Saturday - June 18, 2011

Palestine Sux!!

LIVERPOOL EYE CANDY

Just one photo and then only to show that Liverpool,England has produced more then just The Beatles.

What this country needs is more of this and far less of judges as in the following story.  I’ll drink to that. Cheers.

CONCESSION TO TERRORIST and the crime is we aren’t surprised

From Barking Moonbat to Barking Mad.  Maybe that should be howling mad. Whatever.

From the riots in Canada to the madness of this story, it’s clear that the western world has lost the thread. Brit public not too happy about this BUT, the story is now over, there aren’t any street protests, no riots and nobody even doing as much as with holding taxes. Which of course would only see em in jail.
I don’t understand how the barking-berk of a judge could see things in the way he did.  But perhaps as a lawyer he sees things in twisted ways the average person can not.  And from what some of you have written about some things in the USA, we aren’t too far behind the Brits in legalistic lunacy.

From where I view things, this is totally incomprehensible.  Did this terrorist scum bucket bring things on himself? Or maybe not. It was racism and islamophobia, right? Nothing at all to do with his very own actions, but the Brit public is responsible for his well being and the right to see family and have friends. Something the rat would happily deny anyone not of his pov on the world and religion.  Western democracy seems quite happy to keep the gun pointed at its own head.

Family of terror suspect given free travel tickets to visit him

By STEVE DOUGHTY

Taxpayers must pay train fares and taxi bills so that a terror suspect’s family can visit him after he was banned from the capital, a High Court judge has ordered.

Mr Justice Simon decided that because the Islamic extremist has been barred from London under anti-terror laws, he had lost his family life and had no friends.
To compensate for the breach of his human right to a family life, the Government should provide tickets when his wife and two children go to see him.

His judgment amounts to a further extension of the reach of Article 8 of the European Human Rights convention, which guarantees the right to private and family life.

Under Labour’s Human Rights Act, Article 8 has been used to free criminals, prevent deportations, allow assisted suicide and bring in a privacy law.

The ruling means that the family of the terrorist will get help from the Home Office to pay £40-a-trip coach or railway fares between Tottenham, North London, and the Midlands where he is exiled. Taxpayers must also meet taxi costs at both ends.

The concession to the terrorist, known only as CD, was disclosed by Home Secretary Theresa May in a statement to MPs on terrorist control orders.
The suspect, who has dual British and Nigerian nationality, was exiled under an order taken out in February.

MI5 has stated he is ‘the leading figure in a close group of Islamic extremists based in North London’. He had gone to meetings and a training camp organised by Mohammed Hamid, a terrorist instructor who called himself ‘Osama Bin London’.

The failed bombers who tried to attack the capital on July 21, 2005 were also at the camp in Cumbria. Hamid is now serving an indeterminate jail sentence.
The Security Services told the High Court that CD had three years of ‘extremist training’ in Syria. Back in London, he had made ‘several attempts to procure firearms for potential attack plans’.

SOURCE

   Friday - June 17, 2011

Canada Sux, Eh?

Vancouver Riots After Stanley Cup Loss


I have no sympathy for these scum. Line them up against the wall by their thousands and shoot them. Anyone that out of control due to the results of a sporting event is a danger to the rest of the human race, and like a rabid dog, ought to be put down without hesitation or recourse.

Oh boo hoo, our team lost the game. (In this case it was a hockey game, Boston edging out Vancouver to win the Stanley Cup. Yeah, it’s the middle of June fer cryin out loud, and these wizards are still playing hockey. )

We lost. So let’s destroy a good section of our own city. Burn cars. Start Fights. Break windows. Steal. Loot. Destroy. Because a team lost a game.

Granted the same thing often happens when some team wins a game. Up against the wall with that lot too.

You want to drink, fine. You want to sing in public, fine. You want to gather together for a while and all howl at the moon, fine. Parade up and down the street celebrating “your” victory or mourning “your” loss, nyet problemski. Pitch a mass violent tantrum and cause millions in damages and forfeit your right to live. On the spot. It’s that simple.

Scum. Poison gas is too good for the likes of them. Wood chippers come to mind, and really large fish hooks.

