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Algerian troops find huge arms cache on Libyan border
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
13:00 7 22:03 warthogswife [2]
10:15 3 21:37 Anguper Hupomosing9418 []
09:07 1 16:51 Richard Aubrey []
00:00 8 23:42 Alaska Paul []
00:00 12 23:21 newc [2]
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Home Front: Politix
Who's to blame; Obama or Fox News?
Send this to your friends especially those who are factually challenged!

Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 10/25/2013 13:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Cavuto, the man should run for office. He is an old school spokesman.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 10/25/2013 14:10 Comments || Top||

#2  ...well, we know it can't be Zero, therefore, GW BUSH...!!! /s
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/25/2013 16:09 Comments || Top||

#3  I thought it was the embodiment of Evil - the Kosh Brothers.

I'm so confused!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/25/2013 16:26 Comments || Top||

#4  Whatever happened to just blaming the Juice?
Posted by: SteveS || 10/25/2013 16:28 Comments || Top||

#5  I enjoy listening to these regime bloviating bits linked bite-to-bite. I hope the RNC uses them in the run up to next years congressional.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 16:46 Comments || Top||

#6  Are the Kosh Brothers juice?
Posted by: Shipman || 10/25/2013 17:31 Comments || Top||

#7  i posted it on facebook (under another name). I hope it gets picked up virally. doubt that it will but I can hope. I just try to do my little share.
Posted by: warthogswife || 10/25/2013 22:03 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Guess where this was censored: "The housing bubble has become a tool for the ruling class"
In “China’s Housing Bubble Born to Burst,” a well known Chinese financial commentator and columnist states that the communist regime’s totalitarian economic system will cause an impending economic crisis in China.

Niu Dao is an award-winning blogger who is a financial commentator on the state-run CCTV, a consultant to Essence Securities, and a teacher at Tsinghua University. His post on Sept. 26 warns that the coming crisis will bring disastrous consequences.

In a subsequent Oct. 8 article, which was deleted from the website Sina shortly after it was published, Niu explained that the Chinese people’s human rights are not protected at all under the communist totalitarian regime. In a sense, the Chinese people are not citizens, but veritable “residents”—they are nothing without a dwelling.

That is the main reason why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dares to magnify the housing bubble indefinitely, and why the Bank of China dares to print money wantonly, Niu wrote. The housing bubble has become a tool for the ruling class to plunder national wealth.

Niu wrote that asset price bubbles are also bound to burst; and, as the rule goes, the larger the bubble, the greater the damage. Chinese people who think real estate investment could be their inheritance will eventually discover that under the CCP real estate is merely used as a tool to artificially increase the value of capital.

In the over 20 years since Japan’s asset bubble burst, it has had 13 different prime ministers. For China, Niu wrote, it won’t be an issue of a change of prime minister, but rather the fall of the regime. China’s bubble is even bigger than Japan’s bubble was back then, according to Niu.

At the China Forum during the 2013 APEC Summit , CCP State Council counselor Xia Bin said the phenomena of financial crisis already exists in China. Some local governments became insolvent long ago, and are merely surviving by taking out more loans. The crisis has not yet exploded, and bad debt has not yet been exposed, because they have been covered up by issuing more currency, Niu wrote.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 10/25/2013 10:15 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  and why the Bank of China dares to print money wantonly

Clever little pun there...
Posted by: Raj || 10/25/2013 10:57 Comments || Top||

#2  Other than the names, this article could've been written by and about the US.
Posted by: Bobby || 10/25/2013 14:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Other than the names, this article could've been written by and about the US. Eerie, isn't it?
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 10/25/2013 21:37 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Today in History
The Charge Of The Light Brigade
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Memorializing Events in the Battle of Balaclava, October 25, 1854
Written 1854

Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter'd & sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
Posted by: Beavis || 10/25/2013 09:07 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Then there's this, from the Master:

The Last of the Light Brigade

~Rudyard Kipling
There were thirty million English who talked of England's might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.
They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four!
They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;
Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, "Let us go to the man who writes
The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites."
They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,
To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song;
And, waiting his servant's order, by the garden gate they stayed,
A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.
They strove to stand to attention, to straighten the toil-bowed back;
They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;
With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.
The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and "Beggin' your pardon," he said,
"You wrote o' the Light Brigade, sir. Here's all that isn't dead.
An' it's all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin' the mouth of hell;
For we're all of us nigh to the workhouse, an' we thought we'd call an' tell.
"No, thank you, we don't want food, sir; but couldn't you take an' write
A sort of 'to be continued' and 'see next page' o' the fight?
We think that someone has blundered, an' couldn't you tell 'em how?
You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now."
The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with "the scorn of scorn."
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame.
They sent a cheque to the felon that sprang from an Irish bog;
They healed the spavined cab-horse; they housed the homeless dog;
And they sent (you may call me a liar), when felon and beast were paid,
A cheque, for enough to live on, to the last of the Light Brigade.*
O thirty million English that babble of England's might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children's children are lisping to "honour the charge they made - "
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade!
*this verse was present in the first collection but was removed from the later editions.

Last verse might be true: The checks were in a fund which paid for Irish rebels' defense costs--maybe, and their version of the Humane Society. Leftovers went to the troops. Maybe, maybe not.



Posted by: Richard Aubrey || 10/25/2013 16:51 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Car bomb kills investigator in Dagestan
An investigator was fatally injured when his car was bombed on Thursday morning in the Russian republic of Dagestan, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.

Investigators said the 36-year-old officer, who worked for the Investigative Committee in Dagestan’s capital, Makhachkala, was sitting in his car when an explosive device fixed underneath the car detonated around 8:30 a.m. He succumbed to his injuries in the hospital.
Posted by: ryuge || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
2 Gunmen Dead, 2 Soldiers Hurt as Army Intercepts Explosive-Laden Car in Bekaa
[An Nahar] Two Syrians were killed and two Lebanese army soldiers were maimed in a clash Thursday after the army intercepted a car carrying explosives and gunnies in the Western Bekaa area of Hawsh al-Harimeh.

"After the Intelligence Directorate obtained intel that four people were transporting explosives, a patrol from the directorate chased the aforementioned car in Hawsh al-Harimeh and an exchange of gunfire ensued," said an army statement.

"Two soldiers were maimed and two unidentified gunnies, one wearing a boom jacket, were killed, while two other people were tossed in the clink
Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
-- a Lebanese and a Syrian who was maimed in his legs," it added.

The army said several types of explosives estimated to weigh around 250 kilograms were found in the car, in addition to a quantity of fuses.

Voice of Leb radio (93.3) said the gunnies were members of the myrmidon al-Nusra Front, identifying one of the maimed army soldiers as Hussein Araji.

On Wednesday, the Lebanese army said troops seized in the Wadi Hmayyed area an arms-laden car coming from Syria and arrested its four Syrian passengers.

Four Syrian nationals were arrested and a quantity of machineguns, pistols, ammunition, military equipment and hand grenades was found in their possession, a statement said.

On September 29, the army announced seizing a Syria-bound truck loaded with "obsolete" ammunition in the border town of Arsal. According to LBCI television, the truck came from the northern border region of Wadi Khaled.

On September 25, the army said a Syrian man was killed and two others were maimed after troops fired on a van that failed to stop at a checkpoint in Arsal.

And three gunnies were arrested by the army on August 8 as they tried to infiltrate the Bekaa border town of Arsal from Syria. Weapons and a boom jacket were found in their possession according to an army statement.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  I have my concerns about the local soldiery, considering among other things the recent incident at Ft. Leonard Wood.
But Hussein Araji was doing his job to protect his country and his citizens.
Hope he doesn't mind if I lift one to him and all his brothers.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey || 10/25/2013 7:56 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
First Druze To Command Golani Unit
Because as everybody knows, Israel is an apartheid state.
[Ynet] IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz approved the appointment of the next Golani Brigade commander, Colonel Ghassan Alian. In his current position, Alian serves as deputy commander of the Golan division. He will be the first Druze officer to lead the brigade.

Other announcements: the next Nahal Brigade commander will be Colonel Uri Gordin. Appointments require the approval of the Minister of Defense.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Would a Druze be able to sit on a lunch counter on the Sabbath and order flank steak in cream sauce? Ha just as I thought, still apartheid.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/25/2013 17:31 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria Troops Close in on Suburbs Hit by Chemical Attack
[An Nahar] Syrian troops captured a key town southeast of Damascus on Thursday, a military source said, as they sought to "tighten the noose" around suburbs struck by chemical weapons in August.

The Syrian opposition meanwhile said it would meet on November 9 to decide whether to attend a Geneva peace conference that the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
is trying to convene in parallel with chemical disarmament efforts.

Syria is set to hand over a detailed plan for destroying its chemical arsenal Thursday, part of a U.N.-backed disarmament bid that averted U.S. military strikes after the August 21 sarin gas attack, which killed hundreds of people.

A military source told AFP troops had recaptured Hteitit al-Turkman, describing it as an "important center for the terrorists," the regime's term for the rebels who rose up against it in 2011.

The operation was part of a larger effort to close in on Eastern Ghouta, a ring of suburbs besieged by government troops for months, which were targeted in the August chemical attack.

Damascus has denied U.S. allegations it carried out the attack.

Syrian authorities were meanwhile working to restore power after rebels attacked a gas pipeline Wednesday, causing blackouts across the country and setting off a huge fire near the airport, where a key power plant is located.

Electricity Minister Emad Khamis said Thursday that the fire had been extinguished and that power was being "gradually" restored to some provinces, according to the official SANA news agency.

Elsewhere in Syria, Kurdish fighters battled with jihadists for several hours as they advanced on a border crossing with Iraq held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an Al-Qaeda affiliate that operates in both countries.

And in the central city of Homs a boom-mobile killed at least one person and maimed 43, state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
reported.

Some 115,000 people have been killed and millions driven from their homes since a brutal crackdown on Arab Spring-inspired protests in the spring of 2011 set off a full-scale civil war.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Syria was expected to hand over its disarmament plan by Thursday, the latest step in a U.S.-Russian accord which calls for all Syria's chemical weapons and production facilities to be destroyed by mid-2014.

A joint U.N.-OPCW team, in Syria since the start of the month, has inspected 18 of 23 declared sites, destroying production equipment in almost all of them.

Sweden said Thursday it would aid the disarmament effort by providing an air force unit and a Lockheed C-130 military transport plane, to be based in Cyprus.

But parallel efforts by the United Nations to convene a peace conference in Geneva next month have run into resistance from the fractured opposition, which is insisting on a raft of preconditions.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


India-Pakistan
Fatwa declares polio vaccine Islamic
[Pak Daily Times] The Darul Afta (fatwa council) of Pakistain Ulema Council (PUC) has issued a fatwa, saying that the administration of polio
...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
drops to children is not forbidden in Islam. It says prominent scholars and experts of the Musselmen world are convinced that polio drops do not contain anything that is harmful to health or against sharia. The fatwa issued from the PUC's central office refers to Shaykh Al-Azhar of Jamia Al-Azhar Egypt, Maulana Samiul Haq
...the Godfather of the Taliban, leader of his own faction of the JUI. Known as Mullah Sandwich for his habit of having two young boys at a time...
of Darul Uloom Haqqania, Mufti Rafi Usmani, Maulana Zahid Mahmood Qasmi, Mufti Muhammad Naeem, Maulana Abdul Bari of Qabail Ulema Council, Maulana Anwarul Haq Mujahid, PUC Central Chairman Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mahmood Ashrafi and other Islamic leaders. The fatwa says that the holy Koran and Sunnah command us to provide proper medication to our children. It notes that polio is an incurable disease once infected. There are only three Islamic countries where polio still exists and one of them is Pakistain. Therefore, Islamic scholars have urged parents to administer polio drops to their children.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  There are only three Islamic countries where polio still exists

Pardon my pedantic nerdiness, but shouldn't this read "There are three countries, all Islamic, where polio still exits"? Feel free to append "having been eradicated in the civilized world" as you see fit.
Posted by: SteveS || 10/25/2013 0:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Lost enough babies did you?

No fighting Science, just Islamicise it, (Name only) then it's NOT "Evil Science", and is acceptable.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/25/2013 2:25 Comments || Top||

#3  The problem is that just about any imam can issue a fatwa. So if someone else issues a competing fatwa saying that the vaccine is Haram, what is a poor, illiterate Muslim to do?
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 10/25/2013 10:10 Comments || Top||

#4  ...whatis a poor, illiterate Muslim to do?

Well, whatever it is, it better not involve toothpaste!
Posted by: PBMcL || 10/25/2013 13:28 Comments || Top||

#5  ...say what you will, but it took less time than the FDA...
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/25/2013 16:14 Comments || Top||

#6  "Fatwa Declares Polio Islamic" would be more accurate.
Posted by: Grunter || 10/25/2013 20:31 Comments || Top||


Olde Tyme Religion
Aussie Muslims accused of attacking American Muslims at the Haj
A group of Australian Muslims has been accused of a sectarian attack on an American group during this year's Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. The Americans, who are Shiite Muslims from Detroit, claim they were assaulted and threatened by a group of Lebanese-Australian Sunni Muslim men at a pilgrim campground in Mina, near Mecca.

The Detroit Free Press reported that one of the American Muslims was strangled until his face turned blue and that women in the group were threatened with rape, according to witnesses to the assault that they say took place on October 16.

According to American Shiite cleric Mothafar al-Qazwini, the group was confronted by as many as 200 men they later learned to be Australian Salafis. Qazwini said one of the Australians asked one of the Americans if he was Shiite. "He responded 'yes'. He was immediately attacked by three men, one grabbing him in a choke hold, the others punching him in the face," Qazwini said.

Qazwini alleged that after the initial attack some of the Salafis ran to the women's tents, telling them "if they do not leave in 15 minutes, they will rape them all."

The American group was led by Mr Qazwini's uncle, Sayyid Hassan al-Qazwini, imam of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan, the largest mosque in North America.

An official from the center declined to comment on the alleged incident until the imam returns home later this week. But the Australian Muslims took to Facebook to deny the claims, saying that the American Shiites who started the trouble.

One Australian Facebook post said "this is nonsense ... the incident happened in my camp ... the [Shiites] came insulting the sahaba [the companions of the Prophet Muhammad]. My tent was right by the tent of the [Shiite] guys who got beat up ... not (sic) it shouldn't have happened but the whole incident was instigated by them and no-one said anything near what is being claimed here."

