The mother of a West Bank man who invited a 16-year-old American to the Mideast to get married says she is distraught that the teenager has returned home and hopes to bring the couple together. No Green Card for Abdullah.
Sana Jinzawi said by telephone from her West Bank home in Jericho Wednesday that her son was heartbroken and insisted the two are in love. "She was going to sign a marriage contract as soon as she got here," the mother said, adding she told Lester to "bring a pink dress for the engagement party and a white dress for the wedding." "She wanted to convert to Islam and wear the head covering and live with us and adopt our culture," Sana Jinzawi said. Until Abdullah's visa is approved.
... or until Abdullah gets another wife ...
Sana Jinzawi said five other Jericho residents had brought American girls to Jericho in recent years and that all the couples now live in the U.S. Jackpot! RTWT at the link
Posted by: ed ||
06/15/2006 00:00 ||
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Sana Jinzawi said five other Jericho residents had brought American girls to Jericho in recent years and that all the couples now live in the U.S.
#5
#1:
Sana Jinzawi said five other Jericho residents had brought American girls to Jericho in recent years and that all the couples now live in the U.S.
That's sick. Seriously.
No, not "Sick" jusr a pretty good marrage-scam-to-America going on there.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/15/2006 8:42 Comments ||
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"Sana Jinzawi said five other Jericho residents had brought American girls to Jericho in recent years and that all the couples now live in the U.S." Sounds like the FBI needs to look into those.
With hurricane season underway, and alligators on the rampage, and sharks looking for lunch, does Florida really need Burmese pythons?
Do they know how to vote?
No way, says wildlife ecologist Frank Mazzotti of the University of Florida in Gainesville. But these non-native snakes have found a home in Everglades National Park, and their numbers are growing dramatically. Although elusive by nature, these giant snakes have been seen doing battle with alligators, climbing trees fast enough to catch nesting chicks and swallowing animals as large as wood storks.
Python vs Gator, tonight on PPV!
And they can be particularly hazardous on the highways. Any motorist could lose control when suddenly confronted by a reptile that can grow to 20 feet long and weigh up to 200 pounds.
"Damm, there goes another Prius!"
It's a major invasion by an ambush predator with an enormous appetite, says Mazzotti, who is leading a multi-agency effort to bring the population explosion under control. But it's going to be tough, if it's even possible.
At this point, no one even knows exactly how many pythons are in the Everglades.
"There's no credible estimate," says Mazzotti. "But 95 were removed from Everglades National Park in 2005, without a deliberate effort to catch them. And if you catch 10 percent of a population you usually think you've done astoundingly well. "There are lots out there. It could easily be in the thousands."
And here's the root of the problem: Young Burmese pythons can be bought at flea markets and pet stores throughout South Florida for about $20, Mazzotti says, and they are a hot item. But they don't stay young for long, and they don't stay small. In time, they become too much to handle as pets. "You have to regularly kill large animals, like rabbits, to feed it, and it can grow to 200 pounds, and it defecates like a horse," Mazzotti says. So what do the owners do? They release them into the swamps, where they go forth and multiply.
Scientists from several institutions, including the National Park Service, have joined Mazzotti's team in hopes of controlling, if not eradicating, the python population. But that's pretty hard when it's uncertain how many are out there and where they hang out. So to answer several basic questions, the scientists hit upon an intriguing, although somewhat risky, strategy.
Last winter they captured four pythons from the Everglades, stitched radio transmitters onto them, and released them back into the wild. The hope was that the released snakes would lead the researchers to other pythons, at least during the breeding season. Mazzotti calls them "Judas snakes." It worked. Twelve snakes were captured, and a number of key questions were answered. Most pythons have been seen near roads or other manmade structures, so officials had hoped they had not ventured too deeply into the park. But that turned out not to be the case. They are everywhere.
"Burmese pythons are right in the heart of Everglades National Park," Mazzotti says. And they are wreaking havoc on the system, eating everything from gray squirrels to bobcats and threatening efforts to restore native species to the park. Unfortunately, it's an ideal home for pythons. They are "habitat generalists," meaning they like to live between wet and dry areas, and they like to climb trees, and they are good swimmers, and there's lots of animals for them to eat. That's also just the kind of environment that appeals to alligators.