And yeah, that sentiment applies to any hooligans who get violent after any game in any sport, whether their favorite team wins or loses. It’s a game you morons. An utterly meaningless worthless bit of entertainment. And that’s all that it is. Just another way to waste a few hours of your life watching someone else do something. Pure twaddle, all of it.

Here’s a great big portfolio of pictures of the rioters. My hope is that the local police are using these and the thousands of other photos out there to do the biggest round up they’ve done in generations, while some other bunch is busy building a whole entire prison to hold these vermin in.

And while you are looking at the pictures, let’s play a quick game of “One of these things is not like the others”. You’ll see it. And all I can say about that one is ... nice bottom!

Pathetic

another “Navy stops pirates” story that is hardly worth typing up:

German Navy Sinks Two Skiffs, Lets Tiny Dhow And Pirates Go
   

On the morning of 10 June, the EU NAVFOR German warship FGS Niedersachsen detected a suspected Pirate Action Group (PAG) whilst conducting a routine patrol in the Southern Somali Basin.

The PAG, which is suspected of carrying out a number of attacks on merchant vessels in the area, consisted of a fishing dhow and 2 attack skiffs.  Small arms and Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG)s were also seen on board.

Frigate FGS Niedersachsen, 180m, 3680 tonnes

As the Dhow was considered to be a real threat to shipping in the area, the German warship decided to disrupt the vessel but fears for the safety of the hostages on board prevented the Niedersachsen from taking direct action against the vessel.  Instead, to remove the Dhow’s ability to launch further attacks, the warship opened fire on the 2 attack skiffs sinking them in the process.  Without attack skiffs, it is highly unlikely that the suspected pirates could successfully board a vessel.

Having lost its skiffs, the Dhow changed course and made its way back toward Somalia.

This disruption has undoubtedly hampered pirate action and avoided highly probable attacks on merchant shipping and vulnerable vessels in the area.

pirate jelibut dhow and skiffs, perhaps 12m, 20 tonnes

So a great big, nearly 200 yard long German frigate with helicopters, missiles, and CIWS couldn’t deal with a pokey little wooden fishing boat, and instead shot up it’s two little fiberglass motorboats.

Gosh.

D’oh!

Somali Pirates Rescue Crew As Ship Burns
Oh, my heroes!!

Somali pirates say they have evacuated 19 crew members from a hijacked ship that caught fire Wednesday.

The Panama-flagged cargo ship MV Orna caught fire in the pirate stronghold of Harardhere, on Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast.

VOA’s Somali service talked to a regional piracy expert, Andrew Mwangura, who says the ship was still on fire Thursday afternoon local time. 

A pirate said he and his colleagues were trying to put out the fire. No cause had been determined.

The ship’s crew remains held by the pirates.

Last December:

At midday on 20 December, the MV ORNA was pirated in the Indian Ocean, approximately 400 nautical miles North East of the Seychelles.

The attack was launched from 2 attack skiffs, with pirates firing small arms and rocket propelled grenades at the merchant vessel. The vessel was stopped and boarded by at least 4 pirates. The crew is co-operating and no damage is reported.

The MV ORNA is a Panama flagged, UAE owned bulk cargo vessel with a dead weight of 27 915 tonnes. The number of crew onboard is unknown

So the pirates managed to set fire to one of the nearly two dozen ships they are holding for ransom. Oopsie daisy! Guess they won’t get much in ransom for it now. Pity. This is almost as much fun as self detonating terrorists!

lady cop fails test therefore, “it’s discrimination” says a judge. and sexist

Well now how could I possibly not share this with you.  I got it from one of my favorite writers. Richard Littlejohn, who writes for the Daily Mail.

Diversity squad running riot

A couple of promising entries this week for the Mind How You Go Awards.

In Manchester, a 51-year-old female inspector has brought a sex discrimination case because she failed a fitness test.
For the past 30 years, officers have been required to run 500 yards, wearing full riot gear and carrying shields, in less than two minutes 45 seconds. Inspector Diane Bamber complained it was humiliating and stands to receive £30,000 after a tribunal ruled in her favour.
The time limit has now been raised to three minutes.

Hang on there. With respect to Littlejohn, not certain about the increase to 3 minutes. In fact ....  there’s trouble - a - brewin.’ Take a look That link has the full back up story and it is an eye opener. Also shows how stupid these equality judges are. Read it!

