Recursive logic today.Recursive logic tomorrow.Recursive logic today

Choice

2006-09-24T17:50:00.000-04:00

Weekend Post Of Nothingness

2006-02-24T17:02:00.000-05:00

Its allways good to try something new, but perhaps the best thing to do at times is to try something old.

Rhymes reminds me, your never to old to try something old.

Gloom and doom and dark despair,people dying everywhere, on your birthday, Happy birthday.
May the cities in your wake burn like candles on your cake on your birthday, Happy birthday.

But maybe I'm not quite old enough to try:

Perform strange sexual acts with goats, camels, sheep, and yaks on your birthday. Happy birthday.

I don't know how to use this. Maybe you could drop me a line sometime to tell me. I get the feeling its done automatically somehowe in blogger but I'm not sure on that.

The Rich, Playboy Lifestyle Of An Al-Qaeda Terrorists

2006-02-24T02:23:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post today has a fascinating story on al Qaeda operative Louai Sakka, a would-be bomber who accidentally set off the bomb in his own apartment in Antalya, Turkey. What is interesting is not just that Sekka has been active for years, learned how to make bombs in Iraq, provided dozens of Salafist jihadi with fake documents, and had big plans for blowing up Israeli and U.S. targets.

What is really interesting is that he had money to burn. He had undergone plastic surgery on his face to alter his identification, put down $60,000 on a luxery apartement near the beach, owned a 27-foot yacht and lived a life of luxery. He had been traveling widely in Europe, was able to pay cash for expensive bomb components, and worked with a 'companion'.

This clearly shows that, when they need to, al Qaeda operatives can gather the cash to carry out expensive, long-term plans to inflict damage. The cash pipeline, while perhaps not as freeflowing as before, exists and is able to pump out money when needed.

The total cost of the operation, had Sakka been a better student in Iraq, would have only registered at a few thousand dollars. The real cost of setting him up, allowing him to live and gather the specific information he needed from visiting Israeli tourists, was far higher. This is the argument for keeping the heat on the terror finance front, despite resistence and lack of attention in much of the intelligence community.

UN Performing Acts anti-Semitic Even As They Call For Banning Religious 'Attacks'

2006-02-24T01:52:00.000-05:00

The guards at the United Nations have engaged in a pattern of harrassment towards Israelis in their department, including entering swastikas and Nazi salutes, while UN management has mostly done nothing to end the anti-Semitic behavior. The New York Sun reports that except for the American undersecretary-general for management, who has urged more severe consequences:

The U.N. incident, as was pieced together by the Sun after talking to four sources who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject, began last September at a guard post inside Turtle Bay, where entry permits are inspected and the identities of visitors are recorded in an official log book.
The Israeli guard has just taken a scheduled break and his post was manned by a fellow guard, who is from Haiti. Upon returning to his post, the Israeli guard discovered that two swastikas had been drawn in the log book. As a descendent of Holocaust victims, the guard decided he could not overlook the drawings, which he felt were left as a message to him. He complained to his superiors. In the investigation that ensued, the Haitian guard denied he had meant any offense, saying instead that the symbols were nothing but "innocent doodles," according to an official familiar with the investigation.

The U.N. security chief, Bruno Henn, tried to draw the investigation to an end within his department. The Israeli guard, however, demanded a more extensive investigation and that the guard who had offended him be given a severe reprimand. It was then that the Israeli was met by Nazi salutes in the guards' quarters. Mr. Henn declined to comment to the Sun. The matter was brought to the attention of other officials, but they too wanted to leave the offense as a "category 2" case, a misdemeanor that is deemed best investigated within the department.

The irony is that UN management specifically wanted Israelis as guards to change the image of Turtle Bay from anti-Israel to something more open and accepting. Now when they have Israelis working at the facility, the Haitians and other guards treat them with more open anti-Semitism than even the General Assembly would dare show, a rather high threshold to top.

Even worse is the indictment of management as incompetent and ineffectual that this incident provides. After five months, no one still has addressed a situation that would have taken all of five minutes at any corporation in the US. A guard who draws swastikas in official logs -- or who has nothing better to do than draw "innocent doodles" in one -- would find himself out on the street looking for another job. The same fate would await the co-workers who issue Nazi salutes in a deliberate attempt to insult and provoke others in the department. It wouldn't take five months for management to wring their hands.

In fact, one might suppose that any other expression of bigotry and racism would result in immediate action by UN management. Had the roles been reversed and the Israelis drawn crude anti-Haitian or racist "doodles" in the official log books, they would have seen the outside of the building tout suite. The mild response to this harrassment has only reinforced the image of Turtle Bay as a hostile environment for Israel and Jews. The UN may have hired the Israelis to argue that "some of its best employees are Jewish," but their lack of action in the face of anti-Semitism makes it difficult to reach any other conclusion.

In Furvor Over UAE/US Port Deal, Its Forgotten Chinese Military Own US Ports Too

2006-02-24T01:18:00.000-05:00

One of the talking points raised by defenders of the Bush decision on Dubai Ports has been to point out that many ports in the Los Angeles area are run by the Chinese. During the 2d Clinton term, Congress blocked Administration efforts to give the former Long Beach Naval Station to COSCO (Chinese Ocean Shipping Company), a front for the Chinese military. The COSCO issue garned almost no attention in the traditional media, but public opposition grew overwhelming as a result of New Media attention to the issue.

But, obviously, the temporary victory at Long Beach did not prevent the Chinese dictatorship from taking control of many California ports.

Congressional opposition to the Dubai Ports deal currently appears to far exceed the margin necessary to over-ride a presidential veto. Congress could improve American national security, and also scuttle claims that opposition to Dubai Ports is based on prejudice against Arabs or Muslims, by using the Dubai Ports prevention bill to also provide for the termination of Chinese control of American ports. As a general rule, it would make sense to prohibit operation of any U.S. port, or other critical national infrastructure, by a company which is not from a democratic nation or from a nation with a formal alliance requiring the nation to defend the U.S. if the U.S. is attacked.

More narrowly, Congress could forbid U.S. port operation by companies (including government-controlled companies) of any nation which: 1. Has nuclear missiles aimed at the United States, or 2. Has provided nuclear technology to any nation on the U.S. State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Cartoon About The Cartoons

2006-02-24T00:59:00.000-05:00

Telegraph staff blogger Anton La Guardia reports on the pathetic concern of the Danish Union of Journalists in the matter of those cartoons:

One would assume that Danish journalists would be eagerly seeking international support for cartoonists facing death threats because of their drawings of the Prophet Mohammed, or perhaps pledging solidarity with Muslim journalists in trouble with their authorities for reproducing them.
But no, the Danish union’s central worry, as set out in a statement translated into English on its website, concentrates on the question of money and the infringement of the cartoonists’ copyright.
Magnanimously, the union declares that it has “decided not to take legal action against the many media which have reproduced the cartoons without permission”.

They’re requiring payment of 250 euros per cartoon, not to go to the cartoonists but to a prize for cartoonists facing social issues. Like rioting and killing over cartoons?

La Guardia also reports on what is happening to journalists in the Muslim world who have dared run the cartoons:

One of the first was Jihad al-Momani, who published three of the caricatures with a commentary which said: “World’s Muslims, be logical. Which one do you think damages Islam more? These cartoons or the scene of a suicide bomber who blows himself up outside a wedding ceremony in Amman, or the kidnappers that slaughters their victims before the cameras?”
The irrationality of the affair has, if anything, got worse. Momani was first sacked as editor of Jordan’s Shihan magazine, and then arrested. He is now on bail pending charges of “harming religious feelings”.
Similar news has come out in snippets, for instance in this story from al-Jazeera. At the last count at least nine journalists in Muslim countries - Algeria, Jordan, Yemen and Malaysia - have felt the heavy hand of officialdom.

American Press Allready Surrendered, Betrays America

2006-02-23T18:31:00.000-05:00

The Failure of the press.

There was a time when the press was the strongest guardian of free expression in this democracy. Stories and celebrations of intrepid and courageous reporters are many within the press corps. The mass media understood another thing: They had more than a right; they had a duty to report.

Over the past few weeks, the press has betrayed not only its duties but its responsibilities. To our knowledge, only three print newspapers have followed their true calling.

What have they done? They simply printed cartoons that were at the center of widespread turmoil among Muslims over depictions of the prophet Muhammad. These papers did their duty.

Since the war on terrorism began, the mainstream press has had no problem printing stories and pictures that challenged the administration and, in the view of some, compromised our war and peace efforts.

The press has had no problem with breaking a story using classified information on detention centers for captured terrorists and suspects -- stories that could harm our allies. And it disclosed a surveillance program so highly classified that most members of Congress were unaware of it.

In its zeal to publish stories critical of our nation's efforts -- and clearly upsetting to enemies and allies alike -- the press has printed some articles that turned out to be inaccurate. The Guantanamo Bay flushing of the Koran comes to mind.

But for the past month, the Islamist street has been on an intifada over cartoons depicting Muhammad that were first published months ago in a Danish newspaper. Protests in London -- never mind Jordan, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Iran and other countries not noted for their commitment to democratic principles -- included signs that read, "Behead those who insult Islam." The mainstream U.S. media have covered this worldwide uprising; it is, after all, a glimpse into the sentiments of our enemy and its allies. And yet it has refused, with but a few exceptions, to show the cartoons that purportedly caused all the outrage.

What has happened? To put it simply, radical Islamists have won a war of intimidation. They have cowed the major news media from showing these cartoons. The mainstream press has capitulated to the Islamists.

When we were attacked on Sept. 11, we knew the main reason for the attack was that Islamists hated our way of life, our virtues, our freedoms. What we never imagined was that the free press -- an institution at the heart of those virtues and freedoms -- would be the first to surrender.

Musim's Killing Themselves, Iran Blames US

2006-02-23T05:38:00.000-05:00

On Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed the United States and Israel for the destruction of a Shiite shrine's golden dome in Iraq, saying it was the work of "defeated Zionists and occupiers."

Speaking to a crowd of thousands on a tour of southwestern Iran, the president referred to the destruction of the Askariya mosque dome in Samarra on Wednesday, which the Iraqi government has blamed on insurgents.

"They invade the shrine and bomb there because they oppose God and justice," Ahmadinejad said, referring to the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq.

Nevermind the fact that is was Iranian inspired Islamofacists that sucide bombed the dome.

Prince Of Whales 'A Dissiden't, Wanting Political Power

2006-02-22T19:02:00.000-05:00

The Prince of Wales sees himself as a "dissident" working against prevailing political consensus, according to a former senior aide whose disclosure is likely to provoke fresh debate about the role of the heir to the throne.

Despite the best efforts of staff to "dampen down" the prince's eagerness to publicise his views on sensitive subjects, it was difficult to argue he was "not political", said Mark Bolland, his former deputy private secretary.

The prince's self-appointed "campaigning role" was "constitutionally controversial", claimed Mr Bolland and had not "so far as I am aware, been endorsed either by the Queen or by Parliament." It was "regarded with concern by politicians".

Mr Bolland, 39, who worked for the prince for five years until 2002, is the newspaper's key witness. His testimony became public after the prince's lawyers yesterday dropped their attempt to have parts of it heard in secret.

The prince claims the publication of extracts from the journal - which he subtitled "The Great Chinese Takeaway" and which he claims were improperly copied by a "disloyal" former secretary at his private office - is a breach of confidence and copyright.

The Mail on Sunday claims he has "gone political", and therefore his views are of public interest. Mr Bolland told Mr Justice Blackburne the prince told him his "very definite aim" was to "influence opinion", through meetings with ministers and other people of influence and through speeches and using the media.

"He says that in making these views heard, he is always careful to avoid issues which are politically contentious," said Mr Bolland.

"Despite our best efforts, he did not always avoid politically contentious issues if he felt strongly about particular issues or Government policies."

Mr Bolland, who claims he had "direct access" to the prince and was Camilla Parker Bowles's "de facto private secretary", cites the prince's "vociferous" campaign against GM food as an example. Different private secretaries took different approaches to "this thorny issue", he said.

Richard Aylard, who preceded Sir Stephen Lamport and Sir Michael Peat, promoted the prince as "a wise man, a thinker and a changer of views". Sir Stephen, with Mr Bolland as his deputy, "tried to dampen down" the prince's behaviour in making public his thoughts, which they believed conflicted with the "monarch's constitutional role".

The Mail on Sunday claims the prince's journals were not confidential and were widely circulated among staff and friends. It also claimed the prince made clear his views on China by boycotting a banquet hosted by President Jiang Zemin during his state visit to London in 1999.

Mr Bolland claimed: "The prince chose not to attend the return state banquet at the Chinese embassy but to attend instead a private dinner at his home with Camilla Parker Bowles and friends."

He said the prince did this as "a deliberate snub".

"I was given a direct and personal instruction by the prince to draw to the media's attention his boycotting of the banquet". This he did by briefing The Daily Telegraph.

In his statement on behalf of the prince, Sir Michael dismissed Mr Bolland's claims. The prince, he said, "avoids making public statement on matters which are the subject of disagreement between political parties".

"Speeches and articles are cleared beforehand with the relevant Government department. He does, from time to time, express views privately to Government ministers. He has followed the practice that such views can be expressed by the monarch and by privy councillors.

"The Prince of Wales has not 'bombarded' ministers with his views but has written to them from time to time on issues which he believes to be important."

"I am informed by him that he gave no instruction to draw the media's attention to his failure to attend that banquet or to publish material critical of the Chinese government."

He said only 14 copies of the Hong Kong Journal were sent to 21 recipients, counting husbands and wives as one, and it was clearly a confidential and private document.

The prince claims the case should not go to full trial as the newspaper has no defence.

UN to Outlaw 'Defamation'

2006-02-22T01:38:00.000-05:00

Disturbed by Muslim leaders' attempts to criminalize any criticism of Islam, human rights campaigners are urging the United Nations to resist pressure to outlaw religious defamation in a resolution creating the U.N.'s new human rights council.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a Saudi-based grouping of the world's 57 Muslim states, wants the resolution's draft text to include a reference to "actions against religions, prophets and beliefs" and to state that "defamation of religions and prophets is inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression."

OIC ambassadors discussed the plan with Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday.

The demand is just one of five steps the OIC says are necessary to defuse the crisis over the publication in European and other newspapers of cartoons satirizing Mohammed, and to prevent recurrences.

The other four steps proposed by the OIC are the adoption of a U.N. General Assembly resolution prohibiting the "defamation of all prophets and faiths"; the passage of legislation in the European Parliament "against Islamophobia"; the adoption of a "code of ethics" for European media; and the implementation of a U.N. media standard " which should cover a definition of freedom of speech in case of religious symbols."

Three human rights groups on Monday appealed to the U.N. to reject the attempt to incorporate the religious language into the text of the resolution that will establish the human rights council.

Negotiators have been wrestling over the draft for weeks. The council would replace the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, whose work was discredited by rights violating nations who used their membership to deflect criticism from their own records.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental organization, said that including the religious precepts into the charter of the new council "would be appeasement to violence and taint the body at its birth."

In a joint statement with Washington-based Freedom House and the Transnational Radical Party, a human rights and democracy NGO based in Italy, U.N. Watch suggested the OIC move was an attempt to sabotage what has been a difficult process to reform the U.N.'s human rights function.

Neuer called it a last-minute attempt to derail the train of progress that seeks enhanced scrutiny of states that abuse human rights."

The three rights groups said the U.N. should reject the OIC proposal because the new council's mandate would be to promote rights including freedom of expression, press and religion.

By contrast, the effect of the Islamic plan would be to increase censorship of anything considered offensive to a religion, and to erode the freedom to dissent from a religion.

They said the OIC measure would also result in increased violence.

"If the price to pay for the establishment of the new human rights council is curtailing freedom of expression and religion, and appeasing violence and threats of violence, it is not worth paying."

In an article on the issues at stake in the cartoon dispute, another NGO, the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said that just because Muslims object to depictions of Mohammed it does not give them any right under international human rights law to insist that others abide by that view.

"Muslims, like all others, are free to state their religious objections and to press for more respectful treatment," it said. "But they are not entitled to censor the expression of others in the name of their own religious freedom."

Christian Solidarity International, a Swiss-based religious freedom group, believes the OIC has itself played a role in creating a climate for violence and censorship.

In a letter sent to Annan, the group's director, John Eibner, cited several instances in the past in which the OIC and member states had, he said, leveled accusations of blasphemy against U.N. rights rapporteurs and NGOs who criticized abuses carried out in the name of Islam.

In the current cartoon controversy, "the OIC set the stage for anti-free speech demonstrations at its extraordinary summit in Mecca in December 2005," he said.

"The Muslim heads of state resolved to pressure, through a program of joint Islamic action, international institutions including the U.N. to criminalize insults of Islam and its founder, Mohammed."

Eibner noted that on February 4 - the same day the violence erupted with attacks on European embassies in Syria - the OIC had declared publication of the Mohammed cartoons to be an act of blasphemy.

"Blasphemy is punishable by death, according to shari'a law," he pointed out.

Eibner also expressed concern about a ten-year plan of action agreed at the Mecca summit, which he said aimed to prevent free expression at the U.N. about Islam as a legal system and a political ideology.

He urged Annan "not to yield to further acts of intimidation by the OIC aimed at imposing censorship at the U.N."

Labor Unions Admit: Representing Workers Not A Priority

2006-02-21T23:22:00.000-05:00

The first documents received from unions in the Labor Department's demand for detailed financial disclosures, for the first time enforcing the 1959 Landrum-Griffin labor reform act, suggest embarrassment by organized labor when the information is made public next month.

