In a scenario likely none of its more than 3,000 passengers pictured when they were planning their seven-day jaunt on the Mexican Riviera, the disabled cruise liner was being towed to San Diego by tugboats, and instead of a lavish seafood buffet they were subsisting on Spam.

After two days adrift, the ship began moving again Tuesday night when the first of several Mexican tugboats arrived. The 952-foot vessel was expected to arrive in San Diego on Thursday night, Miami-based Carnival ( CCL - news - people ) Cruise Lines said in a statement.

The ship was 200 miles south of San Diego and about 44 miles off shore when an engine room fire Monday morning killed its power and set it adrift.

No one was hurt, but the nearly 4,500 passengers and crew were left without air conditioning, hot water, cell phone or Internet service. The ship’s auxiliary power allowed for working toilets and cold water.

U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopters were ferrying supplies including Spam, crab meat, croissants and Pop Tarts to the ship from the USS Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier that reached the Splendor after it was diverted from training maneuvers to help.

The Splendor only had enough food to last through midday Tuesday because refrigerators on the ship stopped working after the power was knocked out, Navy Commander Greg Hicks said. But thousands of pounds of food had been delivered by Tuesday night.

The U.S. Coast Guard and Mexican Navy also sent resources to the ship.

The tugboats were originally set to take the Splendor to Ensenada, Mexico, but the cruise line changed its plans and will attempt to have it towed to San Diego, where hotel and flight arrangements would await the passengers, Carnival said.

So much for glistening filet mignon and mouth-watering lobster. The new menu on the disabled Carnival Splendor this week appears to be Spam, with a side of croissants.

With provisions on the fire-damaged ship running low due to a lack of refrigeration, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy have mounted an airborne relief effort to bring food to the vessel’s 3,299 passengers that includes the delivery of cases full of Spam, boxes of croissants and other easy-to-transport goods.

The supplies are being airlifted onto the Splendor by a Navy Seahawk helicopter from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, which arrived on the scene on Tuesday

Posted by Drew458     on 11/10/2010 at 08:48 PM   
Filed Under: • Humor • Military •  
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Shoulda Known

Looks like that “mystery missile” the other day was actually USAirways flight 808 inbound from Hawaii.

Yep, that fits.

Link here, with the math. Link here, to the source with the nice multi-part graphic at the bottom.

Nice work Liam Bahneman, doing some actual investigative journalism, checking the flight itineraries, and looking up a Newport Beach webcam the day after to see that the same flight the very next day made almost the same kind of contrails in the sky.

Now, I wonder how many days it will be until the TV news folks catch up to this, and stop pushing the sensationalist story now that it’s been figured out. If you are directly under the flight path of a very high altitude jet flying over you through dirty air, the contrails in the sky look just like those of a rocket heading straight up.

And I sure do wish that there was an actual video of an actual missile or space rocket launch, at sundown, photographed from just over the horizon. How are we supposed to tell them apart? Especially since no rule says a shorter range missile has to be supersonic, which means you can’t use your ears to tell impending doom from just another jet going over. I followed the math at the first link, and I still can’t tell the difference; a multi-stage missile could drop it’s booster stage before it cleared the visual horizon. So when an object is too high to see or hear but is creating a visible contrail, how can you tell up from over since they both appear the same? The only way I can figure is to jump in your car, drive several miles, then look again. Assuming that it wasn’t an inbound missile and that you haven’t become a monatomic smithereen ( which would answer the question! ), when you look at the same contrail from the new location it will now have a definite “going over” aspect if it’s from a jet. I’m guessing here, purely guessing, but if it’s a missile launch you’re seeing, it will still look like “up” even from “over there”.

The Newark to Chicago flight passes almost overhead here. So do the New York and Boston to points southwest flights. On a clear day I can count the number of engines and see the airplane itself. The contrails never roil together, nor is there any kind of “plume of fire” behind the jets. But they always look like planes flying overhead, not rockets shooting up. On a cloudy day I can’t see anything anyway, so who cares? We don’t have LA’s level of air pollution, and we don’t have coastal wind and cloud patterns. And we don’t have a distant horizon for the sun to set into. Those factors could make all the difference.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/10/2010 at 02:01 PM   
Filed Under: • Amazing Science and Discoveries • News-Briefs • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles •  
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My 2¢

Lisa Murkowski is the incumbent Republican Senator for Alaska. She was defeated in the primaries by Joe Miller, a Republican who has the backing of the Tea Party Express people. Miller’s name went on the ballot as the Republican candidate. So good so far.