Then there is this. 

Twinned with Bin Laden

When Jack Straw was pandering to his Muslim constituents in Blackburn, I occasionally referred to him as the Hon Member for Islamabad West.
Now we learn that, under an exchange scheme for schools, Blackburn has been twinned with Abbottabad, Pakistan, hiding place until recently of Osama Bin Laden.
You couldn’t make it up.

Maybe they should erect a statue of the deceased Al Qaeda leader outside the Town Hall.
Come to think of it, he’d have been better off hiding out in Blackburn.
If he’d ever been found, he wouldn’t have got a bullet in the brain, he’d have been given legal aid, full welfare benefits, free kidney dialysis on the NHS and a nice couple of council houses knocked together to accommodate his assorted wives and children.

LITTLEJOHN

pot addict claims £16,000 in benefits.  life in the uk today

I’m not certain if this post continues Drew’s thoughts on economies and ins/health etc.  Isn’t meant to but when I saw this I knew I had to share the lunacy with all here.

This is NOT a sane world.  Take a look at this.

Judge’s fury as cannabis addict claims £16,000 in benefit

because smoking the drug has made him too depressed to work

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

A father of two who legally pocketed up to £16,000 in state benefits because he smokes cannabis was condemned by a judge today.

Paul Holland, 21, who has been smoking the drug since he was ten said it made him depressed and he had been prescribed anti-depressants as a result.

But his condition meant he was able to claim £60 a week incapacity benefit on the grounds his illness has made him unable to work since he left school at 16.

He also has a six-month-old baby with a long-term medical problem.

At Burnley Crown Court, a senior judge condemned the payments at taxpayers’ expense after Holland appeared before him over a cannabis farm he grew at his home in Church, near Accrington in Lancashire.

Judge Heather Lloyd told him: ‘No doubt a significant part of your problems are caused by excessive use of cannabis.

‘I’m not a doctor, but there is plenty of medical evidence to show it is not uncommon for depression and anxiety, which could lead to paranoia, to be found with cannabis use.

‘You could do something about your problems whilst others who may have been born with health difficulties couldn’t.

‘I find it astonishing that somebody who may be self inflicting these problems upon themselves is able to get incapacity benefits at this level.’

She gave Holland 26 weeks in prison, suspended for two years, with 12 months supervision and 80 hours unpaid work. He must pay £100 costs.

Back at home Holland who lives with his mother said: ‘I’m not prepared to talk about this.’

But the court heard how he suffered depression and drinking since he was 13 and had been on state handouts since he left school.

He had been arrested after police acting on a tip off raided his home and found a 250 plant cannabis factory.

read the rest here

That’s pretty bad I suppose but actually it get even worse. And as far as I am personally concerned and I think there are a few Brits who agree,
it comes down finally to a nation’s sovereignty.
What I see happening on this side of the water makes me worry for my own country, cos I am convinced that there are people in the USA who think the idea of the left leaning European Union is a great idea, and that perhaps we need to be more like them.  I think they are called Socialists, Reds, bedwetters and loons. The problem is, they have lots of influence in high places and in some cases are most likely in a high place themselves.  So I’m concerned.

I won’t post the entire article here and this subject has been covered before , but perhaps not so much all at once.  It’s still an interesting and infuriating read.
Says something about that sovereignty thing too. Which btw reminds me.  Bad as this is, there’s something else of a non crime or immigration nature that’s just as bad. Seems there’s a bit of a dust up over just who speaks for England. What is happening is, the European Union under the Brit comrade commissar who serves in the EU and is supremo ...  will usurp British foreign policy.

Oh, and do you know that the EU has reps inside our favorite org.?  Yeah them. The UN. This all gets very involved. Will do a post on it. Makes for fascinating reading.  Meanwhile .................

Human right to sponge off UK: 3,200 criminals, failed asylum seekers and benefit tourists can’t be kicked out because of right to family life

By JAMES SLACK

Human rights law is demolishing every aspect of Britain’s immigration controls, Government papers reveal.

Every year, more than 3,200 foreign criminals, failed asylum seekers and EU ‘benefit tourists’ are using Labour’s Human Rights Act to thwart Home Office attempts to remove migrants – or stop them arriving in the first place.