Early reports show the AFL-CIO spent $49 million (27 percent of its total annual budget) on political and lobbying activities but only $30 million (or 16.5 percent) to represent its members. That gap contributed to the breakaway from the AFL-CIO of the Teamsters, the Service Employees and other unions.

Another document reveals that the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers spent $791 million, constituting 85 percent of its 2005 budget, purchasing fixed assets and investments.

Palestinians Renounce Peace, Again

2006-02-21T22:53:00.000-05:00

As the Palestinians have done in the past, they once again declare that any "peace" agreement with Israel is only a temporary, interim step towards their true goal: the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel.

[The Hamas official leading talks to form a government Mahmoud] Zahar said Monday that Hamas was willing to establish a temporary state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem as an interim step toward taking over Israel.

First it was Yasser Arafat and his Fatah "government" that pursued this strategy of a false peace, and now it is the immediate successor Hamas government. It is far past time to acknowledge that there is no peace process and no interlocutor for the Israelis. In 1948, the Palestinian Arabs were given their own nation for the first time in history, but chose war to destroy the Jewish state of Israel instead. Nothing has ever changed.

Russia's Cheif Muslim Leader Urges Violence Against Gays

2006-02-21T19:11:00.000-05:00

Chief Mufti of Russia Urges Violence Against Gays: The Independent (U.K.) reports on the cancellation of Russia's first planned gay pride parade; the city government refused to allow the parade, and the Independent cites outraged reactions from religious leaders as a major reason. The Russian Orthodox religious leaders are quoted as harshly condemning homosexuality, but the chief Muslim mufti goes further:

Earlier this week Chief Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin warned that Russia's Muslims would stage violent protests if the march went ahead. "If they come out on to the streets anyway they should be flogged. Any normal person would do that -- Muslims and Orthodox Christians alike ... [The protests] might be even more intense than protests abroad against those controversial cartoons."

This isn't just some minor extremist -- Tadzhuddin is part of the Russian Muslim leadership. (Despite the Chief Mufti title, I'm not sure I can label him the chief Muslim cleric in Russia, since a quick newspaper search suggests that there are three different Muslim organizations in play there, and Tadzhuddin is the chief mufti of one; but it seems pretty clear that he's quite prominent.) Oh, and he seems like a moderate by the standards of some Muslim leaders: RTR Russia TV reported (thanks to BBC Monitoring, Feb. 10, for the pointer) that he criticized riots over the Mohammed cartoons, saying that "various ultimatums and threats are absolutely inappropriate. This is unacceptable from the point of view of Islam, the very ideology of the Koran, and even international rules, because harming innocent people is banditry." But flogging homosexuals is just fine.

Another source (Novye Izvestia -- in English, "New News" -- as reported by What The Papers Say) reports that "According to Tadzhuddin, the Prophet Muhammad taught that homosexuals should be killed, since their activities lead to the extinction of the human race." "Umar Idrisov, head of the Muslim Religious Directorate in the Nizhniy Novgorod region," is also reported to have said, "Homosexuals ought to be stoned," and not in the Bob Dylan sense, I think.

Fortunately, "Nafigulla Ashirov, co-chairman of the Mufti Council of Russia [and one of Tadzhuddin's adversaries], provided a symmetric response (recalling Tadzhuddin's unusual opinion about the cartoons) in an interview with Echo of Moscow Radio: 'I don't think we have the right to beat up or kill anyone. Such actions are unacceptable for us, since doing so would be illegal.'" Pleased to hear that you're in favor of following the law, Mr. Co-Chairman; might there also be some other reason, though, why you shouldn't beat up or kill people?

I should stress that, as best I can tell, Russian society is quite hostile to gays; the Independent article reports that "An opinion poll last year showed 43 per cent of Russians believed gay men should be incarcerated." (By comparison, a 1998 Time poll of Americans -- the most recent I could find -- reports that,when asked, "Do you think that homosexual relations between consenting adults should be legal or illegal?," 33% of respondents said "illegal," and even that is a less punitive position than calling for outright incarceration.) The nastiness can't be laid entirely at the feet of parts of the Russian Muslim community. But it can't be laid entirely at someone else's feet, either.

Italy Going Back Down Dictatorship Road

2006-02-21T16:11:00.000-05:00

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said a victory by his opponents in the April 9 election would be a "risk'' to democracy, as he announced an alliance with Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of the former fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

The opposition coalition, if elected, "risks suffocating democracy,'' Berlusconi, 69, told reporters in Rome today, saying that Mussolini's Social Alternative party would join his House of Freedoms alliance. "We haven't yet seen a complete victory of democratic forces over the post-communist threat.''

Independent polls show that Berlusconi's coalition is trailing the opposition Union alliance led by former European Commission President Romano Prodi, 66, by between 4 and 5 percentage points. Both groupings are adding small parties to their alliances as a way to pick up votes.

The granddaughter of Benito Mussolini last year quit the National Alliance party, the second-biggest in the House of Freedoms alliance, after its leader Gianfranco Fini called fascism "an absolute evil'' during a visit to Israel. Mussolini, 43, defends the fascist government led by her grandfather from 1922 to 1943 and the party's Web site promotes "valuing and strengthening the people's tradition and culture.''

"This alliance is made out of expediency to try to get as many votes as possible,'' Gianfranco Pasquino, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, said in a telephone interview. "It's the traditional way of doing politics in Italy.''

The prime minister regularly characterizes the opposition as "communists'' in his campaign speeches, saying their ideology will limit freedom and democracy. The nine groupings in Prodi's Union coalition include two communist parties and the Democrats of the Left, a former communist party.

Berlusconi, citing a poll commissioned by his own party, says his coalition has now overtaken Prodi's. All of the more than two dozen polls commissioned by news organizations since the start of the year show Berlusconi's bloc trailing.

Prodi's Union coalition would win 51 percent of the popular vote compared with 47 percent for Berlusconi's grouping, TNS Abacus polling company said yesterday in a survey carried out for SkyTG24 TV channel. The pollster interviewed 1,000 adults on Feb. 13 and 14. There margin of error was 2.5 percentage points.

Yahoo lsamic Cyber-Collusion

2006-02-21T12:20:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! is banning the use of allah in email names - even if the letters are included within another name.

This was uncovered by theregister.co.uk reader Ed Callahan whose mother Linda Callahan was trying to sign up for a Verizon email address. She could not get it to accept her surname.

Enquiries to Verizon revealed that a partnership with Yahoo! was to blame. Yahoo! will not accept any identies which include the letters "allah".

Nor will Yahoo! accept yahoo, osama or binladen. But it will accept god, messiah, jesus, jehova, buddah, satan and both priest and pedophile.

A spokesman for Yahoo! UK said: "This sounds like a glitch. But we will get back to Ed and Lindy Callahan with a full answer as soon as possible." .

Kurds Withdrawing From Iraq

2006-02-20T16:33:00.000-05:00

Iraq may not survive in one piece. The overwhelming majority of Iraqi Kurds are packing their bags. Most have already said goodbye. Erbil (Hawler in Kurdish) is the capital of the de-facto sovereign Kurdistan Regional Government. Baghdad is thought of as the capital of a deranged foreign country.

In January 2005 the Iraqi Kurds held an informal referendum. More than 80 percent turned out to vote. 98.7 percent of those voted to secede from Iraq. Not only have the Kurds long dreamed of independence, when they look south they see only Islamism, Baathism, blood, fire, and mayhem.

If Middle Easterners had drawn the borders themselves, Iraq wouldn’t even exist. Blame the British for shackling Kurds and Arabs together when they created the new post-imperial and post-Ottoman map. The Kurds do. They call the W.C. (the “water closet,” i.e. the toilet) “Winston Churchill.” Several times when my translator needed a bathroom break he said “I need to use the Winston Churchill.”

Not one Iraqi flag is flown in Kurdistan’s capital of Erbil. Only maps will tell you that Erbil is part of Iraq. The Iraqi flag is flown on government buildings in Suleimaniya, the stronghold of the PUK. But it’s the old Iraqi flag, the pre-Saddam Iraqi flag, the one that doesn’t have Allahu Akbar scrawled across the middle of it.

The Kurdistan Regional Government has its own ministers. They report to no one in Baghdad. The Kurds have their own military. They have their own economy. They have their own internal border, and they are its only policemen.

The Kurds even have their own foreign policy. Their government is internationally recognized. When Masoud Barzani travels to foreign capitals he is recognized as the President of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The only thing the Kurds don’t have is Kirkuk.

Hamas Renounces Treaty, Condems Israel For Not Paying Them

2006-02-20T14:11:00.000-05:00

Low comedy from deep within the Muslim world, newly represented by double talking terrorists. Just yesterday, Hamas came into power. As noted, its first order of business was to indemnify itself—rhetorically, if not legally—from the obligations of Oslo, and to assert that, no, the nation of Israel does not have the right to exist in this world. Despite Hamas’ being essentially a successor government (and thus required under international law to abide by treaties to which the previous government acceded), the party has renounced any treaty that recognized Israel.

Can you guess what the second order of business was? That’s right: to condemn Israel’s decision to cease sending cash to the Palestinian Authority. Specifically, $42.2 million. Since the PA and its new Hamas bosses run almost entirely on the swiftly-eroding goodwill of the rest of the world (terrorism doesn’t pay very well), Hamas is now demanding that Israel reconsider its decision to cut funding. A representative said: “This is a faulty decison, and the Israelis must reconsider their decision. It will only increase hatred.”

It is curious what Abdel Aziz Duaik meant when he said that the Israeli decision will “only increase hatred.” Does he mean that it will foster general ill will between the two parties, or is it a threat that Palestinians will be violently emboldened by any aggressive sanctioning on Israel’s part? More importantly, in these days of cartoon jihad, is there any reason to presume the best?

Welfare State Keeping EU Women Behind

2006-02-20T12:49:00.000-05:00

Europe is killing its women with kindness—enshrined, ironically, in cushy welfare policies that were created to help them. By offering women extremely long work leaves after children, then pushing them to take the full complement via tax policies that discourage a second income, coupled with subsidies that serve to keep them at home, Europe is essentially squandering its female talent.

Not only do women get off track for long periods, many simply never get back on. European government and corporations have not adapted to changing times. Few offer the flextime that makes it easier for women to both work and manage their families.

Among Europe's myriad problems, this one is huge—with ramifications way beyond gender relations. In fact, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Europe's future hinges on it. "We have got to get more women into the labor market," says Vladi mir Spidla, the EU commissioner of Employment and Social Affairs. Declining birthrates and aging populations threaten the financial stability of almost all European nations, he explains.

With a massive skills gap and pension crisis looming, the Continent must bring in more high-level workers. Immigration—the main solution thus far—presents obvious cultural challenges. Taking better advantage of existing female populations is an obvious answer.

Employers are understandably reluctant to hire and promote someone who may absent herself for years on end, often more than once. "Being a potential mother becomes an obstacle for women in certain types of jobs, and that is the case all over Europe," says ILO labor sociologist Manuela Tomei.

Removing one's wedding ring for job interviews has thus become commonplace. So have probing questions. "Your family plans come up at every single job interview," says Sasha Buehler, a Munich film buyer. "I've had to promise potential employers that I won't get pregnant." While questions like this might elicit a lawsuit in the United States, European women are less likely to fight back. Europe doesn't allow class-action suits and, outside of the public sector, the burden of proof in a discrimination case still falls on the individual rather than the corporation, making it incredibly difficult for a single person to initiate and win a case.

The result is a system where most European women do some kind of work outside the home, but relatively few enjoy genuine upward mobility. Often excluded from the more lucrative and competitive private sector, they work in disproportionately large numbers as teachers, nurses or health-care aides rather than as business managers.

There's also a marked concentration of women in public-sector and government jobs compared with the United States and even some developing countries. This is particularly pronounced in the Nordic countries, where women enjoy as many as 480 paid days of maternity leave. Half of Sweden's working women are in the public sector, for example, while more men work in better-paid private-sector jobs. Compare that to 30 percent of women in the public sector in the U.K., and 19 percent in America.

A recent study by the U.K. Equal Opportunities Commission found that women part-time workers made 40 percent less per hour than men—the same pay gap as 30 years ago. The two-tier nature of the European labor market—in which jobs tend to be either lucrative and protected or low-skilled and precarious—makes it tougher to turn those part-time jobs into better full-time ones. Taken together, the combination of a very long leave and a part-time job "can give the impression that women aren't serious about investing in their careers," says the OECD's Willem Adema, a senior economist and author of the Babies and Bosses report.

Most European countries base their tax structures around the notion of a single breadwinner. The result: taxwise, it's often advantageous for families if the mother doesn't work. Germany is exhibit A. Second incomes are immediately taxed at the highest bracket. Many union contracts are still modeled after the single-breadwinner family, providing standardized pay increases for marriage and each child. Public health care is free for stay-at-home moms if the husband works—but if both parents do, they pay hefty premiums. A monthly stipend of €800 for child care can be paid out only if parents take care of their own child, which has led the German Association of Working Mothers to call it a "stay-at-home subsidy."

Child care is another big problem. American women might dream about the advantages of subsidized, Continental-style day care. But access and cost vary wildly. In —Germany, there's an extreme shortage of child care, and much of it is available only for the morning and early afternoon. Most kindergartens and grade schools let out at lunch—yet another blow to working mothers. In the Nordic countries, well-developed state day-care centers offer longer hours, which mean that women sacrifice much less of their earning power than they do in, say, Spain or Italy. Still, says the OECD's Adema, "there's a social pressure on mothers in places like Denmark or Sweden not to use more than six hours of care a day." France counts among the best countries for working mothers. There, any child over 3 years old is guaranteed state-funded day care, without social stigma. That means roughly 80 percent of French women who wish to work can do so. Still, French women hold only about 30 percent of managerial positions.

Politicians should rethink the tax structures that penalize a second family income, encourage shortening maternity leaves (limiting their length to six months to a year) and come up with creative ways to divide parental leave more equally between mothers and fathers.

Norway imposed royal decree that all corporate boards must be 40 percent female within two years, or face being shut down, while the European Commission for Employment and Social Affairs will soon begin a yearlong study to determine whether discrimination laws in Europe are being properly enforced. Meanwhile, the EU has set aside funds for the creation of a gender-equality institute in 2007. Its goal: to "come up with concrete solutions" to Europe's gender gap, according to Commissioner Spidla. The solution is simple, actual equality, not dogma enforced by police decree's or masked government supported bias. Untill people are free to act contrary to the welfare, they will not move forward.

England Suffering Oxygen Shortage

2006-02-19T14:53:00.000-05:00

Patients dependent on oxygen at home face a shortage of supplies after private firms took over the government contracts for oxygen in England. The four companies only took control of the NHS service this month, but delays in home deliveries have already begun.

A Cumbrian woman died after reportedly waiting hours for oxygen, prompting the NHS trust and firm responsible for the contract to launch inquiries.

Patients in most of England and Wales are being told to use the NHS not the firms if oxygen is needed urgently.

According to reports, Alice Broderick, 63, died last Saturday after oxygen, which had been ordered by an out-of-hours doctor, took more than eight hours to arrive at her home in Carlisle.

About 60,000 people require oxygen at home for pulmonary, heart and cancer problems. Many are elderly patients, but some premature babies are also on oxygen.

Before the new arrangements came in at the start of February, GPs prescribed oxygen for pharmacies to provide cylinders through local gas suppliers.

The contract with the four major suppliers - Air Products, Allied Respiratory, BOC Medical and Linde Gas - was designed to save money and allow patients quicker and easier access to gas supplies.

The Department of Health said it was aware of difficulties in the service but that it has been assured patients who urgently need oxygen will get it.

He said the problem had been caused by the "high number of orders" which had been received.

Patients in Wales and in the south west, south east, north west, Midlands, London, and Yorkshire and Humber areas of England are being asked to use pharmacies if oxygen is needed urgently.

Air Products, which supplies seven of the 11 regions in England and Wales including North Cumbria, said "We apologise to patients for these short-term difficulties."

And the spokeswoman added the company was "very sorry" to hear about Mrs Broderick's death and was launching an investigation to find out what happened.

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Steve Webb said the new system was failing and called for a full investigation into the "shambles".

The National Pharmacy Association, which represents 11,000 community pharmacies, said it had always been concerned about "possible 'worst case scenario' implications".

"This highlights the difficulties and problems inherent in the new system, when patients have to reply solely on one supplier, covering a large geographic area," it said in a statement.

Astronomers Get Shortlist Of 'Muhammad Free' Planets

2006-02-19T14:39:00.000-05:00

Astronomers looking for extraterrestrial life now have a short list of places to point their telescopes. Including nearby stars of the right size, age and composition to have Earth-like planets circling them, scientists said on Saturday.

Margaret Turnbull of the Carnegie Institution of Washington released her "top 10" list of potential stars to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. They will be the first targets of NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder, a system of two orbiting observatories scheduled for launch by 2020.

"There are 400 billion stars in the galaxy, and obviously we're not going to point the Terrestrial Planet Finder ... at every one of them," said Turnbull.

Turnbull's list includes 51 Pegasus, where in 1995 Swiss astronomers spotted the first planet outside our solar system, a Jupiter-like giant.

Others include 18 Sco in the Scorpio constellation, which is very similar to our own sun; epsilon Indi A, a star one-tenth as bright as the sun; and alpha Centauri B, part of the closest solar system to our own.

"The truth is when looking at these so-called 'habstars,' habitable solar systems, it is hard to really rank them. I don't know enough about every star to say which one is the absolute best one," Turnbull said.

She said NASA once had a policy of what to do, whom to call, and how to announce the news if someone detected a signal of intelligent life from space.

She said life on Earth is all so similar -- based on DNA made up of specific building blocks -- that it is likely to have had a single origin. Life elsewhere may be built from different ingredients, or structured very differently, she said.