Murkowski was not happy being defeated in the primaries, so she decided to run on her own. Not as the representative of some independent party, but as a write-in candidate. So she campaigned as much as she could, but in the end her name was not directly visible on the ballot. To get around this, she asked that voters be given a list of the write-in candidates.

I have never voted for a write-in, so I didn’t know how the process worked. I’ve read the detailed voting results of some of our local elections, and seeing votes for Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck lead me to believe that other people don’t either. Yes, it’s likely that you can take a pencil and write in whatever name you want, and somewhere someone is going to tabulate that vote. But even if Mickey Mouse won 98% of the popular vote, he would not win the election. Because he was not registered as a candidate. That’s how New Jersey’s system works, and it’s how Alaska’s system works as well. If you want to be an actual official candidate, you and your people have to go around door to door and collect signatures on a petition. Once X number of people have signed a statement saying that they think you should be a viable choice for the elected position, you’re in. Well, you have to turn in those forms, someone in the election office will spot check at least a few of them for validity (one hopes), and make sure that you have enough signatures to meet your state’s required minimum number. I bet there’s a fee and some sort of licensing involved too, at least in NJ. But that’s all it takes.

Prior to this election, Alaska (and for all I know, New Jersey as well) had no law that said that the voters could ask for or be given a list of the valid write-in candidates. This was wrong. Not fair. Every valid candidate must be treated equally by the elections board. Granted, not every candidate can get his or her name on the ballot. Each state must somewhere have a law that figures out who gets on it. Perhaps it’s based on the number of signatures collected. That would work; if I get 5 million people to sign off on me, then you’re darn tootin’ my name should show up on the thing. If you want to run, and only need 50 signatures, and you turn in 52, and 5002 other people also turn in 52, then your name is going on the write-in list. So somewhere a decision is made, a law is written, long in advance, that only 4 or 6 or 8 or whatever number of names, and the political parties that they are associated with, show up on the main ballot for that office.

So Murkowski petitioned the Alaskan Elections Board to have a write-in list drawn up, and either distributed or given out on demand. And they agreed. Great. Then a lower court shot that decision down. It doesn’t matter why ( it was a spurious charge of advocacy), because hours later the Alaskan Supreme Court turned that over, and said that such a list was right and proper. But to play Solomon and cut the baby in half, they decided that the affiliated political parties would not be mentioned. I disagree. This was wrong. If you have a ballot that shows the political party for some candidates, then you have to have a full ballot - that includes all the valid write-ins - that shows the parties for all of them. Fair is fair. But that’s a side issue.

So comes Election Day in Alaska, and it’s a mess. With a population of less than three quarters of a million, there are only a few hundred thousand actual voters. Maybe they count votes up there by making piles of caribou antlers, and whoever has the biggest pile wins. Maybe ballots are sent in by dogsled from the outlying areas. Whatever, it’s a mess, and they are still counting the ballots up there. Thank God they didn’t invite Chad from the 2000 Florida election.

Linda Murkowski may or may not have the lead right now, depending on who you listen to. But Joe Miller has filed suit to ensure that none of this mysterious “voter intent” crap gets done, and I think he is right to do so. Given that the voters had, or at least could have had, a copy of the write-in list right in front of them when they voted, whether they voted at a polling station or by absentee ballot, Miller has sued that Alaska enforce it’s laws as written, and that only votes for Murkowski that are spelled “Murkowski” be counted.

Joe Miller’s campaign filed a lawsuit yesterday, asking that the Alaska Division of Elections be allowed to count only correctly spelled write-ins for Sen. Lisa Murkowski as votes for her.  The campaign requested that a hearing be set for this afternoon.

After 27,000 absentee ballots were counted yesterday, the gap between Miller and write-in votes had narrowed to 11,333 from 13,439. But with only 12,400 absentee ballots remaining, it’s unlikely that Miller will close the gap, making the outcome of the lawsuit crucial.

The Miller campaign is asserting that Alaskan law only permits correct spellings, citing this passage from state law, “A vote for a write-in candidate … shall be counted if the oval is filled in for that candidate and if the name, as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy, of the candidate or the last name of the candidate is written in the space provided.”