The majority of cases are using the controversial Article 8, ‘the right to a private or family life’.

Ministers are so alarmed that they are planning a potentially explosive review of the ‘family life’ defence, which critics say is widely abused.

There has been a series of shocking cases of foreign killers and other criminals cheating deportation.

But the first Home Office audit of the full impact of the Human Rights Act has revealed it is sabotaging almost every part of the immigration system.

Nepalese killer Rocky Gurung was allowed to remain although he was a single adult with no children, who lived with his parents

In the last three months of 2010, 99 foreign prisoners successfully claimed deporting them would breach their right to a family life in Britain – the equivalent of almost 400 each year. It is four times the previous estimate of 100 – which itself provoked outrage.

In addition, Article 8 thwarted the equivalent of 132 asylum removals last year. The separate Article 3 – the right to protection from ill-treatment – prevented the removal of the equivalent of 56 foreign criminals, and 16 asylum seekers.

The most shocking development, however, is the way the right to a family life is impacting on the rest of the immigration system.

Originally, the right to family life was applied in strict circumstances – such as a migrant having married here, and had children. In recent cases, this has been widened.

A Nepalese killer, Rocky Gurung, was allowed to remain although he was a single adult with no children, who lived with his parents.

A Sri Lankan robber was allowed to stay as he has a girlfriend in Britain. One Bolivian was allowed to remain to care for his pet cat.

In a letter to the Tory MP Dominic Raab, the Home Office disclosed that the equivalent of almost 600 economic migrants who had been denied a visa under the point-based system were using Article 8 to make successful appeals.

Amazingly, immigration judges were even interfering in decisions involving 1,200 EU nationals. Under EU law, citizens of other member states are free to settle in Britain provided they are either self-sufficient, meaning they have enough money to support themselves, or hold a job.

The rules are designed to prevent ‘benefit tourism’. But, in the last three months of 2010, 292 EU citizens successfully argued they have a human right to stay here without satisfying these conditions.

It gives them free access to the full benefits system, including housing.

A Supreme Court judge yesterday appealed to European human rights judges to stop trying to force new laws on Britain.

Baroness Hale of Richmond said Strasbourg’s campaign to give the prisoners the vote is ‘some way ahead’ of law and opinion here.

Britain has never allowed convicted prisoners to vote and Parliament has endorsed the ban. Strasbourg has given the Government until October before it takes further action.

read more

So then, the court in Strasbourg is giving the Brits a deadline are they.  Interesting. And what if the Brits say up your?  Will Blighty be invaded?
Will this become another Danzig?
Woo-hoo ... stay tuned

   Thursday - June 16, 2011

Zombienomics

I’d like to repost a link that I posted the other day. It’s an article on how our dead economy is going to continue chugging along, and never get much better, even though it is dead. Mostly dead.

Here is the link.

Now I am not an economist, nor am I well versed at watching the moves in the market and figuring out what they mean. I think this guy “Spengler” might be. I put quotes around his name, because I’m pretty certain that “Spengler” is actually David Goldman; what the above link covers briefly, the past two months worth of David Goldman columns ( starting from about here ) cover in much greater detail. Same graphs, same conclusions, often the same expressions, but with more detail. Yup, same guy.

We’ve got a creative-destruction economy, without the creation: the startups, the venture capital, the entrepreneurship. MySpace and LinkedIn don’t count: they are a faddish extension of old technology, a means by which Americans who bowl alone can pretend to have lots of friends.

The only thing expanding is the government sector, and that by a spectacular margin.  Nearly a fifth of all personal income receipts by Americans now consist of transfer payments, which is to say that a fifth of all personal income received by Americans is redistribution of tax payments from other Americans.

************************

A major depressant on the property market is the simple calculation that property taxes have risen substantially as a percentage of the value of real estate. The deflationary consequences of this result will appear either on the balance sheet of households and businesses, in the form of lower property values, or on the income statements of state and local governments, in the form of lower tax collections.

************************

I hate to repeat myself, but this kind of implosion of private credit creation, never, NEVER happened before. We are in uncharted territory. We have had NO recovery in the private credit creation mechanism since the 2008 crisis. The banks keep buying Treasuries, and shedding risk assets.

