Monthly Archives: August 2009
Scores Dead As Baghdad Rocked By Series Of Massive Explosions – London Times
At least 95 people have been killed and hundreds injured by a series of co-ordinated bomb attacks in Baghdad today.
In the deadliest attack in Iraq this year, and the most audacious one in the capital for several more, truck and car bombs and mortar fire were directed against the main centres of power. The targets included the ministries of finance, foreign affairs, health and housing, as well as the Parliament and Cabinet buildings. Also hit was a checkpoint on the approach roads to the fortified Green Zone.
“95 people were killed and 563 wounded,” an Interior Ministry official said this afternoon. The largest explosion was a truck bomb across the street from the Foreign Ministry, just outside the Green Zone, which is reported to have killed up to 59 people and injured 250. The force of the blast flattened the compound wall and blew concrete slabs off the front of the 10-storey block, killing people working inside the building and devastating cars and bystanders for hundreds of metres around.
It left a crater in the road three metres deep and 10 metres wide, full of dozens of burned and twisted cars and a few charred bodies. Other nearby buildings were also damaged, including the Parliament which lies inside the Green Zone. Water tanks collapsed on nearby houses, sending water gushing through people’s homes.
“I was in my home with my family when the roof collapsed on us,” said Hamid, 46, who lives a few hundred metres away from the Foreign Ministry. “The government promised us security would return but where is the security?”
Blast walls surrounding the Foreign Ministry compound, which might have limited the devastation, were removed two months ago. The move was part of a process of “normalisation” by the Iraqi government, after US troops withdrew from Iraqi cities on June 30.
Nobody has so far claimed responsibility for the latest attacks, but it is likely to have been carried out by Sunni extremists trying to undermine the Shia-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in order to re-ignite the sectarian warfare of two years ago.
Church Rules No Pants On Sunday – Fiji Times
The strict observance of Sunday worship has resulted in men on a Bua island not being allowed to wear pants on Sunday.
The Sunday ban also forbids travel and the hanging of clothes on lines.
Galoa Village headman Josefa Baleinasiga said the ban was enforced so that the islanders could learn to respect the significance of Sunday as a holy day.
Mr Baleinasiga said the Methodist Church and the vanua also decided to impose the ban as a means of bringing good fortune to the people.
“The ban is meant to bring good luck to the island as we respect the day of the Lord,” he said.
“You can see that often misfortune befalls us because we don’t respect His commandments that there be no work performed on Sunday except worship.
“Before our islanders used to go diving on Sunday, and there was a lot of travelling and it was difficult to separate the days all the days were the same.
“Now on Saturdays the clothes line in the village is full as the villagers know they can’t hang anything out on Sunday.”
AARP’s support of ObamaCare not going over well.
Oh yes, I know, they didn’t “officially” endorse it. Still, everyone knew where their heads were on this. And guess what folks? They have seen a dramatic rise in cancelled memberships!
There a many good things that may come about as a result of the demise of ObamaCare. Among them is a smaller and less influential AARP. CBS News reports:
(CBS) CBS News has learned that up to 60,000 people have cancelled their AARP memberships since July 1, angered over the group’s position on health care. ….Many are switching to the American Seniors Association, a group that calls itself the conservative alternative as CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.
Last week alone, they added more than 5,000 new members. Our camera was there Friday when the mail came.
Letters were filled with cut-up AARP cards.
Ah, I love good news!
Favre Unretires AGAIN; Joins Vikings – Newsday
Three weeks after announcing – again – that he had retired from the NFL, Brett Favre has decided to return – again.
The former Packers legend, who was traded from Green Bay to the Jets last year and retired after the 2009 season, arrived in Minnesota Tuesday to sign with the Vikings. He was expected to agree to a one-year contract worth as much as $12 million once he passes a physical.
Science Ponders ‘Zombie Attack’ – BBC News
If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilization unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.
That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada. They say only frequent counter-attacks with increasing force would eradicate the fictional creatures.
The scientific paper is published in a book – Infectious Diseases Modelling Research Progress.
In books, films, video games and folklore, zombies are undead creatures, able to turn the living into other zombies with a bite.
But there is a serious side to the work.
In some respects, a zombie “plague” resembles a lethal, rapidly spreading infection. The researchers say the exercise could help scientists model the spread of unfamiliar diseases through human populations.
In their study, the researchers from the University of Ottawa and Carleton University (also in Ottawa) posed a question: If there was to be a battle between zombies and the living, who would win?
Sudden Lack Of War Protesters Proves Movement Was Really Just Anti-Bush
For The Left, War Without Bush Is Not War At All – Byron York
Remember the anti-war movement? Not too long ago, the Democratic party’s most loyal voters passionately opposed the war in Iraq. Democratic presidential candidates argued over who would withdraw American troops the quickest. Netroots activists regularly denounced President George W. Bush, and sometimes the U.S. military (“General Betray Us”). Cindy Sheehan, the woman whose soldier son was killed in Iraq, became a heroine when she led protests at Bush’s Texas ranch.
That was then. Now, even though the United States still has roughly 130,000 troops in Iraq, and is quickly escalating the war in Afghanistan – 68,000 troops there by the end of this year, and possibly more in 2010 – anti-war voices on the Left have fallen silent.
No group was more angrily opposed to the war in Iraq than the netroots activists clustered around the left-wing Web site DailyKos. It’s an influential site, one of the biggest on the Web, and in the Bush years many of its devotees took an active role in raising money and campaigning for anti-war candidates.