The post added, "BTW, the police were not laughing ... there is a lot of zulm [oppression] in KSA [the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] including against [Shiites], but this story is just idiotic."
Posted by: ryuge || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Qazwini said one of the Australians asked one of the Americans if he was Shiite. "He responded 'yes'. He was immediately attacked by three men, one grabbing him in a choke hold, the others punching him in the face,"

Good thing they were Australian Salafis. Any other nationality would've killed them after asking if the Shiites were Americans.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/25/2013 0:35 Comments || Top||

#2  Bwahahaha!
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/25/2013 1:20 Comments || Top||

#3  "The American group was led by Mr Qazwini's uncle, Sayyid Hassan al-Qazwini, imam of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan, the largest mosque in North America."

Sayyid Hassan al-Qazwini, member of the Iranian regime, friend of the political class, enemy of the US Constitution.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 10/25/2013 2:53 Comments || Top||

#4  It sounds so..."Islamic" ( for some reason ) PBUH.

I like the method they used tho. One man to pin your arms. One man to choke you blue and the third man to bash you in the face with a brick. Have to file that one as a keeper. Yeah.

Oh PS, Allah loves you...
Posted by: Spereting Tingle4064 || 10/25/2013 4:39 Comments || Top||

#5  He said,she said...I wonder if this shit happens during Ecumenical Movement meetings...
Posted by: Jerkface Killa || 10/25/2013 7:02 Comments || Top||

#6  Sunnis and Shiites doing what Sunnis and Shiites do. Popcorn?
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 10/25/2013 11:36 Comments || Top||

#7  It certainly was Sydney Lebanese doing what Sydney Lebanese do.
Posted by: Grunter || 10/25/2013 12:07 Comments || Top||

#8  So was this the Haj or Muslim Spring Break?
Posted by: tu3031 || 10/25/2013 12:35 Comments || Top||

#9  There's a difference?
Posted by: Pappy || 10/25/2013 12:56 Comments || Top||

#10  Extra butter with that, EU? :-D
Posted by: Barbara || 10/25/2013 13:18 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Jamaat has plan of its own
[Bangla Daily Star] It will be all hands on deck for Jamaat and Shibir today with the organizations calling in support from nearby districts to the capital to back BNP in today's opposition rally.

Sources said pro-Jamaat student body Islami Chhatra Shibir
... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh...
also has plans for taking over dormitories of several educational institutions that are now dominated by pro-ruling party Chhatra League
... the student wing of the Bangla Awami League ...

The educational institutions include public universities like Rajshahi, Jagannath, Sylhet, Chittagong and Jahangirnagar. As per the plan, leaders and activists of Shibir have gathered in student messes near those universities for the assault today. Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal
...student wing of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)...
, the pro-BNP student body, would back the Shibir activists, sources claimed.

Jamaat and Shibir also plan to stage anti-government demonstrations in their stronghold districts.

Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
insiders told The Daily Star that although Jamaat-Shibir men have made all-out preparations for a showdown in the capital today, they would follow BNP men's lead to avoid getting tossed in the clink
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!

A top leader in the BNP-led 18-party alliance said Jamaat and Shibir had been instructed to bring in all its leaders and activists from Narayanganj, Narsingdi, Munshiganj, Manikganj, Gazipur, Tongi, Keraniganj and Dohar to the capital by yesterday to ensure a large rally.

A Shibir activist told The Daily Star, "To ensure a large rally, Jamaat and Shibir have cancelled leaves of almost all its grassroots leaders and activists. The party even directed its leaders, who spent Eid holidays outside Dhaka, to return to the capital within a day or two after Eid."

The Shibir activist, who talked to The Daily Star, had to return from his home in Khulna early to prepare for the rally.

Alongside Jamaat, Islamic parties including Islami Oikya Jote
... a political party in Bangladesh. In the 2001 elections the party won 2 out of 300 elected members in an alliance with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. It has a focus on building an islamic state, and has used the madrassas to gain support...
, Khelafat Majlish, Jamiyat-e Ulamaye Islam had also been asked to show up at the rally in full strength, sources in the 18-party alliance said.

Law enforcers fear that crisis-riddled Jamaat, which has most of its top leaders in jail in connection with crimes against humanity, will try to create anarchy in the capital and elsewhere to spread panic.

The law enforcers would be taking extra precautionary measures centring the rally today, like deployment of Border Guard Bangladesh personnel, and beefing up reconnaissance and surveillance measures in the capital.

Jamaat, a key component in the opposition 18-party alliance, would also stage anti-government demonstrations in its stronghold districts, including Dinajpur, Bogra, Satkhira and Rajshahi, party grassroots sources said.

Talking to The Daily Star, a number of Jamaat leaders of district units said they had been asked by Jamaat central to stage a strong demonstration in their areas taking BNP and other Islamist parties with them.

"Since February 28, we have been waging demonstrations alone. But from tomorrow [today] you will see us staging stronger demonstrations to oust the government," Secretary Mahfuzur Rahman of Khulna city Jamaat said at an 18-party meeting in Khulna.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami

#1  The Shibir activist, who talked to The Daily Star, had to return from his home in Khulna early to prepare for the rally

"I have to stock up on spittle and slogans. We're all gonna wear togas. This'll be greeeeat!"
Posted by: Frank G || 10/25/2013 7:51 Comments || Top||


Shibir man hurt in blast
[Bangla Daily Star] An Islami Chhatra Shibir
... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh...
activist was injured in kaboom while making bombs at a Koran learning centre in Mirsarai upazila of Chittagong yesterday.

Police said Shibir activist Alamgir, 24, was injured as the bombs went off at Talimul Koran Academy in the upazila's Jamalpur around 4:30pm.

At least 15 to 20 bombs were blasted there, said Md Iftekhar Hasan, officer-in-charge (OC) of Jorarganj Police Station.

But Alamgir had managed to flee, the OC said, adding that they had tossed in the calaboose
You have the right to remain silent...
Alamgir's younger brother Muktar Hossain in this connection from their house adjacent to the academy.

The two brothers are actively involved in the politics of Shibir, the OC said, adding that they also had recovered bomb-making materials from the house.

There was a case filed with Jorarganj Police Station against them on the charge of blasting crude bombs during hartal
... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ...
, the OC added.

On October 7, at least seven people were maimed when a powerful bomb went off at Jamaatul Ulum Al Islamia Madrasa in Lalkhan Bazar of the port city, which was established by Hefajat Nayeb-e-Ameer Mufti Izharul Islam Chowdhury.

Three of them gave up the ghost later.

Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Suleiman Asks Army, Security Forces to Control Situation in Tripoli
[An Nahar] President Michel Suleiman
...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too...
revealed on Thursday evening that he asked security forces and the army to deploy the necessary units to control the security situation in the northern city of Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
.

Suleiman's request came as Tripoli has been witnessing intense festivities between the city's rival neighborhoods of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh.

"It is not acceptable that the bloodshed continues in Tripoli," Suleiman said on Twitter, urging all officials to work on "saving" the northern city.

"Tripoli's residents and children deserve to live in peace as they represent religious coexistence."

Suleiman noted: "I have asked security forces and the army to deploy the necessary units that could control the security situation in Tripoli."

Two people were killed on Thursday and 21 others were maimed, including a soldier, in renewed fighting and sniper activity in the northern city of Tripoli, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The fighting had reportedly escalated following the death of Arab Democratic Party top military official Bassam Abdullah in Jabal Mohsen.

Thursday's casualties bring the toll from four days of fighting to three dead and 60 injured including nine soldiers, according to NNA.

Earlier in the day, Suleiman urged easing the formation of the cabinet to "preserve the idea" of a national unity cabinet that the president had suggested.

"We also call for resuming national dialogue that would be based on the conclusions of previous sessions, especially on the principals of the Baabda Declaration," he said during the inauguration of the President Michel Suleiman Boulevard in Baabda and of the new municipality building in al-Metn's neighborhood of Hazmieh.

The president stated that boycotting the parliament's work is "not democratic."

"Democracy stipulates meeting together, holding talks and voting," he stressed.

Suleiman also pointed out to the importance of following-up with and executing the international community's decisions that were reached in New York, concerning the promised support for Leb to deal with the influx of Syrian refugees.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Rights Group Warns against 'Roma Steal Babies' Stereotyping
[An Nahar] Roma communities around Europe are being stereotyped and scapegoated in the wake of recent child abduction allegations in Ireland and Greece, the head of a Roma rights organization said Thursday.

"We urge the media and authorities not to assign collective responsibility to Roma communities on the basis of individual cases," Dezideriu Gergely, director of the European Roma Rights Center, (ERRC) told Agence La Belle France Presse.

The cases had encouraged stereotypes such as "Roma communities steal babies" and an attitude that "Roma are guilty until proven innocent", he said.

Authorities should avoid racial profiling and act on the basis of evidence rather than perception, he added.

A seven-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy were each removed from their biological Roma families in Ireland this week after public tip-offs that later proved to be false.

The removals sparked warnings about racial profiling following the case of a blonde girl found in a Roma camp in Greece who was unrelated to the people she was living with.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I warn against stereotyping all "rights groups" as psychos dedicated to destroying civilization.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/25/2013 1:22 Comments || Top||

#2  I wonder if the Babies they "Steal" are really abandoned?
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/25/2013 2:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Or otherwise unwanted?
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/25/2013 2:28 Comments || Top||

#4  A seven-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy were each removed from their biological Roma families in Ireland this week after public tip-offs that later proved to be false.

Two for two.
You going to lie, make it big.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/25/2013 2:44 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Algerian troops find huge arms cache on Libyan border
[Al Ahram] Algerian troops have discovered a huge cache of weapons near the border with Libya, including surface-to-air missiles, rockets and landmines, an Algerian security source said on Thursday.

"It is an arsenal of war," the source, who asked not to be named, told Rooters.

The source said the weapons found by troops in Illizi province in southern Algeria likely belonged to myrmidons. They included 100 anti-aircraft missiles and hundreds of anti-helicopter rockets, landmines and rocket-propelled grenades.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa

#1  Please,please,please blow those suckers right where they are. Take one each for evidence, write down serial numbers and mfrs.
Please, please,please blow that shit to the moon.

Do not take it to HQ to be doled out to friends, family, donors, lost to thieves, taken wholesale by an unexpected--snark--raid.

Please.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey || 10/25/2013 7:51 Comments || Top||

#2  Do not take it to HQ to be doled out to friends, family, donors, lost to thieves, taken wholesale by an unexpected--snark--raid.

:(
You're dreaming.

Posted by: Shipman || 10/25/2013 17:16 Comments || Top||

#3  shipman.

Free country, innit?
Posted by: Richard Aubrey || 10/25/2013 19:53 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel Weighs Palestinian Prisoner Release
[An Nahar] Israeli ministers are to meet Sunday to approve the release of a second batch of Paleostinian prisoners under the terms of renewed peace talks, media said.

Maariv daily said Thursday that 26 prisoners would be freed, the same number as in the first tranche in August.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said two days before the July 30 resumption of talks that he had "agreed to free 104 Paleostinians in stages, after the start of negotiations and according to progress."

Since the August release, Netanyahu's office has made no statement on a second round.

Maariv said the next handover would take place on Tuesday.

The European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
's mission to Israel told Agence La Belle France Presse that envoys of the Middle East Quartet
... The Quartet are the UN (xylophone), the United States (alto), the European Union (soprano), and Russia (shortstop). The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tony Blair is the Quartet's current Special Envoy....
group would meet the same day in Jerusalem.

Israeli public radio said that in tandem with confirming the prisoner release, Israeli authorities would announce a new swathe of settler housing to be built in the occupied West Bank or annexed east Jerusalem.

It did not specify how many homes or where.

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
, said in a text message Thursday evening that such continued construction was part of "understandings" reached with the Paleostinians and the Americans ahead of the renewal of talks.

"Israel will continue in the coming months to announce building in the settlement blocs and in Jerusalem," he wrote.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority

#1  Groundhog Day (the movie) comes to my mind for some reason.
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/25/2013 9:38 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Tunisia Opposition Wants Govt's Written Pledge to Quit
[An Nahar] One of Tunisia's main opposition parties on Thursday ruled out participating in negotiations to end months of political deadlock without the government giving a written promise that it will quit.

"Nidaa Tounes believes it is not feasible for the dialogue to begin... without a formal and written commitment by the government to resign," said the party headed by ex-premier Beji Caid Essebsi, who is an outspoken critic of ruling Islamist party Ennahda.

The opposition is demanding that the Ennahda-led government give a clear commitment to step down within three weeks of the start of negotiations, to make way for a caretaker cabinet of independents.

The national dialogue due to start on Wednesday faced fresh delays when critics of Islamist Prime Minister Ali Larayedh rejected as "ambiguous" his stated commitment to the "principle" of stepping down, without giving a timeframe.

The long-awaited talks, which are the centerpiece of a roadmap to end the political paralysis gripping the country since the July liquidation of opposition MP Mohammed Brahmi, are now due to start on Friday at 0900 GMT, according to mediators.

As well as forming a government of technocrats within three weeks, negotiators must adopt a new constitution and electoral law, as well a timetable within a month for fresh elections.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  Quit, as in go away, easy way to win (If the Government is stupid) IF NOT you LOOK STUPID.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/25/2013 2:58 Comments || Top||


Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Birthday Gam Shot

Katy Perry[Discography](age 29)



Design with NSFW Distraction


Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 10/25/2013 11:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Store-bought t!ts and a screaming leftist too.

I'd pass under any circumstances. Yuk.
Posted by: no mo uro || 10/25/2013 12:11 Comments || Top||

#3  We need to have an "Obama Girl" warning for the good looking but freaky lefty loons.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 10/25/2013 14:58 Comments || Top||

#4  Store-bought t!ts

Shocked, I tell you. I'm shocked!
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 10/25/2013 15:58 Comments || Top||

#5  Too skanky for my taste.
Posted by: Iblis || 10/25/2013 16:07 Comments || Top||

#6  Ahhh, a man of standards on the Burg. Me... not so much.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 16:11 Comments || Top||

#7  You hang them out there for public display, honey, don't be surprised or pissed if some guy wants to handle the merchandise.

Just sayin'.
Posted by: Barbara || 10/25/2013 16:35 Comments || Top||

#8  If store bought it's first class surgery. I'm just admiring the medical technique, mind you...
Posted by: Steve White || 10/25/2013 16:37 Comments || Top||

#9  I do not find her compelling.
Posted by: remoteman || 10/25/2013 16:38 Comments || Top||

#10  So that's who Katy Perry is.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/25/2013 17:15 Comments || Top||

#11  The ubiquitous Ms. Perry is all natural home grown. It is unfortunate that she has drunk the leftist entertainment industry Kool-Aide.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 10/25/2013 17:22 Comments || Top||

#12  "Store-bought t!ts and a screaming leftist too.
I'd pass under any circumstances. Yuk."