French Refuse To Acknowledge Anti-Semitism

2006-02-19T13:31:00.000-05:00

The French police arrested 13 people on suspicion of kidnapping, torturing and murdering Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Parisian Jew.

Halimi was found on Monday tied to a tree, naked and wounded, with burns covering all parts of his body. He died on the way to the hospital.

Police officials said that the abduction and murder were apparently not motivated by anti-Semitism, but added that they have not yet discovered what led the group to commit the acts...

Despite the police's doubts, Halimi's family believes that the act was motivated by anti-Semitism.

“We think there is anti-Semitism in this affair,” Rafi, Ilan’s brother-in-law, told the European Jewish Press. ”First because the killers tried to kidnap at least two other Jews, and secondly because of what they said on the phone."

”When we said we didn’t have Euro 500,000 to give them, they answered we should go to the synagogue and get it,” Rafi stressed.

“They also recited verses from the Koran. We didn’t know what they were saying but the police told us," he said.

N.Korean Cheerleaders Sent To Concentration Camp

2006-02-18T13:00:00.000-05:00

Some of the North Korean cheerleaders who took part in sports events in South Korea have been sent to prison camps after returning home, a survivor of another camp said today, quoting recent defectors from the communist state.

Twenty-one young women were accused of revealing their experience in the South against a code of silence to which they swore, said Kang Chol-hwan, who himself escaped the North in 1992, quoting North Korean defectors now in China.

Kang is the author of the book The Aquariums of Pyongyang about his own experience of torture and forced labour in a North Korean prison camp.

He had a personal audience with US President George W. Bush last year during which they discussed human rights abuses in the North.

"I heard that the women violated the oath not to disclose what they saw and heard in the South," Mr Kang quoted one of the defectors who had served in the camp as saying in an article he wrote for the main daily newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

The group of cheerleaders grabbed attention in South Korea last year at an Asian athletics event near Seoul with their precision choreography and endless smiles.

The camp in Taehung had been known to hold financial criminals but more recently began taking political prisoners, Mr Kang later said by telephone.

The camp is in rugged mountains in the north-eastern part of North Korea.

Mr Kang quoted another North Korean defector as saying the cheerleaders were picked from elite college graduates and propaganda troops.

Survivors of prison camps have given testimony about torture, relentless propaganda sessions, forced labour and in some instances lethal biological testing on live human beings.

Iran Tries To Dictate British Operations In Iraq

2006-02-18T12:48:00.000-05:00

Iran's foreign minister demanded the immediate withdrawal of British forces from Basra on Friday, saying their presence had destabilized Iraq's second-largest city.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected the demand and accused Iran of trying to divert attention from other issues, presumably its nuclear program. A Basra city spokesman said the departure of foreign troops "is not in Iraq's interest now" because of the security situation.

"We believe that the presence of British forces in Basra has destabilized security in this city and has had some negative effects in the form of threats against southern Iran recently," Foreign Minister Manushehr Mottaki said during a visit to Beirut, Lebanon.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran demands an immediate withdrawal of British forces from Basra," he added. Basra, where most of Britain's more than 8,000 troops in Iraq are based, is located about 20 miles west of the Iranian border.

Terrorist Want Off Terrorist List "Without Preconditions"

2006-02-17T15:43:00.000-05:00

A senior Hamas official called on the United States Thursday to remove the militant Islamic group from Washington's list of terrorist organizations and to open a dialogue without preconditions.

Moussa Abu Marzook, deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, told The Associated Press the U.S. should deal with Hamas "as it is, and later there could be a dialogue...but there should be no preconditions."

"Hamas is not the only side that wants peace. ...All the Palestinians want peace because they are the only people whose rights have been encroached upon and who have been expelled from their lands," Abu Marzouk said.

Abu Marzouk described as "absolutely unacceptable" Israel's call for Hamas to start an unconditional dialogue with the Jewish state, saying "Hamas...was chosen by the Palestinian people...this is democracy."

China Increasing Interent Restrictions, Repression Of Populance

2006-02-16T19:19:00.000-05:00

China has increased restrictions on internet cafes. They've clamped down on anti-government slogans or displays and are now barring teenagers from them completely.

'With the development of the Internet, there has been some harmful and illegal content,' said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao.

'The Chinese government has adopted some management measures so as to limit the immoral and harmful content, especially for young people.'

Chinese regulation of Internet content has become controversial in recent weeks due to popular search engine Google's acquiescence to Chinese censorship of its results in exchange for official license to operate in the country."

Its Official, Free Speech Illegal In Norway

2006-02-16T18:37:00.000-05:00

Article 135-A of the Norwegian Penal Code orders a maximum penalty of three years in jail for publishing articles mocking religions or ethnic groups.

In one fell swoop, the government of Norway has surrendered its freedom to appease the international Islofacist regime.

Please Mr. Muslim, Don't make any esoteric threats against us, we surrender, we surrender.

I'm sure the 'Church' of Scientology will be all over this too.

I hope alot of people from Norway see this post so they can hear it from me first had.

YOU ARE A LITTLE BITCH, you don't deserve any freedom. I can only look forward to the day that the muslim armies muder all you cowardice little bitches. I wish we had let the Nazi's keep Norway.

"Freedom of expression is all about expressing an opinion. In the cartoons case, there is no opinion." So stating a religion of murder is being led in the image of bomb weilding fanatics isn't an opinion? I think its a fact but thats beside the point. Norway, you have sold out your freedoms for foreign interests. I hope you guys feel good on your supposed moral high ground.

I'm creating the Church of The United States, therefore it will be illegal in Norway to critize US and US policy. And don't say anything about me being some kind of toothless hillbilly from West Virginia cause that's an ethnic group: aka its illegal too.

But rest assured, the Muslim will continue there relentless assault against the international Jewery. They talk big about religious intolerance against them, but when the rubber hits the road, they continue their murderous attacks against the 'evil Jews'.

Game Banned In Australia For 'Promoting Graffiti'

2006-02-16T14:47:00.000-05:00

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that 'Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure' has been banned in Australia. The game involves battling the authorities to overthrow corrupt officials using only street fighting skills and graffiti.

The decision was endorsed last night by the Federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, who had asked the board to review of the game's MA15+ classification after local councils and state governments voiced concerns that the game would promote graffiti.

I guess its okay to run around killing people(HALO) but a game about tagging a building with some spraypaint and your BANNED. Its disturbing to see that freedom around the world is slowly eaten away in the guise of promoting illegal activities.

Again, another government stepping in where parents and society in general should be the authority.

Isn't it ironic though that the point of the game is to fight government corruption and promote freedom of expression. I guess kids will have to stick to the real thing instead of living vicariously through virtual expression.

Dying Europe Killing Their Military

2006-02-16T13:57:00.000-05:00

Saw this good story on the pathetic state of Europe's military.

America's major NATO allies have cut military manpower and defense funds as a share of their economies since the September 11 attacks, in sharp contrast with the United States, which embarked on deficit spending to boost arms outlays to fight global terrorists.

A comparison of force structures in 2001 and 2005 showed countries such as Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Poland, Spain and Germany cut their active-duty forces, according to statistics compiled by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. At the same time, the United States increased its ranks from 1.37 million to 1.42 million.

As compared to gross domestic product (GDP) that is devoted to defense expenditures. The U.S. share has gone from 3 percent to 3.7 percent since September 11, 2001, while other NATO nations collectively have dipped from 2.02 percent to 1.8 percent, according to the Pentagon. Twelve years ago, NATO, excluding the United States, devoted 2.5 percent of GDP to defense.

The lack of NATO spending can show up in war. The alliance's 1998 air assault on Serbia was carried out by American warplanes in virtually all strike missions. Other countries didn'y have the abilities to use the smart munitions needed to hit targets in Belgrade and on the battlefield.

Retired Army Gen. George Joulwan, NATO's supreme commander in the mid-1990s, said Europe was not convinced the war on terror involves a commitment to global operations.

The United States will be left alone to fight for civilization while Europe dies in their self-induced welfare coma. Europe's ability to defend themselves has gone away in their anti-war fervor. Their pacifist utopia, much like Constantinople, is destined to fall to the Muslim horde. One can only hope that the next generation of Europeans will break from there sucidal past, and have enough fortitude to defend themselves from the murdous onslaught.

Bin-Laden Financing Al Gore's Overseas Trip

2006-02-14T00:04:00.000-05:00

The Saudi Arabia seminar that was addressed by former Vice President Al Gore over the weekend, in a speech that criticized the U.S. for being too tough on Arabs was sponsored, by Osama bin Laden's family.

On Saturday, the state-run Saudi news outlet Arab News reported that the Jeddah Economic Forum, where Gore spoke, was funded by "Saudi Arabian Airlines, the Saudi Binladin Group, Gulf One Investment Bank, Saudi Basic Industries Corp." and an array of other big companies with ties to the Middle East.

The Saudi BinLadin Group - which is Saudi Arabia's largest construction company - is run by Osama bin Laden's brothers and cousins. Jeddah, the site of the forum attended by Gore, is Osama bin Laden's hometown.

Although family members claim they've disowned bin Laden, his mother told reporters after the 9/11 attacks that she received advanced warning from him that something big was about to happen. A wealthy bin Laden niece also reportedly abandoned her lower Manhattan apartment three weeks before the 9/11 attacks.

The BinLadin Group's longtime involvement in the Jeddah forum has been widely reported in the Mideast and European press.

In January 2002, ex-President Clinton addressed the JEF, which paid him $267,000 for his speech. According to London's Financial Times:

"The conference was dominated by the Saudis' desire to overcome the pressures of September 11 and strengthen U.S.-Saudi ties . . . The BinLadin Group, one of the forum's backers, has been battered by its association with Osama."

Another Arab Country Going Nuclear

2006-02-13T19:37:00.000-05:00

Qatar, one of the richest energy states in the world, is researching and conducting talks on the launch of a nuclear program.

Western diplomatic sources said Qatar has been planning a nuclear research and energy program with foreign assistance. They said Asian and Western countries have been approached.

"It makes no sense for Qatar to have a nuclear energy program," a diplomatic source said. "It makes all the sense in the world for Qatar to start acquiring nuclear expertise."

On Monday, Qatar and South Korea began talks on nuclear energy cooperation. The South Korean Science and Technology Ministry met representatives of Qatar's Supreme Council for the Environmental and Natural Reserves.

The Qatari delegation was scheduled to spend nearly a week in Seoul. The delegation planned to tour South Korean nuclear facilities and discuss nuclear applications in agriculture, medicine and biotechnology.

The diplomatic sources said Qatar and other Gulf Cooperation Council states have sought to develop nuclear programs to desalinate water. They said Iran's nuclear weapons program has alarmed GCC states, particularly Saudi Arabia, the largest country in the region and biggest energy producer in the world.

Google Wants Your Files, Will Inform China

2006-02-13T13:57:00.000-05:00

Not content just helping you find what you need on the Internet, Google takes on your computer's desktop. The Google Desktop is your own private little Google server. It sits in the background, searching through your files and folders, indexing your incoming and outgoing email messages, listening in on your instant messenger chats, and browsing the Web right along with you. Just about anything you see and summarily forget, the Google Desktop sees and memorizes for you.

Now the question becomes, with Google's know communist co-ordination, will your desktop files be subject to communists agenda? Google allready bases its censorship decisons on guidance provided by Chinese government officials.

Google officials characterized the censorship concessions in China as an excruciating decision for a company that adopted "don't be evil" as a motto. But management believes it's a worthwhile sacrifice.

"We firmly believe, with our culture of innovation, Google can make meaningful and positive contributions to the already impressive pace of development in China," said Andrew McLaughlin, Google's senior policy counsel.

Now combine that snippet with the Mahamod cartoon controversy and you get a recipe for diaster. Will the new communists power reach the US? It allready has reached Microsoft in the US. Will we allow the culture of greed to override free-speech in search of teh allmighty dollar?

Will you trust Google not to tell anyone who asks what's going on on your pc? Will you be pre-emptivly banned from China courtsey of Google's desktop search?

Google says the update aims to make finding and sharing information even simpler, but I have to question whoose goals their accomplishing? Mine, or their search for dollars at my expense.

Australian Army Sporting Glow In The Dark Targets On Their Back

2006-02-13T00:14:00.000-05:00

The safety of Australian troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the elite SAS force, has been compromised by defective body armour, combat jackets and helmets, according to damning Australian Defence Department documents.

The faults include combat jackets that glow in the dark, giving enemies an easy target, and body armour that cracks easily.

The helmets issued to soldiers have harnesses that are "worn, rusted and damaged" and are shaped in a way that makes it "impossible to sight a live claymore (landmine) in the prone position" while wearing them.

The documents reveal that the safety of SAS members -- on deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan -- has been compromised by body armour that does not match the grey colour of their wetsuits for underwater operations.

In one case, a protective vest called Ultima issued to soldiers was so faulty its use was "suspended immediately" for troops at home. But those in the field were forced to wear the vest until a replacement became available.

"The operational use of the armour is to be suspended as soon as practicable," the reports say.

The reports reveal that faulty equipment is a more serious and widespread problem than has been admitted by the Government, at times jeopardising the operations and safety of troops.

A Defence spokesman yesterday defended the performance of the Defence Materiel Organisation, the agency that buys combat gear, saying it had followed "strict government procurement guidelines".

"Army is committed to continual development and improvement of combat clothing and personal equipment," he said.

The documents warn that the new combat jackets issued to troops not only failed to offer camouflage protection but were "highly visible". "It appears as a bright glowing beacon when observed through night-fighting equipment," the reports say.

They reveal that no combat jackets fit women. "Females are forced to wear a jacket several sizes too big to accommodate hips. This leads to sleeves completely covering hands."

The jackets were highly flammable and collected such an amount of "dirt, sticks and prickles" in the field that they would be "unsuitable for operations overseas, due to the likelihood of AQIS (Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service) requiring complete removal of all plant matter".

The documents say the combat body armour used by troops in Iraq was faulty, with the plastic clips used to fasten the vest to the torso "continually fracturing and breaking". And the ballistic body plates designed to stop small arms fire were subject to cracking at the front and the back.

The reports warn that the helmets used by the SAS were poorly designed because, during night assaults with aerial fire, soldiers were forced to use tape to attach strobe lights to the helmets to aid target identification.

"This affects operational performance and safety," they say.

"The Howard Government's defence spending priorities have become outrageously skewed when they are willing to have a billion-dollar open chequebook for Iraq while our dedicated serving men and women are equipped with badly designed clothing and faulty gear."

British Imam Praise Bombers, Good To Murder In Name Of Islam

2006-02-12T23:54:00.000-05:00

An imam in the mosque where the July 7 London bombers that killed 56 worshipped has praised their suicide mission as a "good" act.

Hamid Ali, one of the leading imams at the Al-Madina Masjid mosque in Yorkshire, applauded the bombers in a secretly taped conversation, according to the Sunday Times.

The imam praised them as the "children" of Abdullah al-Faisal, a Muslim cleric jailed for inciting racial hatred and murder.

During the investigation by the Sunday Times a reporter lived as a student among the Muslim community in Beeston, Leeds.

The area was home to three of the bombers - Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer and Hasib Mir Hussain.

During the investigation Ali was recorded saying: "What they did was good.

"They have warned that we are here, we Muslims. People have taken notice that we are here.

"They died so that people would take notice... big meetings and conferences make no change at all.

"With this at least people's ears have pricked up."

The Sunday Times reported that Ali denied praising the bombers when confronted by the newspaper.

Fifty six people died in the attacks last July.

Prior To Danish Cartoon, Muslims Obligated To Incite Religious Hatred

2006-02-11T22:59:00.000-05:00

This Saturday's(3/5/5) LIVE talk on Paltalk will discuss one of the greatest forgotten obligations in Islam - Inciting religious hatred. Allaah (swt) orders the believers to hate all other religions, way of lives, creeds, doctrines and beliefs that contradict with Islaam, and one cannot be Muslim without to declare animosity and hatred towards kufr [unbelief], bid'ah [innovation in religion], shirk [polytheism] and nifaaq [hypocrisy] (Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Democracy, Freedom etc.).

Date and time: 20th of March 2004, from 6pm to 7:30pm GMT
Room: LIVE - Inciting religious hatred
Speaker: Abu Muwahhid

As of March 19, this has been changed to "The Obligation of Hating False Religions." Of course what qualifies as a false religion is of cource all religioons except Islam.

Violence Not Good Enough For Kofi Annon, Wants Global Speech Repression Also

2006-02-10T23:02:00.000-05:00

Here's another example of how disastrous a Secretary-General Kofi Annan is. First, the call for global censorship.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan scolded the media for continuing to publish cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammed and defended an attempt by Islamic nations to have a new UN human-rights council address religious defamation...
It also notes that "defamation of religions and prophets is inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression" and emphasized that states, organizations and the media have a "responsibility in promoting tolerance and respect for religious and cultural values."

After voting to eviscerate property rights and rewriting the Takings Clause, Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer would eagerly sign up for this rewriting of the First Amendment given their fealty to international law.

Back to Annan, you'd think his support for a global censorship program would be bad enough, but he's so evil he can't stop there. He follows with a tacit endorsement of violence.

He again condemned violence as unacceptable and said: "They should not attack innocent civilians. They should not attack those who are not responsible for the publication of the cartoons."

It's apparently OK to attack those who are responsible for the publication of the cartoons? The UN is so corrupt because of Annan's "leadership," but his disastrous tenure is also marked by rank appeasement of Islamic fascists. He is an evil man whose departure from the global stage at the end of this year will be a blessing. I just hope he's out of office before the world spins down to some kind of giant communist regime were we're all free to convert to Islam or die. Approve of Muhhamad or else.

