Thursday - August 11, 2005

Sympathy For The Devil, Baghdad Style

At this rate, we’ll never figure out the Iraqi people and how to help them. Sunnis, Shias, Kurds, all are squabbling over who gets what and who gets to do what - and that’s just the three main divisions in the Iraqi population. Yesterday’s parliamentary session was interrupted when one minister and his followers protested the somewhat negative attitude of the rest of parliament toward the devil, whom they worship as Lucifer ....

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The Devil looked in on Iraq’s parliament when an MP upbraided Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari for speaking ill of Lucifer. Kameran Khairi Said, a Kurdish MP and a member of the minority Yezidi community which worships the peacock angel, also known as Lucifer, angrily interrupted the prime minister during a parliamentary debate.

“Mr prime minister and ministers, my speaking out might seem strange to you but we feel insulted when you repeatedly use the expression in your speeches and statements ‘God protects us from the Devil’. “Each time the word is pronounced, my colleagues turn towards me as if I were a representative of the Devil,” he added amid guffaws from other MPs.

Yezidis follow a pre-Islamic religion, which some believe was founded in the 12th century by Sheikh Uday bin Masafel al-Amawi, although many scholars trace its origins to the Zoroastrian religion of ancient Persia. Sheikh Uday was born in Damascus but died in the town of Lalish, in northern Iraq, where his tomb has become the Yezidis’ holiest shrine. The community is still largely based in the foothills north of Iraq’s main northern city of Mosul and in the Sinjar mountains on the border with Syria.

But followers of the faith can be found throughout the Kurdish diaspora, in neighbouring Syria and Turkey as well as the former Soviet republics of the Caucasus, or in Germany and Britain. “There are 600,000 to 700,000 Kurdish yezidis and they feel insulted whenever you use that phrase and we call on all those in a position of authority to take account of this,” Said said. The Yezidis do not believe in heaven or hell, and do not regard Satan as evil. In fact, they worship him—but dare not say his name.

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/11/2005 at 08:43 AM   
Filed Under: • Religion •  
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Are You Ready ….

Spring has sprung, Fall has fell, summer’s here and it’s hot as hell. Never fear though, college football is about to start. The first pre-season poll is out. Where’s your favorite team? Mine is ranked #24 ....

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/11/2005 at 07:04 AM   
Filed Under: • Sports •  
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Gitmo By The Bay

It seems rice pilaf, honey-glazed chicken and restful nights with a good book are no longer enough for Gitmo detainees. Now, some are getting the full vacation package with TV, stereos and a nice view overlooking the Caribbean beaches ....

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)—The U.S. military plans to ease conditions for some detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba—housing them in a renovated section with televisions, stereos and a view of the Caribbean, the detention center’s commanding officer said in court papers.

For the past several weeks, the military has been renovating Camp Iguana for detainees who are deemed no longer a threat to the United States, Brig Gen. Jay Hood said in an affidavit filed late Tuesday in federal court in Washington.

The renovations are scheduled to be finished around Aug. 15, and some of those designated “No Longer Enemy Combatants,” or NLEC’s, will be able to live in communal housing with air conditioning, unlimited showers and additional food, Hood said.

“The living conditions for NLEC’s have been evolving and will continue to do so,” the general said in the affidavit.

Camp Iguana, which was previously used for daytime recreation for Guantanamo detainees considered the most compliant, has been closed for six months. The reason for the closure or the cost of the upgrade was not immediately available, a military spokesman said Wednesday.

Hood’s affidavit was filed by the government in the case of two Chinese Uighurs, A’Del Abdu Al-Hakim and Abu Baker Qassim, who the government says were captured in Pakistan as they fled a Taliban military training camp near Tora Bora, Afghanistan in 2001.

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/11/2005 at 06:30 AM   
Filed Under: • Terrorists •  
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How Things Work

_{Clay Bennett, The Christian Science Monitor, Boston}

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/11/2005 at 06:23 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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   Wednesday - August 10, 2005

Bonnie & Clyde Captured In Ohio

The manhunt is over. The Tennessee couple who broke out of jail and killed a police officer have just been captured in Columbus, Ohio ....

