Not since "Where's Waldo?" and "Where's the Beef?" has such a query caused such a stir.
In this resort, where the streets are literally paved by gambling revenues, they're taking bets on what might have become of Mayor Bob Levy and whether his disappearance caps off signals another impending scandal involving the city's top job.
Amid reports of a federal probe into false claims that Levy admits he made regarding his Vietnam military service, the mayor drove off last Wednesday in a silver, city-owned Dodge Durango and has not officially been heard from since. His lawyer says that Levy is in Outer MongoliaFallujahCancunVegas, baby!Vermont for the maple sugar festival a hospital, but isn't giving up anything else.
Rumors flew last week that Levy was ready to resign and would hold a news conference. But his assistants insisted that none of that was true.
"You can't have this big mystery going on and have a functioning city government," said State Assemblyman Jim Whelan, a former Atlantic City mayor. "His first responsibility, as an elected official, is to the people who elected him to office. They deserve an explanation."
Whelan's statement may seem unremarkable, except for the fact that he has been Levy's best friend since they spent teenage summers together as lifeguards on Atlantic City beaches. Until recently, battling middle-aged paunches, they were rowing partners most mornings on Atlantic City's back bays.
So when Whelan publicly called for Levy to either explain his absence or resign, he was railed by his political opponents, who called his statement a cheap shot against a friend.
The city's image as a bastion of bad government strikes deeply with Whelan, one of the city's few modern mayors whose administration did not end in disgrace. Three of the city's last six mayors have been arrested. Currently, one-third of Atlantic City's City Council members are in prison or awaiting sentencing. Another city councilman was caught in a videotaped sex act with a prostitute last year. He said he was set up by political opponents. Sounds like my old hometown, Youngstown, Ohio!
They could have a quorum at the local prison ...
Levy's public problems started last fall, when he acknowledged to a reporter for the Press of Atlantic City that he misrepresented his military background during his mayoral campaign. He had claimed to have served in the Army Green Berets during the Vietnam War, but in November said he never was in the elite Army Special Forces group. Levy's service record shows he served two tours in Vietnam and was decorated for bravery twice.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/04/2007 10:15 ||
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#1
Yaknow, this is actually good. Everywhere has crooked politicians, but in the USA, we actually prosecute a lot of them.
#3
Are they certain this guy is still breathing? And in one piece? We are talking about Atlantic City now...I wouldn't put it past the mafia to...disappear him;)
#10
This ties in nicely with the manufactured smear by Media Matters over Rush's comment on Jesse McBeth, a.k.a. the "phony soldier". The mayor of Atlantic City is a phony soldier as well. Said he served in the Green Berets--- he didn't.
#2
"Huawei is up to its eyeballs with the Chinese military," said a defense official concerned about the deal.
China is still a communist country no matter how much they talk about reforms. Each and every Chinese company must be assumed to be controlled by the government which would, of course, include the PLA. That's what communism is.
Further, Google Huawei and Cisco together to find numerous online articles about Cisco's suit against Huawei for copying code and documentation from Cisco's Internet routers. I remember at one point Cisco pointed out the violation was so flagrant that the copied code even included bugs in the code that Cisco knew about.
For 3-Com to even consider a merger with these pirates moves me to suggest a new Rantburg category: -Corporate Whores-.
#1
Sure, we got a special deal on some corporate entities dealing in special subprime loans. The risk is no worse than if you use the same funds to extend credit to some of your southern African neighbors.
About 3,000 South African miners trapped after an accident were awaiting rescue Wednesday after waiting hours deep underground. It was expected to take a day to bring them to safety. A burst water pipe burst was believed to have caused a shaft to collapse in the gold mine near Johannesburg, union officials said. An official with Harmony Gold's Elandsrand Mine said the company would be able to evacuate the trapped workers over the next 24 hours.