"So here they are, hanging out in the same places, doing the same things," Mazzotti says. "And on more than one occasion, several of which were witnessed by the public, they have gotten in fights." Last fall one python tried to swallow an alligator. The alligator ended up swallowing the python, but the snake was too big to go down all at once. So for a couple of days the alligator wandered around with the tip of the python hanging out of its mouth until the rest could be digested.
Pythons are not venomous snakes, but they are hardly defenseless. They can kill their prey by constriction, literally smothering prey to death. And their teeth are something to behold, especially if you're trying to capture one. "They have quite large teeth," says Mazzotti. "They angle backwards because when the snake grabs something it wants to be able to hold onto it and force it down and not let it out."
That's what makes capturing pythons interesting. Here's how it's done:
"You capture pythons by hand," says Mazzotti. "You cruise the roads, and when you see a python you grab hold of whatever part of the python you can, and hope you're faster than the python. You want to grab its head before it grabs you. By and large, we are very, very successful at that."
Sounds like a job for drunken frat boys
Mazzotti says he has never been bitten, or hurt, by a python.
Captured pythons are killed, but Mazzotti plans to keep some in his lab in hopes of finding a better way to manage the problem. It would be nice to know, for example, what makes one python attracted to another. Perhaps the right perfume would lure pythons out of the park and into a trap. It's probably too late to eradicate the pythons, but maybe at least some order can be restored.
"Maybe we can't get them all out, but if we get them under control and they don't go anywhere else, to me that would be victory," he says.
Here's a novel idea, put a bounty on their heads. Let the trappers keep the hides and sell them to tourists. Snake skin bags, belts, boots, etc are high end goods. Earl and his cousin Joe Bob will do it faster and cheaper than a hundred 'experts'.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/15/2006 11:02 ||
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does Florida really need Burmese pythons?
I've a feeling even Burma would happily do without them.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/15/2006 12:42 Comments ||
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I remember that pic, Ed and still wonder if a lil' photoshop was used on that. However, I'm sure they're nasty creatures, and will soon tangle more and more with the Gators. Being an Auburn fan myself, this is the first time I'm cheering for the Gators. And, I agree with Steve...cheapest AND quickest way to get rid of them is to open up huntin' season down there. All the trendies in Coral Gables and Miami Beach would just love some snakeskin boots.
Posted by: BA ||
06/15/2006 13:43 Comments ||
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I was horribly traumatized in childhood by a vivid illustration in "Swiss Family Robinson" of an enormous python swallowing a donkey whole. And alive. *shudder*
#9
I was horribly traumatized in childhood by a vivid illustration in "Swiss Family Robinson" of an enormous python swallowing a donkey whole. And alive.
*shudder*
#10
Having bred and kept burmese pythons for some time I can state these are the most laid back large python. They just ain't wired to hunt primates. Retics and african rocks go after monkeys. Burms seem to like birds but don't like to climb. The article doesn't mention that most likely a big part of their diet in the glades most likely is possums and racoons.
I have always felt that the gator eaten by the burm was a case of the burm putting the gator to "sleep" like the gator wrasslers do by getting it on its backonce in the belly in came to killing the python.
The snake eating the roo is an amethystine python now there is a snake with attitude problems.
Talking about nasty reptiles there is a colony of nile monitor lizards(grows to 6') down in Cape Coral. We had a talk from the person doing the same kind thing as with the pythons. Of course once the news went out that he was going to trap and kill the lizards he was contacted by PETA. They told him surely that there was some other way other than killing the trapped lizards. He told them he had $1500 for shipping in his grant budget, could he ship them to their HQ?
Something about shipping PETA large carnivorus reptiles has a certain appeal, a cause that I feel many rantburgers could support.
Posted by: bruce ||
06/15/2006 18:24 Comments ||
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Wait till you guys hear about the giant rats in Orange County that are the size of cats. No lie.
Things grow bigger in Texas, but freakin' HUGE here!
#12
#10 bruce - now that's a shipping charge I'll gladly help pay! :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/15/2006 18:58 Comments ||
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We should send the snakes on a plane!
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
06/15/2006 19:19 Comments ||
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Thanks for that, Bruce, puts things in perspective.
