swept the south and performed solidly in Baghdad.
Alwai's backers were equally upbeat, with a senior figure in Iraqiya, the secular alliance he took to the election, also claiming the party had won 85 seats. In private, officials are hoping for as many as 110.
So far there have been no claims of vote-rigging or fraud. Election observers have generally endorsed the conduct of the election, which saw a 62% turnout nationwide, and up to a 73% showing of registered voters at provinces that had boycotted the previous poll. Classic? 0
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ISLAMABAD: Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kayani on Tuesday granted a one-year extension in service to Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha – making him the fourth such beneficiary in recent months, according to official sources.
Pasha – who was scheduled to retire from service on March 18 – would now continue serving the Pakistan Army as a lieutenant general and the ISI chief for another year.
Having replaced Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj, Pasha has been heading the country’s premier intelligence service since October 2008. Before being promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and assuming charge of the top ISI office, Pasha served as the Military Operations director general.
Born in 1952, Pasha has had a distinguished career, spanning more than 30 years, in the Pakistan Army. He has commanded an infantry division, a mechanised infantry brigade and an infantry battalion, and served as the chief instructor of the Command and Staff College of the Pakistan Army. From 2001 to 2002, Pasha also served as a contingent and sector commander with the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone. So he has a perfect record: he's never won a battle ...
He is the fourth general to be given an extension in service by the current army chief over the last few months. The other beneficiaries are Lt Gen Tanvir Tahir, Lt Gen Masood Alam and Lt Gen Sikandar Afzal.
Under army rules, a major general retires on reaching the age of 57, while a lieutenant general retires either on reaching the age of 58 or completing a four-year tenure – whichever falls first.
It is believed that the decision to extend Pasha’s service has been made to ensure the continuity of the army’s operations against militancy. During Pasha’s tenure as the ISI director general, the army has conducted three successful operations and flushed out terrorists from Swat, South Waziristan and Bajaur. An operation in Orakzai Agency is now on the cards, while the army is also gradually augmenting a build up in North Waziristan.
The successful operations and the recent arrests of high-profile al Qaeda and Taliban commanders are considered by the West a significant turnaround in ISI policies. Classic? 0
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JEHLUM: A five-year-old British boy kidnapped in Pakistan nearly a week ago has been found to be alive and police are making headway in the investigation, a police official said on Tuesday. Sahil Saeed, who is of Pakistani origin, was abducted from his grandmother’s house last Thursday.
“The child is safe. We have made some progress and hopefully, we’ll sort out this case soon,” Jehlum SP Khalid Mehmood said.
Police have said the Taliban use ransoms from kidnappings to fund their insurgency against the US-backed government. But no signs have emerged which show that the abduction of the boy is linked to terrorists. Classic? 0
#1 follow up on bbc...Interesting to say the least .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8560038.stm
my fav part being :
Pakistani community groups in Oldham have said they are considering setting up a fund to pay ransoms in the event of kidnaps.
Sounds like a jolly good scam to me
DERA MURAD JAMALI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Dera Allah Yar on Tuesday sentenced four men to 25 years in prison for burying alive three young girls in Naseerabad in 2008. ATC Judge Muhammad Alam Mengal also fined the four accused, Allah Bakhsh, Muhammad Arif, Rehmatullah and Ghaus Bakhsh, Rs 100,000 each.
Janat, Farida and Izaat were tortured and buried alive on July 2008 in the Baba Kot area of Naseerabad district, after they had attempted to choose their matches without the consent of their families. Classic? 0
#2 The same way mexican drug cartel sewed a man's face on to a football in January, penguin.. A lot of effort and stretching , but in the end its unrecognisable from its real form .
Truely sad, and why the rest of humanity has put up with Islam for so long is totally beyond my comprehension
#3 Oscar: A rule of thumb in anthropology is that a primitive culture cannot exist next door to a more advanced culture for more than a short time before it is assimilated or destroyed.
In history, this rule become more encompassing, that barbarism cannot coexist with civilization. In such situations, barbarism is either absorbed or destroyed--with the only alternative the complete destruction of civilization.
This presents the great irony of Islam, because at its inception, *it* had the power of civilization, compared to the tribal barbarism that surrounded it.
Mohammed even integrated what was then the most advanced rural technologies into the religion, to modernize the Ummah; but he failed to incorporate the idea that it must continue to intellectually advance.
Several hundred years later, a Persian philosopher then formalized the idea of fundamentalism, that all knowledge was within the Koran and its commentaries, and so outside knowledge should be shunned. And there have been several other fundamentalist themes introduced since then, with the same idea.