Harmony's acting chief executive, Graham Briggs, said on MSNBC that officials have been in contact with the trapped workers and have been sending them food and water. He said the company could evacuate the miners over the next day using a smaller cage in another shaft, but the process would be slow.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/04/2007 00:00 ||
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LUCIANNE > no one has died, and rescue of all remining miners will likely be accomplished over another 10 hours or so. VARIOUS Netters > reports leaning to [repairable]local or specific transportation lift/system defect only.
But seriously, they weren't "trapped". Their elevator broke, and it apparently took some time to get the backup exit shaft's elevator working or something. Strikes me as pretty shabby that it took so long, and the access redundancy for such a large mine was so poorly thought-out. They'd have been really screwed if something serious was going on, like a real flood or a fire.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
10/04/2007 9:19 Comments ||
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President Hugo Chavez accused the U.S. on Wednesday of trying to spur a military rebellion, saying the CIA is behind the distribution of leaflets inside army barracks calling for his ouster. Pucker factor at warp 7 for Hugo. Seems he's not the only malcontent with guns.
Speaking to dozens of army officers at Venezuela's largest military base, Chavez urged soldiers to resist calls for a coup from "oligarchs and their imperialist masters," a reference to the United States. "They will always try to divide us and confuse us to weaken us, and thereby dominate us," said Chavez, who weathered a short-lived coup in 2002. Noting that leaflets calling for a rebellion have been circulating in army barracks recently, he said: "That's why they have the CIA."
State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper declined to comment on Chavez's statements. The Venezuelan leader has accused opposition leaders and U.S. officials of involvement in coup-related plots many times before, and both have repeatedly denied them.
Government opponents argue Chavez uses repeated warnings of alleged uprisings to divert public attention from domestic problems such as soaring crime or his proposed constitutional reforms that would abolish limits on re-election.
Posted by: ed ||
10/04/2007 13:28 ||
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#1
Just wait until you see our next dreaded weapon.
#6
Every time this guy opens his mouth I grow more suspicious of the earlier "coup" attempt. Methinks he doth protesteth too much, way too much.
Is anyone aware of a thorough analysis of the coup attempt? Any conspiracy theories out there on how it was self inflicted or stage managed? Should we start some, theories that is?
Edited for brevity.
"All that is alive merely evaporates." That's how a Russian official described the effects of what is reportedly the world's most powerful non-nuclear bomb, tested on Sept. 11. A video released by state media shows a Tupolev 160 bomber, a bomb falling as a parachute unfurls and a huge fireball.
The Russians call the device the "Father of All Bombs," an homage to the American GBU-43 Massive-Ordnance Air Blast munition nicknamed "Mother of All Bombs." Both weapons weigh around 8 tons, but the Russian device reportedly has a more powerful blast: equivalent to 44 tons of TNT, whereas the American bomb is equivalent to 10 tons.
But close analysis of the video reveals inconsistencies that have led some U.S. experts to question the veracity of the Russian claims, and to downgrade assessments of the weapon. It's possible, they say, that the video was partially faked, and that the test was hyped for political reasons. More at link. Initial debut story posted here on Rantburg.
Posted by: Dar ||
10/04/2007 14:41 ||
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#1
The Russians? Doing propaganda for political reason?
#2
Is old American expression: whereas maternity is a matter of fact, paternity is a matter of opinion.
Posted by: Matt ||
10/04/2007 16:40 Comments ||
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#3
A bomb like that would only be good if (a) you had air support to keep your bomber from being blow away before it could drop the thing (b) it had penetration abilities to destroy a hardened bunker.
Beyond that the bomb had no real point anyways. Real or not it was a stupid idea.
#7
"FATHER OF ALL BOMBS" + "RODS FROM GOD", "SPACE BOMBS", ETC. > Iran's MOUD was surreally correct that nuclear bombs no longer have place in the [early] 21st Century = contemporary world, i.e. OWG-SWO > means INTER-NATION OR MUKLTI-NATION WARS AND ANTI-GOVT REVOLUTIONS ARE OBSOLETE. There's now only local or minor FACTIONALISMS-SECTARIANISM, i.e. small "POLICE ACTIONS", MORE NUISANCE THAN DIRECT THREAT TO PUBLIC AUTHORITY???