The reason we’re not going to get a double dip is that there’s no more risk to be shed. There are no more workers to be fired. There are homes to be liquidated, but the banks have enough capital to absorb it, and they’re not making loans anyway.  Mortgage lending has collapsed, the housing sector is flattened, entrepreneurship is despondent–but big corporations can still take advantage of global economic growth. They will churn out profits but they won’t hire.

This is NOT, NOT, NOT a business cycle. Throw out your macroeconomics textbook. It was lousy in the past when we had business cycles. Now we have a different sort of economy.

************************

No start-ups, no employment growth.

What does the US need?

A repeal of Obamacare and slashing of regulations that choke off business start-ups.

Elimination of capital gains tax and dividends tax, period.

Cuts in the corporate tax rate.

In other words, we need a capitalist restoration to overturn the socialist revolution of the past few years.

I read the Zombienomics essay and the dozen or so posts that went into making it, and I’m beginning to feel that Goldman knows what he’s talking about. The banks, the government, and the top corporations are all doing just fine, thanks. They are above the fray. Whatever recovery we have had has gone to the big money players, and the rest of us can go pound sand. That’s what you get when your Manchurian Candidate is a puppet operated by Goldman Sachs.

No, understanding what’s going on is not going to make me rich. I am portfolio free, unfortunately. But such an understanding might help me figure out how we’ve all been played, and who the players really are. And possibly give us some survival tips for life here in the United Socialist States of America. ( Goldman’s term, not mine. But just how true is it? Quite, I’m thinking. Fundamental Change and all that. )

It took me perhaps 45 minutes to read the Zombienomics essay and all the other essays that went into it. It’s taken me several hours to even begin to digest it.

2nd Place and holding

We had the bye this week in our tiny little summer bowling league. My wife had to visit her sister in the hospital (who is just fine now, thanks) so she wasn’t there. The other 2 guys on our team are fairly new to the sport, and both are monkey bowlers. That’s what I call the cranker style of bent wrist, thumbless bowling where the bowler palms the ball against the inside of his wrist. The approach reminds me of these little plastic guys from my childhood

Such a style allows them to put quite a lot of revs on the ball, but getting accuracy and consistency this way is quite challenging. But who am I to criticize? Bowl whatever way makes you happy.

So anyway, we had the bye, and had to “earn the points” by rolling better than our team average minus 40 pins. So I used the opportunity to explain tactical bowling to these new guys; we could win the games with ease, but bowling just enough would keep our averages low, which would give us an advantage when bowling against other teams in future weeks. They understood, but decided to just bowl as well as they could anyway. That’s cool. Nothing wrong with doing your best.

So I went tactical the first game and rolled low with a 176. We won. I rolled a 205 in the second game, and explained how this would allow them to roll low if they wanted, to spread the “tactical” approach evenly amongst each of us. They threw their best; Bill rolled a 224. We won that game with almost 100 pins more than needed. We’re a loud and raucous group, which is fun, and Bill was all in your face! at me, the experienced bowler, after his 224 game, which beat my 205. So I threw “tactical” to the winds and bowled seriously the 3rd game, pulling a 178 on a strike in the 9th. I started off the 10th with two strikes, X X, then covered my eyes and just chucked the last ball and got a 6, giving me a 224 just like Bill’s. Didn’t want to take away his moment, but I did want to show that I could match his score just by screwing around. In your face! We won that game by more than 100. That gave me a 605 for the night, but because the USBC considers summer season to be an extension of winter season, where I bowled several 600+ series, there won’t be another “wonderful” refrigerator magnet award for me. You only get one of each per season / calender year.

Since this was only week 5 of league, next week I expect our averages to go up 9 or 10 pins each. Which is the antithesis of tactical, so I’ll remind them of that then if we find ourselves up against the wall. Whatever, we had fun, and since it was just the 3 of us, we were done with all 3 games in just over an hour. Sweet.

Our team is in 2nd place. The first place team had a forfeit, which is just like a bye, so I expect they took all 7 too. So we’ll stay in 2nd, and both teams will open the margin from the 3rd place team.

It’s not rocket surgery

Ann Barnhardt On Health Insurance
Somebody had to say it.