But this leaves modern Muslims in a paradox. They still have the "righteous arrogance" of civilization, as superior to barbarism. But at the same time, they have become the new barbarians, surrounded by what is obviously a superior civilization.
Yet their choice remains the same. As the situation stands today, Islam and its ways are dying out. So the only choices left to it are either a complete and blatant hypocritical reformation, or to utterly destroy modern civilization.
It is far less the actions of civilization that is intolerable to them, but just its existence, which eats away at them. If you ask the typical Muslim on the street, he will choose civilization. So half their effort has to go into *forcing* Muslims to stay Muslim, under threat of severe abuse and murder.
Otherwise, they just defend the indefensible, such as arguing that wrapping women in burqas and denying them an education, while treating them like farm animals, is somehow *better* for women than treating them like intelligent and capable human beings.
#9 "primitive culture cannot exist next door to a more advanced culture for more than a short time before it is assimilated or destroyed"
In this case, those who refuse to be assimilated need to be destroyed.
Just sayin'....
KHAR/GHALANAI: Security forces and a local tribal lashkar (militia) torched 14 houses of the Taliban in the Mamoond tehsil of Bajaur Agency on Tuesday.
Political administration officials told Daily Times that nine Taliban also surrendered to the political authorities in the Mamoond tehsil. Explosives material and mortar shells were recovered in a large quantity from the Taliban houses.
Separately, security forces in a raid in Barokhel area of Halimzai tehsil on Tuesday arrested three suspects and demolished the house of a wanted terrorist in Safi tehsil. An administration official said the arrested suspects were identified as Jehanzeb, Roohullah and Samiullah.
Also on Tuesday, members of a peace jirga and tribal elders destroyed the house of a wanted terrorist, Jamshed, in the Mulla Mandi area. Classic? 0
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NINEWA / Aswat al-Iraq: Scores of displaced Christian families returned to Mosul, the media department of the Ninewa council said on Tuesday.
“Scores of Christian families returned to Mosul to take part in the elections,” the department said in a statement received by Aswat al-Iraq new agency. “Ninewa witnessed the return of more than 30 Christian families, which took part in the elections, while the province witnessed on Monday (March 8) the return of scores of Christian families to their houses,” it added.
Mosul witnessed two weeks ago the displacement of Christian families from their houses after the assassination of ten Christians in ten days. Classic? 0
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Two gunmen were killed and a third one was arrested in a failed attack in central Baghdad on Tuesday, a police source said.
“Three gunmen, driving a modern car, opened fire on a checkpoint in Abu Nawas street in al-Karada region, injuring a policemen,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
“The policemen responded to the attack, killing two of them and arresting the third,” he added. “Security forces sealed off the whole region." Classic? 0
ANBAR / Aswat al-Iraq: An armed group commander was arrested and a large weapons cache was found inside his house in Falluja City, a local security source said on Tuesday.
“On Tuesday morning, a force from the Anbar police arrested a leader of an armed group during a raid on his house in downtown al-Aameriya district, southern Falluja,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
The man has been involved in acts of violence against civilians and security personnel, the source pointed out. A cache containing arms, explosives, 31 IEDs, five Katyusha rockets and materials used in manufacturing explosive belts was found inside his house, the source noted. Classic? 0
WASHINGTON, March 9 (Reuters) - The Pentagon may speed up awarding a multibillion-dollar aerial tanker contract after Northrop Grumman Corp and Europe's EADS pulled out of the contest, leaving Boeing Co the sole bidder.
The current plan calls for companies to submit their bids by mid-May, with a contract award expected in September; but Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said defense officials are looking at accelerating the current timeline for the program.
"We may be in a position where we will be able to take a look at reducing some of those milestones," he said on Tuesday, referring to the 75-day deadline for bids, and plans for the U.S. Air Force to award a contract 120 days later.
Senator John McCain, whose probe of an earlier $23.5 billion lease-then-buy tanker deal with Boeing eventually scuttled that contract, declined to fault the latest contest. McCain told reporters on Tuesday the Air Force's handling of the competition appeared to be "legitimate," which made it difficult for lawmakers to intervene, even if they would have preferred to see a competitive process.
"I don't see how we can, unless we find some flaw in it, and we haven't found any flaws so far," McCain said.
Defense analyst Jim McAleese said McCain's endorsement of the Air Force process, however tepid, made it unlikely that Congress would intervene to avert a sole-source bid by Boeing. "No one else has the conviction or credibility to generate an intervention," McAleese said.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton chimed in late on Tuesday, saying he was disappointed that there would be no competition, but said it was important to start replacing the aging current KC-135 fleet "without any further delay."
