Wednesday - February 10, 2010
weather, or not
9pm: The snow seems to be changing to rain. It’s just over the freezing point right now, and the precip has become very fine. It feels more like rain, or very, very fine ice. So we’ll get a nice crust on the snow if it gets colder later on. Or we’ll just get heavy, back breaking slop if it stays warm, as predicted. Heavy snow that starts to melt before the storm is over: welcome to New Jersey.
Posted by Drew458
on 02/10/2010 at 09:13 PM
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Permalink • Winter Goodies
A found a nice jar of brandied mincemeat in the back of the closet. Mincemeat has no meat in it; it’s mostly apples and raisins preserved in a dark syrup. I was going to use it at Christmas, but never got to it. So I’ll do it tonight.
my mom’s recipe for mincemeat bars
1 package or jar mince meat
3/4 cup vegetable shortening ( Crisco )
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup molasses
1 1/2 cup sifted flour
2 cups quick cooking oats ( not instant )
3/4 teaspoon salt
cream shortening, add sugar gradually and beat until fluffy. Add molasses, then beat in dry ingredients. Mix well. Roll the mixture into a ball and cut it in half.Spread 1/2 of oatmeal mixture over 9x13 greased pan & press firmly. (either roll it out with a rolling pin, or squish it flat in the pan by hand. It will just cover the bottom.) Spread mincemeat over oatmeal mix, then spread other 1/2 oatmeal mix over mince meat, press down. (I broke the top half into little crumbs and sprinkled them around evenly, then pressed them in)
350 F oven 30 to 40 minutes. Let stand until cold. Cut in strips. Store in wax paper in covered box. Will keep a week or longer (ha, ha) Dust with confectioners sugar if you have some.
I think I can add some of that Kirschwasser orange brandy to the mix (2 ounces) if I add a little more sugar, flour, oatmeal to keep the moisture level right. I added a rounded tbs of each. That orange brandy is unusual stuff, but it gives you a good hit on an empty stomach!
These things are great. It’s the taste of the holidays for me. That, and rum balls. “(ha, ha)” she writes - because in 50 years we have never once had a batch last long enough to go stale. It’s a very easy recipe you can make with your kids. Just don’t forget to butter the pan generously first.
The kirchwasser was a perfect idea. It adds a nice orange flavor, and intensifies the brandy undertone. As you can see, a certain observer to the whole process snuck a sample before I could get the camera. They didn’t even get a chance to cool off fully. Verdict: yum. I think they might need a day to firm up. They’re a little softer than I wanted. They came out of the oven at 40 minutes. Perhaps another handful of oatmeal would have been justified.
Posted by Drew458
on 02/10/2010 at 06:27 PM
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Permalink • Not an emergency, but
Ok, we’re having the Big Snow now. No wind yet, but it’s coming down. It started snowing at some point overnight, but what came down then was very very fine. Now the temperature has dropped, the flakes are big and sticky, and the clouds have unzipped. It’s piling up rapidly.
I was a smart camper and went to the store last night, so we have plenty of everything. Almost. Guess I wasn’t so smart after all.
I just found out that we’re almost out of toilet paper.
D’oh!!
many hours later ...
Ok, problem solved. Went out in the weather, dug out the car, and toodled off to the store. Time to reheat the pork roast and have some dinner. It’s still snowing pretty hard. We’ve got at least 8” at this point, maybe 10”. Either way, that’s more than a foot on the ground. I know, I know, that’s nothing compared to many other areas. But this is New Jersey. Snow usually comes in 3” servings maybe 3 or 4 times a season, and melts away in a couple days.
I think Al Gore is staying at the Marriot Hotel down the road. Fargin’ Bastige.
Posted by Drew458
on 02/10/2010 at 12:15 PM
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Permalink • Tuesday - February 09, 2010
Early Valentine’s Freebie
I snagged this one from over at the Barn Army Headquarters today. Pasted it up as wallpaper on the old PC. Wife comes upstairs while telling me about the daily dramas at her office
... and this stopped her dead in her tracks. At which point the squealing started. We’re talking DefCon 3 levels of cuteness here.