Pristina _ Kosovo`s public broadcaster, RTK, aired on Wednesday night dramatic footage and an interview with members of the Albanian National Army, ANA, an armed group branded as terrorists by the UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK.
According to RTK the footage was filmed near the Kosovo Serbia border in the municipality of Podujevo. A group of masked armed men in black uniforms were shown patrolling one of Kosovos most important highways and checking vehicles that were passing by.
Seeing the serious threat that Serbia will again do an invasion in Kosovo, we decided to prepare and to open our eyes better, one of the masked armed men told RTK.
Beatrant Bornneau, spokesperson of NATO troops in Kosovo, KFOR, told RTK that they would react furiously in case they would locate the ANA militia.
Theres no place for any more violence in Kosovo, Bornneau said.
Members of the Albanian National Army (Armata Kombetare Shqiptare) known also as AKSH, were seen in the territory periodically after the conflict ended in 1999. They have taken responsibility for several bombing incidents in Kosovo since then.
Through press statements ANA has also threatened with attacks and all out war in Macedonia demanding unification of Albanians from Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania. This is the first time that any ANA armed and uniformed members were filmed and broadcast in a national TV station in Kosovo.
Kosovo is being administrated by the UN since 1999 when NATO bombs made the Serbian authorities withdraw from the territory. Its political status is due to be resolved in an internationally mediated negotiations process between Kosovo and Serbia politicians.
#1
Through press statements ANA has also threatened with attacks and all out war in Macedonia demanding unification of Albanians from Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania.
Let them all unite within current Albanian borders. This is naked aggression by a piss ant little country that should have had its ass kicked a long, long time ago.
A real shame this didn't happen in the US, the SEC would hound them to the gates of Hell. Posted for the schadenfreude value.
A political and financial scandal is threatening to engulf the European Airbus company and the French government. Twenty-one senior executives and two large corporate shareholders were reported to have made "strange, massive and simultaneous" sales of shares in the parent company of Airbus, just before the plane-maker announced a calamitous delay to its super-jumbo, the A380, last year.
A preliminary report by the French financial markets watchdog has been forwarded to a judge who is investigating possible charges of "insider trading" against those who unloaded their shares. They include the holding company belonging to the family of Arnaud Lagardère, co-president of Eads, the Airbus parent company. M. Lagardère is one of France's wealthiest men and a close friend of President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Others said to have made "strange" sudden sales of shares include M. Lagardère's German co-president, Manfred Bischoff, and Noel Forgeard and Tom Enders, who were joint chief executives of Airbus. The Germany company, DaimlerChrysler, one of the largest stakeholders, also dumped a large part of its holding. The French government was tipped off about coming problems at Airbus the previous December, the report said. It did not sell its shares in Eads but raised no objection to the large, sudden sales by other corporate and private shareholders.
No specific allegation of illegal share dealing is made against any person or company in the preliminary report by the Autorité des Marches Financiers (AMF). But the report says there were "simultaneous and massive" sales of shares in the weeks before the delays to the A380 were announced on 13 June 2006. The Largardère company and DaimlerChrysler each sold 7.5 per cent of Eads stock worth 2bn on 4 April.
The preliminary official report, leaked yesterday to the newspaper Le Figaro, describes the sales as "strange". They "bear witness to anticipation... of a future fall in the share price", the report says.
The day after the announcement of technical problems with the A380, the Eads share price fell 26.8 per cent. Overall, the leaked watchdog report says up to 1,200 individuals who could have had inside knowledge of problems at Airbus, dumped more than 10 million shares before the official announcement. Total "profits" from these individual sales are estimated at 90m.