All those Puff Adders, Gaboon Vipers and Cobras I slotted on the farm in Africa, never mind the boomslangs. I'm trying to tell my Cornsnakes they got nothing to worry about, since Cornelius went awol!
Never mind the Royal Python, Monty. Aint seen him since I go my laser-dot for the .22, lol! And the Korean Rat Snake is real worried, too.
On a serious note, this is irresponsiblity on the scale of letting moslems into Sweden, ie self-inflicted, no sympathy; but if you want to pay me to kill them I will. Just kidding.
#16
As an aside, I don't want to diss snakes, or nyokas, as we called 'em, but, heh, I have long drawn an analogy between them and Mossies, I don't trust none of them, not even the "friendlies".
As I said, I don't want to diss nyokas.
Boesoker, come home.
Posted by: As an aside ||
06/15/2006 20:12 Comments ||
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#17
Something about shipping PETA large carnivorus reptiles has a certain appeal, a cause that I feel many rantburgers could support.
#3
They held off England until the last 8 minutes.. then 2-0.
No barrels of rum today...
Posted by: john ||
06/15/2006 13:58 Comments ||
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Peter Crouch and Steven Gerrard each scored late Thursday to lead England into the second round of the World Cup with a 2-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago in Group B. England striker Wayne Rooney made his World Cup debut, coming on as a substitute in the 58th minute.
Rum put back in the vault.
Actual image probably NSFW. View at your own risk. Don't come cryin' to us if you get fired. (She's a cheeky little wench, though...)
THE nation's only nuclear reactor operator went out of its way to inform the public about an accident last week, Science Minister Julie Bishop said today Emails revealed by the Labor Party yesterday showed various gases, including krypton, escaped into the atmosphere at the Lucas Heights reactor in Sydney last Thursday. A worker was examined for radiation exposure, but was cleared. Ms Bishop said the reactor operator, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), had gone above and beyond its duties to inform the public about the incident. "It was a burst pipe in a handling room some 400m from the medical research reactor," she said today. Many rantburgers are pro-nuke as alternative power, so I post this story to remind you that though big accidents like Chernobyl are rare, small accidents including the release of radioactive material into the environment are common. Radiation causes cancer - even that from the sun - and the effects are cumulative, which means you should limit the amount you are exposed to. The less the better.
"It was not even a notifiable incident, but ANSTO did notify in any event. "They put out a press release on their website last Thursday and ABC radio ran a report of it last Thursday. That's nice, they told us even when they didn't have to. They still released radioactive gases.
"So this is just deliberate scaremongering by Labor in relation to a medical research reactor that delivers radio-isotopes and radio pharmaceuticals for cancer patients across Australia." we are currently having the nuke debate in Australia. It has been stated that for the cost of building 1 nuclear reactor we could build 9 cyclotrons: one in every capital city and more. These produce 98% of isotopes needed for cancer treatment, are cheaper to run, do not need decomissioning and the 2% that can't be made this way can be reliably imported.
Ms Bishop said she was not aware of any other incidents at the reactor in the past 12 months. My memory is a little longer than Ms Bishop's and goes back more than a year. In the 1990s there were three separate incidents at Lucas Heights in which radioactive gases were released and one accident where a radioactive rod was dropped on the floor and shattered, causing staff to evacuate the area and in which three staff were exposed to radiation. This was back in the days when Helen Garnett was head of ANSTO and she was the official media apologist for them. She's now Chancellor of Charles Darwin University. Then there was another incident where radioactive waste was found dumped in barrels at the local Sutherland tip.
And no, the Pickering plant next to Toronto isn't immune to incidents either. I recall something being released into Lake Ontario not too long ago. It was harmless, they claim.
Truth be told, Ontario needs power (we were importing for a day, two weeks ago), and nuke is probably the most rational way to go.
Posted by: Rafael ||
06/15/2006 0:17 Comments ||
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The real problem isn't the reactor plants or the reactor waste. The real problem is the uranium mine waste. The only real energy solutions are (1) use less through increased efficiency and (2) invent new technologies.
#3
Radiation causes cancer - even that from the sun - and the effects are cumulative.
You are quite right. In addition, pretty much everything in the entire world is radioactive to some degree. Even people are radioactive from the Pottasium40 in their body.