Yes, you're more into shriveled-up Tea Party nutjobs like Michele Bachmann...double YUK!!
Posted by: Jerkface Killa || 10/25/2013 17:27 Comments || Top||

#13  Heh. He says Tea Party like its a bad thing. Cute.
Posted by: Iblis || 10/25/2013 17:36 Comments || Top||

#14  Ok, I'm going there. Ya jerkface killa, I bet Bachmann is a lot better time than Perry. There is a difference between someone that's real and someone fake like Perry, both in life and in bed. Had to go there, my apologies...
Posted by: 49 Pan || 10/25/2013 17:57 Comments || Top||

#15  At first read I was thing you meant Rick Perry.

Sorry 49
Posted by: Beavis || 10/25/2013 20:13 Comments || Top||

#16  those are au natural and spectacular. Her politics? Infantile
Posted by: Frank G || 10/25/2013 20:55 Comments || Top||

#17  I'll bet that in twenty years she'll look like a Canadian Linda Ronstadt does now.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/25/2013 22:06 Comments || Top||

#18  Personality, intellect, rational thinking, mammary twins:
FAKE
FAKE
FAKE
FAKE
FAKE
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 10/25/2013 23:34 Comments || Top||

#19  Some people prefer a woman who can actually hold an intelligent conversation Jerkface. You might want to put the store bought 'Real Doll' away sometime and try it. It might surprise you.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/25/2013 23:49 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Cops among 7 killed in Karachi
[Pak Daily Times] Two coppers among seven people were killed in separate incidents of violence across the city on Thursday.

In the first happening, two coppers were killed and another maimed in an armed attack in Metroville area within the jurisdiction of SITE-A cop shoppe, while one alleged attacker also died in retaliatory firing.

Police said that the personnel of SITE-A cop shoppe were conducting routine snap checking in their mobile, when at least two gunnies riding a cycle of violence resorted to indiscriminate firing at the police party.

In an exchange of firing, three coppers and one attacker sustained bullets wounds, however, the accomplice of the dear departed attacker was jugged
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
in an injured condition. The cops have been identified as head constable Qazi Alam and police constable Javed, while the injured policeman is Nadeem.

The attacker who died in retaliatory firing was later identified as Adnan and the injured as Sajid. According to police sources, the attackers belonged to the outlawed TTP who hailed from Hungoro. The bodies and injured were moved to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for an appointment with Dr. Quincy and medical treatment, while further investigations are underway.

The body of deceased policeman Qazi Alam was sent to his hometown, Mansehra
...a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south...
for burial. The funeral prayers of constable Javed were offered at Garden Police Headquarters, and later he was laid to rest at Orangi Town graveyard.

Sources informed that the injured policeman Nadeem, was still admitted at Liaquat National Hospital, where doctors termed his condition stable. Police officials said that the case has been registered.

Separately, an unidentified man was rubbed out near Abdullah Mor within the vicinity of Surjani Town cop shoppe.

The police said the victim was on a cycle of violence, when unidentified armed riders shot him dead. His body was taken to ASH for an appointment with Dr. Quincy and later moved to the morgue for identification.

Similarly, one man was killed another maimed at Manghopir Road within the limits of Orangi Town cop shoppe.

Officials said that unidentified armed riders resorted to indiscriminate firing and later fled from the scene. As a result two people sustained multiple bullets injuries and were rushed to the hospital, where doctors pronounced the death of one, and admitted the other for treatment.

Deceased person was identified as Siddique, 35, son of Gul Jan and injured as Hussain, 18, son of Abdul Bari. The motive behind the incident is yet to be ascertained.

Meanwhile,
...back at the pie fight, Bella opened her mouth at precisely the wrong moment...
32-year-old Ali Raza, son of Yousuf Abbasi, departed this vale of tears during medical treatment. Deceased was maimed in a firing incident in Baldia Town area of Ittehad Town on October 21.

Domestic violence: A husband slaughtered his wife in their house at Sanabor cottage situated near Power House intercept within the precincts of New Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
cop shoppe.

Police said that Farhan slaughtered 30-years-old Shaista, with a knife over some domestic matter. A neighbour alerted the police, who rushed to the spot and managed to arrest the culprit. The body was taken to hospital for an appointment with Dr. Quincy.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


International-UN-NGOs
Exclusive: Germany, Brazil Turn to U.N. to Restrain American Spies

...popcorn anyone...?

HT: Drudge
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The European political class is mad at the US for two reasons.

First the NSA invaded European turf. They spied on Euro peasants who are the rightful property of the European rulers.

Second they spied on European rulers thus treating them like peasants.

Merkel et al just got a dose of their own medicine, nothing to worry about.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 10/25/2013 4:42 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Child killed in grenade attack on Karachi shop
[Pak Daily Times] A seven-year-old body was killed and another maimed in a grenade blast at a woodworks shop on Thursday.

As per details, police officials said that kaboom took place at the shop situated at Siddiq Wahab Road of the old city, within the remits of Nippier Police Station. It injured two minors, namely 7-year-old Zain and 6-year-old Waseem. Both of them were rushed to Civil Hospital, Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
, where doctors pronounced Zain as dead and admitted Waseem for treatment. The kaboom damaged several vehicles. Following the incident heavy contingents of police and Rangers rushed to the blast site and cordoned off the area to prevent any untoward incident. The Bomb Disposal Squad (BDS) was called to determine the nature of the blast. After initial investigation the BDS experts said that the bomb was concealed in a tin and contained around half kilogramme of explosive and ball bearings. According to initial investigation, police officials said that the bomb was planted at the gate of the shop and exploded remotely. Police sources said that a group of extortionists was behind the bombing. The owner of the shop had refused to pay protection money to the group. Extortion from businesses in Karachi is chronic and businessmen refusing to oblige are targeted.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Bangladesh
Bangladesh War Crime Tribunal: a forum for Pakistan bashing?
[Pak Daily Times] Many supporters of War Crime Tribunal in Bangladesh (BD) are giving their side of the version in the public -- now even the editors of newspapers are taking sides. I have replied to one such editorial (of The Daily Star as given below).

My view sent to Star, as expected, has not found any space by paper yet. The vicious campaign in BD against Pak troop's atrocities and their "collaborators" is in full swing.

I foresee great amount of tongue lashing against all these elements, by the politicians in the upcoming election campaign, which starts from October 25. Our foreign mission in BD and Foreign Ministry in Islamabad is on the back foot whenever hype is created on each verdict of the tribunal.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Moslems murdered about 3 million Hindus and raped a quarter of a million Hindu women when they had the advantage then they lost the war.

What happens to Moslems who did that? They get forgiven and some one offers them a chair?

Jamaat would like to do the massacres again. ( ask one ) no one has forgotten anything or forgiven anything and the Moslems aren't asking to be forgiven. They were just being ...well, themselves. They WOULD do it again.Moslems are like that.

They threaten the present government and will pull it down if they can. That is just a fact.

The Civil War is not yet over. It may not be over for several generations. Somebody wins and somebody loses. Fact the Moslems murdered 3 MILLION Hindus.......now they want to pull down the Hindu government? At some point in a fight you have to decide if you want to win or NOT. If you want to stay ALIVE you win. If you don't win you die. What;s your problem?
Posted by: Spereting Tingle4064 || 10/25/2013 4:53 Comments || Top||

#2  instead of pakistan bashing, it should be a forum for islamorealism
Posted by: lord garth || 10/25/2013 9:03 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Ban on kite flying tightened : Govt pulling strings to save heads
[Pak Daily Times] Keeping in view the increasing violation of the ban on flying kites and subsequent death caused by this so-called game of death, the authorities in Rawalpindi have decided to put their foot down and ensure that the activity remains suspended for good.

In this regard, the Punjab government has issued a letter to the district administration to make sure the ban imposed on kite flying remains intact and violators are dealt with strictly.

The district coordination officer (DCO) and the regional police officer (RPO) have been ordered to take action against those involved in this activity. It has been directed in a letter that if any evidence of kite flying in the region is found then the government will take disciplinary action against the DPO and the SHO of the area. The government has directed to start a crackdown on kite flying and manufacturing in the district and those found involved in the activity would be locked away
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!

On the kite flying festival of Basant, 13 motorcyclists were maimed and two people had their throats slit by kite twine in different parts of the city. An 11-year-old boy, Basit who was flying a kite fell from the roof and died during the Basant festival in Rawalpindi. At least 31 cases were registered in the city during Basant and the police claimed to have arrested 56 persons. Despite the arrests, kites and twines were openly sold and many people flied kites and played loud music on their rooftops the whole night.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Damn right! Because maiming and slitting throats is a holy religious act in Islam.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/25/2013 8:40 Comments || Top||

#2  They don't like "wall-chalking"? Hmmmm. How about spray paint?
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 10/25/2013 14:01 Comments || Top||

#3  kites and twines were openly sold

The right to buy kites is the right to be free
-- Kite Shops of Isher
Posted by: SteveS || 10/25/2013 16:26 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Report says Iran may be one month from nuclear bomb
Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to build a nuclear bomb in as little as a month, according to a new analysis by one of the USA's top nuclear experts. This assessment comes as the White House invited Senate staffers to a briefing on negotiations with Iran as it tries to persuade Congress not to proceed with a bill to toughen sanctions against Iran.

The report by the Institute for Science and International Security stated, "Shortening breakout times have implications for any negotiation with Iran. An essential finding is that they are currently too short and shortening further."

David Albright, president of the institute and a former UN inspector, said the estimate means that Iran would have to eliminate more than half of its 19,000 centrifuges to extend the time it would take to build a bomb to six months.

The White House has said Iran is probably a year away from having enough enriched uranium to make a bomb. Requests for a response from the National Security Council and the State Department were not answered.
Posted by: ryuge || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to build a nuclear bomb in as little as a month, according to a new estimate by one of the USA's top nuclear experts.

ONE bomb is suicide.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/25/2013 3:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Suicide booming is associated with Islam
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/25/2013 3:45 Comments || Top||

#3  Oh well, what do you expect?

Geez, so Iran has played us like a bongo drum for six years as they ran the centrifuges nonstop and are on the verge of tilting the entire landscape of the Middle East.

If the Saudi intell guys have the same info, and I have no doubt they do, this might be the reason KSA is running for another protector. The Saudis are not fools, they know Obama does not have the resolve to do anything real or meaningful or even take pre-emptive action on the Iranian nuclear efforts.

Perchance Russia would be inclined to put an end to this happy horse shit situation? Would this be the reason KSA is doing this crazy kabuki dance with Russia to give the Israelis the political vacuum to do something?

Are going to see a new phase in the Arab Spring in the form of a war between KSA and Iran? The Shi'a vs Sunni hostility boiling over into a full blown interfraticidinal Islamic civil war?

Thanks Obama, thanks Joe, thanks Hillary, thanks Lurch. Geez, do you suppose the French can do something? Dang the French or the Russians as the great white hope of peace and rational behavior in the Middle East?

Is all of this fanatical Islamic nonsense actually a dress rehearsal for the great final conflict between the Shi'a, the Sunni, and the 12ers?
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 10/25/2013 5:54 Comments || Top||

#4  ...like Bill Clinton said...pray for Israel...
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/25/2013 8:31 Comments || Top||

#5  Fabulous. If they are that close, no wonder they can talk about restoring relations - it'll take two months to set up the first meeting.

All they have to have is one, for a test that will be heard 'round the world, and the landscape of the Middle East goes TILT.
Posted by: Bobby || 10/25/2013 9:28 Comments || Top||

#6  Obama's strategy is to delay the Iranians by at least two weeks through negotiations.

One bomb is all Iran needs. Then: goodbye, Tel Aviv. Of course, then it's goodbye Tehran, Qom, and as many other places the Israelis can reach. Good thing we pulled out of Iraq so we can't shoot the Israelis down as they fly by.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 10/25/2013 9:41 Comments || Top||

#7  Per the Obama Administration: Remain Calm, All Is Well.

Posted by: OldSpook || 10/25/2013 10:20 Comments || Top||

#8  So much for the last National Security Assessment.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/25/2013 10:35 Comments || Top||

#9  "So much for the last National Security Political Assessment."

FTFY, Pappy.
Posted by: Barbara || 10/25/2013 11:00 Comments || Top||

#10  Divine guidance from the White House appears to trump intelligence community analysis. Few surprises here.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 11:04 Comments || Top||

#11  Neville Chamberlain, Quislings, and Surrender Monkeys come to mind for some reason when describing our leadership and the ruling class. They can't be bothered with Iran's nuke program. They are more concerned with making the USMC politically correct with the silly-looking unisex cover. You can be certain the Israeli's are monitoring Iran's nuke plans and and shaking out contingency plans. Their plans when implemented will not look like the ObamaCare Affordable Care Act rollout.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/25/2013 12:17 Comments || Top||

#12  I believe Iran getting the bomb was policy for this administration. Anything that takes the US down a notch is a plus in Champ's playbook. Israel doesn't even factor in.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 10/25/2013 13:16 Comments || Top||

#13  Obama's gonna negotiate with Iran? He can't even negotiate with John Boehner. The best we can hope for Obama is that he'll stay out of Netanyahu's way.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 10/25/2013 16:04 Comments || Top||

#14  If I were Netanyahu, EU, I'd lie like a rug to Bambi. Tell him one thing (if you tell him anything at all except to drop dead) and do another. If he whines about it publicly after the fact, just say there must have been a misunderstanding. This WH knows from "misunderstandings." :-D
Posted by: Barbara || 10/25/2013 16:34 Comments || Top||

#15  Well of course EU - he has to negotiate the terms of our surrender of Israel...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/25/2013 17:19 Comments || Top||

#16  "Iran getting the Bomb was policy for this Administration" - welcome to "Globalism" + our future brave new world of OWG Multiple par "Co-Superpowers".

Again, either Iran is the US' new [pseudo] BFF in Syria + ME agz Al-Qaeda, etc. foreign MilTerr Groups' rising influence, OR THE POOR ECON, SEQUESTER, SHUTDOWN + POST-SHUTDOWN-AFFECTED AMERIKA PUTS US TROOPS ON THE GROUND, ALA "AFGHANISTAN/AFPAK II".

The Bammer would be breaking a major campaign promise to end the WOT + bring US forces home.

* FYI TOPIX > DIPLOMATS: NO CONFIRMATION IRAN HAS STOPPED HIGHER-GRADE ENRICHMENT.

* SAME > [Star-Telegram] WORLD ANGER AT USA GOES BEYOND EUROPE + NSA.

* SAME, WORLD NEWS > WILL SAUDIS "PIVOT" TO CHINA?, in retaliatory anger + frustration
vee the Bammer + usa over IRAN.

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > POSTER THREAD: IRAN SHIFTING ALLIANCE TO IRAN IN MIDDLE EAST - THOUGHTS?

Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/25/2013 21:30 Comments || Top||

#17  ...A ME war would likely be of greater utility to Mr. Obama than one might first realize. Mr. Obama, through his passive/aggressive actions, has clearly demonstrated that Israel no longer carries the prestige and concern they once did. The recent nudging by KSA shows they can be as dismissive of the USofA as they want to be. And lets not discuss Russia, Argentina, and, now, thanks to the NSA spying, every country in the UE. Yup, he's in a bucket of $hit, and the citizens of his country are beginning to recognize this. A little war (well, it would at least start that way and quickly spin out of control.) may very well take the citizenry's eyes off the ball...
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/25/2013 23:49 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Secret memos reveal explicit nature of Pak-US drone deal
[Pak Daily Times] Despite repeatedly denouncing the CIA's drone campaign, brass hats in Pakistain's government have for years secretly endorsed the programme and routinely received classified briefings on strikes and casualty counts, according to top-secret CIA documents and Pak diplomatic memos obtained by The Washington Post.

The files describe dozens of drone attacks in Pakistain's tribal region and include maps as well as before-and-after aerial photos of targeted compounds over a four-year stretch from late 2007 to late 2011 in which the campaign intensified dramatically. Markings on the documents indicate that many of them were prepared by the CIA's Counterterrorism Centre specifically to be shared with Pakistain's government. They tout the success of strikes that killed dozens of alleged al Qaeda operatives and assert repeatedly that no civilians were harmed.

The Post report states Pakistain's tacit approval of the drone programme has been one of the more poorly kept national security secrets in Washington and Islamabad. During the early years of the campaign, the CIA even used Pak airstrips for its Predator fleet. But the files expose the explicit nature of a secret arrangement struck between the two countries at a time when neither was willing to publicly acknowledge the existence of the drone programme. The documents detailed at least 65 strikes in Pakistain and were described as "talking points" for CIA briefings, which occurred with such regularity that they became a matter of diplomatic routine. The documents are marked "top ­secret" but cleared for release to Pakistain.

A CIA front man declined to discuss the documents but did not dispute their authenticity. The Washington Post quotes Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, the front man for the Foreign Ministry, as saying that his government does not comment on media reports that rely on unnamed sources. But Chaudhry added that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
, who took office in June, has been adamant that "the drone strikes must stop." "Whatever understandings there may or may not have been in the past, the present government has been very clear regarding its policy on the issue," Chaudhry said. "We regard such strikes as a violation of our illusory sovereignty as well as international law. They are also counter-productive."

Chaudhry said Pakistain's government is now unified against US drone strikes, which are deeply unpopular within Pakistain, and has made its disapproval clear to senior US and United Nations
...the Oyster Bay money pit...
officials. There was no immediate comment from Pakistain's military or intelligence service, but the Post report quotes Talat Masood, a retired general, as saying that the revelation that Pakistain's government was well-informed about the drone programme will likely "put cold water on the hype" within Pakistain over the issue.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Africa North
Egypt Islamists Call for Protests against Morsi Trial
[An Nahar] An Islamist alliance backing Mohammed Morsi
...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator...
on Thursday urged its supporters to protest on November 4 when the ousted president will be put on trial, raising fears of new festivities.

Morsi --held at an unknown location since the military ousted him on July 3 -- and 14 others have been charged in the killing of protesters outside his palace in December 2012.

The Anti-Coup Alliance "notes that the coup organizers would like to break the people's and the revolution's will" by trying Morsi and the others, the alliance led by Morsi's Moslem Brüderbund said.

"The alliance also calls on all free people in Egypt and abroad to stand by the revolutionary will opposing the military coup, and that all activities should be as they always have been -- within peaceful bounds that define our methods and strategy."

Morsi's trial is expected to raise fresh tensions between the new army-installed authorities and his supporters, who have mounted several protests against the military and its chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

On October 6, at least 57 people were killed nationwide, mostly in Cairo, when Morsi's supporters clashed with security forces as they tried to reach Tahrir Square, epicenter of the revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
in February 2011.

Security forces have been engaged in a sweeping crackdown since breaking up two pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo on August 14.

More than 1,000 people have been killed since then, and over 2,000 Islamists -- including Morsi and several top Moslem Brüderbund leaders -- have been tossed in the slammer
Please don't kill me!
across the country.

Prosecutors have charged Morsi with "inciting his supporters to commit premeditated murder" during December 5 festivities outside his palace.

The December fighting erupted when Moslem Brüderbund supporters dispersed a sit-in outside the palace by people angered over Morsi issuing a decree placing his decisions beyond judicial review. At least seven people were killed.

The Brotherhood claimed that most of those killed were Islamists, an assertion disputed by its opponents. At least one of the victims was an anti-Morsi journalist.

Morsi and the co-defendants will stand trial before a Cairo district court.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Government
Sibelius's History of IT Failures
Obama administration Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ failure at designing websites to provide government services began during her term as governor of Kansas, long before the Obamacare website debacle, Kansas political insiders told The Daily Caller.

Sebelius oversaw numerous costly and disastrous government website projects during her six-year governorship (2003-2009), including a failed update of the Department of Labor’s program to provide unemployment pay and other services and similar updates pertaining to the Department of Administration and the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) services.

The Department of Labor’s overhaul of its computer programs was a notable boondoggle, according to 14-year former Kansas state senator and former state Labor Secretary Karin Brownlee.

“In the Kansas Senate, I chaired the Commerce committee. We had oversight over the Department of Labor. For years, we watched as the Department of Labor under Sebelius worked on that computer program. After seven years and $50 million, something should work,” Brownlee told TheDC.

“In Kansas if you have a 40 or 50 million dollar project, that’s a lot of money,” Brownlee said, noting that the Labor Department project was funded by federal money while other Sebelius website projects sucked up state taxpayer dollars. “They started and stopped that project with at least 3 different major contractors.”

When Brownlee was appointed to head the state’s Department of Labor under new Republican governor Sam Brownback in 2011, she was tasked with cleaning up Sebelius’ technical mess.

Money quote

“We pretty much expected HealthCare.gov to fail, because she has a pattern of failing on these big initiatives. We thought that was why she was not nominated originally,” Schwab said.
Posted by: Beavis || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Where did the $600,000,000. in SD development money REALLY go ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 3:53 Comments || Top||

#2  A low information voter moment:

"I love Obama because now I can get health care even though I am unemployed."

"Why are you unemployed."

"I got laid off because my employer can't afford to pay for Obamacare."
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 4:15 Comments || Top||

#3  In other words - she was *perfect* for the job.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/25/2013 8:30 Comments || Top||

#4  Where did the $600,000,000. in SD development money REALLY go ?

That's what I wanna know. I suspect the whole thing bore a strong resemblance to the Solyndra episode. The money just kind of...disappeared. I'd also like to know how much those CGI executives contributed to Baraq Hussein's election campaign.

But $50 million for the Kansas Labor Department? C'mon. Give me that much money and I'm fairly certain that after seven years I could have had her web site working all by myself. Yes, it can be hard work and it requires some attention to detail. But it's really not that big of a deal. Hell, you put a couple of servers in my garage and I could run it from there. Dang, I should do some government contracting. All I gotta do is find the right politicians to bribe. and contribute to their election campaigns.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 10/25/2013 11:25 Comments || Top||

#5  This woman is an evil ideologue that shares "O's" vision of the U.S. being a third world country.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/25/2013 11:48 Comments || Top||

#6  Yup.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/25/2013 11:54 Comments || Top||

#7  All IT types. Don't help the Nazi's. Let them burn.
Posted by: Lionel Snirt6165 || 10/25/2013 13:10 Comments || Top||

#8  But, Lionel, $50 million!
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 10/25/2013 15:30 Comments || Top||

#9  At least with the $1,000,000. hammer.... we got a HAMMER !!!
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 16:04 Comments || Top||

#10  built the narwhal db?
Posted by: Bigfoot Fillmore4475 || 10/25/2013 16:36 Comments || Top||

#11  If you think Barry is bad off-the-cuff, The Silver Mullet will readjust your meters. S'why they are delaying ALAP to get her coach time.

No, opposition to the nationalization of health care and/or its implementation should not be calling for resignation, they need her explaining how a robust abortion industry lowers rates - remember that one? -
Posted by: swksvolFF || 10/25/2013 19:24 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Somali pirates sentenced to seven years in prison
[Shabelle] Four Somali pirates were sentenced to seven years each in prison on Wednesday by a Kenyan court that found them guilty of hijacking a fishing dhow in the Indian Ocean in 2010.

Prosecutors told the court in Mombasa the four were armed with rocket-propelled grenades, an AK-47 rifle, a pistol and other weapons when they took control of the dhow by firing at the crew.

Although the number of attacks has fallen markedly since 2011 thanks to tougher security aboard ships and increased Western naval patrols, piracy emanating from the Horn of Africa nation may still cost the world economy about $18 billion a year, the World Bank said in April.

The men, Abdirahman Isse Mohammed, Mohammed Osman Farah, Feisal Abdi Muse and Noor Ali Mohammed, were tossed in the calaboose
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
by Spanish naval forces and handed over to Kenyan authorities, as Somalia was not considered able to try them properly.

They all denied the charges of piracy.

The men's lawyer, Jared Magolo, branded the sentence unfair as they jugged
Please don't kill me!
'>were tossed into the calaboose for three years before the trial at a maximum security Kenyan prison and said he would seek his clients' consent to appeal.

Kenya is one of a few countries that are prosecuting pirates, alongside Seychelles and Mauritius. But the cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute and take a long time to complete.

In July, nine Somalis were sentenced in Kenya to five years in prison each for attempting to hijack a German merchant vessel MV Courier in the Gulf of Aden in March 2009.

Another nine Somalis were handed a similar sentence in June, after also being found guilty of hijacking a ship in the Gulf of Aden in 2010.

In a sign that piracy is still a threat, the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
Naval Force for Somalia, said last week that a fully loaded crude oil supertanker fought off and repulsed pirates off the Somali coast on October 11.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Pirates

#1  Prosecutors told the court in Mombasa the four were armed with rocket-propelled grenades, an AK-47 rifle, a pistol and other weapons when they took control of the dhow by firing at the crew.

I just wonder what the pirates would do, if they were badly out-gunned.

Die?
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/25/2013 3:02 Comments || Top||

#2  I just wonder what the pirates would do, if they were badly out-gunned.

Call CNN & Amnesty (paleos do it all the time).
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/25/2013 3:46 Comments || Top||

#3  Sentence to death, execute, and dump on the beach at Eyl, Hobyo...or wherever POS Somalia town they came from.

Rinse, Repeat.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 10/25/2013 23:39 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Russian 'Kidnapped' by Syrian Rebels
[An Nahar] Russia is investigating reports one of its citizens was kidnapped in Syria after a video of the man pleading to be rescued was posted online, a report said Thursday.

The video, posted on YouTube, shows a man who identifies himself as Russian citizen Sergei Gorbunov and asks Moscow to help free him.

He says his captors will release him in exchange for a Saudi national, but failing that, have threatened to kill him within five days.

"I ask the presidents of Syria, Russia, the Red Thingy... I am very afraid... I want to return to Russia. Help me," he says in lightly accented Russian.

The Russian foreign ministry is investigating the video, which has been widely broadcast on television, a source told the Interfax news agency.

"The information about the situation concerning Russian citizen Sergei Gorbunov in Syria is being checked by the Russian embassy in Damascus," the source said.

News agencies said the kidnapping had already been claimed by Katiba al-Muhajireen, an Islamist group comprised mainly of imported muscle, including many from Chechnya.

The video shows the man, who has short hair and a beard, sitting down against a white wall.

He says he was captured at the Menagh airport and that his captors want to exchange him for a Saudi national named Khaled Suleiman, who was tossed in the calaboose
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
in the central Syrian city of Hama.

Menagh is a military airport near Aleppo that was seized several months ago by Salafist tough guys.

"The Mohammedans told me that I can be exchanged," he says in the blurry footage. "If I am not exchanged in five days, then they will kill me."
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Nusra

#1  These kidnappers have picked on the wrong country. Unlike Obama, Putin will pursue KGB, Mother Russia and all. A price will be paid.
Posted by: Dale || 10/25/2013 7:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Spetsnaz, you forgot the Spetsnaz.

Yep the guys who for years have provided all those big lumpy ruthless guys for the French Foreign Legion...

If this is for real, my best advice for these rebels is to leave town and DON'T answer the door.

Of course, the Russians are so divinely covert, this might be a great ruse to get an advisor to the Russian favorite rebel group...just saying, if you think ole Vlad is a bit obscure, just imagine what his buddies over at the latest version of the bureau of state security (SVR) have cooked up to control the rebellion in Syria.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 10/25/2013 17:29 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Measuring America’s Decline, in Three Charts
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sorry, but I think very few people care that America has declined in recent years, after all they voted for the "spread the wealth", take it away from us, humble us, we are not acceptional, guy... whats his name. right ?
Posted by: Winky Clesing3851 || 10/25/2013 0:49 Comments || Top||

#2  A typical "Made to fit the facts" shit piece.

America does NOT come on the bottom (Least and last) every time.

Except in "Tailor Made " Polls.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/25/2013 2:36 Comments || Top||

#3  High-brow, leftest drivel intended for those poor souls doddering about in the chambre de domestique. We must keep them humiliated and worried, else they'll forget their place and wander off.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 3:49 Comments || Top||

#4  Other factors matter: resource endowments; investment in physical capital and R. & D.; political stability; competition; openness to new innovations, ideas, and people; a reliable legal system; and ready access to finance. In some of these areas, the United States still ranks very high.

Oh yeah? Which ones? I guess even our current political system is more stable than Syria or the Sudan....
Posted by: Bobby || 10/25/2013 9:36 Comments || Top||

#5  It is hard to tell much from the demographics of Finland and Korea which leads in these charts. Finland demographics. Finland doesn't look much different than the U.S. South Korea was primitive prior to the Korean War. The U.S. built them up to what they are today. NORKS still remain primitive. Conclusion: The charts tell us little.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/25/2013 11:45 Comments || Top||

#6  One of the factors never taken into account is American laziness or focus. There's a lot of 'potential' that just remains potential till something motivates them. Why should anyone try harder if the product of your skill or labor is taken to provide to those who don't try harder. Why play in a game that is rigged to the benefit of others. All demotivates.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/25/2013 13:40 Comments || Top||

#7  You run that survey in parts of California, I suspect other states as well, and what you're really going to find will be Mexico's proficiency.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 10/25/2013 13:57 Comments || Top||

#8  Our numacracy is fine; we know exactly how much money we owe. and how to make money.

Our problem solving skills are fine; we now exactly how to solve our problems.

