Hi there, !
Today Fri 10/15/2010 Thu 10/14/2010 Wed 10/13/2010 Tue 10/12/2010 Mon 10/11/2010 Sun 10/10/2010 Sat 10/09/2010 Archives
Rantburg
533624 articles and 1861747 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 73 articles and 152 comments as of 20:44.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
15 killed in clashes in Mogadishu
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
0 [1] 
10 00:00 Procopius2k [3] 
1 00:00 Besoeker [1] 
3 00:00 JohnQC [] 
1 00:00 Anguper Hupomosing9418 [2] 
3 00:00 Procopius2k [] 
5 00:00 Glenmore [10] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
6 00:00 JosephMendiola [6]
10 00:00 phil_b [2]
0 [7]
5 00:00 Pappy [2]
0 [1]
0 []
0 []
0 []
3 00:00 Heriberto Slirong1790 []
0 []
1 00:00 JosephMendiola [6]
1 00:00 trailing wife [2]
0 []
0 []
0 [2]
0 [7]
0 []
0 [4]
1 00:00 JosephMendiola [5]
0 [5]
0 []
1 00:00 American Delight [1]
0 [5]
1 00:00 Ralphs son Johnnie [5]
0 [6]
2 00:00 Mullah Richard [2]
Page 2: WoT Background
10 00:00 trailing wife [2]
4 00:00 jefe101 [1]
0 [4]
9 00:00 JosephMendiola [4]
1 00:00 Pstanley [4]
0 []
2 00:00 Willy [1]
4 00:00 Mercutio [4]
0 [4]
0 []
2 00:00 JosephMendiola [6]
0 [2]
1 00:00 mojo [3]
1 00:00 mojo []
0 []
0 [2]
3 00:00 mojo [2]
0 [5]
1 00:00 Mitch H. [2]
Page 3: Non-WoT
1 00:00 jefe101 [5]
6 00:00 Pappy [3]
1 00:00 JosephMendiola [3]
1 00:00 JosephMendiola [3]
0 [2]
1 00:00 Redneck Jim [3]
2 00:00 mojo []
2 00:00 JosephMendiola [1]
14 00:00 JosephMendiola [3]
0 [4]
0 [1]
0 [3]
0 []
2 00:00 trailing wife [2]
0 []
3 00:00 SteveS [2]
Page 6: Politix
4 00:00 Old Patriot [3]
2 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [2]
2 00:00 Frozen Al [2]
9 00:00 Ebbang Uluque6305 [2]
10 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [2]
Economy
The Postal Service can't afford unions
The APWU is currently in contract negotiations with the USPS. When asked about the possibility of union concessions in light of the USPS's financial woes, Burrus called a pay increase for his members an "entitlement" and stated that his union wants "more control over activities at work, more money, better benefits -- we want more."
Barack Hussein Obama, Umh! Umh! Umh!
There's a union demand that goes back a couple hundred years ...
The sad reality is that having watched the unionized workforces at GM and Chrysler receive preferential treatment from the federal government, there's little incentive for Burrus and the postal unions to not ask for more. The postal unions are likely betting that in a worst case financial scenario for the USPS, policymakers will tap taxpayers for a bailout. Unfortunately, if recent history is a guide, they're probably correct.
Bend over and hold your ankles, this is going to hurt.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 10/12/2010 15:42 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I would be willing to bet that many communities could find qualified volunteers to deliver mail.

Posted by: crosspatch || 10/12/2010 17:14 Comments || Top||

#2  We, the taxpayers, cannot afford unions in government. No jobs, no money for unions or the government.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/12/2010 17:41 Comments || Top||

#3  Delivering the mail isn't the issue, it's sorting it ...
Posted by: Steve White || 10/12/2010 17:51 Comments || Top||

#4  Volunteers? Yea right, volunteers to steal your mail, open your envelopes, take whats inside...No thanks, that defies logic. A paid mail person has a stake in doing a good job. An overpaid mail person is obviously not desired, but an underpaid one is even worse.
Posted by: Private Eye || 10/12/2010 18:30 Comments || Top||

#5  There's an Oplan for this which involves - using the military - tada. Right, during war when we have all sorts of free manpower. Anyways, the mail is not delivered to you. You go to the servicing post office and pick up the mail.

Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/12/2010 18:36 Comments || Top||

#6  Also note that postal work is not rocket science. With a couple hundred thousand people unemployed out there, replacement is not going to be a challenge.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/12/2010 18:39 Comments || Top||

#7  In Soviet Russia... you pay stamp to pick up your own mail, at Post Office!
Posted by: Yakov Smirnov || 10/12/2010 21:29 Comments || Top||

#8  You can't just replace them, its called the Davis Bacon act, and the average worker's life was a piece of shit before it was enacted.

It's a negotiation, you start out high, or even ridiculous, so that you can settle low. There has been a lot of anti union talk on the Burg lately, some unions are BAD, they put themselves out of business. The dockworkers is a prime example of a bad, abusive union, and as a result they have containerized and eliminated about 75% of them. Other unions are not so bad, if the workers don't stand together and demand a fair piece of the action it will just go to executive compensation.
Personally, I'd rather see Joe the welder get another $1.05 an hour than the VP get a $2,000,000 bonus. He can take the $1,000,000 and Joe can get his $1.05 an hour.
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 10/12/2010 21:42 Comments || Top||

#9  >Personally, I'd rather see Joe the welder get
>another $1.05 an hour than the VP get a
>$2,000,000 bonus. He can take the $1,000,000 and
>Joe can get his $1.05 an hour.

I'd like that too. Unfortunately the way things work is that VP and Mr. Union Rep split the boodle. VP gets $1,500,000 and Mr. Union Rep gets $500,000 and Joe Welder gets a $0.10 raise + immunity from being fired.
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 10/12/2010 22:30 Comments || Top||

#10  You can't just replace them, its called the Davis Bacon act

It was called PATCO once.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/12/2010 23:06 Comments || Top||


The Myth of Free Trade Agreements
Posted by: Water Modem || 10/12/2010 09:09 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Misleading statement on the first line.

Growth from a low level easily overtakes growth from a higher level.

One FACT is this. Protectionism is a subsidy from consumers to producers. It makes the country poorer for a few special interests.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 10/12/2010 9:54 Comments || Top||

#2  The US exports trash and jobs. What a deal.
Posted by: Black Charlie Chinemble5313 || 10/12/2010 11:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Free trade is a myth. There is not an even playing field. Over-regulation by government, government meddling in our free enterprise (bailouts, cash for clunkers, etc.), unions, cap & trade BS, and product liability suits have driven industry off-shore.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/12/2010 17:58 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
The Empty Suit
Ken Blanchard, South Dakota Politics

...All year long Democrats have been urging the President to get tough, to show some passion, to fight. In fact he has been fighting, all along. He has made more speeches on behalf of causes than any President I can remember. He has been very direct. If any phrase of Obama's stands out, it would be "Let me be perfectly clear", or "my highest priority." It turns out, however, that the President's highest priorities number in the dozens, if not hundreds. What he is perfectly clear about fades away faster than raindrops under a windshield wiper. The problem isn't passion or toughness. It is that there isn't any there there. Even Clinton had an adolescent craving for acceptance combined with the charms of a confidence man. Barack Obama has nothing.

Barack Obama has spent way too much time on campus. He has been surrounded his entire life by people who all agree with one another. Why did he sit twenty years in the pews listening to a half-demented preacher without once raising an eyebrow? Everyone in the room was shouting "amen!" Obama's star steadily rose because he always said amen along with the crowd around him. If ever he challenged his preacher, or his congregation, or his party, it has gone unreported. If ever he stood apart from the Harvard or U of Chicago crowd and said "no", there is no record. Why should he? The crowd kept passing him up the row. Everything in his life taught him that he could get ahead by figuring out what everyone around him wanted to hear.