Posted by Drew458
on 02/09/2010 at 11:58 PM
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Permalink • hookie the homless hater
Legal aid bosses have seized the house belonging to radical cleric Abu Hamza to pay off some of his defence costs.
The Legal Services Commission appropriated the property in Greenford, west London, despite Hamza claiming it did not belong to him.
It will now be sold in an attempt to pay off some of the £300,000 of taxpayers’ money spent on his legal bills. Officials hope to raise £280,000 from the sale.
Hook-handed Hamza, 51, is in jail as he attempts to fight extradition to the U.S. on terror charges at the European Court of Human Rights.
He is also appealing against the Home Secretary’s decision to strip him of his U.K. passport.
The Egyptian national was jailed for seven years in February 2007 for inciting murder and stirring up racial hatred.
Carolyn Regan, chief executive of the Legal Services Commission, said: ‘The LSC can confirm it has taken possession of Abu Hamza’s property, as a contribution to recovering the legal aid costs spent on his defence.
‘The LSC will not tolerate people trying to conceal their financial assets in an attempt to have their defence costs paid for by the taxpayer.Hamza secretly bought the four-bedroom semi as a buy-to-let investment for £220,000 cash while in prison in 2006.
His family, meanwhile, has been living in a £600,000 council house provided by the taxpayer while claiming benefits. One of their neighbours is Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, the Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport.
behind these way cool combination rain goggles, sunglasses, and radiation shields
Ahmadumbjihad sheds tears of pity for Hookie’s plight and vows revenge
Just slightly off topic: I think we have a new iconic photo of Achmed’s Dinner Jacket here. It’s right up there with J F’ing Kerry in the NASA bunny suite, and “eyebrows” Dukakis in the tank. They all speak the same message: LOSER.
Posted by Drew458
on 02/09/2010 at 11:36 PM
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Permalink • Signs, signs, everywhere there’s signs
NOAA: Blizzard Rearranges Climate Change Announcement As D.C. continued to dig out from Snowmageddon and is keeping an eye on another storm system, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was busy making a climate change announcement.
NOAA, part of the Department of Commerce, is going to be providing information to individuals and decision-makers through a new NOAA Climate Service office. “More and more, Americans are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards, including sea-level rise, longer growing seasons, changes in river flows, increases in heavy downpours, earlier snowmelt and extended ice-free seasons in our waters. People are searching for relevant and timely information about these changes to inform decision-making about virtually all aspects of their lives,” the release says.
Earlier snowmelt? That would be nice.
Turns out the release was planned prepared ahead of the snowstorm, which shut federal agencies today and forced its senders to hold a press conference by telephone instead of at the National Press Club.
It’s not the first time inclement weather has put a chill on official efforts to tackle climate change. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to leave the Copenhagen summit early in December to get back to D.C. before the blizzard known as Snowpocalypse grounded all flights.
Uh huh.
Yep, another walloper is on the way. The Chicken Little Weather Service is saying we could get a foot here. We got 6” the other day, and somehow most of it has evaporated already. Beats me how, since it hasn’t gone above freezing the whole time. Whatever. Guess I’d better go to the store and get a bit of this and that, just in case they under-predict the storm by some miracle.
I just hope Al Gore isn’t anywhere near where I live today. I checked his website but it doesn’t tell me. It does rave on and on about the very first consumer carbon credit being sold. And at a “profit” no less!
The Pennsylvania couple have sold the world’s first carbon credit awarded for a reduction in personal carbon emissions. About 1,800 others have signed up to follow suit - underlining the US public’s readiness to press ahead on the issue.
The Wilsons began by getting rid of their son’s heated water bed, turning off power to computers and televisions when not in use, changing to energy-efficient light bulbs, hang-drying their laundry and, finally, investing $58,000 (€42,000 £37,000) in a solar panel system - until they reduced their electricity bill to zero.
Then they signed up on the MyEmissionsExchange. com site to have their energy savings calculated. They found that they had already saved one tonne of carbon, which earned them a carbon credit. The exchange sold the credit for $21.50 to Molten Metal Equipment Innovations of Ohio, taking a 20 per cent commission.
So they made a profit of $3.58 on an investment of $58,000. Way to go! Obviously beneficiaries of a government education.