East-West Chasm Growing

2006-02-10T22:40:00.000-05:00

Malaysia's prime minister says a huge chasm has opened between the West and Islam, fuelled by Muslim frustrations over Western refusal to submit to their religious beliefs.

Abdullah Badawi, seen as promoting a moderate form of Islam in largely Muslim Malaysia, said many Westerners see Muslims as congenital terrorists.

As he spoke at a conference in Kuala Lumpur, thousands protested outside at cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Friday's demonstration was the biggest in Malaysia's capital for years.

"Long live Islam. Destroy Denmark. Destroy Israel. Destroy George Bush. Destroy America," protesters shouted as they marched to the Danish embassy in the rain from a nearby mosque.

The satirical cartoons include an image portraying Muhammad with a bomb as his turban. While Islamic tradition supposedly prohibits any depiction of Allah and the Prophet, numerous examples of Muslim Art including Muhammad are documented throught the Islamic world.

The cartoons were first published by a Danish newspaper in September, but have since been reprinted in several other publications, including some not originally published by the author in question.

On Thursday, Mr Abdullah shut down indefinitely a Borneo-based paper, the Sarawak Tribune, for reprinting the cartoons. He described their publication as "insensitive and irresponsible".

The prime minister had also declared possession of the cartoons illegal.

Possession of a cartoon.. illegal....illegal..a cartoon.... The chasm isn't growing, Muslims are now realizing that the US will not bow down to their rediculious demands. To supress the right of others so their feeling aren't hurt. I guess there too busy promising death to everyone who doesn't follow their beliefs to see their own hypocritical anti-semetic attitude as a logical fallacy.

Appeasement At Any Costs

2006-02-10T17:51:00.000-05:00

Muslim's Showing Their Hypocritical Nature

2006-02-10T14:27:00.000-05:00

As much of the Islamic world erupts in a studied frenzy over the Danish Muhammad cartoons, one point comes blazing though clearly.

Islam is infamous for its rabid anti-semitism, and anti-any other religion than Islam. Apostasy is a crime in the Muslim world, Jewery punishable by death. Yet they're upset over a cartoon. How many are executed every year by the Muslim governments every year for subverting Islam? I belive its well know that the Muslim ideal is death to any who dare question Islam.

Have any of these Muslims ever protested the grotesque caricatures of Christians and Jews that are broadcast throughout the Middle East on a daily basis? The sermons on Palestinian TV that refer to Jews as the sons of pigs and monkeys? The Syrian prime-time TV series that shows rabbis slaughtering a gentile boy in order to ritually consume his blood? The 41-part series on Egyptian TV based on that anti-Semitic czarist forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," showing the Jews to be engaged in a century-old conspiracy to control the world?

Do as the Muslims say, not as they do. Thats the only way for them to defeat us.

British Refuse 'murder evidence' For Fear Of A 'race crisis'

2006-02-09T22:16:00.000-05:00

US authorities will use phone tap evidence gathered by Britain seven years ago to try to jail Abu Hamza al-Masri for life on terrorist offences.

Bugged conversations between the radical imam and the leader of a gang that kidnapped 16 Western tourists in Yemen are banned in the British courts. Yet the same wiretap material, amassed by British Intelligence, will be central to the case against Abu Hamza if he is extradited to America, The Times has been told.

Scotland Yard and the Crown Prosecution Service faced mounting criticism yesterday for delaying action against Abu Hamza, who was jailed for seven years on Tuesday for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred.

Last night David Blunkett, the former Home Secretary, suggested that the police, MI5 and the CPS could have acted earlier to seize the cleric. He claimed that they rejected his warnings because they feared it would trigger a race crisis.

Rather than trigger such a crisis, MI5 and the CPS let a bloodthirsty, murderous thug spread hatred of Jews and Christians and the necessity to overthrow the British state and replace it with a Sharia state, for seven years.

Where were Iraqi WMD? Weapons Inspectors Refuse To Look

2006-02-09T21:54:00.000-05:00

A former special investigator for the Pentagon during the Iraq war said he found four sealed underground bunkers in southern Iraq that he is sure contain stocks of chemical and biological weapons. But when he asked weapons inspectors to check out the sites, he was refused.

Between March and July 2003, Mr. Gaubatz was taken by these sources to four locations - three in and around Nasiriyah and one near the port of Umm Qasr, where he was shown underground concrete bunkers with the tunnels leading to them deliberately flooded. In each case, he was told the facilities contained stocks of biological and chemical weapons, along with missiles whose range exceeded that mandated under U.N. sanctions. But because the facilities were sealed off with concrete walls, in some cases up to 5 feet thick, he did not get inside. He filed reports with photographs, exact grid coordinates, and testimony from multiple sources. And then he waited for the Iraq Survey Group to come to the sites. But in all but one case, they never arrived.

Mr. Gaubatz's new disclosures shed doubt on the thoroughness of the Iraq Survey Group's search for the weapons of mass destruction that were one of the Bush administration's main reasons for the war. Two chief inspectors from the group, David Kay and Charles Duelfer, concluded that they could not find evidence of the promised stockpiles. Mr. Kay refused to be interviewed for this story and Mr. Duelfer did not return email. The CIA referred these questions to Mr. Duelfer who won't respond.

"The ISG team was not organized nor outfitted for this mission in my opinion and were only concerned to look in northern Iraq. They were not even on the ground during the first few weeks of the war, and this was the most critical time to go out and exploit sites. I feel very comfortable in saying the sites were never exploited by ISG," he said. In one instance a few inspectors did come out once to follow one lead, Mr. Gaubatz said. But they lacked the equipment and manpower to crack the bunker. "An adequate search would have required heavy equipment to uncover the concrete, and additional equipment to drain the water."

Mr. Gaubatz said each site he visited had similar characteristics. "Everything was buried and under water. They would drain canals and parts of the rivers. They would build tunnels underneath and they would let the water come back in," he said. But the water would only be allowed back into the tunnels after concrete walls were installed sealing off the secret caches of unconventional arms, Mr. Gaubatz said. He added that the tunnels in all four sites were wide enough for tractors. One of the giveaways, he said, was that homes near the sites were equipped with gas masks and other items to protect against a chemical weapons attack.

One site outside of Nasiryah, near the main highway in an isolated area featured a rock nearby that said, "Death to America," in Arabic. At this site, Mr. Gaubatz found gas masks, boots, and an imprint of an al-Samoud missile in the ground nearby a canal used to flood the tunnel. Mr. Gaubatz said he could find a wall under the earth and in the water whose dimensions were 50 by 75 feet. Another site near Umm Qasr contained the remnants of military activity as well, Mr. Gaubatz said. He said that former senior Iraqi military officers and local farmers confirmed there was military construction over the course of six months in 2002.

Today, Mr. Gaubatz is the chief investigator for the Dallas County Medical Examiner. On the weekends, he trains Texas state troopers in basic counterterrorism and basic Arabic. When asked about the weapons hunt by his students, he says he tells them, "Before we can say there is no WMD in Iraq, we must first look. I have no doubts WMD was and is still in Iraq."

Europe Confirming, No Such Thing As Free Speech

2006-02-09T14:34:00.000-05:00

German police have addmitted that they will use sweeping new powers to lock up anyone 'inciting hatred' at the World Cup.

Of course what they consider 'inciting hatred' can be a little a an ill-defined salute of the infamous 'goose-stepping.'

“We will come down hard on people who use insulting behaviour or make trouble.
English... should be aware that the Nazi salute and provocative behaviour like goose-stepping in public will be punished. We will offer the warmest welcome to true football fans. But anyone glorifying extremism here risks arrest.
We are prepared to use our police powers to hold fans for up to two weeks without charge if we feel they are a threat to public safety and order.
This used to be the city of the Nazi rallies but is now famous as the city of human rights. We do not live in the past.”

The city’s police are beefing up CCTV surveillance with a £1.1million space-age computerised control center. It has a bank of high-definition flat screen monitors linked to cameras that can zoom in on a single face. Close-up pictures can then be transmitted to snatch squads who will grab offenders in seconds.

More than 3,000 cops will be on red alert, including a rapid reaction force supported by highly-trained riot teams, helicopters, water cannon and dogs.

In addition, it will now be illegal to make any mention world war 2.

I guess we all now see freedom of speech is gone in Europe. Those who don't learn from the past are destined to repeat it. When the past is outlawed, the present becomes the past.

Europe Officially Rescending Freedom Of Speech

2006-02-09T14:12:00.000-05:00

The European Union will try to draw up a media code of conduct to avoid a repeat of the furor caused by the publication across Europe of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, an EU commissioner said on Thursday.

In an interview with Britain's Daily Telegraph, EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said the charter would encourage the media to show "prudence" when covering religion.

"The press will give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression," he told the newspaper. "We can and we are ready to self-regulate that right."

The cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper last September before being reprinted across Europe, sparked a wave of protests around the world.

Newspapers which have published them say they are exercising their right to freedom of speech, while critics say the cartoons are deliberately offensive. Depicting the Prophet Mohammad is prohibited by Islam.

Frattini, a former Italian foreign minister, said millions of Muslims in Europe felt "humiliated" by the cartoons.

His proposed voluntary code would urge the media to respect all religious sensibilities but would not offer privileged status to any one faith.

The code would be drawn up by the European Commission, the EU executive body, and European media outlets, he said. It would not have legal status.

The EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana is to travel to Arab and Muslim countries in an attempt to calm the anger caused by the cartoons.

President Of France Condemnes Free Speech

2006-02-09T11:50:00.000-05:00

In France, President Jacques Chirac asked the media to 'avoid' offending religious beliefs as another French newspaper on Wednesday reprinted the prophet caricatures. Chirac said during a Cabinet meeting that he condemned "all obvious provocations likely to dangerously kindle passions."

Drop Speed Limit, Discover 'Speeding Problem'

2006-02-09T11:31:00.000-05:00

The estimated number of drivers breaking speed limits on Irish roads has reportedly increased eight-fold in the past two years, despite the introduction of the penalty points scheme.

This would appear to indicate that many drivers are ignoring the new lower speed limit of 50mph introduced last year.

Questioned on the matter by reporters in Dublin today, Transport Minister Martin Cullen admitted that the public seems to be ignoring campaigns by the National Safety Council.

He said a complete change of mindset was needed to tackle the problem of speeding.

"We're in the process of introducing a co-ordinated series of measures in addition to the measures we've already introduced," he said.

I'm only guessing that they will lower it further and discover that 'problem' increased. 35 mph for everone!

Free Press Almost A Thing Of The Past In France

2006-02-08T00:16:00.000-05:00

A French court refused to order the confiscation of a magazine on Tuesday which local Muslim organisations tried to prevent from publishing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The satirical weekly Charlie-Hebdo was due to publish on Wednesday 12 cartoons originally printed by the Danish paper Jyllens-Posten which have caused outrage in the Muslim world.

"This is good news to us all," Charlie-Hebdo editor Philippe Val told reporters after the ruling.

"We are defending the principle of the right for caricature and satire."

The judges rejected demands by French Muslim organisations, including the French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM) and the Grand Mosques of Paris and Lyon, which had argued the paper was undermining the principle of the respect of faiths.

The court did not rule on the contents of the claim, but rejected it on a technicality, saying the plaintiffs had failed to follow several points of procedure in filing their suit.

Sources at Charlie-Hebdo said the weekly's offices and some staff had been placed under police protection ahead of Wednesday's publication, which will also feature a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad burying his face in his hands and saying: "It's hard to be loved by fools".

The cartoons, reprinted by several French and other European papers, have provoked a deepening crisis between Europe and the Muslim world.

Afghan police killed four protesters on Tuesday in some of the worst violence to erupt over the cartoons, one of which showed the Prophet Muhammad with a turban resembling a bomb.

Donating Blood Deemed Discriminatory

2006-02-01T02:18:00.000-05:00

The University of Vermont won't ban American Red Cross blood drives on campus despite a complaint from the school's affirmative action office that the organization violates UVM's non-discrimination policy.

Kathryn Friedman, the executive director of the affirmative action office, has recommended that UVM curtail Red Cross blood drives on campus, arguing the Red Cross policy violated UVM's non-discrimination policy.

Nationally, the organization's position has been that the Food and Drug Administration won't allow it to accept blood from sexually active gay men.

The policy is meant to keep HIV-positive blood from contaminating the nation's blood supply. The FDA last considered whether to revise its policy in 2000, when a panel of FDA specialists voted 7-6 to maintain the ban.

Other regional universities, including the University of Maine and the University of New Hampshire, are considering whether to allow the Red Cross to continue to stage blood drives on their campuses.

The University of Maine's student government has voted to ban Red Cross blood drives on its Orono campus. The University of New Hampshire's Student Senate last year passed a resolution calling on the Red Cross and the FDA to revise their policies.

HAMAS Won't Be 'Blackmailed'

2006-01-31T16:51:00.000-05:00

This was so rich it made my teeth hurt. So good on so many levels.

HAMAS will have to fuction without west-aid.

A top Hamas leader says his organization won't be "blackmailed" by international threats to cut off aid to the Palestinians.

He says the group is searching for alternative sources of funding.

Osama Hamdan also says Hamas will not accept conditions from the West that Hamas renounce violence. At the same time, he says Hamas is ready for dialogue.

Hamdan is a member of the group's exiled leadership. He made the remarks in a telephone interview from Lebanon.

Pretty good considering:

The European Union says it will continue funding the Palestinian Authority so long as its new government is committed to peace with Israel.

EU ministers renewed their call for Hamas to renounce violence and recognise the Jewish state following the militant group's election victory.

Earlier Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas urged foreign donors to continue giving aid to the Palestinians.

EU member states donated about $600m (£341m) to the Palestinians in 2005.

But Hamas' landslide victory has left the union in a quandary because the group, which has launched dozens of suicide bombings against Israelis, figures on an EU list of terrorist groups.

Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, who chaired the talks in Brussels, said the EU expects the new Palestinian assembly to "support the formation of a government committed to a peaceful and negotiated solution of the conflict with Israel".

Diplomatic Victories

2006-01-31T16:36:00.000-05:00

While this counts as a diplomatic victory for Condoleeza Rice and President Bush, it still does not solve the Iran problem. However, if military action must be taken, this is an important step to have taken.

The United States and Europe, after hours of negotiations on Iran, won support from Russia and China early Tuesday to refer Iran's nuclear activities to the United Nations Security Council this week, but with a promise that the Council would not act on the question for at least a month.
"This is certainly the most decisive action taken on Iran by the international community in years," a senior State Department official said at a briefing. "This is a clear signal that the international community are saying, 'Enough.' "

A statement this morning by the top foreign officials of China, Russia, the United States and leading European countries also called on Iran to restore the suspension of all uranium enrichment, including activities restarted this month, when it broke internationally monitored seals at a plant in Natanz.

But this statement of unity will likely have more impact.

The Quartet stressed that all members of a future Palestinian Government must be committed to non-violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, the Secretary-General said, adding that it was "inevitable that any future assistance to any new government would be reviewed by donors" against the government's commitments in those areas.
The Quartet called on the newly elected Palestinian Legislative Council to support the formation of a government committed to non-violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, as well as the rule of law, tolerance, reform and sound fiscal management.

It's not optimal, but if even a committed anti-Israel bigot like Kofi Annan thinks conditions must be put on aid then it is probably the best that could be expected from the Quartet.

Colombia Busts Militant Islamic Passport-Forging Ring

2006-01-27T14:42:00.000-05:00

Colombia arrested 19 members of a passport-forging ring with links to Islamic militant groups Hamas and al Qaeda that enabled foreign nationals to travel in the United States and Europe under false documents, the attorney general's office said on Thursday.

"Some of the suspects are wanted for extradition by the United States for collaborating with terrorist groups Hamas and al Qaeda," Deputy Attorney General Alberto Otalora told reporters.

Three members of Colombia's Administrative Security Department, or DAS, the state intelligence agency, were arrested in the sweep. An employee of Colombia's National Registry, which provides official identification documents, was also among those arrested.

"This network since 2002 has been dedicated to falsifying documents in order to permit foreign citizens to travel as Colombians through Europe and the United States," a statement issued by the Attorney General's Office said.

Citizens of Pakistan, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt sent information to the ring in Colombia, which used that information to create false Colombian passports, the statement said.

"The foreigners were turned into Colombian citizens without ever coming to Colombia," the statement said.

Al Gore Mixing It Up With The Canadians

2006-01-27T14:17:00.000-05:00

Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore has accused the oil industry of financially backing the Tories and their "ultra-conservative leader" to protect its stake in Alberta's lucrative oilsands.

Canadians, Gore said, should vigilantly keep watch over prime minister-designate Stephen Harper because he has a pro-oil agenda and wants to pull out of the Kyoto accord -- an international agreement to combat climate change.

"The election in Canada was partly about the tar sands projects in Alberta," Gore said Wednesday while attending the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.

"And the financial interests behind the tar sands project poured a lot of money and support behind an ultra-conservative leader in order to win the election . . . and to protect their interests."

Darcie Park, spokeswoman for oilsands giant Suncor Energy, said she's taken aback by Gore's remarks and hopes they don't resonate with Canadians.

"Our company just doesn't do business that way. We're really puzzled about where these comments came from," she said.

"Canadians understand how elections work in Canada and understand there are these very tight restrictions around what individuals and companies can contribute to individual parties or campaigns."

The federal Elections Act limits how much money individuals, corporations and unions can donate to political parties. Individuals are allowed to give as much as $5,000 a year, while companies and unions are capped at $1,000 a year.