Since he took up resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he has had to confront problems that cannot be solved by agreeing with somebody. Suddenly, very suddenly, he has to hold American foreign policy interests in one hand and the Iranians, who just won't be agreeable, in the other. Suddenly, very suddenly, he has to deal with Republicans in Congress who just don't agree with his agreeable friends on the other side. Nothing in his career prepared him for this. So he ignores the one and blames the other on Fox News....
Posted by: Mike || 10/12/2010 06:38 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  0's highest priorities aim toward things that are either harmful to the commonwealth, or irrelevant to it. He's not interested in doing what needs to be done, or in facing reality.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 10/12/2010 8:16 Comments || Top||


Obama's mojo is missing - Reality sets in as economy stagnates further
This was on the Washington Times op-ed page. So I moved it to our opinion page.

-- trailing wife
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/12/2010 04:21 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  There's nothing worse than a non-functional mojo.
Posted by: Mike || 10/12/2010 8:12 Comments || Top||

#2 

I wonder how many of the unemployed who voted for 0 2 years ago are still unemployed. I wonder how many employed people who voted for him are now unemployed. That would make for an interesting poll.


What 0's opponents don't admit is that this will not improve any time soon. A sustained increase in employment is nearly always the last thing to happen in a recession, and there is no reason to expect that pattern will change for this one. Of course admitting this will not win over any voters, the people want an immediate improvement.


If the GOP wins big this year, I see similar headlines in 24 months, this time in the Dems favor. This electorate needs education in the worst way. And whether they like it or not, they will be educated, how much pain they go through is partly up to them, and partly up to our leaders, whoever they wind up being. I think there will be a good deal of pain, no matter who wins.

Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 10/12/2010 8:13 Comments || Top||

#3  If the old Trunks remain in charge, it won't be any different in 24 months. It's all the Beltway. However, if the new blood refuses to be the cannon fodder as so many new blood Donks are experiencing having been the cannon fodder for Nancy & Co., then just the ability to shut down the constant messing around with new regulations and new decrees laws will encourage business to start to invest again no matter how tepid. Then watch who'll claim responsibility for even a small up swing.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/12/2010 9:21 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Good Dhimmi!
Washington Post Pre-emptively Pulls "Where's Mohammed" Cartoon, Cartoonist Annoyed

Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander tells the story of the paper's decision not to run the syndicated "Non Sequitur" cartoon (at left) submitted by Wiley Miller that was to run in last week's paper. (Because I inserted the cartoon to the left, I want to note where the following block quote begins and where it ends below).
If someone could post the cartoon, I'd be grateful -- I was told how to do that, but I can't remember the details. In the meantime, the cartoon is at the link. It's very good.
Alexander explains [block quote begins here]:

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/12/2010 22:12 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel: An Arab-free Jewish theocracy?
[Arab News] THE powers that be within Israel are showing their true bigoted racist colors. On Sunday, the Israeli Cabinet agreed to a new law obliging new non-Jewish immigrants to first swear allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state." The concept is certainly original when one of the building blocks of democracy is equal rights for all citizens irrespective of their ethnicity or religious beliefs. Instead, the oath should surely read "a Jewish and theocratic state."

Moreover, the law is discriminatory in that it presupposes that all Jews are inherently loyal to Israel, which is far being the case. Members of the orthodox Naturei Karta sect believe Israel's very existence is a sin while a large proportion of the most influential pro-Palestinian activists are Jews.

Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish political scientist and author, was barred entry to Israel because of his views and the Jewish Israeli conductor pianist Daniel Barenboim was awarded a Palestinian passport for his support. In recent weeks, an all "Jewish boat" has made an attempt to break the siege of Gaza.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 10/12/2010 00:00 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hurts when infidels are not as stupid as you'd like them to be?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/12/2010 6:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Arab News (website ArabNews.com) is a Saudi English-language daily newspaper published in Jeddah, Riyadh, and Dammam.