Hey, if you are too stupid to be unable to transcribe M U R K O W S K I from the write-in page to your ballot, then you’re really too stupid to vote. Naturally, the left winger side sees this as an attempt as “disenfranchisement” ( a word now as overused and meaningless as “racism” ), and how Alaska has a long history of attempting to discern voter intent. Hey, Colorado has a long history of murder. So does Los Angeles. Does that make it Ok?

Alaskan lieutenant governor Craig Campbell said “The courts have been very clear for the last 25 years that voter intent is important. You do not want to disenfranchise voters over a technicality.”

If no list had been allowed, then “mircosky” “morecowsti” or even “Linda M” ought to have been allowed. Some crystal ball gazing for Intent. But the law says “as it appears” and “or the last name” (Another side issue: what happens to that law when Alaska has 2 write-ins both named Smith?), so the thing to do is follow the law. If I were an Alaskan who wanted to vote for this woman, I would have learned how to spell her name. Or written it down on a scrap of paper. Or kept one of the hundreds of flyers she sent me in the mail with her name on it, so I could fill out my absentee ballot correctly. If my handwriting sucked, I’d practice writing her name until it was Palmer Manuscript perfect. Because EVERYONE in the country knows full well - especially since the 2000 elections - that if you want your vote to count, you make doubly damn sure your ballot is filled out perfectly before you turn it in.

Under state law, the write-in oval must be filled in and either a candidate’s last name or the name as it appears on her candidacy declaration has to be written in. Miller’s attorney, Thomas Van Flein, said he intends to hold the state to that standard.

Election officials made clear Monday that they will use discretion in determining voter intent where the written name “appears to be a variation or misspelling” of Murkowski or Lisa Murkowski. Van Flein called that practice unacceptable.

Van Flein filed a lawsuit Tuesday asking a federal judge to uphold that law.

You’re damn right. “Discretion” is a double-speak word that means “cheating”. Do it right, or it doesn’t count. Period. You can’t “almost land” an airplane, and you can’t be “nearly pregnant”. You is, or you ain’t.

Now, some other voices are saying that Team Miller made things too complicated for the poor stupid voters there, because 160 people were on the list of write-ins. So what? Horse apples! Has anyone in Alaska ever heard of alphabetization? Or even of looking through the list looking for names that start with M?

As a third side issue, this is one more reason for a digital voting machine. Given a decent EPROM chip and some RAM, you can have thousands of candidates running for every electable position. So what? It takes no real space. It’s just another counter in the code. Add a MORE button, or a scroll key, under each column on the display. Easy.

So don’t expect any certifiable results from the land of Palin yet. When Miller wins his suit they’ll have to go and count everything all over again.

Um, what about the Democrat who was running for their Senate seat? Scott McAdams pulled in 24% of the vote, so he’s long out of it. And no matter how you spell it, Murkowski is still ahead.

If Sen. Lisa Murkowski emerges as the victor in when the Alaska Senate race results are fully tallied – as seems increasingly likely – she will have pulled off a bigger upset than her main opponent, Republican Joe Miller, did when he defeated her in the GOP primary two months ago.

She would become the first person elected to the Senate as a write-in candidate since Strom Thurmond in 1954 – the only time it’s been done.

As of Wednesday afternoon, “write-in” had 41 percent of the vote to Mr. Miller’s 34 percent (Democrat Scott McAdams had 24 percent) – presumably a big enough cushion to stave off legal challenges, though it will take a long time for the vote to be certified and write-in ballots tabulated. A final ruling may not happen for weeks.

In a count of more than 27,000 absentee and early cast ballots counted Tuesday, Miller showed a gain of 2,106 votes on the write-in candidates. Nearly 12,400 absentee ballots remain to be counted, plus a similar amount of questioned ballots to be reviewed.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/10/2010 at 12:40 PM   
Filed Under: • Politics •  
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it’s all about business …. innit ?  possible eye candy depending on your view of things

Our very unlikely trade envoy: How David Cameron wants Tamara Mellon to sell Britain to the world

By Geoffrey Levy
For international businessmen interested in trading with Britain, a treat is in store: she’s 5ft 6in, always in 5in stiletto heels, with long dark hair and a mesmerically silken manner.