In their election platform, the Conservatives promised to further limit individual donations to a maximum of $1,000 and ban all donations from corporations, unions and organizations.

Parties and candidates are required to make public any contributions exceeding $200.

Gore believes the issue of the oilsands and the sway he contends the industry holds with Harper didn't garner news coverage during the election because "media concentration has taken a toll on democratic principles around the world, and Canada is no exception."

"I see them moving a lot closer to the Bush government. Talk a lot, but do nothing."

Playing Dress-Up Is Fun, When You Can Leave

2006-01-27T13:22:00.000-05:00

Playing around life in a 3rd grade fantasy leads to cultural destruction.

There is something not neutral, not innocent, something disturbing, about the Western women who choose to live in Muslim countries for a short or long period, and when they do, and find it neceesary (or sometimes eveb without finding it necessary) to the dress code for local women, do so uncomplainingly, willingly adapt, at times with a certain secret pleasure. While women in Iraq, or at least the most advanced women in Iraq, have been trying hard not to have the chador, abaya, whatever you want to call it, right down to the eyeslit of the niqab, imposed on them again, some Western women appear almost gleeful in the requirement, as they see it, to dress that way. Is it that they find the chador liberating, in fact -- or is it something else prompting their pleasure? The most advanced women born into Islam (starting with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Homa Arjmand, Azam Kamguian) try to become free of this male-imposed dress when they can; the most un-advanced, most primitive women in the non-Muslim world, on the other hand, find themselves not only finding nothing wrong in "Islam's treatment of women," but justifying and even celebrating what some of them call a "portable seclusion," instead of addressing the attitudes and behavior of Muslim men toward women (any female traveller to Muslim countries can be called to the witness-stand) that might make such "portable seclusion" necesary.

You see: it's fun. This dressing up voluntarily in Islam-mandated clothes is just plain fun, apparently, for some Western women. They do not assume the garb reluctantly, but are excited by the make-believe of it all. It's a kind of civilizational slumming, or rather, a rapid abandonment of all supposed principles that supposedly meant so much to them at home. Where be that famous feminism now?

There was Giuliana Sgrena, the shrill-voiced hysteric (I heard her on the RAI), with her illogic and malevolence toward the United States and toward the West, well-watered by Il Manifesto. There was Margaret Hassan, who spent decades in Iraq, who threw her lot in with "the Iraqi people" and even married an Iraqi (an Iraqi whose reaction to the news of her death was strangely muted), and was executed because, alla fin fine, she was an Infidel. There were the two Simones, as Oriana Fallaci called them, part-Sgrena part-Hassan in their crazed blend of unappeasable anti-Western animus and identification with Islam, and their enjoying their roles as "Muslim women" without having to be Muslims to enjoy it.

Peace with Israel No Longer A Option

2006-01-27T12:55:00.000-05:00

In response to the victory, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared during a security cabinet meeting Thursday night that any Palestinian Authority government that included Hamas would not be a partner for Israel.

The Prime Minister's Office issued a statement after the cabinet meeting that read, "Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government, even if only part of it is an armed terrorist organization calling for Israel's destruction, and in any case will continue to strenuously fight terrorism everywhere."

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas responded to the election results with a veiled warning to Hamas. "The Palestinian Authority is a signatory to several international agreements, and any government established in the future will be required to implement them," he said. "This is the only way to end the occupation and to gain the support of the international community."...

As news of the results started to trickle in, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar was quick to reiterate his movement's conditioned commitment to the unofficial truce with Israel.

"If Israel is going to continue commitment to what is called quietness, then we will continue," he said. "But if not, then I think we will have no option but to protect our people and our land."

Asked if a Hamas-run cabinet would negotiate with Israel, Zahar said even prior to his movement's victory there had been no movement toward peace and, therefore, there was no point in holding a dialogue at this time.

"We have no peace process," he said. "We are not going to mislead our people to tell them we are waiting, meeting, for a peace process that is nothing."

French Shut Down Soup Kitchens To Avert Racism

2006-01-26T17:25:00.000-05:00

Charity groups serving pork soup to homeless people face a crackdown by French officials.

Protesters have accused the groups of deliberate discrimination against Jews and Muslims, who do not eat the meat. They accuse them of handing out free racist soup.

Strasbourg officials have banned the hand-outs and police in Paris have closed soup kitchens in an effort to avert racial tension. The charities have defended offering what they call traditional cuisine to French and European homeless people.

The groups, operating in cities across France and neighbouring Belgium, are not formally linked but are associated with a small far-right organisation called Bloc Identitaire.

'Racial tensions'

Identity Soup, as it has been dubbed by its chefs, was banned in Strasbourg this month after officials ruled it could lead to public disorder.

"Schemes with racial subtexts must be denounced," Strasbourg's mayor Fabienne Keller said.

Although no ban exists in Paris, police have closed soup kitchens in the capital's Montparnasse and Gare de l'Est train stations on administrative grounds. Volunteers were ordered to re-seal soup containers on the basis they did not have the necessary permits to distribute food.

A leading French anti-racism movement has urged Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to ban pork soup give-aways throughout the country.

Bernadette Hatier, vice president of the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between Peoples, said the scheme was a ploy to drum up far-right votes ahead of 2007 presidential elections.

'Nothing illegal'

Many local authorities have said they are powerless to intervene as the groups are not breaking the law.

National Front spokesman Bruno Gollinisch said that people had the right to be charitable to whomever they want.

He described moves to ban the pork soup kitchens as "revelatory of authorities' alienation from the French people".

Dominique Lescure, head of the Nice-based group Soulidarieta, said pork was a traditional part of French cuisine.

But he admitted wanting to serve the soup to what he called his "compatriots and European homeless people".

Russians Proudly Show Off 30 Million Dollar Miracle Rock

2006-01-26T16:50:00.000-05:00

Russia's intelligence agency described the communications device disguised as a rock allegedly used by British spies in Moscow as a "miracle of technology" worth tens of millions of pounds.

"It's a piece of space-age technology, a machine that can withstand a fall from from nine floors up and prolonged submersion in water," said Sergei Ignachenko, spokesman for the FSB agency, as he showed off the object to the media. It can slice through a hammer yet still sharp enough to dice tomatoes.

On Monday, the FSB accused four British diplomats of involvement in a spy ring in which agents allegedly passed secrets through the rock, located in a Moscow park and the subject of a program broadcast by a state-run television channel.

"According to our experts, this rock, this miracle of technology, costs several tens of millions of dollars," the spokesman said.

He said FSB agents were systematically searching the capital to locate similar 'miracle rocks' they believed British agents had planted.

Palestinian Arab Elections Only Force True Face Forward

2006-01-26T15:13:00.000-05:00

So Hamas won the overwhelming support of the Palestinian Arabs.

What does this change?

Not much, except to remove the facade of peaceful intentions that the PLO had hoodwinked the world into believing.

Believing after the inherently flawed Oslo agreement, inherently flawed that Yasser Arafat's PLO (renamed the PA) never genuinely reconciled itself to peaceful coexistence with Israel or renounced violence as a political tool.

So, in the end, Hamas's overtly rejectionist and violent stance against Israel's right to exist merely makes the pre-existing Palestinian Arab policy formal and open. No more second-guessing for the peace-minded weak. There established policy will be the policy they belive in.

62% Britons Don't Belive In Evoulution

2006-01-26T14:04:00.000-05:00

More than half the British population does not accept the theory of evolution, according to a survey.

Furthermore, more than 40% of those questioned believe that creationism or intelligent design should be taught in school science lessons. The survey was conducted by Ipsos MORI for the BBC's Horizon series.

Its latest programme, A War on Science, looks into the attempt to introduce intelligent design into science classes in the US. Over 2000 participants took part in the survey, and were asked what best described their view of the origin and development of life:

* 22% chose creationism
* 17% opted for intelligent design
* 48% selected evolution theory
* and the rest did not know.

Author Happy Over #1 Terrorists Plug

2006-01-26T00:27:00.000-05:00

Author Welcomes Osama Book Endorsement!

Bin Laden said al Qaeda group was preparing more attacks in the United States but also told Americans, "It is useful for you to read the book 'The Rogue State.'"

"I was quite surprised and even shocked and amused when I found out what he'd said," Blum said on Friday in an interview with Reuters Television in his Washington apartment.

"I was glad. I knew it would help the book's sales and I was not bothered by who it was coming from.

"If he shares with me a deep dislike for the certain aspects of U.S. foreign policy, then I'm not going to spurn any endorsement of the book by him. I think it's good that he shares those views and I'm not turned off by that."

Prince Harry To Goto Iraq

2006-01-25T22:04:00.000-05:00

Prince Harry, completing his army officer training, has chosen to join a regiment which could be deployed in Iraq.

Harry, 21, third in line to the throne, has opted to join the Blues and Royals regiment of the Household Cavalry, his father Prince Charles's Clarence House residence said Wednesday.

The Household Cavalry are expected to be deployed to Iraq in the future.

Harry is due to complete his officer training at Britain's elite Sandhurst military college in April. He will become a second lieutenant in the cavalry once commissioned as an officer.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "It's fair to say that if his squadron goes to Iraq, he will probably go with it."

The prince could see front-line action if officials allow him to take part.

A Clarence House spokesman said: "He based his decision on the variety of roles which the regiment undertakes, including reconnaissance support to airborne forces right through to ceremonial duties."

Harry hopes to become an armoured reconnaissance troop leader at the forefront of army operations.

In an interview to mark his 21st birthday in September, Harry insisted he would be willing to serve on the front line once his training days as Officer Cadet Wales are over.

"There's no way I'm going to put myself through Sandhurst and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country.

"That may sound very patriotic, but it's true. It's not the way anyone should really work."

The last British royal to see military action was Harry's uncle Prince Andrew, who flew as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands War in 1982.

Shooting At Border Makes Mounties Run Away

2006-01-25T15:52:00.000-05:00

A high-speed chase ended in gunfire and a major U.S.-Canadian border crossing was closed for hours after one of two men sought in a California homicide was shot and wounded.

An unspecified number of Canadian border agents, who are unarmed, left their posts because they were concerned for their safety, but managers eventually took over and maintained security, said Paula Shore, a spokeswoman for the Canada Border Services Agency.

The Canada border agency spokeswoman would not specify how many Canadian border agents left their posts or for how long but said fewer than four of the more than 20 border crossings in British Columbia were affected.

"A few officers exercised their right to refuse to work because of what they perceived as imminent danger," Shore said in a telephone interview. Under the Canada labor code, "any worker has the right to refuse to work if they feel they are in imminent danger."

Sweden To Be Oil-Free In 14 Years

2006-01-25T14:54:00.000-05:00

Treehugger is reporting that the 'Minister for Sustainable Development Mona Sahlin has declared that Sweden is going to become the first country in the world to break the dependence on fossil energy.'

Sweden's hope is to have all of the country's energy supplied by only renewable resources, ridding the country of cars that run on gasoline and oil-heated homes.

Is this a play for the economic value of 'Peace In The Middle East.' A Good idea never-the-less. Without huge government subsidies, and a 80% tax bracket, this would never be possible.

Texas State Police Confront Mexican Army

2006-01-25T14:04:00.000-05:00

Local lawmen in remote west Texas came face to face with ten armed men wearing what appeared to be Mexican army camouflage uniforms who came to the aid of one of three suspected drug dealers' vehicles when it became stuck in the riverbank of the Rio Grande, law enforcement officials said today.

The incident happened in Hudspeth County, east of El Paso, yesterday, Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, Jr, chairman of the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition, told 1200 WOAI news.

Gonzalez says it started when Hudspeth County deputies and Texas State Police officers spotted three vehicles they suspected were transporting drugs south of Sierra Blanca, not far from the Rio Grande.

"They followed the vehicles," Gonzalez said. "One of the vehicles had a blowout, and 1400 pounds of marijuana was found in that vehicle. The driver absconded back into Mexico. The other two vehicles headed towards the riverbank. One of them crossed back into Mexico, and the third got stuck in the riverbed.

"At that time, officers saw several persons clad in BDU uniforms, BDU clothing, on this side of the river, in what appeared to be a Humvee type vehicle with what officers thought was a fifty caliber machine gun. The load of marijuana was unloaded by the persons in these uniforms and the vehicle was then set on fire."

'BDU' or 'Battle Dress Uniform' is the military term for 'camouflage uniform.'

Gonzalez says the men in the SUV and the uniformed men 'went back towards Mexico.'

Agent Andrea Simmons of the FBI in El Paso told 1200 WOAI news the bureau is 'aware' of the incident but is not investigating.

"At this point no federal laws that we investigate were violated," she said. "We are not involved."

Gonzalez says this is 'not an isolated incident.'

"If you don't live along the river, if you don't live in this area, you don't know what's happening here," he said.

Gonzalez elaborated on several similar incidents which have happened along the Texas Mexico border recently, all involving men wearing what appeared to be Army uniforms armed with automatic weapons, who appeared to be helping drug smugglers.

"These incidents are happening," he said.

The Mexican government is downplaying the incidents, and has said the men involved are not Mexican soldiers.

"When you see a Humvee vehicle with a fifty caliber machine gun on it, this leads you to believe this is not a vehicle being used by the drug lords, but in fact is part of the Mexican military. I think of course the Mexican government knows about this."

He says it would be highly unlikely that the men did not know they were in the United States.

"There is a river here. It is not possible not to know you have crossed the river and are in the United States," he said.

UN Using PLO Map

2006-01-24T21:03:00.000-05:00

Recall that the January 16, 2006 letter from Under-Secretary-General Ibrahim Gambari to American Ambassador John Bolton claims "It is a historical map, showing Palestine as it was in 1948, at the end of the British mandate." Gambari stressed the map was just "Palestine as it existed in 1948."

Only--oops--it turns out that the U.N.'s Israel-free map isn't a historical document after all:

The United Nations, which houses the map in its Division for Palestinian Rights, has not made the map available for confirmation of its Arabic text. However, some of the words have now been deciphered and to the best of our knowledge include the following: "Palestine's Political Map, The Palestine Liberation Organization, the Center for Research, Beirut".
[So] it turns out that the map was not historical at all. It was "Palestine's Political Map." And it wasn't a mere early map the UN found in a history book. It was a map which must have been produced post-1964, since the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was created June 2, 1964.

It appears that the U.N. has piled lie on top of evasion. And, as Eye on the U.N. points out, the organization still maintains on its web site a document "entitled 'The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917-1988,' [which was] produced by the UN Division for Palestinian Rights (1990), [and] rewrites history from the early nineteenth century on." The U.N.'s distorted history implicitly supports the demand by the PLO and the President of Iran that Israel be "wiped off the map." Figuratively and literally.

An organization as corrupt as the U.N. currently is cannot survive. Its options are reform and extinction. Read Eye on the U.N. to keep up with the latest developments.

Iran Threatens To Seal Off Persian Gulf

2006-01-24T17:00:00.000-05:00

A senior Iranian official threatened that Tehran may forcibly prevent oil export via the Straits of Hormuz if the UN imposed economic sanctions due to Iran's nuclear program, an Iranian news Web site said on Monday.

This is the first time an Iranian official makes military threats in a public statement on Tehran's recent disagreements with the West.

The news site, affiliated with the radical student movement in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was once a member, quoted Mohammed-Nabi Rudaki, deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.

According to the report, Rudaki said that "if Europe does not act wisely with the Iranian nuclear portfolio and it is referred to the UN Security Council and economic or air travel restrictions are imposed unjustly, we have the power to halt oil supply to the last drop from the shores of the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz."

The Dark Side

2006-01-24T15:39:00.000-05:00

Canada's Right Hand Turn Toward America

2006-01-24T14:52:00.001-05:00

Paul Martin's America-bashing government has been swept from power. We are more alike than we are different (Canada has its own very pronounced Red/Blue split) and the Conservatives' victory should mean a closer working relationship on a whole range of issues. Best of luck to the newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Canada's Right Hand Turn Toward America

2006-01-24T14:52:00.000-05:00

Blogging About Election In Canada Is Illegal

2006-01-23T23:30:00.000-05:00

Blogging on Canadian election day is a tricky thing. In this election, Section 329 of the Canada Elections Act will be in effect, meaning it will be effectively against the law to blog about election results until 10:00 ET.

In case you don't care about that:

Absolute Latest

Overall Election Results
Party	Elected	Leading	Total	Vote Share
CON	111	13	124	36.53%
LIB	87	15	102	30.33%
BQ	49	2	51	10.38%
NDP	21	9	30	17.27%
IND	1	0	1	.53%
OTH	0	0	0	4.96%
Last Update:January 23, 11:30:24 PM EST				308 seats

It looks like the overall Liberal vote there is edging the Tories, 42.9% - 39.7%, with NDP at 15.8%. Ipsos had the Tories ahead by 2 points a couple of days ago, but having them run this closely is a pretty good development so far. Check the numbers right now ...

Early numbers were way off..

Liberal: 133
Conservative: 98
New Democrat: 18
Bloc: 53
Independent: 4

A majority would be 154. The number of seats in the House of Commons is 308

UK Women Most Violent In World

2006-01-23T20:26:00.000-05:00

British girls are among the most violent in the world, according to new research.

England and Scotland came fifth and sixth in a league table showing fighting among 11 to 15-year-old schoolgirls in 35 developed countries.

In both countries, almost a third had been involved in at least one physical fight in the previous year. Concerns have been raised that Britain's "ladette" culture is fuelling such problems.

Dr Candace Currie, the director of the child and adolescent health research unit at Edinburgh University and co-author of the report, said the high level of fighting among girls in the UK worried her.

The average rate of girls' violence across all the countries was just 23 per cent, while worst-scoring Hungary was not far ahead of the English and Scottish on 32.1 per cent.