If any readers would like to participate in the global carbon credits scam, you can go to myeex.com and they will set you up. All you have to do is fill out some forms and then mail them all your bills, and in a couple months you too could be earning a few extra bucks. Don’t worry, I’m sure your billing information is perfectly safe. Right.
Oh, and that NOAA announcement? What else? They’re going to EXPAND GOVERNMENT to create a new office that will function as a clearing house for climate change data. Yeah, I’ll trust that one. Send all the data to the government (will Hansen be in charge???) and let them distribute it as they see fit.
Commerce Department Proposes Establishment of NOAA Climate Service
New office would target nation’s fast-accelerating climate information needs
NOAA launches http://www.climate.gov as portal for climate science and servicesFebruary 8, 2010
Individuals and decision-makers across widely diverse sectors – from agriculture to energy to transportation – increasingly are asking NOAA for information about climate change in order to make the best choices for their families, communities and businesses. To meet the rising tide of these requests, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced the intent to create a NOAA Climate Service line office dedicated to bringing together the agency’s strong climate science and service delivery capabilities.
Posted by Drew458
on 02/09/2010 at 01:30 PM
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Permalink • One of the country’s most senior police officers, a ‘criminal in uniform’, is jailed
All in the name of diversity and political correctness and a FEAR of being called racist, the dept. advanced a totally crooked cop, a disgrace to the uniform and the service. This was an officer who came very close to becoming England’s top cop.
He has been investagated over a period of years and every time has beaten off his accusers by using the race card.
He has even brought official charges against superiors using race discrimination.
The force was afraid. How fuckin pathetic. He is Iranian born .... he isn’t black but was head of the black officer’s assoc. ?
He is sitting on a possible million pound retirement pension.
He was promoted to commander, equivalent in rank to a provincial assistant chief constable, despite performing poorly in interview and Yard chiefs being warned by the Serious Organised Crime Agency of concerns about his conduct.
Police authority officials had wanted to sack him in a fast-track process last spring but backed down amid fears he would sue for racism - allowing the £90,000-a-year officer to stay suspended on full pay for a further nine months.
‘He knew where he could push the boundaries, and how to use the Met’s fears of appearing racist to make it difficult to investigate him,
Wiretaps revealed unauthorised links with a number of foreign embassies.
His bosses limply played along as he shamelessly played the race card . . .
Further diplomatic concerns touched directly on national security.
He had contacts with senior staff in the Iranian Embassy and sometimes drove a Liberian Embassy car with diplomatic plates.
He dominated and poisoned race relations within the Metropolitan Police.
His public face was that of human rights champion and defender of fellow ethnic-minority officers against prejudiced white colleagues. Dizaei felt their pain. After all, wasn’t he the most unfairly persecuted ‘black’ policeman of them all?
In fact, he was simply a self-serving crook; clever conman, bully, playboy, womanising misogynist, serial litigant and liar, who hijacked the issue of race and used it for his own ends.
Under his presidency the National Black Police Association became a useful tool against those who dared cross him.
One of the most telling moments in his trial was a witness’s account of how the ‘Teflon Commander’ had shouted at him: ‘Do you know who I am? I’m Ali Dizaei. Back off!’
And back off they did, shamefully. Successive Met commissioners, home secretaries and independent police watchdogs were too nervous to take him on because of the race storm he would invoke.
Dizaei grew up in Tehran, where his father and grandfather were both senior police commanders. At ten he was sent to boarding school in England, later studied law and in 1986 joined Thames Valley Police.
He was fast-tracked through the junior ranks but his abrasive personality, self-promotion and readiness to find offence were already an issue with colleagues and public alike.
In 1999 he applied to become a superintendent in the neighbouring Metropolitan Police. Britain’s biggest force was in turmoil, damned as ‘institutionally racist’ by the Macpherson Report into the bungled investigation of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence by a gang of white thugs.
The Met needed more senior black officers. Dizaei was accepted even though Deputy Assistant Commissioner Barbara Wilding described him after his interview as the most rude and arrogant man she had ever met.
Alas, Commissioner Sir Paul Condon was in no position to be choosy. Dizaei, with a PhD newly awarded for a thesis ‘The Thin Black Line’ on - yes - police racism, was in.