What this country lacks is politcal will to do the right thing for the country and the future of the country.
Posted by: airandee || 10/25/2013 14:14 Comments || Top||

#9  #6 P2k - I could make more money than I do at present, but why bother? I can't make enough to be super-rich and have a fleet of accountants to protect my money from our ever-more-voracious gummint, so I make the minimum I need. Why should I bust my butt to make more money so the demoncrats can tax it away from me and give it to their voters who refuse to work? >:-(
Posted by: Barbara || 10/25/2013 16:28 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Swiss, Russian experts rule out Arafat killed by radioactive polonium
Swiss and Russian experts who participated in exhuming and applying tests on the remains of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ruled out in their report that radioactive polonium caused his death in 2004, local sources said Thursday.

However, the report, which the Palestinian National Authority ( PNA) received, did not discount the possibility that Arafat was intoxicated with a different poisonous material, the sources told Xinhua.

General Tawfiq Al-Tirrawi, the head of the Palestinian committee investigating Arafat's death, declined to comment on the information obtained by Xinhua, but said a press conference will be held soon to reveal the results of the report.

In November, the Swiss, Russian and French experts took samples from Arafat's remains for more tests after an investigative media report found out that Arafat's personal belonging bore traces of the polonium-210.

The report was carried out by the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera television network and the team of the documentary movie used a Swiss lab to examine Arafat's clothes, toothbrush and bedcovers after getting them from his widow.

Arafat died at a French military hospital in 2004 from an undisclosed or unknown condition.

At the time, Palestinian officials hinted that Israel was behind the death of Arafat after it prevented him from leaving his Ramallah headquarters for two years.
Posted by: Theting Glasing4448 || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  At the time, Palestinian officials hinted that Israel was behind the death of Arafat after it prevented him from leaving his Ramallah headquarters for two years.

Obviously he should have never left his headquarters. I blame French leeks and wild mushrooms.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 4:06 Comments || Top||

#2  "from an undisclosed or unknown condition"

Yeah right.

"that Arafat was intoxicated with a different poisonous material"

not necessarily by oral means
Posted by: European Conservative || 10/25/2013 7:36 Comments || Top||

#3  Hint: Find the dreaded Red Notebook™
Posted by: Frank G || 10/25/2013 7:53 Comments || Top||

#4  Arafat's been dead 9 years and Polonium has a half life of only a few months - how much would be left to detect? And could you distinguish the daughter products from Paleo remedies for AIDS?
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/25/2013 9:41 Comments || Top||

#5  I recollect a couple of weeks ago there was a report that polonium in body fluid stains had been found on his clothing and personal effects in trace amounts. They were next going to examine the corpse.

Yup, Wikipedia article on polonium has links. Peer reviewed article recently published by Lancet. Why the discrepancy?

People simply don't have significant amounts of polonium in their body fluids unless they have been working with radium or uranium. However, Arafat was a heavy smoker, as I recollect, so that may have contributed to the trace readings. 210Po is thought to be the cause behind lung cancer associated with smoking.
Posted by: KBK || 10/25/2013 14:17 Comments || Top||

#6  I think the Russians got him.

Discounting polonium means the swiss scientists and the Russian scientists got a visit and heart to heart talk from Boris and Igor late one night.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 10/25/2013 17:34 Comments || Top||

#7  I thought it was Boris and Natasha...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/25/2013 17:48 Comments || Top||

#8  Igor was the guy that dug up the body of the Arafish.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 10/25/2013 23:42 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Pakistan's Gilani acknowledges possibility of contact with U.S. over planned drone strikes
[Washington Post] A former Pak prime minister strongly denied
No, no! Certainly not!
Thursday that he had quietly authorized U.S. drone strikes inside his country, but he didn't rule out secret deals made without his knowledge.

A day earlier, a Washington Post story detailed how the United States and Pakistain communicated about, and in some cases coordinated, dozens of drone strikes in Pakistain from late 2007 to late 2011. But former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
... Pakistain's former prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics could be awe-inspiring ...
, who was the country's prime minister from 2008 to 2012, said in an interview it was "totally absurd" to suggest his government condoned the attacks.

"During my government, there was no such support given to drone strikes whatsoever," Gilani said, adding that he had discussed with President B.O. in 2010 "how this strategy with drones was counterproductive and undermining our anti-terror efforts."

Gilani said he could not rule out that the two countries communicated about planned drone strikes during his tenure. But if they did, he said, the parties involved would have been the CIA and Pakistain's InterServices Intelligence agency under conditions set by his predecessor, former military ruler Pervez Perv Musharraf
... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ...

"The permission must have been given earlier," said Gilani, who was also cited in a 2010 WikiLeaks report as being privately supportive of some drone strikes. "After 9/11, the U.S. rang up Musharraf and said, 'You are either with us or you are not with us,' and he said, 'We are with you.' "

In an interview with CNN last year, Musharraf admitted to authorizing "a few" U.S. drone strikes before he stepped down in 2008. Pakistain's Express Tribune newspaper reported Thursday that a former top-ranking military commander who served under Musharraf, retired Lt. Gen. Shahid Aziz, is calling for Musharaff to be charged with extrajudicial murder for his role in the drone campaign.

Musarraf is already under house arrest in Islamabad for several charges stemming from his autocratic tenure.

But the Washington Post report details coordination as recently as 2011, causing some analysts to suspect that Musharraf's successors were also aware of some U.S. strike targets.

"This puts cold water on the hype," said Talat Masood, a retired Pak general and military analyst, referring to the public anger in Pakistain over U.S. attacks. "I think people knew it already, but this makes it much more obvious, and the [Pak] media and others will have to cool off."
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


The Grand Turk
Jews Flee Turkey Over Anti-Semitism
[Ynet] Negative atmosphere, fear for personal safety prompt many young Turkish Jews to emigrate, mainly to US and European countries -- but also to Israel. 'The Moslems don't distinguish between Israel and local Jews. As far as they are concerned, if you're Jewish you're not a Turk,' one of emigrants says

Young Jews are emigrating from Turkey in masses, mainly to the United States and different European countries, due to growing anti-Semitism and the negative attitude in the country towards Israel.

Members of the local Jewish community are keeping mum over the situation, but off the record some of them describe an explosive situation which may erupt at any moment following careless statements.

"They can't talk," one of the young Jews who immigrated to Israel about two years ago following the flotilla affair told Ynet. "The current situation will only deteriorate, and in 16 years Turkey may not even be a democratic country anymore."

Turkish newspaper Daily News Hürriyet reported this week that the negative atmosphere and deteriorating relationship between the two countries was putting pressure on the small community of nearly 15,000 Jews, prompting young Turkish Jews to flee to safer places.

Uncomfortable with being 'othered'
According to the report, the wave of emigration follows the ongoing tension with Israel since the notorious "one minute" spat between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Israeli President Shimon Peres in Davos in 2009 and the deadly IDF raid on a Gazoo-bound flotilla.

Nesim Güveniş, deputy chairman the Association of Turkish Jews in Israel, told the Hürriyet Daily News that anti-Semitism, triggered by harsh statements from the Turkish government, has led to the migration of hundreds of Jewish youngsters from Turkey to the US or Europe.

He expressed unease on the remarks of Turkish leaders against Jews, which he said did not contribute to perception of Turkish people.

"Look the environment in Turkey at the moment. We are uncomfortable with being 'othered'... I am more Turkish than many. But we couldn't make them believe it," he said.

Sources in the local Jewish community told Ynet that the Hürriyet Daily News interview sent the community members into a "defensive alert."

A member of the Jewish community in Istanbul said he could not give an open interview about the atmosphere against Jews in the country, in light of the sensitive and explosive situation. The current tensions, he explained, could lead to an additional deterioration in the bad relations and to attacks on Jews and their property.

"I am pretty familiar with the situation, unfortunately," says a young man who immigrated to Israel with his wife following the flotilla incident. He asked to remain anonymous in order to protect his family members, some of whom are still living in Turkey.

"The prime minister speaks the way he speaks, and they all hear him and do the math. The young people who want to change their lives and have children don't want to raise them in such an atmosphere," he explains.

Prefer to go rather than fight
"The Moslems in Turkey fail to distinguish between Israel and the local Jews. As far as they are concerned, if you're not Moslem you're not a Turk. You can even serve in the army and have a significant Turkish identity, but in their eyes that doesn't count. They are not even interested in understanding. If you're Jewish -- you're not Turkish."

The negative atmosphere against Jews on the Turkish street, he says, is joined by a financial difficulty. Those who are not rich and don't earn a lot of money cannot live comfortably in Turkey or even afford to send their children to a Jewish school.

"The Jewish school is very expensive," he says. "Most young Jewish families cannot afford it. They pay a sum of about NIS 50,000 ($14,195) for eight months of studies, not including the uniform and books. It's impossible.

"The choice is between sending the children to a low-standard Moslem public school, where they will be harassed and won't be able to express their Jewish identity -- or immigrating. You can fight in order to survive as a Turkish Jew, or leave."

Every week, a Turkish family makes aliyah
Turkish-born Avraham Lego, who lives in Israel today, notes that every week the "old immigrants" are informed of another family making aliyah.

"It's not a wave of emigration," he clarifies, "but there is definitely a significant aliyah compared to the number of people who emigrated from the country in the 1990s," before the Erdogan era. Most emigrants, however, flee to the US and Europe.

"You must understand that there is no one to replace Erdogan," says the young immigrant who asked to remain anonymous. "He's here and he's not going anywhere. The current situation will only deteriorate."

And the current attitude towards Israel?

"There is really nothing here except money. Europe is in a recession right now, the money is in Arab countries. There, there are good investment opportunities. So if for that purpose you have to speak out against Israel and create crises -- that's what he'll do. The goal is to improve Turkey's economy and its financial interests."

Have your friends emigrated too?

"People emigrate to Israel and Europe all the time. I have a friend who is married to a Moslem woman, and they have both decided to emigrate and raise their children here, in Israel, because life is more convenient here economically. There I had to pay NIS 20,000 ($5,700) a year for medical insurance, not including surgery. How much it is here? NIS 100 ($28) including everything?

"At the end of the day, in order to protect your freedom and your children's freedom, you much make changes. There are still young people who stay there. There are Jewish bloggers who write that they are Turks, and that this is their homeland and they're not leaving. But their number is diminishing.

"The bottom line is that it doesn't matter if they leave or not, it's enough that if they want to -- they will always be able to do it. At least I hope so."
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  'The Moslems don't distinguish between Israel and local Jews. As far as they are concerned, if you're Jewish you're not a Turk,'

As far as I'm concerned, you're a moron.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/25/2013 1:19 Comments || Top||

#2  Grom, you're right, if Americans felt this way, we'd be in a heap of stinky smelly steaming log trouble, we DON'T.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/25/2013 2:31 Comments || Top||

#3  I meant the jerk who thought himself "Turkish citizen of Jewish Descent"
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/25/2013 3:43 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
House Dems Sound The Alarm: "We Just Got Word The Koch Brothers" Are Going To Attack Obama!...
...well, they've preemptively personalized it (See Alinsky rule #13)...
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Uh huh... more ways to get money from the gullible I guess.
Posted by: DarthVader || 10/25/2013 0:10 Comments || Top||

#2  Crap FOR Obama?
Seems right, we've gotten enough crap FROM Obama.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/25/2013 1:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Drew — we can’t lose these critical seats because we didn’t have the resources to fight back. Right now, we’re looking at a $450,456 hole in our Obamacare Rapid Response Fund.

Hey, no problem. Just use some of that $600,000,000. that was allocated for the Obamacare website work. We've got to empty that slush fund before someone discovers it.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 3:31 Comments || Top||

#4  The Onion or Obama -- who can tell?
Posted by: Iblis || 10/25/2013 9:39 Comments || Top||

#5  Paging Emmanuel Goldstein......
Posted by: no mo uro || 10/25/2013 12:07 Comments || Top||

#6  Their strategy is simple: deceive voters about Obamacare and drive down Democrats’ poll numbers.

Deceive voters about ObamaCare? All they have to do is tell the truth since the MSM is not. The Donk poll numbers are already heading south. I've noticed the Dems are careful not to talk about Soros' backing of Hildebeast for Prez at this time--the candidate who ignored the early warnings and did not take the 3:00 a.m. call about Benghazi when it occurred. As the a result, four good men were killed but then again "What difference does it make?"

Posted by: JohnQC || 10/25/2013 12:28 Comments || Top||

#7  Just how many divisions do the Koch Brothers have?
Posted by: SteveS || 10/25/2013 16:23 Comments || Top||

#8  I hope someone like the Koch brothers go after certain Dems. I have a list, lets get started. By the time the elections come these guys need to be defeated.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 10/25/2013 17:59 Comments || Top||

#9  Just how many divisions do the Koch Brothers have?

Plenty of fellow libertarians.

But most are perpetually stoned.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/25/2013 18:28 Comments || Top||

#10  I am more creeped out by the day. The claims of sabotage sound so Soviet. I mean, how is it different from, "the boot factory heroically met its production quota of 5 million boots. But they are all left boots, because counterrevolutionary saboteurs made off with all the right boots." Nothing to do with unrealistic expectations and/or incompetence, no sir, not at all.

How will the country endure 3+ more years of this?
Posted by: RandomJD || 10/25/2013 18:59 Comments || Top||

#11  #10 How will the country endure 3+ more years of this?

Sabotage? ;-)
Posted by: Gartin Milbert1936 || 10/25/2013 19:46 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Tight security for Tak Bai anniversary in southern Thailand
Posted by: ryuge || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Bangladesh
15 hurt as AL, BNP men clash in Kushtia
[Bangla Daily Star] At least 15 people were maimed in a clash between Awami League (AL) and BNP in Kushtia Sadar upazila today.

Ten houses belong to both party activists were also vandalised during the incident around 9:30am at Kamlapur village, reports our district correspondent quoting Belayat Hossain, officer-in-charge of Kushtia Model Police Station

Describing the incident, the police official said one Abdul Majid of BNP made an abusive comment on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums..
at a tea stall at Kamlapur bazaar around 8:30am.

Following his remark, supporters of both the parties, who were present at the tea stall, locked into an altercation which later turned into a clash, the police official said.

BNP and AL men clashed with lethal weapons during the clash that left 15 activists of both the parties injured.

As the clash spread over the area, both the party men attacked and vandalised 10 houses belong to the rivals.

On information, police rushed to the spot around 10:00am and brought the situation under control.

Five of the injured were admitted to Kushtia Medical College Hospital.

Netrokona correspondent adds: Twenty activists were maimed in a clash between AL and BNP activists at Teligati bazaar in Atpara upazila of Netrakona Wednesday night.