After that came Estonia, Lithuania and Belgium. Wales fared slightly better in 12th place and a score of 24.6 per cent, while Finland did best with 13.3 per cent.

The study, which quizzed 161,082 pupils, found that while boys were more violent overall, British schoolboys were further down the table than their female counterparts. Scottish boys fared worst, earning 10th place with a rate of 60.2 per cent, while those south of the border were not far behind in 13th, and a score of 59.2 per cent. Welsh youngsters only came 26th, with 53.3 per cent of boys having been in a fight.

The researchers reported that girls were most likely to fight with friends and family members, while boys were much more likely to engage in violence with total strangers.

They said fighting among youngsters could be an sign that they would go on to be more violent, and called for a reduction in violent imagery in the media. More research was also needed to address the growing problem, they added.

The study, by child health experts from Canada, Scotland, Poland, Israel and America and published in the journal of the American Academy of Paediatrics, is based on research from 2001/02.

After seeing the Current Canadian Election Results Rush, me thinks this study is flawed. I mean US not even on the list?

Movie Producers Respond To Their Crappy Films

2006-01-23T16:19:00.000-05:00

In response to the deline of people wanting to pay 50 dollars to go see a movie about gay cowboys eating pudding,

Hollywood to Produce Substantially Fewer Films Over the Next Few Years

Facing declining sales and declining interest from a population that is increasingly shunning their product, Hollywood studios have apparently decided to release “substantially fewer films” over the next year or two. Not only that, but Hollywood is also less interested in footing the bill for motion pictures.

According to a Sunday Variety column:

“Substantially fewer films will be produced over the next year or two. And a significant portion of the production costs of the reduced slate will be borne by hedge funds and other investment groups.
“Talk to the corporate hierarchs and you quickly elicit the thinking behind this pullback: Too many movies have been crammed into a market whose appetite for new product has obviously leveled off.”

Apparently, this sentiment is broadly felt across the movie industry:

“Sony believes a cutback in production is vital to clear the clutter in the marketplace. Disney is intent on pushing further resources into animation, ESPN and ABC to create new content for newly expanding digital platforms. Warner Bros. wants to focus more on big ‘event’ movies and cut back those discomfiting ‘middle’ films. So it goes across the board.”

This might be a radical idea, but maybe Hollywood moguls and producers should address ticket sales by reviewing the content of their movies.

Michael Moore Fears 'Canadian Bush'

2006-01-23T16:04:00.000-05:00

Vioment Anti-American propagandist Michael Moore weighed in on the Canadian election Friday night on his Web site.

Moore lamented the predicted success of Stephen Harper's Conservative Party in Monday's election and urged Canadians not to vote for the candidate who shares George Bush's worldview.

"These are no ordinary times," Moore proclaimed. "And as you go to the polls on Monday, you do so while a man running the nation to the south of you is hoping you can lend him a hand by picking Stephen Harper because he's a man who shares his world view"

"Do you really want to help George Bush by turning Canada into his latest conquest" Moore asked.

Harper's Conservative Party is poised to win its first national election in 18 years, unseating a Liberal Party that has dominated Canadian politics for the last century.

"The Liberals are being blown out of the water," University of Toronto professor Nelson Wiseman told Bloomberg News. "The only thing we're discussing now is whether the Conservatives are going to form a majority or a minority."

Wiseman was referring to Canadian's parliamentary system, in which a party may win a plurality of votes but is forced to negotiate with smaller parties in order to form a majority government.

Harper has pledged to cut taxes and end corruption. He has claimed he has no intention of sending Canadian troops to Iraq, but has promised increased military spending and contributions to NATO and the effort in Afghanistan.

US Spends 2 Mil. To Fight HAMAS

2006-01-23T12:36:00.000-05:00

The Washington administration has reportedly decided to allocate about two million dollars in financial aid to support the al-Fatah organization, campaigning against the Islamic Resistance Movement, HAMAS, in the January 25 Palestinian elections.

US Consulate East Jerusalem Representative Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm told the New York Times the money will also be used to support efforts in democratization.

Statements of American and Palestinian officials included in the news report told the financial aid began in early August to defeat HAMAS in the elections...

Iran Planning Nuclear Weapons Test

2006-01-23T12:16:00.000-05:00

Tehran plans a nuclear weapons test before March 20, 2006. Thus according to the dissident Foundation for Democracy in Iran, a US-based watch group, citeing sources in the US and Iran.

The FDI also adds that on June 16, the high command of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Air Force, ordered it's Shahab-3 missile units to move mobile launchers every 24 hours instead of weekly. This is in view of a potential pre-emptive strike by the US or Israel. The advance Shahab-3 units have been positioned in Kermanshah and Hamad within striking distance of Israel with their reserve launchers moved to Esfahan and Fars.

Sources say that FDI reporting has a reputation for credibility. Western and Israeli intelligence have known for more than six months that Iran’s nuclear program has reached the capability of being able to carry out a nuclear explosion, albeit underground. It would probably be staged in a desert or mountain region and activated by a distant control center. Tehran would aim at confronting the Americans, Europeans and Israelis with an irreversible situation.

The question now is: will the United States, Israel or both deliver a pre-emptive strike ahead of the Iranian underground test - or later? Or will Washington alternatively use the event to bring the UN Security Council round to economic sanctions? Tehran is already organizing to withstand economic penalties. For Israel, the timing is getting tight in view of its general election on March 28. Acting prime minister Ehud Olmert must take into account that a ruling party which allows an Iranian nuclear explosion to take place six days before the poll would draw painful punishment from the voter.

Cuba Protests 'Provacative' MLK Quotes

2006-01-23T10:37:00.000-05:00

Fidel Castro called Sunday for a march outside the American mission to protest new electronic signs on the building facade.

The mission a week ago turned on signs with streaming text of sayings from Martin Luther King Jr. and excerpts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Cuba is a signatory.

In a three-hour appearance on state television Sunday, the Cuban president said that, after abuse scandals at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, the U.S. has no moral authority on human rights.

"They should put those signs inside, not outside," Castro said.

The signs with streaming text on the fifth floor of the facade of the oceanfront building are the latest salvo in an ongoing billboard war between the two countries. Cuba more than a year ago erected signs outside the mission emblazoned with photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners and a huge swastika overlaid with a "Made in the U.S.A" stamp.

Castro characterized the new American signs as "provocations" and said they appeared to be aimed at breaking off the limited contact between the two governments, which have been without diplomatic relations for 45 years.

Without a full embassy, the U.S. government has an interests section here under the Swiss Embassy in Havana to handle consular affairs such as visa processing. Cuba has a similar interests section in Washington.

The march will coincide with a Tuesday court date for Luis Posada Carriles, who is held at a U.S. federal detention center in El Paso, Texas, on immigration charges.

The Cuban-born Posada, a former CIA operative, was arrested in Miami in May on charges he entered the United States illegally and is awaiting an immigration judge's ruling on whether he will be deported.

He is accused by Cuba and Venezuela of masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner and of staging bombings in Havana in 1997 and 1998.

Castro also has accused Posada and his colleagues of plotting to assassinate him at a summit in Panama in November 2000. Posada and several other exiles were arrested and sentenced in Panama on lesser weapons charges, but were freed when they were pardoned in August 2004 by outgoing President Mireya Moscoso.

bin-Laden Plug Drives Book Sales

2006-01-22T16:23:00.000-05:00

Osama bin Laden has a book for you.

In an audiotape released Thursday, the al-Qaida leader said: "If you [Americans] are sincere in your desire for peace and security, we have answered you. And if [President] Bush decides to carry on with his lies and oppression, then it would be useful for you to read the book 'Rogue State.' "

That would be William Blum's "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower," published in 2000 and updated in November.

In his audiotape, bin Laden wrongly attributed a quote to the introduction of "Rogue State." Instead, he read from another Blum book, "Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire."

"He made a mistake; he got them mixed up," Blum said.

The author, who said he left a State Department job in 1967 because he opposed the Vietnam War, has been speaking out against U.S. foreign policy for nearly 40 years.

" 'Rogue State' was inspired by the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999," Blum said. "We were told it was an 'act of humanitarianism,' but I didn't believe that for a moment."

NATO conducted bombing raids in an attempt to halt ethnic cleansing in the region.

America repeatedly has used "bombings, invasions, torture and weapons of mass destruction," Blum said. "It's what we do."

Blum said he sees the 320-page "Rogue State" as "a mini-encyclopedia of the many kinds of unhumanitarian actions of U.S. foreign policy."

The author said he heard about bin Laden's comments Thursday, when transcripts started hitting the Internet.

"I was amazed and amused," Blum said. "It's good publicity for the book. ... If he shares with me a deep dislike for the certain aspects of U.S. foreign policy, then I'm not going to spurn any endorsement of the book by him. I think it's good that he shares those views, and I'm not turned off by that."

Before bin Laden mentioned "Rogue State," Amazon.com ranked the book 209,000 on its sales list. By Friday night, the book was No. 27.

"Rogue State" is published by Common Courage Press in Monroe, Maine. The book is available for purchase at www.commoncouragepress.com for $12.32, as well as at Amazon.com and independent bookstores.

Blum described his view of bin Laden's war on America.

"He sees anti-American terrorist attacks as under the category of retaliation," Blum said. "In previous tapes he's used that word — retaliation. I don't like what they do, but it's understandable intellectually."

If Americans read his book, he said, "they would learn what bin Laden is talking about — our whole sordid record of foreign policy. I think the book would help them understand why we are being attacked."

Blum and other writers shared a Project Censored award in 1999 for articles about U.S.-supplied materials in the 1980s that enabled Iraq to develop chemical and biological weapons. Project Censored, founded in 1976, says it honors "stories of social significance that have been overlooked, underreported or self-censored by the country's major national news media."

Bin Laden quoted Blum as writing: "If I were president, I would stop the attacks against the United States. First I would give an apology to all the widows and orphans and those who were tortured. Then I would announce that American interference in the nations of the world has ended once and for all."

Blum said he used those phrases in "Freeing the World to Death" and in other writings and speeches, but not in "Rogue State."

Venezuela Planning "Buying Spree" For Military Hardware

2006-01-21T01:50:00.000-05:00

Nothing could possibly go wrong with this.

Venezuela is planning a "buying spree" for military equipment that goes beyond the country's legitimate needs, the State Department said Friday.

In recent days, the United States has sought to block proposed sales of military planes and other equipment to Venezuela by Spain and Brazil.

The transactions are part of what "we would consider an outsized military buildup in Venezuela," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

He also noted that the government of President Hugo Chavez has decided to activate its reserves and to create a million-person militia.

On Thursday in Brasilia, Chavez called the U.S. objections to the Brazil deal absurd and said Brazil will try to persuade the United States to allow it. At stake are 20 planes costing $200 million. The deal was worked out with Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA, or Embraer.

Botelho said the plane would be used to combat drugs and arms trafficking and not "for acts of war."

Last week, Chavez blasted a U.S. attempt to block Spain from selling Venezuela 12 military planes with American parts, calling it proof of Washington's "imperialism."

In response, McCormack said at the time the United States is concerned that the proposed sale "could contribute to destabilization in Latin America."

The United States has made that view clear to the Spanish, Venezuelan and other governments in Latin America," McCormack said.

Lawsuits, Arrests Make No Effect On File Sharing

2006-01-21T01:41:00.000-05:00

A BBC report that despite numerous court cases, litigation does not appear to be reducing the amount of file-sharing.

From the article: "The level of file-sharing has remained the same for two years despite 20,000 legal cases in 17 countries. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI) said it was 'containing" the problem and more people were connecting to broadband."

Iran Nuclear- Blackmail's CNN

2006-01-20T15:14:00.000-05:00

KEEP AN EYE ON CNN: After the Eason Jordan affair, we know that they'll slant coverage to keep access to dictatorial regimes. And Iran has already been playing games with them:

Iran lifted its ban on CNN on Tuesday, a day after the government barred the U.S. network from the country because of its mistranslation of nuclear comments by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, state television reported.
Ahmadinejad ordered the reversal "due to the expression of an apology" from CNN over the mistranslation, the state-run TV broadcast said.

So, as I say, watch 'em with a jaundiced eye on this subject. As Matt Welch wrote back when the Eason Jordan story broke:

This is appalling, though no surprise. The embarrassing Peter Arnett interview on Iraq TV was just a brief public glimpse on what has been a nasty little private "secret" for years -- that "news bureaus" in Baghdad and other totalitarian capitals (Havana, to name one) are actually propaganda huts, churning out what CNN producers call "sanctions coverage" (pieces on the awful humanitarian toll of international economic sanctions), while refusing to report the awful truth. It is possible, though intensely difficult, to do honest journalism in such circumstances. But with this column, I think we have the final proof that CNN will not be the news organization to rise to that challenge. Shame.

I can't see any reason to think they'll do better this time around, though I'd like it if they did.

Europe Breaking The Bandwagon Criticizing French Nuclear Statement

2006-01-20T14:56:00.000-05:00

President Jacques Chirac drew scorching criticism in Europe on Friday for suggesting France would consider a nuclear response to state-sponsored terrorism.

"Jacques Chirac is an idiot," chided Belgian daily De Morgen in an editorial. "He lives in a time where France is no longer a world power, but he's still acting as if prolonging a Napoleonic dynasty."

Spain's El Pais called the speech "radical and dangerous."

Many faulted the timing. France, Britain and Germany have been seeking guarantees that Iran will not develop nukes, and have taken key steps toward possible U.N. sanctions against Tehran.

"Such saber rattling in the face of the current crisis over Iran's atomic weapons program is basically a false signal," said Xanthe Hall of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in Berlin.

France's nuclear arsenal, which analysts estimate at some 300 warheads mostly deployed on submarines, is viewed as a deterrent tool and is not intended for a battle situation.

Observers saw a political pitch at home by Chirac: activist groups and even military circles have questioned the euro3 billion-plus ($3.62 billion) annual cost to keep up France's nuclear arsenal.

But at home, too, the speech garnered criticism.

"Another pearl in the words of Chirac — but this one is a bit dramatic and provocative," said Revolutionary Communist League party leader Alain Krivine, a longtime critic of the conservative Chirac, on French TV. "It's a completely irresponsible declaration."

Surrender Monkies...SURRENDER Your NUKES! Don't make us criticize you!

Ahead Of UN Sanctions, Iran Starts Playing The Money Game

2006-01-20T14:25:00.000-05:00

Embroiled in a nuclear standoff with the West, Iran said on Friday it was moving funds out of Europe to shield them from possible U.N. sanctions.

"Yes, Iran has started withdrawing money from European banks and transferring it to other banks abroad," said a senior Iranian official, who asked not to be named.

Central Bank Governor Ebrahim Sheibani was quoted earlier as saying Tehran had started shifting funds, but he sidestepped a question on whether the assets would go to accounts in Asia.

Financial markets reacted nervously to the uncertainty about Iran's foreign holdings, estimated at more than $30 billion, helping send oil to a four-month high above $67. The dollar dipped against the euro and the safe-haven Swiss franc.

It is far from clear how placing assets in Asia or anywhere abroad would protect them from being frozen as few governments or major banks would be willing to flout U.N. sanctions openly.

The council has the power to impose trade or diplomatic sanctions, though no swift action to punish Iran is likely.

Anxious to maintain neutrality, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has refused an EU request to speed up a report on Iran's atomic activities in time for the February 2 meeting, diplomats said.

Officials close to the IAEA said ElBaradei also felt Western pressure to refer Iran to the Security Council at the meeting was premature. Diplomats said he had promised the Iranians they would have until the next regular IAEA board on March 6 to meet his demand for better access to nuclear sites and documents.

The EU trio scrapped the talks last week after Iran removed IAEA seals on uranium enrichment equipment and resumed a suspended nuclear research program. U.S. and EU officials say there can be no more talks unless Tehran reverses these steps.

Iran is trying to avoid U.N. censure or sanctions over its nuclear program, which it says is entirely peaceful. The West suspects it of secretly seeking nuclear weapons.

Talk of shifting foreign assets indicates how seriously the Islamic Republic is taking the threat of U.N. sanctions. Iran has bitter memories of its U.S. assets being frozen shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Shailesh Dash, head of strategic asset management at Kuwait's Global Investment House, said Iran might seek friendly havens for its funds in the Gulf or Asia.

"It's a similar pattern to that which we have seen for the Gulf countries after September 11. If you feel there is a risk of the U.S. imposing sanctions then it makes sense to move those assets to friendly countries, such as the Gulf or Asia."

Swiss banks would welcome asset transfers by Iran, a leading financial industry representative in Geneva said.

Galloway Funding HAMAS With His 'Big Brother' Money

2006-01-20T00:26:00.000-05:00

The Israeli embassy last night became the latest critic of George Galloway after it denounced him for choosing Interpal as his nominated Big Brother charity, claiming it is a front for Palestinian terrorists.

Zvi Hefetz, the Israeli ambassador, is expected this week to discuss his government's concerns about the London-based charity with Ivan Lewis, the Treasury minister, when he could raise the issue of Mr Galloway's high-profile support for it.

The MP's appearance on the Channel 4 program has brought a wave of derision, particuarly when he impersonated a purring cat and dressed as Count Dracula.

When the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow entered the house, he made clear his support for Interpal, saying: "Many will eat in the Gaza Strip because I tried," adding the charity did "not get many opportunities to raise serious amounts of money".

However, UK ministers are coming under increasing pressure to ban Interpal. In August 2003, the US administration claimed it was "a principal charity utilised to hide the flow of money to Hamas", branded it a "specially designated terrorist" organisation and froze its assets in America.