The reality is releases like this increase radioactivity for the general population by an infintessimally small amount. Statistically the odds it will result in the death of an average Australian like me are on a par with getting hit by a meteor twice in the same day.
The reality is that nuclear power is thousands of times safer than any other conventional energy source.
#6
Hey, the pic is blinky, the 3-eyes fish mutated by radiations from the Simpsons... only it has evolved into an human female! That's even weirder! How did it/she do that?
In the wake of recent terrorist threats on Canadian soil, understanding the truths and myths of the Islamic faith is more crucial than ever.
Last week, 17 Canadians were arrested under Canadas Anti-Terrorism Act, in connection with an alleged plot to bomb targets in Ontario. Each of the arrested men are believed to be Islamic fundamentalists who support al-Qaeda. But the actions of one small group should not be misunderstood to be representative of the Islamic faith as a whole. Islamic expert and scholar Buff Pary says Canadians must understand Islam is a peaceful, global religion. Shouldn't the quotation marks be around peaceful rather than global?
Pary is a professor of Geopolitics and Civilization History who serves as an advisor to Canadas intelligence agencies. A practicing Muslim, he says Islam is not an innately violent religion and that any religion could have a small group of extremists that mar the name of the entire faith. All religions have the capacity for terrorism. In fact, rather than being violent, extremist and primitive, Pary says Islam is in fact peaceful, welcoming, and far ahead of its time and that it is the most charitable religion, by definition, that there is. Pary adds that most westerners do not understand the extent to which European civilization owes its development to Mid-eastern culture.
Perhaps the most destructive assumption regarding Islam, adds Pary, is that aggressive, senseless violence is part of the religion. Pary says the word Jihad is sorrowfully misunderstood in the West and has become synonymous with terrorism. Pary says that makes for a great sound-bite, but that the truth is a far different matter. Jihad means struggle. All of life is a struggle. [It] has to do with rectifying injustice; how to defend yourself if attacked. Theres nothing in the Koran about how to launch a defensive army against the infidel.
Pary says we must be cautious to jump to conclusions without an understanding of Islamic culture and religion. All that we get in the west is that which enforces the most negative of images we must focus on what has gone wrong how we are mutually assaulting each other as people of civilizations.
#1
Why are many orientalists and islamologues totally enamored with islam, and blind followers of the cult of the Otherness (where the Other is deemed superior, as more spiritual, more sophisticated,...)?
As the general Gallois wrote (in a book I of course didn't read), "the sun of the Orient blinds the West", saying how the elites were intoxicated with false aesthetical notions about islam and the ME.
Pary adds that most westerners do not understand the extent to which European civilization owes its development to Mid-eastern culture.
The extent to which European military technology and organization had to be developed in order to stave off the jihadis, for example. For example, the first cannon-carrying sailing ship was used against a Muslim fleet.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/15/2006 8:05 Comments ||
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Pary adds that most westerners do not understand the extent to which European civilization owes its development to Mid-eastern culture.
This constant rewriting of History is very worrying, IMHO, the West has no debt toward islam, quite the contrary; the meditteranean region which was the center of european civilization was under constant predation for centuries, and never recoverd from it.
But now, in true Eurabia style, we're told by apologists that we're indebted for everything toward the Great Islamic Civilization, from the beginning to the present day (a recent awarded movie at the Cannes festival is all-about how France was actually freed by muslim troops in WWII, France was reconstructed after it by 12 millions/sic workers doing what french people were too lazy to do, etc, etc...).
This is an attack on our roots, simple. The whole notion that we've got to "repay" the "south", since our wealth, culture, art, hygiena (one leftist commenters wrote on a forum that arabs teached us "how to wash ourselves", which is perfectly in tune with the "infidels are impure" line, and pretty funny considering gauls invented soap and romans steam bathes) was stolen from them is a collective multiculti/marxist-enabled suicide.
Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana is currently under investigation by the FBI for allegedly taking bribes from a company seeking business in Nigeria and, as I reported last week, the feds are apparently also looking at his ties to São Tomé and to some Americans doing business in that African country.
São Tomé. Until this very moment I thought São Tomé was one of Mel's cousins. I learn something new every day at the 'Burg.