Police and local sources said a group of AL attacked BNP activists of Teligati union unit men with sharp weapons when they were holding a meeting at its Teligati bazaar office around 9:00pm.

The BNP activists retaliated with lethal weapons, triggering a clash between the two groups, which left 20 people injured including Abdul Monnaf, BNP vice-president of Atpara upazila unit.

Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Toothpaste: the root cause for the decline of Muslims -- Syed Kamran Hashmi
[Pak Daily Times] Do you know the real reason for the invention of toothpaste? If you think it was formulated to clean your teeth, protect them from decay, revitalise their shine, improve the health of your gums, reduce the incidence of dental abscesses and save your life, then you are wrong. You, like most innocent Musselmens, have been misled, lost in the glamour, and blinded by the glare of western civilisation.

The only exception is if the country of your origin is Pakistain. In that case, you won't fall for their academic mumbo jumbo and 'scientifically' proven facts (thanks to our deep understanding of international politics). Here, even a five-year-old child, who cannot spell his name correctly, will be able to tell you the real reason for the development of such a 'vicious' compound. He knows it well that the west has always sought to attack the faith of the Musselmens, and their devotion to Islam. However,
a hangover is the wrath of grapes...
despite their best efforts, they have made limited progress in breaking that bond, attracting only a few followers. Now, with the help of toothpaste, they want to ensure their presence in every Musselmen household; they intend to corrupt all Musselmen children, plan to deprave every woman, and are determined to brainwash all adults away from the right path. In their opinion, toothpaste can guarantee their long term success, a scenario they believe would develop after the Third World War, in which the number of human beings killed would be in billions and the ones who stay alive would be just a few hundred. According to their plan, only a morally corrupt and faithless Musselmen should have a chance of being counted in that select group of survivors, and the truly dedicated followers should be excluded at any cost. Thinking way ahead, as early as the late 19th century, they anticipated the consequences of the Third World War decades before the first one had broken out.

Armed with this knowledge, I went to the United States of America a few years ago. My uncle, who lived in the USA for more than 20 years, and by the grace of God, hated everything about the country of infidels, received me at the airport. Even before we had left the building, he handed me a list of products that I could not use, under any circumstances, during my stay in the US. Almost all the toothpastes known to mankind were included in that list, except one that could be used with caution, as a last option. Besides the toothpastes, it also included shampoos, bathing soaps, facial creams, hair products and body lotions. Eatables, including most bakery products, could not be consumed, and eating in a restaurant was out of the question too. I was duly alerted to the corruptive powers lurking behind the façade of refined sugar, which he thought was impermissible to be used as well. The only products that I was allowed to take home were fresh fruits, vegetables, milk, ice, flour, rice and cooking oil.

This list was formulated by religious scholars of North America, who, after a tremendous amount of research, had determined that the compounds constituting these products could have pork ingredients in them. They were not sure but they had connected the dots, and the trail led to pig farms and animal origin-fat. They concluded that these products were not permissible. As my uncle shared this information with me, the onion of the west's nefarious scheme was peeled in front of my eyes. I realised that had my uncle not given me the list that day, my whole body would have been polluted, which I thought was their original plan.

The following morning, I called one of the companies and spoke to their representative, inquiring about the origin of all the ingredients listed in their product. Just after the fifth ingredient -- I think it was polyethylene glycol -- out of the list of 40, she got defensive and behaved as if she had no idea what I was talking about. I had anticipated this kind of behaviour from the outset, realising that the front person of these corporations would deliberately be left in the dark about the company's master plan. I was not the one to let her off the hook that easily. Thus I continued to insist on getting more details. Audibly shaken by my questions, she finally transferred me to her supervisor, who then transferred me to another department, and then I was referred to another, until I hung up. Everyone, from their research department to their marketing specialists, said they had no way of confirming the origin of every ingredient of their toothpastes. They claimed that the process of obtaining the ingredients was complex, involving the cooperation of multiple smaller companies, and was handled by various departments within the organization. I knew they were lying. However,
death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate...
this was enough for me to read between the lines, which said: every product is 'contaminated' till proved otherwise.

Even though modern toothpaste was most likely invented for the first time in the ninth century by a Musselmen polymath, Abul Hassan Ali Ibne Nafi, also known as Zaryab, his invention was stolen by a US scientist, Dr Washington Sheffield, in the late 19th century, who developed it in the modern collapsible form. I believe that was the time when the US government, along with its ally, Colgate and Company, launched their joint venture to corrupt the Ummah by making their product commercially available, and introducing it in every Musselmen household. Their plan has succeeded. In the name of toothpaste and cleanliness, they have poisoned our souls. Their first victim was the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, as mentioned earlier, and their last target is going to be Pakistain, the fortress of Islam. We should, therefore, to protect our faith, stop using all products that they claim are developed for 'hygienic purposes'.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Another installment from the twilight zone, starring SK Hashmi, as the psycho wiseman.
Posted by: Winky Clesing3851 || 10/25/2013 1:05 Comments || Top||

#2  I gave up Crest years ago....same reason. It's an acquired taste, but I'm strictly a Burt's Bees hand salve man now.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 3:40 Comments || Top||

#3  My uncle, who lived in the USA for more than 20 years, and by the grace of God, hated everything about the country of infidels

Islam explained.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/25/2013 3:48 Comments || Top||

#4  My uncle, who lived in the USA for more than 20 years, and by the grace of God, hated everything about the country of infidels

White House explained.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 4:09 Comments || Top||

#5  And we wonder why Pakistan is so fucked up?

This is mainstream English news over there!
Posted by: Pearl Ghibelline2591 || 10/25/2013 7:40 Comments || Top||

#6  Explains 'Taters teeth. What excuse do the English have?
Posted by: Glenmore || 10/25/2013 9:55 Comments || Top||

#7  ...well, I knew it was not deodorant...
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/25/2013 10:54 Comments || Top||

#8  Well, why not? After all, deodorant was the downfall of the French...
Posted by: Iblis || 10/25/2013 11:43 Comments || Top||

#9  The Onion? Right? ... really.....
Posted by: Whuck Forkbeard5327 || 10/25/2013 14:02 Comments || Top||

#10  I clicked through, and there at the bottom of this informative article was an ad for Colgate Optic White. Dayam. We're doomed.
Posted by: KBK || 10/25/2013 14:42 Comments || Top||

#11  WOW! I thought this was from the Onion and satire. But he has a point. Lets put a little pork fat into everything we eat and use for hygiene! Lets promote that fact and declare pork a protected food group.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 10/25/2013 14:56 Comments || Top||

#12  even a five-year-old child, who cannot spell his name correctly,

Is this why so many Islamo-kids end up named Mohammad - so they won't have to learn to spell a new word? And why there are so many different spellings of the name?
Posted by: SteveS || 10/25/2013 16:20 Comments || Top||

#13  If I have to give up bacon flavored toothpaste I don't want to live!
Posted by: flash91 || 10/25/2013 16:47 Comments || Top||

#14  Man, I hope no ones tell 'em about the mustache wax.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/25/2013 17:33 Comments || Top||

#15  We need too start a rumor campaign on this. Did you know the glue that hold the pages of the Koran together and the ink both have pigs fat in them???
Posted by: 49 Pan || 10/25/2013 17:51 Comments || Top||

#16  Did we forget to tell them that most everything except drinking water and dirt contain trace amounts of animal byproducts from non-Halal animals?

It's all very silly, Halal is essentially Kosher, take it from a guy that spent a week with Fathi Osmon, there is little difference between the food rules of the Hebrews and the food rules of the Moslems...gasp...does that mean a common origin...after all they both revere Moses (Musa).
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 10/25/2013 17:52 Comments || Top||

#17  a guy that spent a week with Fathi Osmon,

I thought the Osmonds were Mormons. IIRC, that tribe is fine with toothpaste. It's coffee that's haram.
Posted by: SteveS || 10/25/2013 18:07 Comments || Top||

#18  It wasn't the toothpaste, it was very small traces of Polonium 210.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 10/25/2013 23:49 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Heavy explosion rocks Janale town
[Shabelle] News from Janale town which is located in the lower Shabelle region of Somalia confirms that a heavy kaboom occurred when a grenade bomb exploded and thrown at a government controlled barrier.

Two people including a soldier was struck down in his prime while 14 others sustained injuries during the heavy kaboom.

Government troops rushed to the scene immediately after the deafening sound was heard and it is believed they conducted security operations to hunt down the culprits.

Government officials based in the region have not yet commented about today's blast.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Iraq
U.S. Offers Funds to Move MKO out of Iraq
[An Nahar] The United States on Thursday offered $1 million to help resettle Iranian opposition exiles currently in Iraq, contributing to a U.N. appeal in the wake of violence.

More than 3,000 members of the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, allowed by late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to operate in the country, are staying at a former U.S. military base known as Camp Hurriya, or Liberty, on Storied Baghdad
...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
's outskirts.

The United States will contribute $1 million to a fund launched Wednesday by U.N. chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
aimed at finding new homes abroad for the exiles, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

"We share the conviction that relocation is the only lasting means of guaranteeing the safety and well-being of those residing at Camp Hurriya," Harf said in a statement.

Iraqi authorities had ordered the transfer of remaining members of the group's Camp Ashraf, which is in the central province of Diyala, after 52 members died in violence on September 2.

The authorities blame infighting in the group for the deaths. The People's Mujahedeen gave a vastly different account of what happened, saying troops entered the camp and set fire to property.

The People's Mujahedeen initially took up arms against Iran's shah and then set its sights on toppling the holy manal regime that came to power after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The group says it has renounced violence and has enlisted high-profile U.S. supporters in their cause. Last year, the State Department removed its designation as a terrorist organization following similar decisions in Europe.

Albania and Germany have agreed to take in exiles, but the U.N. has struggled to resettle most of them.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
5 Hurt, Office Torched in Attacks on Tunisia's Ruling Islamist Party
[An Nahar] Protesters attacked an office of Tunisia's embattled ruling Islamist party in the town of Beja on Thursday, leaving five party members maimed, Ennahda official Abdessatar Amdouni told local radio, hours after an Ennahda office was torched in the town of Kef.

"Five people were maimed, including one who had a fractured leg and another who suffered face burns," Amdouni told Shems FM radio station.

"Hundreds, or thousands" of assailants attacked the building in the town west of Tunis, throwing rocks and petrol bombs, said the Ennahda representative in Beja.

The incident took place after the burial of a policeman killed by jihadists on Wednesday evening, amid rising anger at the ruling party's failure to stem deadly violence caused by bad boys.

Earlier on Thursday, protesters torched Ennahda's office in Kef, where a policeman killed in fighting with suspected jihadists was to be buried, an Agence La Belle France Presse photographer reported.

The walls of the building were burned and equipment inside it destroyed, with witnesses saying protesters had ransacked the office in the morning.

The remains of charred documents and tires were strewn in the road outside the building, occupied on the second floor by the ruling Ennahda movement.

The office is located just meters (yards) from the family home of one of six coppers killed on Wednesday in a firefight with suspected jihadists.

President Moncef Marzouki has declared three days of national mourning for the men but their families have barred officials from attending the funerals.

"We have rejected plans by the government, the politicians to pay homage... We reject their condolences, their presence," said Jamel Salhi, the brother of one of the victims, in the central region of Sidi Bouzid.

The country's political transition has been paralyzed for months, with the opposition accusing the Ennahda-led government of laxity in reining in jihadist groups.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


China-Japan-Koreas
Images show N. Korea completes work on nuclear test site
[Ynet] North Korea has built two tunnel entrances at its nuclear test site in a sign it plans more of its internationally condemned detonations, a US think tank said Wednesday.

Satellite images taken on September 27 shows progress in excavation work and the presence of two new entrances to tunnels at the Punggye-ri site, Johns Hopkins University's US-Korea Institute said.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Commies


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Rafehi Urges Disbanding of Arab Democratic Party, Arrest of Shooters
[An Nahar] Salafist holy man Sheikh Salem al-Rafehi on Thursday slammed the state for failing to stop the violence in Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
, accusing Jabal Mohsen's Arab Democratic Party of starting the new round of fighting in the city.

"Tripoli is being shelled since four days at the hands of a criminal party despite the presence of the security plan," Rafehi said following a meeting for holy mans and leaders of Bab al-Tabbaneh's fighting frontiers.

"Tripoli's residents endured the security forces' restriction of their freedoms at the checkpoints for the sake of their security and stability," the holy man said.

"The security plan is not defending us and it is preventing us from defending ourselves," Rafehi lamented, calling on the state to "perform its duties."

The holy man called on the state to "disband" the Arab Democratic Party, the main political and armed force in Jabal Mohsen, saying its officials must be "put on trial" after "members of it" were accused of deadly bombings that hit two mosques in the city.

"Why didn't security forces arrest those who opened fire in Tripoli? Had another sect been targeted they would have acted differently," said Rafehi, referring to four days of festivities between the rival neighborhoods of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh that have left at least four people dead and 35 others maimed.

Syrian President Bashar "Assad launches threats and the Arab Democratic Party executes them and Assad admitted that this party is loyal to the regime, that's why this party must be disbanded but the state is not doing so. The state is thanking the regime instead of summoning the Syrian ambassador" over the bombings, Rafehi added.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Southeast Asia
Clash between MILF factions kills four in Mindanao
Four people were killed and four others injured in an clash between two warring factions of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Maguindanao province, the military reported on Thursday.

The provincial military spokesman, Captain Toni Bulao, said the encounter which occurred in the town of Pagalungan, was sparked by intense political rivalry between the two MILF groups in the coming Oct.28 barangay (village) election.

He said although the clash occurred Wednesday, tensions remained high Thursday due to the presence of the MILF combatants, which forced hundreds of residents to flee their homes. As a result, Bulao expressed concern over whether the village election would proceed.

One faction involved in the clash was led by MILF Commander Muhammad Anday, the former head of the Association of Barangay Captains in Pagalungan. Anday who had run but lost for mayor of Pagalungan in the May 13 midterm polls, has a son seeking the post of village chairman in the Oct.28 nationwide election, five days away.

Wednesday's encounter was the third violent confrontation between the two warring MILF groups, the latest of which was last week.
Posted by: ryuge || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Moro Islamic Liberation Front


Africa North
Car Bomb Found at Site of Deadly Tunisia Clash
[An Nahar] Tunisian security forces found a boom-mobile "ready to explode" at the site of festivities with suspected jihadists that left six coppers dead, the interior ministry said Thursday.

"We seized weapons, explosives, two grenade belts and a boom-mobile containing three canisters ready to explode," ministry front man Mohammed Ali Aroui said, speaking on Tunisian radio.

A quantity of TNT and ammonium nitrate substances frequently used in homemade explosives were also found, he added.