The primary reason that the cost of healthcare is going through the roof is because the paradigm of insurance itself has been completely corrupted and bastardized.  This corruption and abuse of the concept of insurance, which is nothing more than risk management and risk pooling, is itself what is artificially inflating healthcare costs. 

A secondary cause of health care price inflation that bears a quick mention is indeed the out-of-control malpractice litigation culture, personified by that walking human compost heap, John Edwards.  The solution there is simple.  Cap malpractice awards and implement a “loser pays” rule to disincentivize frivilous litigation.  It’s not rocket surgery.
...
Health insurance is meant to be a protection against catastrophic costs and expenses.  The operative term here, people, is “catastrophic”.
...
The reason that the system of health insurance in the U.S. is broken today is because the concept of insurance itself has been bastardized and corrupted such that the expectation of coverage is no longer merely to protect against catastrophic expenses, but to cover absolutely everything: simple office visits, sore throat, chest cold, minor cuts requiring stitches, heck even setting a broken bone or arthroscopically working on a torn ligament in a knee. 
...
You are not entitled to an insurance policy which covers every little thing.  In fact, if it is mandated that insurance cover every little thing, including preventative care, then the entire concept of risk pooling collapses in flames.  The more the insurance company has to cover, the higher the odds that any given individual is going to have a claim.  This would be like demanding auto insurance coverage that would pay out for a car wash if an insect hit your windshield – and not just a $7.00 car wash at the gas station, but a $300 full detail job.  If that were the case, the cost of car insurance would become prohibitively expensive.  But guys, my example of auto insurance paying out for a $300 detail job after having an insect hit your windshield is not an unreasonable analogue to today’s health insurance market.  We have health insurance today that covers acupuncture and cosmetic surgery.  If you force insurance to cover PREVENTATIVE care and purely cosmetic or non-medical procedures, then what you are doing is GUARANTEEING that every single participant in the risk pool can potentially have a claim.  If every person in the pool is guaranteed or even mandated to have a claim, then it is no longer a risk pool.  My God, how can it be that no one understands this?
...
... a zero competition, zero deductible system, which is the goal of ObamaCare.  If you think that is going to reduce costs, then apparently Barack Obama isn’t the only person currently smoking crack in this country.

This is a MUST READ article, but for those of you who have to multitask, there are also videos. So it can be a MUST LISTEN post if necessary. Go, and partake.

What a wild idea - medical insurance to cover catastrophic or significant accident or illness.

Nearly as wild would be health insurance possibly extended to cover (partially?) minor accidents or illnesses if they cost you more than X% of your annual income. Say you make $30,000 a year, and you policy comes in after 5%. That’s $1500 worth of doctor visits, medicines, eye exams, etc. In the past 10 years I’ve been to the doctor about once or twice a year. So for me, even if I only made $3,000 a year, I’d barely make that 5% line.

And let’s knock off the BS of calling health insurance “health care”. It isn’t.

Weiner chops it off

Anthony Weiner (D-NY) Resigns

NY, 2:25 PM - Amid heckling shouts of “bye bye pervert!” Anthony Weiner has resigned his seat in Congress.

Scandal-scarred Rep. Anthony Weiner resigned his seat from the U.S. House on Thursday, ending a once-promising political career after his sexually-charged online behavior was exposed.

“Today I am announcing my resignation from Congress, so my colleagues can get back to work, my neighbors can choose a new representative and most importantly that my wife and I can continue to deal with the damage I have caused,” he said at a news conference in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.

His announcement was met by some cheers and heckling in the packed room, including from one who could be heard saying, “Goodbye, pervert.”

Weiner now joins a long list of U.S. lawmakers who have resigned over sex scandals in recent years, including Rep. Chris Lee, R-N.Y., Eric Massa, D-N.Y., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.

For nearly three weeks, Weiner has been embroiled in a scandal over lewd pictures and messages that he sent to at least six women on Twitter and Facebook over a three-year period.

Weiner has told friends he wanted to speak with his pregnant wife, Huma Abedin, before deciding whether to resign. She returned to Washington early Wednesday from a trip to Africa with her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Weiner’s resignation came after the scandal grew even stranger when former porn actress Ginger Lee who exchanged emails and messages with the congressman said Wednesday he asked her to lie about their interactions. Lee called for Weiner to resign.