Since then, I've received additional information that points even more strongly to a São Tomé-Jefferson connection. It gets complicated, but stay with me. First I'll explain the history of a small energy firm called ERHC, which was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, but is now based in Houston. Next, I'll discuss a few people connected to the firm and to a second company called Global Environmental Energy Corp. (GEEC), whose president, Noreen Wilson, has played a key role in ERHC. The cast of characters here includes a Texas wildcatter, a convicted felon, and a reverend whose company invested in an adult entertainment firm. Lastly, we'll get back to Jefferson, who has curious ties to both ERHC and GEEC.
It all starts in 1997, when ERHCdespite having no revenue and just a single full-time employeewon extensive energy rights in the tiny island nation of São Tomé. In exchange for a $5 million payment to the government for the right to market the country's oil potential, ERHC was awarded a minimum of four oil fields, exempted from all taxes, and granted half the future profits in STPetro, a state oil company created by the deal. Noreen Wilson, a lobbyist who helped negotiate the deal for ERHC and who became a major shareholder, was appointed to STPetro's board and made ERHC's chief financial officer.
In 2003, I wrote about ERHC's agreement in São Tomé for the Los Angeles Times. Was the deal a little rich? Wilson said in an interview. Yeah, it probably was, but who else was going to take the risk back then? They couldn't give their oil away, let alone get someone to pay them for it. But Andrew Latham of Wood Mackenzie, an energy-consulting firm in Edinburgh, Scotland, said the original deal was far out of line with industry standards and said he'd never seen a company get a stake like ERHC obtained in São Tomé.
In São Tomé, plenty of people have questioned the deal. A December 2005 report by São Tomé's attorney general said that the country's lead negotiator on the agreement, Carlos Gomes, a nephew of the prime minister, was awarded an executive position at STPetro and a salary of thousands of dollars a month paid by ERHC. The report said that Mateus Nando Meira Rita, a former São Toméan Secretary of State, became STPetro's general manager and also received a generous salary as an ERHC consultant. SEC records show that in 1998 ERHC named Rita as its Vice President of International Affairs and granted him 500,000 shares of company stock valued at $158,203.
More at the link. Run the bath while reading...
But my laptop's getting all soggy...
Posted by: Fred ||
06/15/2006 00:00 ||
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The CBC will turn this into an OJ trial, given the chance - shameless
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/15/2006 10:00 Comments ||
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Westland's Islamic Memorial Gardens will comply with all rites of the faith
Like many Muslims throughout Metro Detroit, Ron Amen had to search for a proper place to bury his mom when she died.
It did not matter that Katherine Amen, an activist, was among the most prominent Arab-Americans in the area. There was no cemetery solely for Muslims, and the sections set aside for them in nondenominational cemeteries were substantially full. And while Muslims prefer to bury their loved ones the day after the death, the burial of Katherine Amen's remains was delayed, in part, because of the limited weekend hours at local cemeteries.
"It was difficult, you know, when a family is mourning, to deal with it," Amen said. "Islam has its own little burial rites, as do the Jews, as do the Christians. For one thing, Muslims are supposed to be buried in an exclusively Islamic cemetery -- if it is available."
#1
Somehow I get the feeling that if a Christian or Jew were to ask to get out early on Friday to attend prayer they would be told to Fuck off.
Only in Seattle.
American Communist Civil Liberties Union of Washington spokesman Doug Honig said a series of U.S. Supreme Court cases justifies the Seattle district's efforts.
Amazing how the ACLU can site 'seperation of Church and State' on one breath when its christians and this crap when its Muslims....
Adan said that Nathan Hale teachers and administrators had been very helpful in providing a room for prayer and allowing students to miss class, but, he said, it can be a problem elsewhere.
Yeah - if you are non-muslim and are not willing to blow the school up your shit-outta-luck.
#2
As an Irish Catholic, if I tried to press for St. Patricks day off school so I could celebrate St. Pat for ridding the Emerald Isle of serpents, I'd be called a nut. And that just happens once a year.
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.
The mother of a West Bank man who invited a 16-year-old American to the Mideast to get married says she is distraught that the teenager has returned home and hopes to bring the couple together. 
Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana is currently under investigation by the FBI for allegedly taking bribes from a company seeking business in Nigeria and, as I reported last week, the feds are apparently also looking at his ties to São Tomé and to some Americans doing business in that African country. 