Security forces made the discovery at Sidi Ali Ben Aoun, a locality in the central Sidi Bouzid region, at the site of Wednesday's deadly fighting, which erupted when the National Guard was preparing to raid a house where the suspected Islamists were hold up.

Six guardsmen and one bad boy died in the ensuing firefight, with Aroui saying another assailant was jugged
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
and one was on the run.

The car was registered in the name of someone from Goubellat, a town in the Beja region 70 kilometers west of the capital, where nine snuffies were killed last week in a military operation launched after an attack that left two coppers dead.

"There is a link between the operation in Goubellat and the one in Sidi Ali Ben Aoun," the ministry front man said.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


India-Pakistan
Man gunned down in Bulaida
[Pak Daily Times] Unidentified gunnies rubbed out a man in Bulaida area of Kech district, police informed here on Thursday. "Shah Wali was on way to home when armed assailants opened fire on him and fled from the scene", police added. As a result, he was struck down in his prime after receiving multiple bullet wounds. His body was handed over to the heirs after legal formalities. The reason of killing could not be ascertained.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Coalition says Mohamed Morsi was ousted due to his 'anti-Zionist stance', calls for a week of protests
[Al Ahram] A Moslem Brüderbund-led coalition is to hold a week of protests dubbed 'Suez resilience, our way to Jerusalem' beginning on Friday to condemn what they describe as "the bloody military coup" against Mohammed Morsi
...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator...

In a statement issued on Thursday, the National Coalition to Support Legitimacy said the protests would take inspiration from popular resistance to the Israeli occupation of Suez in 1973.

The coalition also condemned the ongoing campaign against hard boyz in the Sinai Peninsula.

"Sinai is witnessing continuous attacks on the homes of local people by coup troops who are trying to establish a buffer zone to protect their Zionist friends," the statement said.

"It is no coincidence that the coup president announces the division of Jerusalem into East and West in harmony with those declare that it is the capital of all religions in order to destroy its Arabic and Islamic identity," the statement continued in a reference to interim President Adly Mansour's speech on the October war anniversary in which he mentioned "East Jerusalem."

The statement also claimed Mohammed Morsi was ousted due to his support for the Paleostinian cause.

"The legitimate president supported our just cause in Paleostine, this is why they turned against him and ousted him by force. He was resilient and was framed with charges usually used by Zionists against the resistance, i.e. he was accused of spying for Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,," the statement continued.

The coalition also announced there would be protests at home and abroad on 4 November outside consulates and human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
organizations.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  These guys are serious right?

Hmmm, boy if this article and the one on toothpaste are NOT from the Onion, I'm folding up my prayer rug and finding myself a good, quiet, rational synagogue to visit tonight.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 10/25/2013 17:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Start folding, Bill. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara || 10/25/2013 18:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Kinda also explains why Hamas has been tiptoeing around diplomacy-wise.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/25/2013 22:09 Comments || Top||


Government
USMC Commandant alleged to have had 'unlawful influence' in Taliban urination case
A group of former military lawyers and officers have accused the head of the US Marine Corps of attempting to exert "unlawful command influence" over the prosecution of Marines who were shown urinating on dead Taliban fighters. A letter to US politicians, signed by 27 individuals, says Marine Corps Commandant James Amos appears to have deprived the Marines of due process, made misleading statements about the incident under oath, abused the legal discovery process and besmirched the reputation of a Marine Corps whistleblower. The letter calls for a Congressional inquiry into the allegations.

The allegations centre around punitive action taken against eight Marines involved in the incident, in which a team of scout snipers attached to 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, filmed themselves in full combat uniform urinating on the corpses of snuffies during a 2011 deployment to Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
province in Afghanistan. A video of the incident, posted on YouTube in January 2012, provoked international condemnation and caused intense embarrassment to the military's big shotship.

Lieutenant General Thomas Waldhauser, who was initially in charge of the prosecution, later said in a legal document first published in July by the Marine Corps Times that Amos stripped him of his authority to prosecute when it became clear he would not promise to ensure that the individuals involved were thrown out of the Marines.

The letter provides the armed services committee with 28 pages of legal documentation which it says "strongly suggest" that Amos replaced Waldhauser with another convening authority in order "to ensure his own wishes and pre-determined outcomes in at least one and perhaps other military justice proceedings".

The letter goes on: "Worst of all, the one person who had the moral courage to report on these events fully, Major James Weirick, was relieved from his job duties as a deputy staff judge advocate, reassigned and relegated to a non-legal job." Weirick filed a whistleblower complaint with the inspector general of the US Department of Defense. The letter says he has since "been unfairly painted as mentally unstable and publicly compared in a blurb by the commandant's top civilian lawyer, Robert Hogue, to a mass murderer who recently killed 12 innocent people in the Washington Navy Yard".

Eight Marines have been disciplined for their involvement in the incident, through court-martial or administrative punishment. Three have been demoted one rank, according to the News Agency that Dare Not be Named; five have been given non-judicial punishments.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Fruits of Obama's "transformation" of US military?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/25/2013 1:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Fire/drive out the competient?
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/25/2013 2:55 Comments || Top||

#3  Don't bother buying that new girly hat General Waldhauser. I suspect you'll be retiring very soon.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 3:21 Comments || Top||

#4  Maybe B, but the treatment of Major James Weirick is right out of the Obama Administration playbook. He's more likely to find a job 'upstairs' at the White House by playing with the team. Sacrifice the NSA head to the Euros, and give the Commandant the job as an interim appointment.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 10/25/2013 8:15 Comments || Top||

#5  Thats the problem today everybody has to know everything,much to do about not much.
Posted by: Otto Angusoth3867 || 10/25/2013 10:08 Comments || Top||

#6  General Amos was picked as Commandant because he is a "smart Marine" (derogation intended.) Meaning his views pretty much meshed with the current political elites' views, long before he became the assistant commandant.

Then again, the current military leadership at the JCS/equivalent level aren't there because of their military record, IMNSHO.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/25/2013 16:28 Comments || Top||

#7  Politically Compliant. That's what this entire generation of Obama officers is.
Posted by: OldSpook || 10/25/2013 20:58 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Suspect linked to notorious Chechen warlord arrested
Police in Chechnya said Thursday they have detained a suspected terrorist militant formerly involved with an infamous insurgent group responsible for numerous killings and high-profile kidnappings in the region in the 1990s.

According to a police statement, the suspect, whose name was not disclosed, joined a terrorist militant group led by warlord Arbi Barayev – nicknamed “The Terminator” – in 1996. The man was detained at his house in Chechnya by law enforcement officers for his role in the Islamic insurgency more than a decade ago.

In a statement police said, “The police and investigators now need to establish the role of the detainee in the gang, and determine the number of crimes committed and his personal involvement in each of them."

Barayev’s men were reportedly responsible for a series of notorious crimes in the region. Barayev is believed to have been responsible for the 1996 murder of six Red Cross workers and a number of kidnappings of journalists, among other high-profile crimes.

In 2001, the FSB said Barayev had been killed during a raid by Russian security forces in Chechnya. He was related to Movsar Barayev, who played a leading role in the deadly Moscow theater siege in 2002.

In February, the Chechen authorities said that a terrorist militant from Barayev's group had turned himself in, but nothing has been reported about his fate since then.
Posted by: ryuge || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
US backs Pakistan move to hold talks with Taliban
[Pak Daily Times] The United States Thursday expressed backing for Pak initiative to start dialogue with Tehrik-e-Taliban, noting that the move has strong domestic consensus.

Speaking at the conclusion of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
's visit, a senior State Department official said the US has no objection to the aims laid out in the negotiated approach. "He (PM Nawaz Sharif) indicated his intentions (to hold talks with the Taliban) and we indicated our support," the official said in a background discussion with the Pak media when asked about Washington's response to Islamabad's initiative. Before his departure for home, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told the media that the US was informed that Pakistain had made a conscious decision on holding talks with the TTP as part of efforts to contain militancy and that Washington should support Islamabad's decision.

The US official, while expressing support for the move explained: "It is his decision. We are not trying to steer him in one direction or another. We certainly have no objections that there is a strong domestic consensus in, at least, trying a negotiated approach." "As we understand the conditions are that the TTP has to accept the constitution and the rule of law, and of course we accept those objectives. We support those objectives," the official added. Senior State Department and administration officials told the media that the prime minister's election and assumption of power offered a "renewed" opportunity for the two countries to discuss the continued key bilateral relationship and that the visit was marked by "warmth, breadth and honesty in fulsome discussions".
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Africa North
Death toll of Al-Warraq church attack rises to 5
[Al Ahram] The corpse count of Al-Warraq's Al-Adra church attack has increased to five, security officials told Al-Ahram's Arabic website.

Officials say Mohammed Ibrahim Ali died on Thursday from a gunshot wound to the head and foot. Another 17 remain injured from Sunday's attack.

Ali was admitted to intensive care after unknown assailants opened fire late on Sunday at a wedding ceremony in the working-class Giza district of Al-Warraq. Four others were killed in the attack, including an 8-year-old girl.

Ali is the first Musselmen casualty from Sunday's shooting, which appears to have targeted Christians.

Also on Thursday, Al-Warraq's prosecution proceeded with an investigatory hearing on the police conscripts responsible for guarding the church.

The investigation has revealed that security forces stopped protecting the church in mid-August due to a lack of weapons, the prosecution said.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Nat'l Security Council pushes blame for Syria crisis debacle onto Obama
Leaks to The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
in an article published Wednesday reveal one thing for certain that was previously unknown: President Barack Obama
I am not a dictator!...
's national security team is not at all happy with his handling of the Syria crisis. A top-secret letter meant for the eyes of the president, and yet obtained by the Times, makes Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
look "prophetic" in the words of its authors. The June letter was characterized as a warning that the repeated use of chemical weapons would be a "green light for continued use" if gone unpunished.

The president shocked the world by going to the US Congress for authorization for the use of force in Syria after building up forces in the eastern Mediterranean, the White House said that a heated debate among his national security advisers was quickly followed by unanimous support for the president's choice.

But such support does not lead to the types of leaks that made the October 22 Times piece. The article is a product of dissatisfied presidential aides and confidants choosing to speak. Officials are choosing to provide journalists with that top-secret letter and with anecdotes of the president quibbling. That may well be the majority of his National Security Council: Those who wanted to avoid military action were forced to mobilize and to publicly justify an action they did not actually endorse.

On the other end, those who fought for punitive strikes against Bashir al-Assad's forces missed out serendipitously, after a slip of the tongue by Kerry led to historic policy and a Nobel peace prize for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Kerry was most burned by the sequence of events that unfolded throughout late August and into September. Given the way their boss has been cast, it seems likely that a significant number of these leaks originated from the State Department.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...where it will slide off, unaddressed by the Fourth Estate...
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/25/2013 10:49 Comments || Top||


ISIS: Iran's bomb-making timeline shortens
[Ynet] Institute for Science and International Security estimates Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one bomb in less than two months, if it uses all its 20% stockpile. Tehran parliamentarian says Iran has enough enriched fuel for medical reactor

A US think-tank that closely tracks Iran's nuclear programme warned the time Iran would need to produce enough weapons-grade material for a bomb was getting shorter.

The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) estimated that Iran could now produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one bomb, about 25 kg, in as little as about 1-1.6 months, if it used all its 20% stockpile.

Additional time would be required to make the actual nuclear weapon but such work would likely be carried out at secret sites and would be difficult to detect, it said in a report.

"The most practical strategy to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is to prevent it from accumulating sufficient nuclear kaboom, particularly in secret or without adequate warning," ISIS said.

"The shortening breakout times have implications for any negotiation with Iran," it said on Thursday.

Inspectors from the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency are believed to visit Iran's enrichment facilities about once a week. The UN agency, based in Vienna, said it had no comment on Hosseini's remarks for now. Diplomats accredited to the IAEA said they were not aware of any halt of higher-level enrichment.

Iranian MPs have in the past made statements about Iran's nuclear programme that the government later denied.

While members of parliament's national security commission are regularly briefed on the nuclear programme, they are not directly involved in policy-making. The big decisions are made by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Western officials have said Iran must stop enriching uranium to 20%, increase the transparency of its nuclear programme, reduce its uranium stockpiles and take other steps to reassure the world that it is not seeking nuclear weapons.

Iran and six world powers -- the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany -- emerged from a new round of nuclear negotiations in Geneva last week saying these had been positive and constructive.

The meeting was the first since Iran's diminutive President Hassan Rohani came to office in August promising to try to resolve the nuclear dispute and win an easing of sanctions.

Follow-up talks will be held in Geneva on Nov. 7-8.

Tehran denies allegations by Western powers that it is seeking the capability to produce nuclear arms.

'Iran halts most sensitive uranium enrichment work'
Iran has halted its most sensitive uranium enrichment work, a senior Iranian parliamentarian was quoted as saying, a move that would meet a main demand of world powers negotiating with Tehran over its disputed nuclear work.

Any such development would be a big surprise however, as Western experts believe Iran would want to use its higher-grade enrichment as a bargaining chip to win relief from stringent sanctions which have mangled the Iranian economy.

Iran's enrichment of uranium to levels of 20% is sensitive as it is a relatively short technical step to increase that to the 90% needed for making a nuclear warhead.

Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, a senior member of the parliamentary national security commission, said Iran had stopped enriching uranium above the 5% required for civilian power stations as it already had all the 20% enriched fuel it needs for a medical research reactor in Tehran.

"Enrichment over five percent depends on the needs of the country; Iran's nuclear industry requires 20% enrichment for providing the fuel for its Tehran reactor, but this site has its required fuel at the moment and there is no need for further production," parliament's website quoted Hosseini as saying.

"Tehran will decide whether to have over 5% enrichment or not itself, but the issue of suspension or halt of enrichment activities is meaningless because no production is taking place at the moment," he said.

Iran's production and stockpile of 20% uranium is closely watched in the West and Israel.

The Jewish state, believed to be the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, has suggested it could launch military strikes if Iran acquired enough of the material for one bomb, but Iran has kept its 20% stockpile below that level.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  A US think-tank that closely tracks Iran's nuclear programme warned the time Iran would need to produce enough weapons-grade material for a bomb was getting shorter.

One bomb is suicide.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/25/2013 2:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Israel launches pre-emptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities in 10...9...8...coming to a soft target near you...terrorism
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 10/25/2013 5:59 Comments || Top||

#3  A Nuclear IRAN is symbolic of the failure or inability of the US-West = "Nuclear Club" to prevent the proliferation of Nuke-WMD Techs to assorted Radicalist-Jihadi Groups, be they State-sponsored, autonomous, or independent.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/25/2013 21:40 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Egyptian Security Services Find Militants' Hospital In Sinai
[Ynet] Egyptian security services in Sinai uncovered a field hospital for the treatment of gunnies on Wednesday, Egyptian officials reported. According to them, the makeshift hospital is subterranean and is located in the area of the city of a-Sheikh Zawid in the northern Sinai Peninsula.