Once, when he was questioned by a senior white colleague, he replied: ‘You can’t tell me what to do.’ ‘But I’m your boss,’ said the startled superior.
‘I have only one boss and that is Allah,’ snapped Dizaei, piously.
When a women he was dating discovered he was married and tried to break with him, police recorded this exchange, and this is not even the half of it.
‘You want war, bitch, you’re going to get some war. You will see now what I can do so you will cry for years. First I will start with your family, then I come to you and your reputation. I will spread all over London that you are a prostitute.’
You ain’t read nothin’ yet. Here’s MORE A LOT MORE.
Posted by peiper
on 02/09/2010 at 12:59 PM
Filed Under: • Crime • Corruption and Greed • UK •
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Permalink • Citizenship Blues
While Peiper fights the system trying to get his papers in order so he and his wife can come back to the US, this woman has it far worse. Her grandfather was an American, her father is an American, and she has lived her live believing she also holds citizenship. She even had a US passport. Now the State Department says “oops, sorry, we made a mistake”.
Bulgarian-born Niles woman, bestowed U.S. citizenship in 1981, struggles against sea of bureaucratic red tape while worrying she could be deported
Angela Boneva always thought she was an American, never imagining that valued piece of her identity could be stripped away.
Because her father was born in Indiana, an American consulate in Bulgaria bestowed U.S. citizenship on Boneva when she was growing up there in 1981. It granted Boneva privileges unavailable to her Bulgarian friends, allowing her to visit relatives in Chicago and then to move to the area in 1997.
Boneva, now 34 and a married mother, settled into a quiet American lifestyle in Niles — until the day a letter arrived from the U.S. State Department, upending her world. In six indifferently worded paragraphs it said, in effect: There was a mistake. You’re not an American.
Boneva’s situation also illustrates the sometimes dizzying, kaleidoscopic nature of the U.S. immigration system. While the U.S. has welcomed new arrivals for generations, critics of the current system say that overlapping bureaucracies and conflicting rules can lead to unimagined outcomes and complications, especially in an era of heightened national security concerns.
After she sought to renew her U.S. passport in 2003, the State Department informed her that a consular employee’s decision to give her citizenship in 1981 broke a rule dictating that her father had to have lived in the U.S. for 10 years before she was born. His time in the U.S. before moving to Bulgaria totaled only six years.
But the letter pointed out, that same residency requirement was reduced in 1986 to five years, so someone in her position would be eligible for citizenship today — though not her.
Boneva received a form letter in 2003 saying “it does not appear” that she qualifies as a citizen anymore. She has made repeated but vain attempts to get a definitive answer from U.S. authorities.
Though frustrating, the experience at least has helped Boneva discover some lost family history — in the Midwest and in Bulgaria.
Digging through old records to show U.S. officials, she learned of her family’s late 19th century roots in Akron, Ohio. Boneva’s grandfather Pete Boneff was born there in 1895
Gosh, you mean that the State Department actually analyzes claims of bestowed citizenship under the laws applicable at the time? And in 1981 one of her parents had to be a citizen for 10 years before the golden aegis could be passed along? Will wonders never cease.
What about the laws that were in place in 1961? Wasn’t the rule 19 years back then?
Posted by Drew458
on 02/09/2010 at 12:54 PM
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Permalink • THERE ARE 8 BILLION, COUNT EM, EIGHT BILLION SHORT SELLERS ON THE EURO …..
Do you suppose some folks just happen to know something?
H/T Rich K for emailing me the article from the Telegraph.
I read papers but ... (Drew, where do I get a shamed face avitar for this?) [ Drew: um, like 
this? ] I hardly ever read the financials. It’s my wife who reads the business section.
She it is who informed me about the short sellers.
This is some serious stuff I guess. ?? What the hell do I know? What? Me Worry?
I just need to know how the Q’s are running (QQQQ) the tech index. Buy at the lo and sell later. Or use em for covered calls. Outside of that, I didn’t even know there was a banking crises till I read it on BMEWS one day. lol.
OTOH ..... What Rich sent sure did stir up things a bit. Everything is so connected. But guess what? It was the same in the 1920s.