Her name is Tamara Mellon, founder of the Jimmy Choo shoe label.

Just 24 hours after David Cameron had appointed her to become a global trade envoy (a similar role to that of Prince Andrew), the 43-year-old divorcee was at her office in New York where the books she is said to keep on her desk include Cosmic Coupling: The Sextrology Of Relationships, as well as Brit-Think, Ameri-Think: A Transatlantic Survival Guide.

Tamara is better acquainted with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, through a business leaders’ forum he invited her to join. Certainly, it has been quite a few weeks for the glamorous Ms Mellon, who has a delightful daughter, Minty, eight, from her failed marriage to U.S. banking heir Matthew Mellon.

First, she received an ‘Enduring Vision’ award from the Elton John Aids Foundation, then an OBE for services to the fashion industry from the Queen at Buckingham Palace. Now, she’s a government envoy. And she’s already worth around £100 million.

Not bad for a woman who used to run a market stall and almost wrote herself off with drugs. She still considers herself to be ‘in recovery’, helped by periods of meditation, cigarettes and the knowledge that Narcotics Anonymous (whose meetings she once attended) is always available to help if ever needed.

But then, she is the daughter of a man noted for his single-mindedness, a quality she obviously inherited, as became clear when she took her mother to court in a bitter dispute over £6 million shares in the company — and won.

Her dad, Tommy Yeardye, was born in Ireland to an unmarried Irish mother called Kathleen and brought up by her in London. He grew to be 6ft 4in with ‘fists like bricks’ and was nicknamed Muscles.

Stories about Yeardye, who died six years ago, and his alleged early friendships with underworld figures still swirl around the capital.

He most famously lived for some years with screen siren Diana Dors . He met her while working as a film body-double, standing in for Hollywood star Victor Mature. It was a bedroom scene. Within days he had moved into the voluptuous Dors’s Thames-side mansion.

There’s more interesting reading at the source.

THE MELLON GIRL SOURCE

OK ... Did you guys really think I was gonna leave you with a simple boring business story?  Although actually, the story isn’t that boring.
Anyway ... the answer is, of course not.

Ladies and Gentlemen .... I give you the new business envoy. okok, so the photo’s an old one. Who really cares?

Posted by peiper     on 11/10/2010 at 11:29 AM   
Filed Under: • Big Business • Humor • UK •  
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   Tuesday - November 09, 2010

the ever alert court of the ROP sentence a Christian woman to death for blasphemy..

Well those compassionate members of the ROP now want to hang a Christian woman in Paki-land for they say, speaking ill of Momudhead. Never ends. Does it.

She might be spared by the court on appeal, but the fear is that the peace loving mob will be a threat.

Christian woman sentenced to death in Pakistan ‘for blasphemy’

A Christian woman has been sentenced to hang in Pakistan after being convicted of defaming the Prophet Mohammed.

By Rob Crilly in Islamabad and Aoun Sahi in Lahore 5:36PM GMT 09 Nov 2010

Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old mother-of-five, denies blasphemy and told investigators that she was being persecuted for her faith in a country where Christians face routine harassment and discrimination.

Christian groups and human rights campaigners condemned the verdict and called for the blasphemy laws to be repealed.

Her supporters say she will now appeal against the sentence handed down in a local court in the town of Sheikhupura, near Lahore, Pakistan.

Ashiq Masih, her husband, said he had not had the heart to break the news to two of their children.

“I haven’t told two of my younger daughters about the court’s decision,” he said. “They asked me many times about their mother but I can’t get the courage to tell them that the judge has sentenced their mother to capital punishment for a crime she never committed.” Mrs Bibi has been held in prison since June last year.

The court heard she had been working as a farmhand in fields with other women, when she was asked to fetch drinking water.

Some of the other women – all Muslims – refused to drink the water as it had been brought by a Christian and was therefore “unclean”, according to Mrs Bibi’s evidence, sparking a row.

read the rest here

Posted by peiper     on 11/09/2010 at 02:04 PM   
Filed Under: • Jack Booted Thugs • muslims •  
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eye candy of a different sort but the same.  mom and daughter & a broken english call center.

Mom here is 49, daughter is 19.  I think they both look pretty darn good. But then, my eyes are a lot older these days.