All the individuals and companies who sold shares in that period have previously adamantly denied any illegal use of inside knowledge. They have insisted that the delays to the A380 programme, and similar problems with the A350, were not revealed to senior officials at Airbus and Eads until just before they became public knowledge.
"Non, non, certainement pas!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/04/2007 00:00 ||
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President doesnt deny US role in talks with Benazir
Says he wants to withdraw cases against Nawaz too
Kayani is his secret loversoulmate confidante
President General Pervez Musharraf said on Wednesday he would seek a vote of confidence from the new National Assembly formed after general elections. Gen Musharraf, in an interview with Geo television, reaffirmed that he would take off his uniform before November 15 after being re-elected as president by the current assemblies. He said general elections would likely be held two months after November 15, probably in January He said the resignations of opposition legislators would not affect the presidential election, as only 163 out of 1,170 members of the electoral college had resigned.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/04/2007 00:00 ||
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MNA Qari Gul Rehman of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) said on Wednesday that he has not resigned from the National Assembly. In a written statement submitted to the NA Secretariat, Rehman said that he has neither submitted nor signed any document relating to resignation from the NA seat, reported APP. Any news relating to his resignation was false, he added.
Meanwhile, at least five parliamentarians of the NWFP Assembly including two from the MMA, two of the Awami National Party (ANP) and one of the Pakistan Peoplees Party (PPP) have switched loyalties and announced their support for the no-confidence move against the chief minister. Similarly, five parliamentarians, including one opposition member and four independent candidates, have announced their support for the MMA, reported Online.
This article starring:
Qari Gul Rehman
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
Posted by: Fred ||
10/04/2007 00:00 ||
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#3
Six-Party talks with Kimmie seemed to have paid off, the Surge seems to be paying off, and Global Warming is dying a slow death.
The Dhims are going to have to find some new issues.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/04/2007 11:11 Comments ||
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FAMILY GUY's PETER [angry grimace] > Look at the Sun, all safe and secure up there in the sky. * Clearly the mission of the Irish is to make sure the OWG devs a SUN-DESTROYING MISSLE in order to assure Earthican dominance of the Solar System.
SULAIMANIYA, Iraq: Worsening a deep divide with Iraqi leaders, the Kurdish regional government has struck four new oil exploration deals over the strong objections of the Baghdad central government. The deals are the latest effort by the Kurds to jump-start their oil industry as national oil legislation languishes in Parliament.
The new deals follow an agreement last month between the Kurds and Hunt Oil Co. of Dallas that was criticized as illegal by the Iraqi oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani. Kurdish officials, who have said they want to be producing at least one million barrels of new oil daily within five years, say all the deals are consistent with the Iraqi Constitution.
But the deals have aggravated tensions with the Arabs who dominate the national government, calling into question whether Iraqi politicians will ever be able to work out differences on how to develop the huge petroleum reserves.
The Kurds want the Iraqi Parliament to pass draft legislation governing new oil exploration and the allocation of oil revenue between the country's Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite regions. But many in Parliament object to the version favored by the Kurds, and it is unclear how the Kurds' own regional oil law, approved in August, will conform with whatever might ultimately be approved by the central government.
In particular, many Sunni Arab leaders object to the production-sharing agreements being negotiated by the Kurds, which call for companies to invest large sums to find and produce oil and then award the companies a portion of the profits later generated by the oil fields.
The Kurds' new oil and gas exploration production-sharing contracts were signed with Heritage Oil Corp., a publicly traded Canadian concern, and Perenco SA, a privately held French company. The total initial amount invested is expected to be $500 million, the regional government said, and two other deals with "experienced international companies" will be announced soon. If the exploration leads to oil production, Kurdish officials said that in rough terms the deals call for the companies to recover their costs and split profits, with about 15 percent going to the companies and 85 percent to the government.