SUPER book called LORDS of FINANCE. Very fast read and not overly tech heavy.
And BTW ... oh boy do we know about margin calls. Been there and don’t ever want to revisit that country.
Greek Ouzo crisis escalates into global margin call as confidence ebbsFor the third time in 18 months the global financial system risks spinning out of control unless political leaders take immediate and radical action.
By Ambrose Evans-PritchardFlow data shows an abrupt withdrawal of German and Asian capital from Club Med debt markets. The EU’s refusal to offer Greece anything beyond stern words and a one-month deadline for harsher austerity – while admirable in one sense – is to misjudge how fast confidence is ebbing. Greece’s drama has already metastasised into a wider systemic crisis. The world risks a replay of the Lehman collapse if this runs unchecked, this time involving sovereign dominoes.
Barclays Capital says the net external liabilities of Greece are 87pc of GDP, or €208bn (£182bn). Spain is worse at 91pc (€950bn), and Portugal worse yet at 108pc (€177bn); Ireland is 68pc (€123bn), Italy is 23pc, (€347bn). Add East Europe’s bubble and foreign debts top €2 trillion.
The scale matches America’s sub-prime/Alt-A adventure and assorted CDOs and SIVS of the Greenspan fling. The parallels are closer than Europe cares to admit. Just as Benelux funds and German Landesbanken bought subprime debt for high yield with AAA gloss, they bought Spanish Cedulas because these too had a safe gloss – even though Spain’s property boom broke world records. They thought EMU had eliminated risk: it merely switched exchange risk into credit risk.
THE REST OF THE ARTICLE IS HERE
AND THERE’S THIS BIT FROM ANOTHER PAGE , SAME PAPER.
Naturally, I see the name Soros and it’s akin to waving a Nazi flag at a BarMitzvah.
First the hedge fund manager, Jim Rogers, co-founder with George Soros of the Quantum Fund, says “sell any sterling you might have. It’s finished”. Then along comes another veteran of the hedge fund scene, Bill Gross of Pimco, to insist that “the UK is a must avoid. Its gilts are resting on a bed of nitroglycerine”.
Posted by peiper
on 02/09/2010 at 10:20 AM
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Permalink • HEY THERE BMEWS …. THINK THIS JOKE IS FUNNY?
“A man walked into a Dublin bar and saw a friend sitting with an empty glass.
‘Paddy can I buy you another’, he asked, to which Paddy replied - ‘now what would I be wanting with another empty glass?”
IF YOU THINK IT’S FUNNY AND YOU TELL THAT JOKE TO SOME IRISHMEN HERE ON THIS SIDE OF THE ATLANTIC .....
Councillor ordered to pay compensation for ‘racist’ jokeA Conservative councillor has been ordered to pay compensation to a union rep after telling a “racist” joke about a dim-witted Irishman.
By Nick Britten
Cllr Ken Bamber, who sits on Medway Council in Kent, was chatting with Brian Kelly, a Unison rep, when he made the joke.
He told Mr Kelly: “A man walked into a Dublin bar and saw a friend sitting with an empty glass. ‘Paddy can I buy you another’, he asked, to which Paddy replied - ‘now what would I be wanting with another empty glass?”
Mr Kelly, who was born in Ireland, said Cllr Barber had used the word “Paddy” offensively and was being “racist with intent”.
He lodged an official complaint and took the matter to an employment tribunal, which referred the case to the conciliation service Acas.
Mr Kelly is believed to have been awarded several thousand pounds compensation, some from the council and some from Cllr Bamber.
Cllr Bamber, 79, said that although the judgement had taken “a long, long time” it had not affected his job.
The councillor, who chairs the business support overview and scrutiny committee and sits on five other committees, said: “I could make a lot of comments about this case, but I can’t I’m afraid.
“The council have now decided to draw a line under the matter and it is finally over and I can get on with my job.”
Speaking previously about the case, Mr Kelly said: “I couldn’t believe my ears - we were in the midst of a racial discrimination hearing.
“If there’s ever a more inappropriate time to start telling racist jokes that would have been it.
“This man was directly responsible for deciding whether the employee in question had a racial discrimination claim and he was telling racist jokes himself.
“I am proud of my Irish heritage and family and I felt deeply offended.”