But in the same year, the UK's charity commission conducted its second formal inquiry and again found no evidence to back claims against Interpal, which says it "focuses solely on the provision of relief and development aid to the poor and needy of Palestine".

However, The Herald was told the Israeli government is so concerned money donated to Interpal is finding its way to Hamas – whose "terrorist wing" is proscribed by the UK government – that it has raised the issue with Tony Blair.

Mr Galloway, 51, could earn about £100,000 for the charity and possibly more if he wins.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli ambassador said it was "extremely sad" the Respect leader was using his television appearance to raise funds that found their way to Hamas.

Asked if what Mr Galloway was doing was wrong, she replied: "Of course. It's very sad. There are so many important humanitarian projects you can donate money to. But to give money to Palestinian terrorists... this isn't acceptable."

The spokeswoman added the Israeli government was "extremely concerned" about Interpal and had raised the issue "with all levels of the UK government". Asked if that included the prime minister, she replied: "I said all levels."

Meanwhile, Bangladeshi-born Faria Alam has sparked a race row in the Big Brother house by claiming the British public would not allow a non-white person to win the show.

The 39-year-old former FA secretary, who is favourite to be evicted from the house today, said: "Do you think they'll ever let a black or Asian girl or guy win this thing? Are you out of your tree? This country? They would never, they'd be up in f***ing arms."

Gaza Kids Show Teaches Suicide Bombing

2006-01-20T00:11:00.000-05:00

"Hazim Sharawi, whose stage name is Uncle Hazim, is a quiet, doe-eyed young man who has an easy way with children and will soon preside over a children's television show here on which he'll cavort with men in larger-than-life, fake-fur animal suits on the Gaza Strip's newest television station, Al Aksa TV.

But Captain Kangaroo this is not. The station, named for Islam's third holiest site, is owned by Hamas, the people who helped make suicide bombing a household term.

"Our television show will have a message, but without getting into the tanks, the guns, the killing and the blood," said Mr. Sharawi, sitting in the broadcast studio where he will produce his show.

"I will show them our rights through the history," he said, "show them, 'This is Nablus, this is Gaza, this is Al Aksa mosque, which is with the Israelis and should be in our hands.'

...Mr. Sharawi, 27, wearing a long black leather coat with a hood over a green suit and tie, fixed with a pin, looks like a straight-and-narrow Sunday school teacher. In fact, he got his start working with children at his mosque while studying geology at Islamic University in Gaza. His hair is parted in the middle, his beard trimmed as neatly as a suburban lawn.

He said the head of Hamas's radio station spotted him leading children's games at his mosque and asked him to do a children's radio show two years ago. The show has become so popular, his appearances at occasional Hamas-sponsored festivals draw as many as 10,000 children at a time.

Mr. Sharawi will not take visitors to see him do his radio broadcast because the studio's location is a heavily guarded secret. In 2004, an Israeli Apache helicopter fired three rockets into the station's previous studio not long after Mr. Sharawi and his colleagues had fled.

Everybody involved in the television station is worried about another attack, but Mr. Sharawi said he is ready to die if it comes. "The messengers don't care if they lose their lives for the sake of revealing the message," he said.

As he describes it, his television show, which begins in a few weeks, will teach children the basics of militant Palestinian politics - the disputed status of Jerusalem, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and the Palestinian refugees' demand for a right to return to the lands they lost to Israel in the 1948 war - without showing the violence that Hamas's pursuit of those goals entails."

At the same time the Palestinians are out there claiming to be innocent victims (instead of a country full of terrorist supporters who lost control of their land in a failed attempt at genocide), they've got Osama Bin Care Bear here openly indoctrinating their kids in the name of Hamas.

Unless the Palestinians in the disputed territories become civilized and give up their culture of death or the Israelis simply decide that they can't live with them anymore and transfer them to the surrounding countries, there is no chance at peace.

Keeping Iran In Nuclear Apartheid

2006-01-19T23:44:00.000-05:00

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said any nuclear apartheid" regime was doomed to fail and that Western powers could not deny his country's legitimate right to purse a nuclear program, IRNA news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad called on European nations and the US to "discard their arrogant position and instead adopt a rational stance on" developments related to the Iranian nuclear issue.

Rational like wiping Iran from the face of the map?

Addressing European nations and the US, he said: "Who are you to deny us our legitimate rights? You consider yourselves masters of the world where all should obey you but you are mistaken."

He doesn't even comprehind the most basic concepts of politics. I'm afraid there's only one way to prove him our rights to object.

France Threatens Nuclear Strike

2006-01-19T17:45:00.000-05:00

France said on Thursday it would be ready to use nuclear weapons against any state that carried out a terrorist attack against it, reaffirming the need for its nuclear deterrent.

I hope no-one actually belives this. The French don't have the nation cohesion to stop internal Muslim riots, you think they'll 'offend' that large, and un-ruley a part of it's population. NOPE.

I don't think they have the where-with-all to defend themselves againt unruley citizens, much less any kind of large scale organized action.

PR only. There not gonna do shit. I always wondered why a surrender monkey would need nukes for. I'm only guessing this will come into play when Iseral bombs another nuclear reactor they're building for hire.

Politician Blaming Bush On Iran For "Outsourcing" Diplomacy

2006-01-19T17:21:00.000-05:00

In light of the US president's letting Europe take an active role in the issues surrounding Iran and it's 'nuclear crisis', Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton says "we lost critical time in dealing with Iran because the White House chose to downplay the threats and to outsource the negotiations."

Nice to see the spirit of international Society, World Government, and non-unilateral actions is recognizing that internation dimplomacy is a waste of time.

One Out Of Every Eight Pounds Spent Shopping In UK Goes To Tesco

2006-01-19T16:30:00.000-05:00

TESCO today proved it reigned supreme over all rivals in the supermarket wars.

With sales from UK shops a year or more old surging by 5.7% in the seven weeks to 7 January, Tesco continues to leave its peers way behind.

Internet sales delivered more than a million orders in the fourweek run-up to Christmas, reasserting its dominance of the home delivery grocery market.

Chief executive Sir Terry Leahy highlighted the 117 vast Tesco Extra hypermarkets as star performing stores where customersflocked to do their onestopshopping. Including sales on its petrol forecourts, Tesco's sales from stores over a year old were up 7.2%.

Tesco's biggest fear is of the backlash against its impact on Britain's towns and cities, where it is accused of putting smaller shops out of business.

With Tesco already taking one in every eight pounds spent on Britain's High Streets, a host of local pressure groups are now joining to campaign against its growth. Tesco has been pushing hard to expand overseas in its quest for sales. International revenues jumped 16.1% in the Christmas and New Year periods.

Welcome your new Walmart, want a credit card application? How about a new cell phone? Want to refinance your house? Need a doctor, any cancer we can treat for you?

French Food Based On A Lie

2006-01-19T00:03:00.000-05:00

Cheese and wine are in worst possible taste.

Eating cheese ruins the flavours of wine and makes fine vintages indistinguishable from cheap plonk, research has revealed.

While the two are often served together in the belief they make a sophisticated combination, scientists have discovered even expert tasters could not distinguish between wines after eating cheese.

Scientists in California asked trained wine tasters to try eight different cheeses before presenting them with four different varieties of cheap and expensive wines.

The tasters evaluated the strength of various flavours and aromas in each wine both alone and when preceded by the cheeses. Cheese was found to curb just about everything including berry and oak flavours, sourness and astringency, making it virtually impossible to distinguish them.

Strong cheeses overpowered the flavours more than milder varieties, but flavours of all the wines were smothered, meaning there was no magical wine and cheese pairing.

Professor Hildegarde Heymann and Bernice Madrigal-Galan of the University of California in Davis, who conducted the research, found cheese only enhanced wines with a butter aroma.

They suggested this was probably because cheese itself contains the molecule responsible for the buttery wine smell.

Another theory from the research, published in New Scientist magazine today, is that fat from the cheese could coat the mouth, deadening the taster's perception of the drink's flavours.

The findings come as no surprise to both wine tasters and cheese experts who said that wine and cheese was never a natural combination.

Graham Holter, wine expert and editor of Wine and Spirit, said the trend for cheese and wine being consumed together took off in the 1970s when people copied their contemporaries in an attempt to appear cosmopolitan.

"People were trying to be chic but really it has become clear that red wine and cheese is a pretty ghastly combination which most people in the wine trade are well aware of. It is a bit like the terrible fashion for pairing chocolate with champagne.

"Some strong cheese flavours and white wines harmonise such as Jacob's Creek and cheddar. But cheese is particularly pungent and will overpower almost everything."

Mr Holter said that experts in the wine trade taste everything in isolation.

"The film Sideways set in the Napa Valley in California showed how popular wine tasting and New World wines have become. You will have noticed no food was involved."

Paul Thomas, of Iain J Mellis cheesemongers in Edinburgh, said: "This research comes as absolutely no surprise. It is actually difficult to find a wine to suit the majority of cheeses.

"The combinations I would suggest are those such as Montgomery mature cheddar and cider and Lanark Blue with Laphroaig malt whisky.

"Basically what you're looking for is something crisp like a white wine from the Loire to go with the saltiness of the cheese."

VAT Free Music Thanks To Guernsey Loophole

2006-01-18T16:31:00.000-05:00

Apple, the US computer giant, is planning to set up business on Guernsey to exploit a tax loophole that will allow it to sell VAT-free music to British consumers.

Over the past two years other retailers including Tesco, Asda, Britannia, HMV, Amazon and Woolworths have all set up delivery operations in the Channel Islands in onder to exploit a law which allows retailers outside the European Union, sell goods worth less than £17 to UK consumers free from VAT.

The 'Value Added Tax' VAT is Brittish tax for right to do business in Britain. Each year the Government sets a figure - it differs year to year - which if met by your company, you need to pay VAT. Currently it's a 17.5% surcharge for most products and services.

These fulfilment businesses have allowed retailers to sell CDs and DVDs by mail order usually for between £3 and £5 cheaper than high street shops.

Apple confirmed that it is looking at setting up a similar operation on Guernsey. This would allow it to lower the prices of music downloaded from it's popular iTunes Service from 79p, perhaps to as little as 67p.

Nick Goulding, chief executive of the Forum for Private Business, is bitter: "This is more evidence of the urgent need for Gordon Brown to end this cynical tax dodge."

Iraqi Talk Radio Showing Great Promise

2006-01-18T14:04:00.000-05:00

It is a recent afternoon in Baghdad, and a Sunni and a Shi'ite sheik are chatting in the modest Baghdad studio of Radio Dijla.

Moufaq Al-Alani, the program's 63-year-old host, waits patiently for a caller to express his views on terrorism before politely suggesting that parents and teachers teach young people to respect all Iraqis.

Qasem Al-Joubari, the Sunni sheik, says imams should emphasize that killing civilians is never acceptable for a Muslim. His Shi'ite counterpart, Mahdi El-Mohamedoui, says violence reflects poorly on both Islam and Iraq in the eyes of the world.

An engineer, turning and sliding dials on a bulky soundboard, furiously spins his right hand behind a glass partition to signal a commercial break, and a young staffer hurries into the studio with glasses of sweet black tea.

This is talk radio in Iraq.

I can only say I think this is great. It shows a willingness by Iraqis to talk things out rather than fight them out, and that is a hopeful sign not just for Iraq, but for the whole of the Arab world. A small step for man, a great leap for Muslim-kind.

Latest UN Embarrassment

2006-01-18T02:08:00.000-05:00

Backstabbing by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan reached another low-water mark late last week, as Annan worked furiously to undo European and American efforts to bring Iran before the Security Council.

Reminiscent of his 1998 comment after visiting Saddam Hussein, “I think I can do business with him,” Annan told reporters on Thursday: “I had a 40-minute conversation with Mr. [Ali] Larijani, the Iranian negotiator of the nuclear issue. ...He in turn affirmed to me that they are interested in serious and constructive negotiations...” He later explained, “the negotiations relate to the EU3,” Britain, France, and Germany.

Trouble is, that a few hours earlier the EU3 had issued a statement saying “we have decided to inform the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] Board of Governors that our discussions with Iran have reached an impasse.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had also told reporters: “The United States fully supports the decision announced today by the [E3-EU]...the basis for negotiation is no longer there, because what the Iranians did was to unilaterally destroy the basis on which the negotiations were taking place...”

Following the secretary-general’s news conference, rumor has it that France’s U.N. ambassador complained to Annan directly, but Annan was said to be livid — not at Iran — but at the criticism.

Such a reaction would be par for the course for Kofi Annan, who has done little to hide his bias. He was asked in Friday’s press briefing, “Are you indicating that perhaps it is too early for the IAEA to refer the Iranian dispute to the Security Council?” He answered: “First of all, I think we should try and resolve it, if possible, in the IAEA context. [Mohamed] ElBaradei is working with the parties, doing his best to try and resolve it there.” And he added: “I have been talking to all the parties, doing whatever I can to encourage a negotiated settlement and really keeping people at the table and trying to discourage escalation, and I will continue to do that.”

In other words, as far as Annan is concerned, the problem is not that Iran has escalated the stakes. The problem is that involvement of the Security Council, which is supposed to be the “organ bearing the main responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security,” is escalation. The U.N. chief aims to shift the dynamic from taking strong action against an Iranian madman, bent on nuclear proliferation and the obliteration of a U.N. member state, to placing roadblocks in the way of an American-driven effort to stop it.

New Term To Learn, Before It Destroys You

2006-01-18T01:45:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a new word has entered the political vocabulary: mahdaviat.

Not surprisingly, it's a religious technical term. Mahdaviat derives from mahdi, Arabic for "rightly-guided one," a major figure in Islamic eschatology. He is, explains the Encyclopaedia of Islam, "the restorer of religion and justice who will rule before the end of the world." The concept originated in the earliest years of Islam and, over time, became particularly identified with the Shi‘ite branch. Whereas "it never became an essential part of Sunni religious doctrine," continues the encyclopedia, "Belief in the coming of the Mahdi of the Family of the Prophet became a central aspect of the faith in radical Shi‘ism," where it is also known as the return of the Twelfth Imam.

Mahdaviat means "belief in and efforts to prepare for the Mahdi."

In a fine piece of reporting, Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor shows the centrality of mahdaviat in Mr. Ahmadinejad's outlook and explores its implications for his policies.

As mayor of Tehran, for example, Mr. Ahmadinejad appears to have in 2004 secretly instructed the city council to build a grand avenue to prepare for the Mahdi. A year later, as president, he allocated $17 million for a blue-tiled mosque closely associated with mahdaviat in Jamkaran, south of the capital. He has instigated the building of a direct Tehran-Jamkaran railroad line. He had a list of his proposed cabinet members dropped into a well adjacent to the Jamkaran mosque, it is said, to benefit from its purported divine connection...

Pakistan Admits Terrorist Were Killed In Strike

2006-01-18T00:46:00.000-05:00

The government of Pakistan has confirmed what had previously been reported; i.e., that four or five terrorists were killed in the Predator strike that also killed several civilians:

At least four foreign terrorists died in the U.S. airstrike purportedly aimed at al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, the provincial government said Tuesday.
Pakistani intelligence officials have said Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, had been invited to a dinner in the targeted village of Damadola to mark an Islamic holiday but did not show up and sent some aides instead.

"Four or five foreign terrorists have been killed in this missile attack whose dead bodies have been taken away by their companions to hide the real reason of the attack," the statement said, citing the chief official in the Bajur region where Damadola is located.

"It is regrettable that 18 local people lost their lives in the attack, but this fact also cannot be denied, that 10-12 foreign extremists had been invited on a dinner," it said.

The Predator strike has been widely denounced as a "botched" attempt to kill Zawahiri. It appears, on the contrary, that it was a well-executed strike that would have succeeded if Zawahiri had shown up for dinner. In addition to killing a number of aides who were evidently close to Zawahiri, the attack, which was apparently based on human intelligence, should have good effects. It presumably will arouse suspicion and confusion in al Qaeda over the identity of the informant and the depth of our penetration of the organization or its allies, and it will remind villagers in the region of the dangers involved in aiding the terrorists.

Iran Years from Nuke, U.N. Decades from Action

2006-01-18T00:34:00.000-05:00

Sometimes satire is so real as to be almost un-recognizable.

Although Iran’s nuclear weapons engineers could take years to deploy a working missile, experts agree they could do so, “even if they weren’t really trying”, before the United Nations could deploy an enforceable resolution to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“The U.N. is still in the early stages of developing effective diplomatic measures,” said an unnamed U.N. spokesman, “We have the rudiments of the technology. We gather. We enjoy fine food and wine. We talk. We write. We dress well. But it will take a long time to agree upon a Security Council resolution condemning Iran. And only then does the 12-year enforcement clock start ticking.”

According to the most recent estimates, by the time the U.N. decides to enforce any resolution, the Iranian Council of Guardians — composed of Muslim clerics and legal scholars — will have a panel of glowing red buttons before them labeled Jerusalem, Paris, London, Berlin, Washington D.C., Moscow, Beijing and U.N. HQ.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Europe, the U.S. and Israel to have patience with Iran, calling the likelihood of a nuclear missile launch from the Islamic republic, “remote…a one-in-a-dozen chance.”

“But if we impose sanctions, like cutting off Iran’s foreign oil sales,” Mr. Annan said, “It will just drive up the cost of gas at the pump, and we all know what a political bombshell that can be.”

UN Proving They're Captain Yesterday

2006-01-17T18:19:00.000-05:00

UN calls for rapid reaction force for Darfour in Sudan. Wow, only a few years too late for a rapid force. Maybe if they would have called for this in the 90's it could be effective in preventing the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent Christians. Now there just ensuring that Muslim rule goes off without a hitch.

The United Nations wants to organize a Western-equipped rapid response force in Sudan.