Apropos of nothin ... just had another one of those call center experiences.

Wanted to order an article of clothing on the phone in answer to an interesting add.  Had to hang up. Could not understand one freekin word the guy said.
India? Nope.
Scotland!

Those folks are I swear impossible to understand unless you grew up there or are tuned to the accent. Trust me, ain’t nothin at all like the romantic Hollywood
version of an accent.  I think since everyone discovered they had civil rights and employers had NONE, this is what we have to live with.
And no, I’m too damn tired to call back and be bothered. They lost a sale but hey, I think I’m better off buying in a regular store anyway. Even if I pay more. At least I can see what I’m buying and almost everyone speaks understandable English around here.

Posted by peiper     on 11/09/2010 at 01:00 PM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • UK • work and the workplace •  
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Homeland Insecurity

A full size missile was fired off last night, west of LA and north of Catalina Island. A traffic helicopter caught the launch on videotape. This is clearly a guided flight: notice how the contrail goes up, then arcs over and continues to climb at angle. It is far too big to be from a model rocket, even the large scale kind. No launches were scheduled from nearby Vandenburg Air Force base, a site that launches satellites on a semi-regular basis. No FAA clearances were requested by anyone, so that rules out private space flight companies and law abiding model rocketeers.

And yet it happened. Just as bad, nobody seems to know where or if the thing came down. They aren’t even asking that question yet. Is anyone missing a small city?

Found: a massive ballistic missile streaking across the sky off the coast of California last night.

Anyone want to claim it? Because the U.S. military says it’s not theirs.

A news helicopter for CBS station KCBS captured stunning video of what appeared to be a missile launch 35 miles off the California coast, just north of Catalina Island. The video shows a giant streak across the sunset sky, leaving a column of white smoke in its wake.

For now, though, the missile’s origins and purpose are a mystery.

A Navy spokesman told CBS affiliate KFMB in San Diego that the missile did not belong to them and that there had been no Navy activity reported in the area.

Officials at The Pentagon also did not know any details about the launch and said that it could not have been a planned military action, NBC San Diego reported.

Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Ellsworth told the San Diego station that the missile was “not a Tomahawk” but could possibly have been a test firing from a submarine to serve as a demonstration of American military might to Asia.

The U.S. Military is scrambling to find out what was seen in skies over Los Angeles last night after a local CBS news helicopter captured video that appears to show a major missile or rocket launch from the Pacific Ocean just north of Santa Catalina Island.

The video shows an enormous contrail following a brightly lit object, similar to images seen during a space launch.

Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters the video is so far “unexplained” by anyone in the U.S. Military.

The Missile Defense Agency told Fox News it did not launch any test missile last night that could explain the dramatic images. The Navy and the Air Force were also unable to offer an explanation.

“It does not appear that this was a regularly scheduled missile test”, Lapan said. Before a missile test the military sends notifications to mariners, airmen, and air traffic controllers to stay clear of the area, and according to Lapan it doesn’t appear those warnings were sent.

At this point the military is working only with video taken from the KCBS news camera, and there is no indication that military agencies responsible for monitoring outside threats to the homeland, such NORAD or Northern command, were able to detect the apparent rocket on their own.

Spokesmen for the Navy, Air Force, Defense Department and North American Aerospace Defense Command say they are looking into a video posted on the website of Southern California television station KFMB.

The video taken by the helicopter can be seen at all the above links.

So, either someone in government s really, really lying to us, or we just went through a trial run for the end of the world. Had that been a submarine launched ICBM MIRV fired by our enemies, we would be missing Dallas, Houston, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Raleigh, St. Louis, Buffalo, Washington DC, and Boston by now. From just one missile. And the DoD never even saw it coming. Had it been a real launch by real enemies, they wouldn’t have stopped at just one. Why not fire off the other 17 as well? In which case the entire nation would be crispy fried right now. And they got away clean too. At this point NORAD isn’t even saying that they were aware of the launch, or if they were even able to track it. Nor has the Navy, with its trans-oceanic undersea sonar listening net, made a statement that there was or was not a submarine or surface ship in the area.

So glad we spent trillions on this crap during the Cold War.