A spokesman for the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “This case has taken too long to settle and looks like it will cost a lot of money.
“It distracts staff from doing what they should be doing - providing essential services for people.
“These sorts of matters need to be resolved as quickly as possible and any cost should be borne by the offending party, not the taxpayer.”
I really think the guy who claims he was “offended” is a lying sack of shit!
Could not the joke be interpreted as the Irishman at the bar being clever enough and funny enough to reply he didn’t need another empty glass?
And even if not. So what? How bad and is that joke from a standpoint of racial insult? What if Paddy just happened to be his real name?
Yeah I know, I know. This crap is way outta hand.
The court should have thrown it out.
Posted by peiper
on 02/09/2010 at 09:56 AM
Filed Under: • CULTURE IN DECLINE • Daily Life • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • Justice - LACK OF • UK •
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Permalink • Monday - February 08, 2010
BREAKING NEWS
JOHN MURTHA IS DEAD
Heart attack the news people said. More details to follow.
Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. John Murtha, the first veteran of the Vietnam war and one of the most powerful lawmakers in Congress, died Wednesday morning at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, VA, after complications from gallbladder surgery. Murtha was 77.
A native of New Martinsville, W.Va., voters elected first elected Murtha to Congress in a 1974 special election that spelled impending doom for President Nixon and congressional Republicans. That fall, Democrats wrestled away 49 House seats from the GOP, reeling from the scourge of Watergate and a presidency in shambles.
Murtha rose to become the chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee that controls spending for the Pentagon. Chairs of the appropriations subcommittee panels are viewed with such prestige on Capitol Hill that they’re called “cardinals.” That’s a nod to Rome because of the eminence these lawmakers hold over spending for their federal fiefdom.
Murtha was also the endorsed candidate of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to become majority leader when Democrats won control of Congress in 2006. But current House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) overwhelmingly defeated Murtha by secret ballot in a hard-fought leadership contest
TV news says he died at 1:18pm.
UPDATE: It wasn’t a heart attack, it was septicemia. They nicked his intestine during surgery ( wonder if the doc got his start as a Marine “corps"-man? ) and internal poisoning took it’s toll. It was a slow grim death.
WASHINGTON—A Pennsylvania congressman and longtime friend of the late Rep. John Murtha said late Monday the congressman’s large intestine was damaged during gallbladder surgery and the complications led him to be hospitalized.
The Pennsylvania Democrat died at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., where he was admitted on Jan. 31. The gallbladder surgery was performed days earlier at the National Naval Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md., which didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.
Rep. Bob Brady said an infection developed and that Murtha had a fever when he was admitted to the Virginia hospital.
Karma has no mercy.
Posted by Drew458
on 02/08/2010 at 02:41 PM
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Permalink • Holes In The News
Oh, how I wish it was just missing pieces of pirates! But no, that’s no how things work. Take a gander:
Danish seals storm pirate ship
Danish special forces from the Absalon command and support vessel have freed 25 people from a vessel hijacked by pirates off the Somali coast.
The Antigua and Barbuda-flagged Ariella was under attack from pirates and sent out an SOS earlier today. Danish special forces from the Absalon answered the call and freed 25 crew members who had locked themselves into a store-room according to a spokesman for the EU naval force in area.
“The Danish forces did a great job,” John Harbour tells Politiken.
The current situation on the vessel remains unclear, whether the operation has ended or whether pirates have been detained.
Latest reports say the vessel is being searched for pirates.
Outstanding news! Same incident, different source:
NATO forces recapture vessel seized by pirates
(CNN)—NATO forces recaptured a ship Friday that had been taken over by armed Somali pirates, a spokesman for the European Union Naval Forces told CNN.
The ship’s 25 crew members were freed, Commander John Harbour said.
The Ariella, an Antigua and Barbuda-flagged shipping vessel, was following a route from the Red Sea, through the Gulf of Aden, and into the Indian Ocean Friday when it was seized by the pirates, according to Harbour.
A European Maritime patrol airplane arrived on the scene shortly after receiving a distress call from the Ariella, he noted. After the plane verified the presence of pirates on the ship, nearby NATO Danish Special Forces approached and boarded the ship.