Oh snap. Maybe he could ignore the calls for his resignation from members and leaders of both parties, and even from the President, but when a used up old porn star says it’s over, it’s over.

Next Target

Zawahiri named new head of al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda has named Ayman al-Zawahiri as its new chief.

Zawahiri has been al-Qaeda’s number two for years but was elevated today after the killing of long-time leader Osama bin Laden by US commandos in a May 2 raid in Pakistan.

“The general command of al-Qaeda announces, after consultations, the appointment of Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri as head of the group,” the jihadists said in a statement issued in the name of the general command and posted on an Islamist website.

The only hurdle was a vote of confidence among members of the “general command.”

That the approximately ten people believed to make up this exclusive body met in person to pass the baton on to Zawahiri is unlikely; they probably either voted over the Internet or let their messengers meet each other. Under bin Laden, the group’s role was much less evident and it was rarely heard from. In the past six weeks, though, it has confirmed bin Laden’s death and now appointed his successor, and the “general command” has made its central role within the network clear for all to see.

The development seems to hint that al-Qaida may be better organized than it often seems from the outside.
...
More interesting than the appointment itself is the question of how to interprete it. Is al-Qaida being reorganized under Ayman al-Zawahiri? And as the new “amir,” will he be afforded the same degree of obedience as his predecessor?

Al-Zawahiri enjoys a lot of respect within al-Qaida and the wider circle of volunteers and active supporters—above all simply because of how long he has been part of the jihadist camp. He was radicalized as a youth and became caught up in the pull of militant organizations who wanted to overthrow the Egyptian government. He is believed to have formed his first cell as a 16-year-old, and was imprisoned intermittently in Egypt.
...
But respect is one thing, veneration another: Zawahiri, known mostly as “Sheikh Dr. Ayman,” is a poor speaker, argumentative and a know-it-all, and unlike bin Laden, has only little charisma.

His first wife and family were killed, along with his brother, in jihad fighting at Tora Bora in 2001. It is said that he remarried two widows of other jihadis. His brother is once again under arrest in Egypt.

Cairo - Mohamed al-Zawahiri, brother of al-Qaeda’s second highest commander, was arrested two days after he released from custody in Egypt, a security source said Sunday.

Mohamed al-Zawahiri, who was re-arrested on Saturday, had spent more than 10 years in prison. An Egyptian court tried him in absentia in 1998 and sentenced him to death.

Mohamed al-Zawahiri is known to have been a military commander in the terrorist network Islamic Jihad, leading the group’s activities in Bosnia and Albania during the Balkan wars in the 1990s.

The brothers are believed to have led the Islamic Jihad movement in Egypt [ EIJ ].

Oh joy, a whole family of terrorist jihadis. Wonderful. And, no surprise here either, they come from the top of the fiscal / social pyramid in Egypt. Ayman Mohamed Rabi’ Ayman al-Zawahri has a master’s degree in surgery. His twin sister is an oncologist. Daddy was a pharmacology professor. One grandfather ran the biggest mosque in Sunni Islam, the other one was president of Cairo University and the Egyptian ambassador to several muslim nations. As leader of EIJ Ayman al-Z was likely the brains behind an attempted assassination of Hosni Mubarak. He has published a book that condemns Muslim Brotherhood as being too moderate. Golly! Ayman al-Zawahiri had been with bin Laden even before al-Qaeda was formed.  He was also the money man for EIJ, traveling around the world, even to the United States, to raise cash for that group. more background info here.

So now the race is on: can the US drop a drone bomb on his head before he can reorganize AQ? And if we can’t, does he have the moxi to keep AQ a coherent entity? It’s in our best interest to shatter AQ into little pieces that squabble with each other, and a bitter and grumpy old fart like Ayman Zawahiri might be just what the doctor ordered.

A WING AND A PRAYER?

Since I can only get to one posting today, this is my pick.  Makes a good change from usual rant and rave and besides, it is funny and cute.

Happened on a busy fwy here called the M4.  A motorist got out of his car and managed to get the bird on to the shoulder.

Very very HEAVY rain mixed with hail. Oh boy. Not nice weather today.  Pullin’ the plug.

[ Drew adds: At least this time it wasn’t runaway cows or dead pigs! ]

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