In the video linked to, some “expert” says it could have been a visual aide type of flight to impress the Chinese that we can do that kind of thing. I think he’s got the story on backwards. I think someone laid down a visual aide on us and caught everyone asleep at their posts.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/09/2010 at 12:35 PM   
Filed Under: • Military • Terrorists • weird stuff •  
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some eye candy and POLISH TROOPS fighting the Taliban yeah well I takes things as they come to me

THIS

Happened because I was looking for this > > > POLISH TROOPS fighting the Taliban were given SATNAV equipment that told them they were in Africa or else in a small town in Poland.  A Polish newspaper reports that some units “lost their way”
That’s all folks. That’s it.

I was looking for more and couldn’t find anything but that.  Now I wouldn’t think being in a war zone, that that would be funny. But I can’t help it. It is.
Well, I forgot about Poland being in Afghanistan. So much attention paid to us and Brits who make up the largest numbers.  So I should say right here, thank you Poland and Hats Off To Ya.  Salute.

I also found this.

American and Polish commanders review troops.

Polish troops repel Taliban attack

The Polish army announced on Monday that it had prevented more than 100 metric tons of food from falling into the hands of Afghan rebels.

At the end of last month a convoy of trucks was traveling in Afghanistan along the road between Kabul and Kandahar when it was attacked by Taliban fighters, who immobilized the vehicles by shooting out the tires, the Polish Army wrote in a press release.

The rebels then attacked the convoy and its security escort in overwhelming numbers, forcing it to radio Kabul for help.

The convoy, however, was unable to immediately specify its exact location, although as soon as it had been established a so-called Quick Reaction Force comprising Polish troops was sent to relieve the trucks carrying the humanitarian aid.

The rebels withdrew as soon as Polish armored vehicles appeared in the vicinity. The Polish troops remained at the site for a number of hours until Afghan security forces arrived with new tires and the convoy could resume its journey.

The press release did not reveal if any casualties had been sustained during the course of the ambush.

From Warsaw Business Journal by Alexander Hayes

SALUTE POLAND

So I got involved a little bit and although it’s three months old, I thought maybe my fellow Americans might have missed this among the trees in the forest. An easy thing to do.

Polish troops in Afghanistan say they have broken up and illuminated a group of insurgents responsible for kidnappings and attacks in Ghazni province in the south east of the war-torn country.

The operation took place at night, on 1 and 2 August, the Polish Military Contingent has informed. The operation was launched after Polish troops freed two Afghan policemen from insurgents. The men helped determine who the kidnappers were and where they were hiding.

While detaining the kidnappers, Polish troops killed five and seized weapons, explosives and training materials. Among the dead were two foreigners specialist in constructing and planting bombs.

The Taliban group was responsible for numerous deadly attacks on Polish soldiers deployed in Afghanistan. Commander of the Polish Military Contingent General Andrzej Przekwasa says that thanks to the operation security of Afghani civilians and allied troops will rise.

Now then, I swear I have no idea how in world I found myself here, theodoresworld, where I found .....  this Polish girl,

Who I suspect is the very same girl you see at the top of this post. Or I think she might be.  She is apparently a Polish model (aren’t all pretty girls these days?) who is it is claimed, going to Afghanistan to visit the troops there.

Polish sex-bomb to support Polish soldiers in Afghanistan
Polish news

Poland’s Ministry of National Defence is preparing a visit to Afghanistan by singer Dorota ‘Doda’ Rabczewska, to rally the troops and improve morale of the 1100 soldiers stationed there.

more of the lady at theosworld, link above.

Meanwhile, I guess I should leave you with this bit of eye candy and I don’t know who she is cos I forgot where I found her.
below the fold.

Posted by peiper     on 11/09/2010 at 11:29 AM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy • War On Terror •  
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born in the usa, but this guy was never an american.

Here’s a guy born and raised as an American and now look.  What makes scummy dirt bags like this?

Sure hope our guys get this vile and worthless pile of poo and destroy the bastard. Slowly.

Our luck he’ll be captured and returned to the states where he’ll claim his rights have been violated and end up with Gloria Allred for the defense.

No Fatwa Needed To Kill Americans, Says Radical Yemen Cleric

Written by VOA (Voice of America)

Even though he is an American, a radical U.S.-born cleric says Muslims should not hesitate to kill Americans, arguing that no religious rulings are needed “to fight the devil.” Anwar al-Awlaki, wanted by both the United States and Yemen, where he is based, made the appeal in an Internet video released Monday.