The officials claimed the hospital has five rooms and two showers, and is equipped with surgery tools and a refrigerator fitted to hold blood packs.
Posted by: trailing wife || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Salafists

#1  I guess they need doctoring, or is that Praying over.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 10/25/2013 2:48 Comments || Top||

#2  Paleos love to dig
Posted by: Frank G || 10/25/2013 6:50 Comments || Top||

#3  The officials claimed the hospital has five rooms and two showers, and is equipped with surgery tools and a refrigerator fitted to hold blood packs. Posted by trailing wife

Any indication if it accepted Affordable Care Act subscribers ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 9:59 Comments || Top||

#4  Shades of the Viet Cong.
Posted by: Pappy || 10/25/2013 10:45 Comments || Top||

#5  We captured an NVA underground hospital in the Au Shau. It was remarkable.
Posted by: bman || 10/25/2013 11:05 Comments || Top||

#6  [SGT. ELIAS in OLIVER STONE'S 1960'S = 1980'S "PLATOON"].

The Enemy is coming - set yourselves up here, here, + there. IFF ANYONE GETS THROUGH YOU'RE ALL TRULY F **** ED!
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 10/25/2013 21:35 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
You think the website's bad? The top 10 Obamacare disasters to come
Posted by: frozen Al || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You are whistling in the dark, if you think it is only 10, you will not recognize America in a few more years. The middle class will begin to disappear and go into bankruptcy as the lower class becomes the norm. You are seeing the end of one of the best medical systems, 1/6th of the economy has been transferred into the federal government's hands.
Posted by: Winky Clesing3851 || 10/25/2013 1:01 Comments || Top||

#2  1/6 of an economy lost. They look with eyes of lust upon a shadow of what once was. Think of the many repercussions.We will look back dreamy eyed upon what once was.
Posted by: Dale || 10/25/2013 3:56 Comments || Top||

#3  One my neighbors told us Tuesday of a friend of hers who was preparing for a major surgery. A week before being admitted to a regional hospital, his employee medical coverage was cancelled. His "Obamacare disaster" arrived a bit early.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 3:59 Comments || Top||

#4  This is some evil nightmare. So retro in scope. When I look at these people all I see is an old Flash Gordon episode. The evil empire with the evil emperor Ming. Everything he touches turns to destruction. I call them the Autumn people. They destroy the unborn and the old and crush those in the middle. They feed on despair and suffering.Bring on the chariots of fire and purge this country of this infestation, this pestilence. For however long it takes a new day will be born Hope, enterprise, industry and a celebration of life. Which shall it be. When shall it be.
Posted by: Dale || 10/25/2013 4:38 Comments || Top||

#5  Has anybody heard about the funny little hats the Obama Administration is making the US Marines to wear so they are "Unisex"..that way women in the Corps and men in the Corps all dress alike.

The hats are the same sort worn by Inspector Cluseau..men and women both wear them in the USMC...and get rid of the Marine Corp cap which has been around since about 1906.

And Obamacare means catholics have to pay for abortions and birth Control even if they don't want it...they get it anyway and its on their policy whether they like it or not ( for some reason ).

Bend over America, you cheap wussies. You elected him. But will anybody fight for him? How many Divisions does Obama have?
Obama LIKE seeing USMARINES in funny hats. The Roman emperor,Caligula used to command his bodyguard Legionaires to use passwords like "Faggot " and "Kiss me honey" when they changed the watch on his tent
. They hacked him to death in the toilet.
Posted by: Spereting Tingle4064 || 10/25/2013 5:09 Comments || Top||

#6  "One my neighbors told us Tuesday of a friend of hers who was preparing for a major surgery. A week before being admitted to a regional hospital, his employee medical coverage was cancelled. His "Obamacare disaster" arrived a bit early."

I'm glad I live in Canada where there are some things more important than the mighty greenback...
Posted by: Jerkface Killa || 10/25/2013 6:55 Comments || Top||

#7  Not nearly as "glad" as I Killa. Not nearly as glad.
Posted by: Besoeker || 10/25/2013 8:27 Comments || Top||

#8  ...O'Care is just the last turn of the Jack-In-The-Box handle before Single Payer. This has been the plan for some time...
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/25/2013 8:28 Comments || Top||

#9  Young people are not going to foot the bill on this Ponzi scheme as they are expected to by Obama's nomenklatura. They have the highest unemployment rate. There are signs of buyer's remorse increasing.
Posted by: JohnQC || 10/25/2013 11:56 Comments || Top||

#10  ..the news about the website gets better (link):

Posted by: Uncle Phester || 10/25/2013 13:15 Comments || Top||

#11  Exactly as designed JohnQC, exactly as designed.

The entire monstrosity is designed to fail.
Younger (healthier) people will opt-out and simply pay the fine (it's much cheaper) and join up only if and when they need to (can't be denied due to pre-existing conditions) and then drop out when they are healthy again. If I was young and healthy that is what I would do.

This leaves the membership consisting of mainly older, unhealthier people who take out more than they put in.

And even if it does end up flush - there is a very big, fat, pile of money in the system. Do you think the current gang of thieves pols will be able to resist raiding it for their 'special projects'? Me neither.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 10/25/2013 13:16 Comments || Top||

#12 
"This is some evil nightmare. So retro in scope. When I look at these people all I see is an old Flash Gordon episode. The evil empire with the evil emperor Ming. Everything he touches turns to destruction. I call them the Autumn people. They destroy the unborn and the old and crush those in the middle. They feed on despair and suffering.Bring on the chariots of fire and purge this country of this infestation, this pestilence. For however long it takes a new day will be born Hope, enterprise, industry and a celebration of life. Which shall it be. When shall it be."


Could not have said it better myself, Dale.
Posted by: newc || 10/25/2013 23:21 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Sudan ruling party seeks ouster of leading reformer
[Al Ahram] A leading reformer in Sudan's ruling party should be ousted, an internal investigative committee said on Thursday, after he criticised a deadly protest crackdown.

The National Congress Party (NCP) set up the body after comments by former presidential adviser Ghazi Salahuddin Atabani and 30 other prominent party reformers.

In a memorandum to President Omar al-Bashir
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to Arabize Darfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
, they said the government's response to late-September demonstrations over fuel price hikes betrayed the regime's Islamic foundations.

The reformers made a series of recommendations, including for an independent probe of the shooting of civilians during the protests, and for a reversal of the price increases.

But they instead found themselves under investigation by the party.

Atabani's membership and that of two other signatories will be revoked if a 400-member party council gives final approval, said Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir, who led the internal probe.

He said six others who signed the memorandum have been suspended from party activities for one year.

Atabani, a member of parliament, told AFP on Monday that his party membership had already been suspended but the reformers would not back down.

He said the NCP was spending too much time on "this minor internal issue at a time when the country is on the verge of collapse."

Thousands of people, many of them Khartoum-area poor, erupted into the streets when the government cut fuel subsidies, forcing retail prices up by more than 60 percent.

Dozens were killed.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
2 Dead, 21 Hurt on Thursday as Fighting Continues in Tripoli
[An Nahar] Two people were killed on Thursday and 21 others were maimed, including a soldier, in renewed fighting and sniper activity in the northern city of Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The fighting had reportedly escalated following the death of Arab Democratic Party top military official Bassam Abdullah in Jabal Mohsen.

NNA identified the other victim as Musbah al-Nazer. Media reports said he was killed when snipers shot up his car.

Thursday's casualties bring the toll from four days of fighting to three dead and 60 injured including nine soldiers, according to NNA. A security official told Agence La Belle France Presse that four people have been killed and 35 others have been injured during the ongoing violence.

In the evening, the sounds of intermittent gunshots and rocket-propelled grenades were still being heard and sniper fire was targeting homes and roads in Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen, the agency said.

"Army troops are still responding to the sources of gunfire and trying to contain the situation," it added.

Earlier, Tripoli MP Mohammed Kabbara reiterated his call to salvage the city, which for years has been witnessing deadly gunbattles between rival gunnies.

"We are losing patience," Kabbara told LBCI TV station. He urged President Michel Suleiman
...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too...
to take a "courageous stance to salvage Tripoli."

The politician also urged security agencies to establish a joint operations room to bring the situation under control.

The fighting broke out on Monday evening as celebratory gunfire erupted in Jabal Mohsen over Assad's appearance on al-Mayadeen television for an interview.

The violence between the rival neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen has worsened since the March 2011 start of Syria's uprising.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Calling Hizballah home?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 10/25/2013 1:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Calling Hizballah home?

More like a Alawite versus Sunni-Islamist dispute:

Pan-Arab nationalist and radical socialist, the ADP ostensibly claimed to represent the interests of the small Lebanese Alawite community, though their pro-Syrian stance and secular views put them at odds with Sunni Islamist factions in Tripoli...The Party seems to have revised its traditional pro-Syrian stance in the 1990s, in favour of a moderate, cautious neutralist posture in the current sphere of Lebanon’s internal politics.

Posted by: Pappy || 10/25/2013 10:41 Comments || Top||

#3  I swear only Jim Rockford could make sense of the ME these days.
Posted by: Shipman || 10/25/2013 17:19 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
US should play role to resolve Kashmir issue
[Pak Daily Times] Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
Thursday expressed the hope that following his meeting with President Barack Obama
They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them...
, the issue of violation of Pakistain's territorial integrity and illusory sovereignty by drone strikes would be resolved soon.

Talking to news hounds soon after his arrival from Washington at the end of his four-day visit, the prime minister said, "Hopefully soon the drone issue will be resolved according to the wishes of Pak people." He said there would definitely be progress on the matter as Pakistain's territorial integrity and illusory sovereignty was being violated. "I think this issue will now settle down somehow," the prime minister said.

Giving an overview of his visit to the United States, Prime Minister Nawaz said, "We talked about all issues; I understand that in the past, all issues should have been discussed. But if these issues were not discussed in the past, it does not mean they should not be discussed now. Whatever we say, we act upon it. And I understand that Pakistain's politics should come out of duplicity and hypocrisy."

Referring to the Amnesia Amnesty International report that states that the United States may be committing war crimes by using drones, Prime Minister Nawaz said, "Whatever they say, it is up to them. But I think I have raised this issue where it should have been raised. And when something is said, it does have its effect." Regarding his talks with the US leaders to help resolve the long-standing issue of Jammu and Kashmire, the prime minister said "the US should play a role". He said though India does was against it but Pakistain wants the US to play a role in the matter.

"I have read and heard Indian foreign minister's reaction to my earlier statement. We should talk to each other, and this would be a very good thing. But if bilateral negotiations do not succeed, then if third party helps in resolving the issue, there is no harm in it." To a question about Dr Aafia Siddiqui
...American-educated Pak cognitive neuroscientist who was convicted of assault with intent to murder her U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan. In September 2010, she was sentenced to 86 years in jug after a three-ring trial. Siddiqui, using the alias Fahrem or Feriel Shahin, was one of six alleged al-Qaeda members who bought $19 million worth of blood diamonds in Liberia immediately prior to 9-11-01. Since her incarceration Paks have taken her to their heart and periodically erupt into demonstrations, while the government tries to find somebody to swap for her...
and Dr Shakeel Afridi, Prime Minister Nawaz said the US did raise its concerns, as did Pakistain.
Posted by: Fred || 10/25/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  And I understand that Pakistain's politics should come out of duplicity and hypocrisy."

Without duplicity, hypocrisy, and the occasional assassination, it just wouldn't be Pakistain.
Posted by: SteveS || 10/25/2013 0:49 Comments || Top||

#2  Yes, Pakistan is like this because of toothpaste.
"I have read and heard Indian foreign minister's reaction to my earlier statement. We should talk to each other, and this would be a very good thing. But if bilateral negotiations do not succeed, then if third party helps in resolving the issue, there is no harm in it."
The solution : get them to use mouth wash.

Posted by: Angeresing Bonaparte1312 || 10/25/2013 2:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Why not, the US has been so successful resolving the palestine issue after all.

If we really want to end the Kashmir issue we should declare 100% support for India and declare Pakistan to be an enemy and supporter of terrorism.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/25/2013 9:56 Comments || Top||

#4  Why not, the US has been so successful resolving the palestine issue after all.

If we really want to end the Kashmir issue we should declare 100% support for India and declare Pakistan to be an enemy and supporter of terrorism.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 10/25/2013 9:56 Comments || Top||

#5  Wow!!!

So we've done such a fine job with the Syrian rebellion, helping Libya find its way after Daffy, and keeping Iraq from flying to pieces that we can step into the Kashmir dispute and bring order and reason to chaos?

I'd sooner ask a card-carrying member of the KKK to moderate that dispute than anyone this administration can muster up from their collection of boobs and nincompoops
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 10/25/2013 17:59 Comments || Top||

#6  I think the KKK are moderate compared to many in Pakistan LOL
Posted by: Ulusoth Shereter7931 || 10/25/2013 19:35 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
28[untagged]
7Govt of Pakistan
7Arab Spring
3Govt of Syria
2Jamaat-e-Islami
1Commies
1Govt of Iran
1al-Nusra
1Moro Islamic Liberation Front
1Palestinian Authority
1Pirates
1al-Shabaab
1al-Qaeda in North Africa
1Salafists

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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.
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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2013-10-25
  Algerian troops find huge arms cache on Libyan border
Thu 2013-10-24
  Iraq PM warns of 'war of genocide' as attacks kill 48
Wed 2013-10-23
  Kenya police officers raid nabs 50 Somali aliens
Tue 2013-10-22
  IDF soldiers kill planner of Tel Aviv bus bombing in a raid
Mon 2013-10-21
  Syria: Exploding truck murders 30 in Hama
Sun 2013-10-20
  Report: 400 arrested in Egyptian operation in Sinai
Sat 2013-10-19
  18 Palestinians Charged in Leb Terrorist Plot
Fri 2013-10-18
  At Least 60 Killed, Hundreds Wounded in Iraq Bombs
Thu 2013-10-17
  Logar Governor Killed By Blast in Mosque
Wed 2013-10-16
  Syria fighting rages on despite Muslim holiday
Tue 2013-10-15
  Boko Haram 'kills 24 Nigerian vigilantes in ambush'
Mon 2013-10-14
  Key Syria opposition group refuses Geneva peace talks
Sun 2013-10-13
  Tunisian Forces Clash with Jihadists
Sat 2013-10-12
  US troops capture a senior Pakistan Taliban leader in Afghanistan
Fri 2013-10-11
  Libya PM 'Freed' after Several Hours Held by Militia, Calls for Calm

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