Special Forces members found the ship’s crew hiding in a compartment, unharmed. Both the Special Forces and the EU Naval Forces believe the pirates fled when the warship arrived.
The Ariella is owned by the Slovenian company Splosna Plovda, according to Harbour. The route being followed by the Ariella at the time of the attack is a frequent target for pirates. It is strongly patrolled by anti-piracy forces, including NATO and individual countries’ navies.
Ok, that sort of answers one question and fill one hole: What happened to the pirates? Especially important when you consider the third source:
Danish Forces Storm Somali Pirate Ship, Free 25 People On Board
NAIROBI, Kenya — Danish special forces stormed a ship captured by armed Somali pirates Friday and freed the 25 crew on board, marking the first time a warship has intervened during a hijacking, naval spokesmen said.
After the vessel Ariella sent out a distress signal early Friday, the Danish warship Absalon sent a helicopter to confirm the presence of pirates, and communicated with the crew to ensure they were in a safe location, said Cmdr. John Harbour, spokesman for the European Union Naval Force.
“Once NATO were absolutely sure that the crew onboard were safe and not going to be caught up in any cross fire, the decision was made to send in the specialist teams,” said Lt. Col. Wolfgang Schmidt, a spokesman for NATO’s Lisbon-based Joint Command.
Ten Danish special forces aboard the Absalon approached the Ariella in an inflatable dinghy, he said. The forces scaled the side of the ship and freed the 25 crew, who had locked themselves in a secure room, and continued to search the vessel for the pirates.
In the meantime, sailors from the nearby Russian Navy ship Neustrashimyy boarded and detained pirates aboard a second skiff, said Schmidt.
So, the Russians captured pirates on another little boat, but nobody knows where they went? That don’t make no sense. But the bigger hole in the story is found in this last article, and it begs some follow-up that just isn’t there:
Warships typically do not intervene in hijackings because of the danger that crews may be hit by crossfire. Forces were able to intervene in this case because the ship had registered with naval authorities, was traveling along a recommended transit corridor and was part of a group transit, ensuring the ships had a helicopter within 30 minutes’ reaction time, Harbour said.
...
The Antigua and Barbuda-flagged Ariella sent out a distress signal early Friday that was picked up by the Indian warship Tabar in the Gulf of Aden. The Indians relayed the signal to a French plane overhead, which spotted a group of armed pirates on the deck. Then the Danish troops were notified.
You see? Look close enough and the truth sneaks out. The Ariella had registered with authorities, which probably means that their crew, cargo, manifest, and course was on file somewhere. Maybe they’re required to have a Panic Room and an emergency plan in writing. They were following the “safe transit” path, under the eye’s of the world’s navies. AND they were part of a convoy. A convoy! “Group transit”. And yet they were attacked anyway. The French had eyes on the pirates, and the Russians caught a whole boat full of them. And yet nobody knows where the pirates went? What a crock. I smell a rat in this piece of swiss cheese.
Posted by Drew458
on 02/08/2010 at 02:36 PM
Filed Under: • Pirates, aarrgh! •
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Permalink • Mau Mau claims of British brutality are the reverse of the truth. By a man who was there.
Many of you may recall the vermin known as the Mau-Mau many years ago. If you don’t, you’re quite young.
The left and especially and most unfortunately in America, began to see these murderous butchers as freedom fighters. But then, the left would. Wouldn’t they? They (the left in America and even some who weren’t left) didn’t approve of “empire” or colonial possessions and so for many, the killings were you might say, the price paid for colonialism. Well maybe. But NOT on the scale and in the manner as practiced by the stone aged verminous Mau-Mau.
Now, all these years later in an age of political correctness and diversity and multi culture crap along with easy litigation, some of the stone age veterans have discovered the 20th century and want to sue the Brits claiming their “human rights” were violated by England.
In order to have those kind of rights one would necessarily have to be a human to begin with. Vermin may have some of the attributes of a human but you don’t have to look very close to find they are not that at all.
If the Brits had a failing, it was the failure to exterminate the entire tribe to the last living or near living life form.
It’s a long article but well worth your time. Also please see the comments after the article.
That’s all for me for tonight.