In a wide-ranging 23-minute talk, the al-Qaida-linked cleric condemned Iran, Israel and the leaders of Arab nations.  He went further in regard to the people of the United States. 

The American-born Awlaki told his followers that they do not need to consult with anyone before killing Americans.  He said for Muslims it is a question of “us or them.”

Awlaki is wanted by both the U.S. and Yemen for his suspected role in terrorist attacks, including the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner late last year.  He is also believed to have acted as an advisor to the suspect in a deadly shooting spree at a U.S. military base in Texas and the killing of a Frenchman in Yemen earlier this year. 

U.S. authorities believe he is an active member of the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

The video message, parts of which were released last month, come days after the terrorist organization claimed responsibility for attempting to send bombs in air cargo to the United States.  The packages were intercepted by authorities tipped off by Saudi intelligence.  The terrorist group has also claimed responsibility for attacks that killed Yemeni civilians.

In the video, Awlaki also condemns Arab leaders as corrupt, including those in Yemen.

Political analyst Stephen Steinbeiser says many Yemenis, and others in the region, side with Americans against terrorists.  But the resident director of the American Institute for Yemeni Studies says the cleric may be trying to attract followers beyond his regular jihadist sympathizers.

“I think he is reaching for a broader audience and I think that when Yemenis begin to feel that someone like al-Awlaki is singling out corrupt leaders, then it becomes a much more appealing message and they many begin to listen to other types of things he is saying,” said Steinbeiser.

But such a move could strengthen the resolve of the Yemeni government in hunting him down.  The Sana’a-based Steinbeiser says many in Yemen believe the government knows where al-Awlaki is hiding or at least the general locale.  But he notes officials may be hindered by the fact the al-Awlaki family is very powerful in the clan- and tribe-dominated country. 

“There are potential repercussions politically, and potential violent repercussions if they go after al-Awlaki [as] the U.S. would like.  So the Yemeni government has to walk a bit of a fine line,” Steinbeiser said. “At the same time, I think they realize that he is an increasing threat and certainly with this latest message, it shows he is not afraid of the threats made against him, and he seems to want to escalate the situation.”

The Yemeni government has pledged to help the United States in tracking al-Awlaki down, and last week put him on trial in absentia for incitement and plotting to kill foreigners.

The United States is believed to have already put al-Awlaki on a special list of Americans who security forces are authorized to capture dead or alive.

VOA SOURCE

special list of Americans who security forces are authorized to capture dead or alive.

Hey ... while they’re at it, can we get Allred on that list as well?

Posted by peiper     on 11/09/2010 at 10:37 AM   
Filed Under: • muslims • Terrorists •  
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One for JayD

Posted by Drew458     on 11/09/2010 at 09:46 AM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy • Sarah Palin • The New Conservatives • UK •  
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   Monday - November 08, 2010

A thought before retiring …

Severe weather alert as Britain battered by 70mph winds, snow in the North and up to 3 inches of rain across the South

I just had to post that headline so Drew wouldn’t feel any colder considering our weather thingy says it’s 52 here. I’m glad it isn’t.

My real reason for popping in here is as follows.

Last night, too tired to read but not sleep, I turned on the radio and caught another one of those panel shows. Yeah. Mistake.  I always get worked up when folks here talk about the Tea Party in negative terms as though they have the whole thing down pat.

One fellow who is now living in the USA, talks like he’s an expert on American life. Anyway, this line ALWAYS comes up no matter what the program or who is saying it.
One person asks, “Tea Party ppl keep saying they’re taking their country back, but from what or who?” “Even they don’t know.” “Perhaps the fact that they now have a black president has something to do with it.” “The Tea Party is sinister.”

Naturally Sarah Palin just has to be part of the conversation and nothing good said as you may well imagine.

So there I was, cursing and swearing at my radio and finally I did wake up and was able to read my book for too many hours.  Bah!

Posted by peiper     on 11/08/2010 at 01:09 PM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
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two conservatives on different sides of the cure for welfare benefits

A couple of very interesting editorial comments in a generally conservative paper.

Look at the difference of opinion here on a touchy subject for some.  Welfare.