Whitman said the Pentagon was confident it could negotiate a reasonable price for the tankers even if Boeing were the only bidder. EADS on Tuesday ruled out a solo bid for the work.
"There is baseline cost data that is associated with these air frames," he said. "There are also measures the department can take to make sure we are controlling the costs."
He declined to specify what measures were in mind, but federal acquisition rules require sole-source providers to certify their pricing data is accurate, timely and complete.
The government could also buy less than the 179 airplanes expected in this competition if it believed Boeing's prices were too far off the mark, McAleese said.
Unlike the new radar-evading fighter being developed by Lockheed Martin Corp, aerial tanker planes already exist today, Whitman said. He said officials also have ample cost data from the last competition, which Northrop and EADS won in February 2008 but later lost after government auditors upheld a Boeing protest.
Boeing last week said it would offer an updated 767-based tanker this time around, including a new digital flight deck from its 787 Dreamliner and a new fly-by-wire refueling boom.
The European Commission on Tuesday said it regretted Northrop's decision and would be "extremely concerned" if it became clear that the terms of the competition were written to inhibit competition from Northrop and its European partner.
It also noted that the United States traditionally sold more defense goods to Europe than vice versa. In 2008, the United States exported $5 billion, and imported only $2.2 billion of defense material from the European Union.
Northrop said it was disappointed that the rules favored Boeing's smaller tanker, but said it would not protest to avoid further delays in the Air Force getting new planes that are used to refuel fighter jets and other planes in mid-flight. Classic? 0
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#1 Golly geez. Think ya need one of dem buffalo when Bush is not Pres?
Well, we needed three. So how, pardner will you give us THREE refuling planes? Will ya storm tha gates for em or just call em home?
Dem refueling planes can be a tricky bunch when you are out in the brush without em... yep.
Make you dream of sweet JP-8 all night long the day you find you could not fuel half of your fleet because you assholes in congress were playing money games with your your local gas station pump extorter's mechanics new flim flam device or prosthetic seem-a-like.
Get three, yes 3 refueling planes or I will drop kick you in da eye.
Hear me pardner?
;)
#2 767 is still the basis. THat means its nto a s good as the EADS/NG. It should have gone to the 777 for design, but ignorant flag-waving fools helped Boeings lobbyists push the process their way, so we ended up with the inferior 767, which Boeing was planning to shut down had this contract not come.
The EADS/NG was not flawless, but it was better over-all, and had a lot more potential. Anyone that knows military aircraft knows that it usually takes a few years until the aircraft are tinkered with by the operations people and made better. But you cannot change fundamental limits involving the airframe and basic range/load capacity.
Politicians pushed this one (Looking at you John "the Asshole" McCain). The EADS/NG tanker was newer airframe, easier to maintain, longer range and carried more load.
The only thing it didn't have was Boeing's lobbyists and a lot of jingoistic morons who wanted a "made in the USA" plane (in spite of 20-30% of the components sourced overseas) instead of one that serves better (and was still 60% US).
So congrats to Boeing, they saved their crappy old 767 assembly line at the possible cost to taxpayers of more money, and cost to military personnel of less capability and higher risk due to shorter range.
And the latter part bothers me the most.
This will have negative effects: the shorter legs require forward basing - meaning we have to entangle ourselves with other countries in order to base tankers there, instead of merely getting overflight. That also has strategic impact in that we now need to maintain bases for these aircraft in forward areas, and they will not be able to haul as much cargo as the other would (and yes, the tankers typically do haul cargo in addition to fuel).
All in all, not a good day for the USAF or the nation.
#4 Boeing is headquartered in Chicago and the 767 production line in Washington state, bluest of the blue states. Northrop's version would have been built in Alabama, a truely red state. Politics over value? Surely not.
#5 Hmm I overlooked that: Boeing = union labor for the most part, NG/EADS = not nearly as much union, especially in major workign areas in Alabama and Texas.
On the upside, at least they are FINALLY getting something to replace the superannuated KC135s (originally entered service in 1957).
#6 many of the components are made in Wichita which could use the employment since the President's attack on private business jets destroyed the market.
Wichita is in flyover country called Kansas, and is not a blue state.
#7 Other than size, why would we prefer the 777 to the 767? Boeing claims they're going to update the 767 based tanker with 787 technology, so other than the fact that the 777 is considerably bigger (and more expensive), what's wrong with the 767?