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Aug 10, 11:39 PM (ET)—A fugitive inmate and his wife, wanted in a brazen courthouse escape and shooting in Tennessee, were captured Wednesday night at an Ohio motel after a tip from a cab driver who had dropped them off, authorities said. George Hyatte and Jennifer Forsyth Hyatte were in a room at an America’s Best Value Inn in Columbus and were arrested without a struggle, said Mark Gwyn, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

“We have found weapons,” he said. “We don’t know if it’s the murder weapon, but we’re processing those as we speak.”

On Tuesday, authorities say Jennifer Hyatte, 31, ambushed two guards as they were leading her 34-year-old husband from a courthouse hearing in Kingston, Tenn., about 300 miles south of Columbus. Guard Wayne “Cotton” Morgan was fatally shot in the escape. Jennifer Hyatte had some injuries, Gwyn said, but he declined to elaborate. He said the couple would be brought back to Tennessee on warrants for first degree murder.

Authorities had already tracked the Hyattes to the Cincinnati area when they got a tip around 9 p.m. that the couple was at the Columbus motel. A cab driver who had apparently driven them from Columbus from Erlanger, Ky., just south of Cincinnati, called Erlanger police, U.S. Marshal John Schickel said. He declined to give any additional information or identify the cab driver.

After the tip, authorities surrounded the Columbus motel, said John Bolen, a supervisor for the U.S. Marshals Service in Columbus. Authorities called the motel room where the couple was staying, told them they were surrounded, and the couple came out of their room and surrendered around 10 p.m., Bolen said. They didn’t say anything during the arrest, he said.

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/10/2005 at 10:42 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime •  
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Stupid Criminals, Part II

BWAH-HAH-HAH-HA-HA-HA-AH-HAH-HAH-HA-HA-HA-AH-HAH-HAH-HA-HA-HA-AH ....

TAMPA TRIBUNE (AP) --Marvin Williams thought it would be funny to put a blue-and-red flashing light on the dashboard of his friend’s car and pretend to pull over another motorist, police said. But the joke backfired Sunday night when Williams picked a car with two undercover Tampa cops inside.

It didn’t help much when he laughed about it as he drove by. Then, when police followed him, the 22-year-old Williams ran from the vehicle, officials say. He left behind two female friends who were riding with him, and 7 grams of cocaine on the center console, police said. The officers caught up, caught him and found the drugs.

Williams was charged with cocaine possession, impersonating a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest. Officers also arrested a woman riding in the front seat and charged her with cocaine possession. Williams posted $4,500 bail Monday night and was released. A working phone number could not be located for him Tuesday, and it wasn’t known if he had an attorney.

Police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said Williams joked with his passengers about pulling someone over in the moments before pulling behind Officers Sean Kruger and Jason Degagne shortly before midnight. “The joke was on him,” McElroy said. “His victims turned out to be police officers who escorted him to jail - with a real blue light.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/10/2005 at 10:26 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Stoopid-People •  
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Nightly Maniac Report

Tonight’s Nightly Maniac Report is brought to you from Simi Valley, California where guns don’t kill car alarms, people kill car alarms ....

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP)—A man annoyed by a noisy car alarm fired at least three bullets into a Toyota Camry, silencing the alarm and bringing out police who hauled him away in handcuffs, authorities said. David Owen Rye, 48, was arrested and booked for investigation of reckless discharge of a firearm and felony vandalism, Sgt. John Adamczyk said. Rye allegedly told officers he grabbed his handgun and went out to put a stop to the car alarm.

The owner of the Camry, a sailor whose ship the USS Theodore Roosevelt just returned from an eight-month cruise, was visiting a friend when he heard the gunfire at about 10 p.m. Tuesday, KCAL-TV reported.

“I mean, that’s not a safe guy. I mean, you get upset over an alarm, over a noise like that, (then) there’s some little kids making too much noise and he decides to do something awful,” sailor Nicholas Moreno, 25, said.

Police were called to the Yosemite Avenue apartment building and Rye was ordered out of his apartment by an officer with a bullhorn. A Los Angeles Police Department helicopter also responded and Rye was arrested. Neighbor Ken Davis said he heard gunshots and looked outside to see Rye holding a gun.