Govt. plans on big changes. One of which is to make ppl who receive benefits, do community work.  The left doesn’t think much of the idea but then, there’s votes to be considered. Right?  And the C of E is against but then, the Archbishop lives in LaLa Land anyway so we can ignore him.

You’ve seen my posted stuff like this before. I’m just putting this new one here to remind folks how things are.

Mother-of-two lives in Britain’s most expensive council house (valued at £2.5m) for two years… rent free

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:01 PM on 8th November 2010

A mother-of-two who was moved to a £2.5million council property ‘so she wouldn’t be disturbed by local building works’ has been living rent-free for more than two years.

here for the rest
There’s no need for me to post the whole thing here. Just a taste should be enough. The country is in need of reform and cuts are on the way.  Oh wait. Except for the Prime minister who has put a personal photographer (plus others) on the govt. payroll.

OK I got a bit sidetracked.  Here. Read the following.

At last, someone who grasps a truth the Left won’t admit: welfare traps people in poverty

By Melanie Phillips

There is a rough rule of thumb that if the wrong kind of people are ­opposed to what you are doing, then you must be on the right track.

By those lights, the reaction from the usual ­suspects on the Left to Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms indicate that he has hit the bull’s eye in the most satisfactory way.

For even before he actually unveils his proposals this week, the air is thick with screams of rage and lurid claims of ‘slave labour’.

So what is he doing to provoke such fury? Why, making the outrageous ­proposal that instead of ­sitting at home on benefits doing nothing, people who are out of work should actually give something back to society in return.

According to advance reports, IDS will be requiring the unemployed to ­undertake community service projects such as gardening, clearing litter and other menial tasks.

Following the example of U.S.-style ‘workfare’, they will do such jobs for 30 hours per week for four weeks at a rate of £1 per hour, under the threat of being stripped of their Jobseekers’ Allowance for three months if they fall short.

Shock horror! Such is the outrage on the Left, you’d think IDS was proposing to send little children up the chimneys.

All he is doing, however, is responding to the patently obvious fact that unemployed people don’t just suffer from an absence of work but also — more lethally — from ­having settled into a way of life which saps their ability to work.

The driving aim of his entire welfare reform package is to ensure that it always pays to work rather than stay on welfare.

MORE MELANIE

Read her entire comment.  Do love this lady. It was great seeing her on Fox when I we were home this year. A very pleasant surprise. 

Now then .... from the same paper is this ....

American idea that just won’t work here

By Peter McKay

This week a White Paper will reveal plans by the Tory / Liberal Democrat coalition for cutting our annual £190billion welfare bill.

The headlines promise ‘workshy to lose Benefits’, but who believes this will ever happen?

The ‘workshy’ will have to do at least 30 hours of community service over a four-week period or their ­benefits will be cut for three months. It’s an American plan that ministers hope will work here.

The Archbishop of ­Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, leads a chorus of protest from liberals, saying it’s too tough and might push the unemployed into ‘a downward spiral of despair’. Looking on the bright side as always.

But the majority of voters are ­probably in favour of pushing the long-term unemployed into voluntary work.

Besides, they don’t see why people who have been on benefits for years shouldn’t put something back into the community which supports them.

Perhaps it’ll work brilliantly, changing for ever the relationship between the unemployed and the community. But here are some ­reasons why it might not:

* American ideas don’t always work over here. They do far less than we do for the unemployed. A Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ reigns there. Workfare, the U.S. scheme on which our new plans are based, was invented in 1968 not by a conservative but by civil rights activist James Charles Evers.

* Most of us know — and tolerate — individuals who for one reason or another don’t want to have jobs. We know they’d never make satisfactory employees. Who benefits if we force them into jobs they’ll do badly? Some avoid work so that they can pursue private dreams. How many of our pop stars began on benefits?

* Some long-term unemployed do work — in the black economy. A minority of them get caught and punished, but most are shrewd, resourceful individuals skilled at working the system. Workfare will merely be another clumsy government obstacle to skate around.

* While every effort must be made to cut welfare costs, it’s surely a ­mistake to concentrate on this when we’re slowly climbing out of a painful recession. It certainly won’t stimulate recovery. It’s far easier to argue that everyone must work when the economy’s booming and there’s plenty of employment to be had.

MORE McKAY

Posted by peiper     on 11/08/2010 at 12:19 PM   
Filed Under: • UK •  
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