The Saoodi Entity Saudi Arabia is a Jew-free Islamic theocracy.
Posted by: Omaing White7048 || 10/12/2010 8:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Of what value is such an oath of allegiance from a Muslim to a Jew? Isn't there some Koranic principle that tells Muslims to lie under those circumstances?
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/12/2010 9:03 Comments || Top||

#4  Glenmore: There might actually be some there, there.

"The oath requires new citizens to pledge allegiance to a "Jewish and democratic" state."

While a Muslim could lie and say, "sure", that matters less than the idea that a Muslim could *ever* agree to the idea recognizing that Israel exists in the first place, at all, even if they were lying.

That is, he can lie as an individual, but if he takes an oath to Israel, he is acknowledging, as a Muslim, that Israel both exists and he is recognizing this fact. That it is not just an occupation of Muslim lands by "somebody or other with no claim."

And even if he is lying, which he would be, it wouldn't matter. He would be doing something intolerable to Muslims.

Very crafty.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 10/12/2010 12:21 Comments || Top||

#5  From the sentencing of the Times Square bomber:
The Judge asked, "Didn't you swear allegiance to this country when you became an American citizen?" His response was, "I did swear, but I did not mean it." He concluded his remarks with "Blessed be" Osama bin Laden. (via Ed Koch column)
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/12/2010 12:53 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
U.S.S. Cole attack 10 years ago today.
Posted by: Water Modem || 10/12/2010 09:38 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Ranker

In heavens ranks they humbly stand wounds and time now healed.
From battles far and distant shores, no taps for them now peal.
As pipers play on sunlit skies, straight they stand with brass aglow.
No tears do fall from the ranker’s eyes, for kith and kin below.

Yet pray for us, and wait the sound, the sound of the bugler’s call.
Ready again for quick march, to that final muster call.
Beseeching only we remember them, and to heavens humbly gaze.
Sending the father our earthly best, thanksgiving and daily praise.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/12/2010 13:28 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
50[untagged]
3al-Qaeda in Arabia
2Taliban
2al-Qaeda in Iraq
2Govt of Iran
2Govt of Pakistan
2Govt of Syria
2Hezbollah
2Palestinian Authority
1Hamas
1al-Qaeda in Pakistan
1al-Shabaab
1Pirates
1Narcos
1al-Qaeda

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2010-10-12
  15 killed in clashes in Mogadishu
Mon 2010-10-11
  Dronezap waxes eight in North Wazoo
Sun 2010-10-10
  Bangla: Lashkar's explosives expert captured
Sat 2010-10-09
  Norks confirm Sonny Jong Un's succession
Fri 2010-10-08
  Zapee ID'd as Mohammed Usman
Thu 2010-10-07
  US apologizes for attack on Pakistani soldiers
Wed 2010-10-06
  Qari Ziauddin ID'd as a Zap-ee
Tue 2010-10-05
  French police arrest 11 people with suspected Islamic extremists links
Mon 2010-10-04
  Six killed as NATO oil tankers ambushed in Islamabad
Sun 2010-10-03
  Drone strikes kill 18 in North Waziristan
Sat 2010-10-02
  US drone strike kills six in Pakistan
Fri 2010-10-01
  Imagine that: Dozens of NATO oil tankers attacked in Pakistan
Thu 2010-09-30
  'Obama gives Pakistan ultimatum'
Wed 2010-09-29
  Cross-border heli raids kill 9 in Pakistan
Tue 2010-09-28
  Israeli Navy escorts Gaza-bound activist boat to Ashdod


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.
3.144.187.103
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (26)    WoT Background (19)    Non-WoT (16)    (0)    Politix (5)