Why Mau Mau claims of British brutality are the reverse of the truth, by a man who fought themBy Tim Symonds
To have survived so long - avoiding people like me, determined to hunt him down - meant he was immensely resourceful. I fired a shot about four inches above his head. Prodding the prisoner forward, I showed him where the bullet had passed clean through the trunk of a large tree.
‘Next one goes through your skull,’ I said. He began to shake uncontrollably. ‘Kill him,’ my Masai askaris, or ‘soldiers’, chorused. ‘Kill him. He’s Mau Mau.’
‘Please, believe me. I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he pleaded.
My principal Masai tracker shook his head and drew his finger across his throat. ‘He’s lying, Effendi. Kill him.’
I lowered my gun level with his head and slowly began to squeeze the trigger…
It was 1955 and the ‘Kenyan Emergency’, which began in 1952 and lasted until the end of the decade, was at its height. The Mau Mau were rebels against British rule. Most of them were drawn from the Kikuyu, Kenya’s biggest tribe, and they practised primitive sacrifice and murder.
n October 1954, about 60 Mau Mau guerrillas had attacked the famous anthropologist Louis Leakey’s cousin, Gray Leakey, strangling his wife in front of him and then hauling him away to the Mt Kenya Crown Forest to sacrifice to their fearsome and demanding god.
We heard later that they cut open his stomach, yanked out his intestines and buried him in a pit upside-down, alive, facing the jagged peak of Mt Kenya where their deity lived.
I thought of myself as the perfect foot-soldier of the Empire, hunting the Mau Mau. When I crossed the forest verge I entered their twilight world - a world outside of civilisation, in which different rules applied.
Looking back over half a century, from the perspective of the modern world, those rules seem stark, even brutal. But this is what I experienced as a young man in the dying days of Empire.
HERE FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE ARTICLE
Posted by peiper
on 02/08/2010 at 02:02 PM
Filed Under: • Africa • Terrorists • TURD WORLD • UK •
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Permalink • REALLY,REALLY STUPID,STUPID STUFF.
I spotted a couple of loony tune like things in the paper. Nothing lengthy but odd enough.
One is just a headline with an invatation to turn to page (?) because some good fellow has written something under the title as follows.
A HUGE CHANCE FOR HAITI TO BE GREAT AGAIN.
I never went to the page suggested and frankly am quite surprised to learn that haiti was ever “great” to begin with. When? Gee. Maybe I made a mistake and should have read the article. Perhaps the great part was when they were still under French rule. But that couldn’t be true cos that was in the days of slavery.
If anyone out there can tell me when last Haiti was a great place, I’d sure like to know.
The other bit of Moonbat stuff was very small piece by a writer named Rebecca Lefort.
Since all I did was cut out the very small bit in the paper, I didn’t write down what paper it came from. So did a Google search and came up blank. You just have to take my word for this word for word article I am copying here. Here’s the headline.
REWARDING LONG SERVICE? HOW UNFAIR ...A COUNCIL is considering scrapping a scheme that rewards staff when they have been in post for 25 years, on the grounds that “long service is seen as outdated and potentially discriminatory to younger workers.
Conway council, in north Wales, will discuss a report this week that recommends a system proposed by its “Total Rewards Officer Officer” to reward “loyalty” instead of longgevity.
Now then, here’s the absolute WINNER for dumb. You won’t believe it.
Employer told not to post advert for ‘reliable’ workers because it discriminates against ‘unreliable’ applicants
By Ryan Kisiel and Andrew LevyWhen it comes to hiring staff, there are plenty of legal pitfalls employers need to watch out for these days.
So recruitment agency boss Nicole Mamo was especially careful to ensure her advert for hospital workers did not offend on grounds of race, age or sexual orientation.
However, she hadn’t reckoned on discriminating against a wholly different section of the community - the completely useless.
When she ran the ad past a job centre, she was told she couldn’t ask for ‘reliable’ and ‘hard-working’ applicants because it could be offensive to unreliable people.
‘In my 15 years in recruitment I haven’t heard anything so ridiculous,’ Mrs Mamo said yesterday.
Posted by peiper
on 02/08/2010 at 01:40 PM
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Odd-Strange • Stoopid-People • UK •
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