In addition, the Kurdish government announced plans to complete, within two years, two refineries that are each capable of processing 20,000 barrels a day, or enough to meet 30 percent to 40 percent of the current demand in Iraqi Kurdistan for gasoline and other refined products - easing reliance on imports from Turkey and Iran. "We are desperate for fuel and fuel products," a Kurdish official said.
In Baghdad, a spokesman for the Oil Ministry criticized the new oil production contracts and warned companies not to sign deals without the blessing of the national government. "Any contracts signed before the approval of the oil law will be ignored or considered illegal," said the spokesman, Assim Jihad. He added that the ministry would take "rigid steps against those who ignore its orders."
A Kurdish official defended the deals, saying that the eventual revenue would be shared with all Iraqi regions and that any delays in signing exploration pacts would only increase the time it will take to get money for the country's treasury.
The Kurds do seem like sensible fellows, don't they. What the Kurdish fellow said is something you'd expect from an .. American.
A Western executive involved in negotiations with the Kurds said the regional government appeared to be trying to "create a fait accompli" by signing so many deals with foreign companies that the central government has to eventually accept the provisions sought by the Kurds. "They are trying to increase the pressure to get the draft oil bill out of" the Iraqi Parliament, said the executive, who agreed to speak without his name being used because he was not authorized to discuss negotiations. "Some of these are relatively marginal deals in the sense that they are not huge deals with major international oil companies. But if they get enough of them they feel they can put more pressure on the federal government to get the law unstuck."
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/04/2007 00:00 ||
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You'd think that the Arab central government might get a clue that - instead of begrudging the Kurds for their "let's get on with business attitude" - the rest of Iraq should start emulating the Kurds. Stop the petty bickering over how to split the pie - and instead work on making the pie much, much bigger.
I'm tired of hearing how the "poor Iraqis" have suffered so much under the brutal Saddam regime that they have a right to be all screwed up. The Kurds didn't exactly enjoy a life of picnics and fuzzy bunny rabbits under Saddam - and the Jews didn't get treated very nicely by Hitler, either - and yet both groups picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and proceeded to create robust, productive, and reasonably cohesive cultures.
The Iraqis need to "get over it, already" - and start building a productive future for themselves - on their own shoulders.
#2
The Kurds *are* America - taking the difficult decisions, doing the heavy lifting, providing for themselves and offering to share the success...while the anklebiters hurl taunts and RPGs until it's time to take all the credit.
1. Do not covet
2. Your security matters - especially for investors.
3. The Kurds will share their wealth,
4. Mind your own.
5. stop being petty and trite.
6. The Kurds have done more to provide these other regions with more security than they provided themselves.
7. This is what happens under a democracy that has been working well for over 10 years.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he plans to discuss future action on Myanmar with the UN Security Council on Friday and said addressing the human rights situation in the country must remain a top international concern. Ban said Wednesday he would meet Thursday afternoon with his special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, who delivered "the strongest possible message" to Myanmar's military leaders during a four-day visit.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/04/2007 00:00 ||
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Ban said Wednesday he would meet Thursday afternoon with his special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, who delivered "the strongest possible message" to Myanmar's military leaders during a four-day visit.
We'll huff and we'll puff!
Yeah! How do ya like that, bad...Burma Guys!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Pristina _ Kosovo`s public broadcaster, RTK, aired on Wednesday night dramatic footage and an interview with members of the Albanian National Army, ANA, an armed group branded as terrorists by the UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK.
SULAIMANIYA, Iraq: Worsening a deep divide with Iraqi leaders, the Kurdish regional government has struck four new oil exploration deals over the strong objections of the Baghdad central government. The deals are the latest effort by the Kurds to jump-start their oil industry as national oil legislation languishes in Parliament.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he plans to discuss future action on Myanmar with the UN Security Council on Friday and said addressing the human rights situation in the country must remain a top international concern. Ban said Wednesday he would meet Thursday afternoon with his special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, who delivered "the strongest possible message" to Myanmar's military leaders during a four-day visit. 