“It was little scary,” Davis said. “I didn’t know what kind of mood he was in. I didn’t want to say anything to him.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/10/2005 at 09:25 PM   
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Stupid Criminals

When you’re planning on robbing a TV show host, it’s best to do so when he’s no on the air, on live TV.

FORT SMITH, Ark.—Viewers of an Arkansas cable access show helped Fort Smith police crack a case late Thursday night after they watched a robbery on live TV.

When a man came in and demanded Spirito’s car keys, Spirito informed his audience that this was no joke.

“There’s a guy robbing us, somebody call the police, he came in with a gun. Somebody call police, there’s a guy in here trying to rob us,” Spirito said.

That’s when Spirito addressed the alleged robber directly.

“Then I looked up at him and said, ‘We’re doing a live show here and there’s probably hundreds of people out there right now calling the police to come down on this building, just so you know,’” he said.

Two guys caught a short time later.  Ijits.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/10/2005 at 12:50 PM   
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Member Survey

Sheila Coggins has posted an excellent editorial on what it takes to be a good blogger. She offers twelve tips for bloggers. I would like to ask all members to read her article and keep BMEWS and Ye Olde Skipper in mind as you read it. Let me know how I compare to these “tips”.

Yes, I really want to know ....

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/10/2005 at 12:45 PM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
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Boots on the ground

We already know that the MSM doesn’t tell us the whole story of what’s going on in Iraq, and thanks to a link I read on Kim’s site this morning, I have a new source for real reporting from the front.

Michael Yon : Online Magazine

Jungle Law
Mosul, Iraq

The first person to use a shield might have been a hairy man who, days earlier, barely survived a barrage from the stone-throwing man in the cave next door. As the use of weaponized sticks and stones spread, improved shields probably were not far behind. Throughout recorded history, bigger and better shields always play catch-up to their bigger and better ballistic brethren. Common wisdom posits that defense systems are preventative measures, but in fact, they are reactive. Every castle wall can be defeated. Somewhere along the line people realized, “the best defense is a good offense.” Adherence to this maxim provided at least one of the philosophical rubicons to our landing in Iraq.

The best modern armors, which can include everything from sandbags to special alloys and “reactive armors,” are simple to use and can work well for short periods. Sandbags are good and cheap, but are cumbersome and blow apart easily. As for the reactive armors, modern explosives are more powerful than modern alloys and their associated engineering can withstand. Pound for pound—and volume for volume--explosives are miles ahead of metallurgy and engineering. No matter how sophisticated the science behind the shield, someone can make a bomb to beat it.

During the first phase of this war, many of our troops were riding in unarmored Humvees and other vehicles. Soon they were being torn to pieces. Once the vehicles were up-armored, the enemy was unable to defeat much of that defense. For a time. But today—although armored Humvees are great and can defeat many threats—the latest generations of IEDs can effortlessly swat them away, spreading their parts over city blocks. The enemy has destroyed our most powerful armored tanks with underground bombs that leave craters in the roads large enough to make swimming pools.

Go read the rest (and the archives), you will be a better person for it.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/10/2005 at 10:52 AM   
Filed Under: • Military •  
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Photo Du Jour

Sunflowers in Virginia
P. Meyers

Posted by Drew458     on 08/10/2005 at 10:32 AM   
Filed Under: • Art-Photography •  
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Gitmo Reading List: Harry Potter?

Occasionally I pick up on a news story that makes me pause and reflect. Sometimes, I have to read it two or three times before I can wrap my mind around it. This latest story out of Gitmo is no exception. It seems the prisoners there are totally wrapped up in the Harry Potter books. In fact, they spend more time reading these children’s books and Agatha Christie mystery novels than they spend reading the Quran (Koran?).

I had to ponder this one for a while before it hit me. Most of these prisoners are illiterate, backward tribalistic young men with no education - they are grown men with the minds of children, thus the appeal of these books. They grew up in a backward society with radical religious zealots brainwashing them from an early age, similar to the Hitler Youth of World War II. They only know how to kill, maim and destroy. Most can barely read or understand what is happening to them.

Does this mean I should feel sorry for them? Not on your life. A grown man with an AK-47, a chip on his shoulder and the mind of a seven-year-old are a dangerous combination in anybody’s book .... even if they think Harry Potter is cool ....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Harry Potter has bewitched detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, where tales of the young wizard and mysteries by Agatha Christie top the list of most popular books, a prison librarian said on Tuesday.