Western diplomatic sources said the proposed force would take over the African Union peace-keeping mission in Sudan's Darfour province. They said the AU, whose mandate ends on March 31, has failed to obtain the funding and troops required to continue its presence in the war-torn region.

"We have already considered what the options are, and there are no decisions made, but it is very actively under consideration," U.S. envoy to the UN John Bolton said.

[On Saturday, Sudan rejected any proposal to deploy Western troops in Darfour, Middle East Newsline reported. Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol Ajawin said the AU has not approved any UN involvement in the peace-keeping effort in the province.]

UN officials, acknowledging that international efforts to halt the war in Darfour have failed, envision a 20,000-member rapid-response force. They said such a force, equipped with helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, must prevent Sudan's military and Janjaweed militia from continuing ethnic cleansing in Darfour.

"Many areas have been cleansed," UN envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk said. "They [Janjaweed] have free passage in the countryside. Millions of villagers sitting in camps are too afraid to leave. Terror continues."

Pronk told a briefing on Jan. 13 that up to 1,000 Janjaweed fighters attack villages on a monthly basis. He said dozens of people are killed in these attacks.

UN secretary-general Kofi Annan said the proposed rapid-response force would have superior capabilities to the AU unit. Annan said the UN force would be mobile and contain tactical air support.

"The force has to be mobile, has to have tactical air support, must have helicopters and the ability to respond very quickly," Annan said. "It would need very sophisticated equipment, [and] logistical support."

Annan said the UN mission must be approved by Khartoum. He said the UN would seek to convince Sudanese President Omar Bashir that the Darfour mission must contain troops from outside Africa.

"We need to get the government to work with us in bringing in an expanded force with troops from outside Africa, because until recently it has maintained that it will only accept African troops," Annan said. "But I think we have gone beyond that now."

Good luck convincing the architect of Christian genocide to accept any kind of non-ideological based forces.

800 Americans killed defending Iraq's border with Syria

2006-01-17T18:13:00.000-05:00

The evil 'occupational forces of neo-colonialism" protecting Iraq Sovereignty.

Thousands of U.S. troops have been deployed along the border with Syria since 2004, in an attempt to halt the flow of Sunni insurgents into Iraq.

"Iraqi army and border elements have reestablished presence on the Syrian border," Lt. Gen. John Vines, commander of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, said on Jan. 13. "Unfortunately, all of this has been accomplished at a terrible price."

Vines said more than 800 U.S. and other coalition soldiers have been killed in the effort to control the Syrian border. The general said Iraq sustained more than twice the number of casualties.

U.S. officials said that over the last year U.S. Marines and special forces units have been patrolling the 600-kilometer Iraqi-Syrian border. They said the units have been allowed to fire into Syria as part of their effort to stop the influx of Sunni insurgents into Iraq.

"The troops are allowed to fire over the border to stop the insurgents from entering Iraq," an official said. "There have not been any directives that would allow ground troops to enter Syria."

Most of the time, Syrian troops refused to respond to U.S. fire, officials said. The exception was in July 2005, when several Syrians were killed in a battle with U.S. Army Rangers along the border area. Later, Syria relayed a protest to the U.S. embassy in Damascus.

Officials said the U.S. deployment along the Syrian border has slowed down the influx of insurgents into Iraq. They said the U.S. presence has been bolstered by an increasing number of trained Iraq Army units.

U.S. military pressure on Syria began in 2004. Officials said the military conducted intelligence missions in Syria. In other cases, U.S. helicopters and troops punched into Syria in an effort to capture insurgents.

At the same time, the Defense Department recommended that additional measures be taken to eliminate Sunni insurgency strongholds in Syria. In October 2005, the White House discussed the use of special operations forces for missions in Syria.

No decision was taken, officials said. They said the administration did not want to widen the war in Iraq.

Still, the U.S. military was said to have seized the initiative against Al Qaida and other Sunni strongholds along the Syrian border. They said about 10 operations from May to December 2005 dismantled numerous cells and killed hundreds of fighters in western Iraq.

"Many of them are dead," Vines said. "There are a fair number of indicators that tell us currently Al Qaida in Iraq is in disarray. Does it have the capability to regenerate? Unfortunately, it could. But we must keep the pressure on."

Meanwhile, the U.S. military has launched an effort to enhance the skills of Iraqi police deployed near the Syrian border.

The U.S. military has brought hundreds of Iraqi police cadets from Anbar for training in Baghdad. The training was meant to last eight weeks in an effort to improve the counter-insurgency skills of Iraqi security forces in the most violence province in the country.

"The training of Iraqi police has been deemed a priority in 2006," a U.S. official said. "We are sending thousands of advisers to train and mentor everything from civilian to special force police units."

In all, 400 Iraqi police cadets left the Anbar capital of Ramadi for Baghdad on Jan. 13. About half of the police recruits were from Qaim, located near the Syrian border and regarded as a major stronghold of the Sunni insurgency.

Mexico's Military Invading US

2006-01-17T17:10:00.000-05:00

The U.S. Border Patrol has warned agents in Arizona of incursions into the United States by Mexican soldiers "trained to escape, evade and counterambush" if detected -- a scenario Mexico denied yesterday.

The warning to Border Patrol agents in Tucson, Ariz., comes after increased sightings of what authorities described as heavily armed Mexican military units on the U.S. side of the border. The warning asks the agents to report the size, activity, location, time and equipment of any units observed.

It also cautions agents to keep "a low profile," to use "cover and concealment" in approaching the Mexican units, to employ "shadows and camouflage" to conceal themselves and to "stay as quiet as possible."

Border Patrol spokesman Salvador Zamora confirmed that a "military incursion" warning was given to Tucson agents, but said it was designed to inform them how to react to any sightings of military and foreign police in this country and how to properly document any incursion.

T.J. Bonner, a 27-year Border Patrol veteran who heads the National Border Patrol Council said "Intrusions by the Mexican military to protect drug loads happen all the time and represent a significant threat to the agents.

"Why else would they be in the area, firing at federal agents in the United States? There is no other explanation," said Mr. Bonner, whose organization represents all 10,000 of the nonsupervisory Border Patrol agents.

He also challenged reports that Mexican military units had crossed mistakenly into the United States, saying, "Every country's military has a [global positioning system] nowadays, including the Mexicans.

"If the border is so poorly marked, why don't the thousands of Border Patrol agents working 24/7 along it ever seem to get lost, and none of us have been issued a GPS," he said.

A total of 216 incursions by suspected Mexican military units have been documented since 1996 -- 75 in California, 63 in Arizona and 78 in Texas, according to a Department of Homeland Security report.

Attacks on Border Patrol agents in the past few years have been attributed to current or former Mexican military personnel. U.S. law-enforcement officials have long thought that current and former Mexican soldiers are being paid to protect drug shipments bound for the United States.
Several agents said the attacks have escalated in the past two years as U.S. security efforts on the border have increased -- including the July shooting of two agents in an ambush near Nogales, Ariz., by assailants in black commando-type clothing, who fired more than 50 rounds. Authorities said the gunmen used military-style cover-and-concealment tactics to escape back into Mexico. No one has been arrested.

Santa Cruz County, Ariz., Sheriff Tony Estrada said that at least four shooters were involved and that his deputies found commando clothing, food, water and other "sophisticated equipment" at the site.

Several former Mexican soldiers trained in the U.S. as anti-drug commandos are now part of a well-armed gang known as the "Zetas," which has been linked to hundreds of killings and kidnappings on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border in southeastern Texas. Many of the gang members have been identified as ex-members of an elite, anti-drug paratroop and intelligence battalion called the Special Air Mobile Force Group, who deserted in 1991.

Stunning Developements Againt The Fight Againt Urbal Sprawl

2006-01-17T16:21:00.000-05:00

Oregon has done it, and now Washington State is flolowing suite on their strike againg urban planning. I'm speaking of Measure 37.

Under Oregon's Measure 37, any person or developer who owns land can say, "I'd like to build a subdivision or strip mall, but laws say I can't, so let me build or pay me off."

That person or corporation files a claim and you, the taxpayers, have to (a) write a fat check or (b) exempt them from the law and let them build whatever they want.

Citizens in Oregon weren't told before they voted on Measure 37 that they'd be gutting their ability to control suburban sprawl, to protect farmlands and forests from being paved over. They also weren't told the price tag for all these claims: 2,500 filed so far.

Now farmers and others who voted for the initiative are seeing the truth: unlimited sprawl, a nightmare of red tape and a blank check taxpayers are forced to sign.

This radical Oregon initiative turned everything know about land planning upside down.

Two people filed a claim for a 1 million-square-foot mall and 17 homes on farm and forest land. The Polk County Board of Commissioners approved the claim. It's not like they have a choice -- it's either approve it or bankrupt the county by paying millions for every claim like this.

Cities and counties protect their citizens by planning for growth. It costs you a lot of money to build water pipes, roads, sidewalks and such. Sub-urban sprawl hits taxpayers in the pocketbook because the more spread out you are, the greater the infastructure requirements, the bigger the bills for such services as water, police and firefighters.

Plus comon sense decision like building prisons or chemical plants next to schools. You don't to put a landfill or strip mall just any old place. You don't put a Wal-Mart in a wheat field serviced by a two-lane county road.

A judge in Oregon did rule Measure 37 unconstitutional, saying it created huge loopholes for a privileged few to exploit and violated safeguards for the health and safety of citizens. Not all property owners can file claims. Only a privileged few, the elite, those who've owned land before land-use laws passed, get to file claims.

But this idea has enough money behind it, from developers and timber companies, to keep it in the courts with the best lawyers money can buy. Meanwhile, the claims keep piling up.

This idea was sold to citizens as a reform to help underdogs, but it's just another trick that lines the pockets of the fat cats at the expense of the taxpayer.

Another Lie Againt America Perpetrated By The Media

2006-01-17T14:22:00.000-05:00

The New York Times is accused of running a staged photograph of 'beleaguered' Pakistanis standing with a missile in the midst of their damaged home after a U.S. predator-drone attack aimed at al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The problem is the 'missile' actually is an old, unexploded artillery shell, possibly with its fuse intact.

While they have corrected the title to say "It was not the remains of a missile fired at a house" it only goes to show that the media is all too eager to perpetrate lies throughout the world media in their all out effort to make the US look bad by any means.

The old artillery shell "must have been found elsewhere and posed with the ruins and the little boy as a means at pulling of the heartstrings of the gullible readers of the New York Times."

Pakistani officials addmitted today "four or five foreign terrorists" were killed in the U.S. strike.

Mutch like the Koran flushing incident, facts don't matter. It only matters how to make it LOOK bad for the US. Maybe if the resorted to reporting facts instead of un-substantiated propaganda, the worls wouldn't hate the US so much.

But I'm afraid the media in America has become an echo chamber of the liberal elitist. Bound and determined to shape the world to their view of Eutopia. Eutopia where you will be jailed for wearing a tee shirt yet somehow supposed to have freedom. Where its okay to muder a child so long as it's still in utero but to kill an animal is criminal.

America is spiraling down to anarcy. Where do as I say not as I do is the de-facto standard. Where a mayor can proudly proclaim the city to be 'chocolate' but in the same speach blame white people for not helping enough. Far be it from me to point fingers, but if the mayor of my town said he wanted my people to be dis-empowered, so that the black people could be held on high, I'd leave taking my money, jobs with me.

Don't get pissed when you reap what you sew.

Europeans Proving Anti-Competive, Violent

2006-01-17T13:31:00.000-05:00

Police in Strasbourg have used tear gas and water cannon to disperse dock workers who marched to the European Parliament in a mass protest.

The dockers, from across the EU, had converged on Strasbourg to protest at controversial proposals to open up port services to greater competition.

The EU's Port Package II proposals will be debated in Strasbourg on Tuesday, with a vote expected on Wednesday.

The dockers fear they could lose their jobs if port services are liberalised - as the proposals recommend - allowing private contractors or ships' crews to unload freight, for example, or to pilot ships into port.

The European Parliament rejected a similar bill three years ago and analysts say MEPs are expected to do so again this week.

Around 6,000 protesters are reported to have joined the march in Strasbourg although police said only a few hundred turned violent.

The BBC's Alix Kroeger, at the European Parliament building, said it was a strong confrontation between police and protesters.

She said the dockers beat drums and chanted slogans, then began throwing stones, firecrackers and canisters that gave off clouds of coloured smoke. The police fired tear gas and water cannon.
At least 13 dockers were arrested and 12 policemen injured. A parliament spokesman said the protests had caused "considerable damage", running into hundreds of thousands of euros.

Belgian docker Christian Lubpen said he was protesting as greater competition would mean more cheap foreign labour being brought into the docks to save costs.

"We go to school to learn our job and it's a dangerous job too - we work with tall cranes," he said. "And now, to reduce the costs, they want to take people from other countries and we don't want that."

MEP Alyn Smyth, who watched the violence from his seventh floor office in the parliament building, criticised the dockers "for picking a fight with the one EU institution which will help them".

"I condemn the actions of a minority of these dock workers," he said. "The majority were protesting peacefully, as is their right, but a fair number were up for a fight and they came prepared with rockets, distress flares and other fireworks."

Among the main ports affected by the strike action are Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Antwerp in Belgium and Le Havre in France.

Pascal Galeote, deputy head of Marseille port's branch of the CGT union, said: "The commercial activities of the Autonomous Port of Marseille (PAM), in Marseille and Fos-sur-Mer, are completely stopped.

"All activities - handling, operating, naval repairs and oil are blocked."

Michel Delebarre, the mayor of Dunkirk who also represents the town in parliament, said: "The [EU] directive opens ports up to the most absurd free market ideology. A port isn't a self-service where each ship turns up with its own rules."

In Belgium, a union spokeswoman said: "The strike is total. Nothing is happening in Belgian ports."

10,000 Storm Troopers Descend On Chinese Town

2006-01-17T13:02:00.000-05:00

A week of protests by residents of a town in China's southern industrial heartland exploded into violence last weekend with thousands of police officers brandishing automatic weapons and using electric batons to put down the protest and seal off the village, residents said Monday.

In Panlong village, about an hour's drive from the capital of Guangdong Province, residents said that as many as 60 people were hurt and that at least one person - a 13-year-old girl - was killed by security forces. The police denied any responsibility, saying the girl died of a heart attack.

Residents said that police officers had chased and beaten protesters and bystanders alike, and that locals had retaliated by smashing police cars and mounting hit-and-run attacks, throwing rocks at the security forces.

The clash in Panlong was the second time in a month that large numbers of security forces, including paramilitary troops, were deployed to put down a Chinese demonstration.

The protests coincided with a reported visit to the area by the North Korean president, Kim Jong Il. The secretive leader's visit, though never publicly confirmed by Beijing, was widely rumored, and some residents said it may have contributed to the nervousness of the security forces.

"The police arrived at 8 p.m. and then started beating people from 9 p.m., trying to disperse the crowd," said a schoolteacher who spoke by telephone, giving her name only as Yang. "When this happened, the crowd got very angry and lots of people picked up stones on the ground and threw them at the policemen. After being attacked, policemen were furious, they just beat up every one, using their batons."

The teacher was talking about Saturday night, the sixth day of protests in the area. Villagers said the demonstrations had begun as silent sit-ins, but grew more boisterous by the day as more and more people joined in. Eventually, they said, as many as 10,000 police officers were deployed, roughly twice the number of protesters at the peak of the demonstrations.

In December, in a protest in the nearby town of Dongzhou, residents said as many as 30 people were killed when security forces opened fire on villagers massed in demonstration against the construction of a coal-fired power plant in their midst. The provincial authorities have acknowledged three deaths, but blamed the villagers for attacking the police.

Unlike the events at Dongzhou, an out-of-the-way fishing village, the latest confrontation between villagers and a large-scale deployment of security forces occurred in rural enclaves in the midst of some of China's biggest and fastest-growing industrial cities.

Demonstrating residents of Panlong village said their anger had been sparked by a government land acquisition program they had been led to believe in 2003 was part of a construction project to build a superhighway to connect the nearby city of Zhuhai with Beijing. Later, the villagers learned the land was in fact being resold to developers to set up special chemical and garment-making industrial zones in the area.

TV Set Calls Air Force For Rescue

2006-01-16T14:19:00.000-05:00

A faulty digital television receiver has sparked a helicopter rescue mission after sending out a rogue distress signal, Britain's Royal Air Force said yesterday.

The "freeview" box, which normally allows television viewers access to dozens of digital TV and radio channels via a standard rooftop aerial, sent out a signal identical to that for emergency beacons at sea.

The SOS, beamed from Portsmouth, on England's south coast, was picked up by a satellite and sent to the RAF's Aeronautical Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Kinloss, northeast Scotland, in the early hours of January 5.

Personnel then alerted English coastguards, who sent a helicopter to investigate. The aircraft spent two fruitless hours flying over Portsmouth Harbour looking for stricken sailors until the signal was traced to dry land.

RAF spokesman Michael Mulford said: "Our Kinloss rescue centre picked up this beacon from one of five orbiting satellites listening out for these things.

"It was a 121.5 transmission - that's the major emergency frequency, a 'Mayday'. We traced it to Portsmouth Harbour, checked and found out there were no vessels in the area or missing planes.

"We checked with (British telecoms watchdog) Ofcom and they quickly established it was coming from a household. It turned out to be a faulty 'freeview' box.

"This is very very unusual, it's a complete freak and the odds of a digibox sending out a 121.5 signal must be astronomical."

Ofcom described the incident as a "real one-off" as digital boxes should only receive and not send signals.

"The householder was happy to hand it over to our engineers who are trying to get to the bottom of the defect," a spokesman said.