Posted by: Steve White|| 2010-03-10
2010-03-10 12:37
#8 Boeing is at least a US company, while EADS is not. I would not want to buy a plane built be committee; we tried that once ( think A-12 AvengerII) and that didn't work out so well. As to the union argument; look again at the EADS labor force, 35 hour work weeks.
take a look at the EU regulations that go way beyond anything we can think up ( OSHA, EPA) they are really burendsome.
as to the airframe itself; there is nothing wrong with a 767; agree that it is not the latest and greatest gee-whiz toy, but it is proven. funny i don't hear a lot of people putting down the C-130J (first flight 1954) in favor of the A400M (first flight 2007).
i am glad that BMAC did not try to stretch the Screamliner into a tanker; it is not mature enough for that, IMHO.
we don't need fancy, we need hoses in the air.
#10 No! We need the BEST hoses in the air - and more; the tankers are not just flying gas stations.
Did you know that the KC's haul cargo nearly every bit as much on their mission as they do fuel - and that's why cargo is so important which you didn't account for.
These planes will likely be flying 50+ years. The 767 line had been planned to close in a decade except for this contract. Didn't take that into your decision did you?
Did you consider that the original bid the KC45 outperformed the KC767 in cargo lift, range and fuel capacity?
Too me it looks like you'd rather have an inferior flag waving product for the troops than better gear for about the same money. I see where you stand. You are more worried about flag waving than function.
Let me tell your boat riding candy ass something: when you are in the shit, you don't care who made it or where it was made - you just need stuff to work. And that includes the logistics chain.
As for the 777: The 777 is a more modern design air frame, lower cost to maintain, longer between main times, and will remain in production far longer than the 767, meaning we don pay a premium in the out years to get upgrades and parts.
One of the good things to come from the protest and rebid is that it forced Boeing to rework the original inferior design. They did re-engine the 767, update the cockpit to glass, go with the FBW boom (cuts a lot of weight), and in doing so, they upgraded the cargo, lift, range and capacity of the 767 based design to something competitive with the NG/EADS design.
FYI, the Assembly maint, etc was to be done in Alabama.
I could go on. But I will not, the die is cast and idiots like you got their way, and as usual the troops pay.
Go wave a flag and cheer that Boeing is getting the money. Like it will do any difference for the troops out on the pointy end of things.
#11 And USN Ret you are one of the jingoistic buttheads I was referring to. I've run into your sort time and again in the service and the various agencies I worked in over my career. I know the stink. Your kind does more harm then you realize with your interference, you tend to be very handy for politicians to use - and use you they did. How does it feel to be a tool? Guys like you burn me up eventually and I let go. Man up and deal with it.
Jim Geraghty, "Campaign Spot" @ National Review
Reuters) - A suspected mastermind of the Bali bombings was killed in a police raid in Indonesia in the latest blow to an Islamist militant movement in the world's most populous Muslim country. Dulmatin, who once trained with al Qaeda in Afghanistan, was one of three militants killed in a shootout with police at an Internet cafe and a house nearby, Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Wednesday.
Committee members find ways to excuse colleagues' bad behavior.
It has been said well and famously that politicians only really commit a gaffe when they tell the truth without meaning to. Add House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the list.
By Thomas Friedman
A Delhi court today sentenced a Bangladeshi national and his Kashmiri associate belonging to banned militant organisation Harkat-Ul-Jihad-al-Islami(HuJI) to life imprisonment for possessing explosives and waging war against the country.
The U.S. State Department has apologized for remarks made by its spokesman, joking about Moammar Gaddafi's call for jihad against Switzerland.
NEW YORK -- Bank of America customers will soon be unable to spend more than they have in the accounts linked to their debit cards. It's a step that may become a common move ahead of new regulations limiting overdraft fees.
With just 29% of likely Republican primary voters approving of his job performance, Gov. Charlie Crist's Senate campaign appears on the verge of defeat. A new Public Policy Polling survey finds Marco Rubio leading Crist in the primary by 32 points -- a stunning collapse of a candidate many assumed a year ago would be serving in the Senate in 2011.
Marina de Poliakoff-Baidaroff aka Marina Vlady aka Regina in "The Conjugal Bed" (72)
Jean Louisa Kelly aka Kathy in "Friends" (41)
Haifa Wehbe, a long way from a burqa (Lebanese)(34)
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Two gunmen were killed and a third one was arrested in a failed attack in central Baghdad on Tuesday, a police source said.
ANBAR / Aswat al-Iraq: An armed group commander was arrested and a large weapons cache was found inside his house in Falluja City, a local security source said on Tuesday.