“Harry Potter is a popular title among some of the detainee population,” said the librarian, a civilian contractor identified only as “Lorie” who works at the prison camp for foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

Lorie said the popularity of the best-selling Harry Potter books, which recount the adventures of a boy wizard as he triumphs over the powers of evil, was matched only by the prisoners’ passion for Agatha Christie, some of whose murder mysteries are set in the Middle East.

The Guantanamo Bay prison—which has come under fierce attack by human rights groups for its treatment and indefinite detention of prisoners—holds about 510 suspects from 40 countries. Most are from Afghanistan and Arab states.

But even this remote prison has not escaped the world-wide frenzy over the escapades of Harry Potter and his friends at the Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft. The sixth book in the series by author J.K. Rowling, which went on sale last month, is the fastest-selling book of all time.

“We have Harry Potter in four languages, English, French, Farsi and Russian. We have it on order in Arabic. We do not have books 5 and 6 in the series, at this time. We have had several detainees read the series,” Lorie said in a written response to questions from Reuters.

“One prisoner has requested the movies,” she said.

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/10/2005 at 05:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Terrorists •  
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First Hurdle Complete

Nefarious Ferret Update: I got an e-mail from the father of our little lady out at the USAF Academy last night. Kristen has made it through the first hurdle, the summer boot camp that all new cadets go through. Next up, classes start today ....

Allan:

Well, Kristin made it through basic out at the Academy.  Today is graduation and classes start right up tomorrow.

She made it through everything and is doing well.  I told her about your post. She was pretty excited about it and I expect she will be in touch with you guys soon.  The cadets picked up their computers yesterday.

She was able to call home again on Sunday.  I happened to be out on a field exercise so she called me on the cell.  I passed the phone around to a bunch of the NCOs in my unit that have watched her grow up and they all took turns giving her a hard time about the AF.  lol Something about “valet bivouac” and the like.

Speaking of making it through, her flight was actually the ONLY one that didn’t lose any cadets in basic.  They were pretty happy about that, normal attrition is around 5-7% as I recall.

Well, ‘spect you’ll be hearing from her soon,
Mike

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/10/2005 at 04:33 AM   
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Asshat Of The Day, Part III

We continue the ongoing saga of radical Muslim cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed where we left off yesterday. He left Britain, is currently in Lebanon and yesterday said he would come back to Britain in four to six weeks unless told not to come back. Now the British government has made its move in this chess game of international intrigue, telling Bakri that if he fails to return before the end of the month he will be banned ....

(GUARDIAN - UK)—The Islamist preacher Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, who left Britain for Lebanon at the weekend after learning he could face incitement charges, will be banned from returning if he fails to come back before the end of the month. Mr Bakri, the former leader of the Islamist group al-Muhajiroun, said yesterday that he was enjoying a holiday with his mother in Beirut and still hoped to return to London to his family.

The deputy prime minister, John Prescott, urged Mr Bakri to stay away. “I just say ‘enjoy your holiday, make it a long one’,” he said, adding that the preacher, who currently has indefinite leave to remain in Britain, had committed no offence by leaving the country.

The lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, made it clear yesterday that Mr Bakri, and two other radicals, are highly unlikely to face treason charges. In a letter in today’s Guardian, the director of public prosecutions, Ken Macdonald QC, said that discussions with the Metropolitan police had taken place concerning “three Muslim clerics” over “possible offences of solicitation to murder and acts relating to the withholding of information under the Terrorism Act 2000”. There had been no discussion about treason.

Although the home secretary, Charles Clarke, cannot stop Mr Bakri coming back under existing legislation, he would be able to block his entry under the plans announced last Friday to exclude or deport those who preach hate or justify violence. Mr Clarke does not need primary legislation to implement the plan to exclude figures such as Mr Bakri. He can introduce the change under existing immigration rules and is expected to do so swiftly once the two-week consultation period is completed.

The home secretary named Mr Bakri in the Commons on July 20 as one of the two principal targets of his new powers, alongside Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. This means, in practical terms, that Mr Bakri can expect to be banned from re-entering Britain unless he returns within the next three weeks.

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/10/2005 at 04:04 AM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA • Terrorists •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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