In 2006, DailyKos held its first annual convention, called YearlyKos, in Las Vegas. Amid the slightly discordant surroundings of the Riviera Hotel casino, the webby activists spent hours discussing and planning strategies not only to defeat Republicans but also to pressure Democrats to oppose the war more forcefully. The gathering attracted lots of mainstream press attention; Internet activism was the hot new thing.
Fast forward to last weekend, when YearlyKos, renamed Netroots Nation, held its convention in Pittsburgh. The meeting didn’t draw much coverage, but the views of those who attended are still, as they were in 2006, a pretty good snapshot of the left wing of the Democratic party.
The news that emerged is that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have virtually fallen off the liberal radar screen. Kossacks (as fans of DailyKos like to call themselves) who were consumed by the Iraq war when George W. Bush was president are now, with Barack Obama in the White House, not so consumed, either with Iraq or with Obama’s escalation of the conflict in Afghanistan. In fact, they barely seem to care.
64 Missing Workers Feared Dead In Russian Accident – Breitbart
MOSCOW – Teams of divers scoured areas around Russia’s largest hydroelectric plant on Tuesday but the plant’s owner said it was doubtful that any of the 64 workers missing after an accident would be found alive.
“With every hour there is less and less chance left that we will find somebody alive,” RusHydro spokesman Yevgeny Druzyaka told The Associated Press.
Monday’s accident during repairs at the massive Sayano-Shushenskaya plant in southern Siberia drowned or crushed at least 12 workers and shut down electrical supplies to a wide region. Two workers were found alive Monday in niches inside the flooded structure, RusHydro acting chief Vasily Zubakin was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Federal investigators said an explosion destroyed walls and the ceiling in an engine room where turbines are located and caused the room to flood. One of the plant’s 10 turbines was destroyed, two were partly destroyed while three others were damaged, officials said.
The plant’s dam, a towering structure that stretches a kilometer (more than half a mile) across the Yenisei River, was not damaged and towns downstream were not in danger, Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said.
Regional Gov. Viktor Zimin refuted allegations that rescue teams had heard knocking sounds from inside the plant’s structure as if workers trapped inside were calling for help. He said the dam’s thick concrete walls would muffle any sounds from inside, Russian news reports said.
Former plant director Alexander Toloshinov, however, said some workers trapped in the flooded control room could have survived by finding a corner with some air left.
Another Liberal Malady?
One of Michelle Malkin’s readers asks her about the high number of “misspeaks” the White House has committed. Michelle, being the Evilmonger she is is going to keep count, and asks her readers to help out.
Great idea, but, I think we are dealing with something more serious than just careless lips at the White House. I think there is an outbreak there, an outbreak of TDD ( Truth Deficit Disorder) or perhaps a new Liberal Malady is at play here? Maybe Misspeakitis?
Latest Leftist card played against the ObamaCare protesters?
The Jim Crow Card! Oh, and look here, the fear and ignorance cards!
Now why would a “Diversity Czar” worry anyone?
A Diversity Czar for the FCC? Yes that worries me! A lot!
Last month, Mark Lloyd was granted the rather Orwellian title of “Chief Diversity Officer” at the FCC. In his 2006 book Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America (University of Illinois Press), Lloyd recommended that private broadcasters be forced to, in effect, heavily subsidize their competition: those public broadcasters that already receive millions in taxpayer dollars each year.
This financially onerous combination of fines and fees — amounting to an estimated $100-million and $250-million each and every year — would essentially force many private broadcasters out of business. It’s hard for some cynics not to wonder if that might not be the whole idea.
Lloyd has repeatedly stated that he opposes the reintstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, but that’s only because he’s come up with other ways to castrate conservative talk radio. Naturally, these strategies all come complete with the usual, harmless-sounding calls for “diversity” and “community.”
Seton Motley, of the conservative Media Research Center, said Lloyd “laid out a battle plan” in a 2007 report for the George Soros-funded progressive think tank, Center for American Progress.
According to Motley, Lloyd wanted “the FCC to threaten stations’ licenses with whom they do not agree with politically, and now he’s at the FCC waiting to take their calls. This is not about serving the local interest, it’s about political opposition.”
Like I said, start worrying! And get ready to fight!
CNN anchor: Racism driving opposition to Obamacare!
Well, he does not actually say racism, instead he says White racial resentment. Oh Leftists and their “code words”. Sounds A LOT like Racial Obsession Syndrome to me!
And after you watch the video, you will know why this tool is the Marxist Moron of the Day, AND the Daley Douchebag!
Good grief! This guy is really stretching it isn’t he? I mean stretching it like I have never seen. There is NOTHING racial about this debate. The Left, like this talking pinhead, knows race plays no part. But, the Left, AGAIN, does not have the ability to defend ObamaCare, so, it is try to demonize the opposition!
Odd too, how the windbag whining about racial undertones, calls Sarah Palin is stupid? Is he sexist? He MUST be. Using his logic, we can quickly discern that he hates women.
And get a load of the anchor here. He has had to, in his words, “take people to task” for using “buzz words” like “real Americans”. Hmmm, I wonder if those phrases bugged his sensibilities when Leftists were protesting the War in Iraq? I would bet not.
Three Indicted In Largest Corporate Identity Theft Case In History – Fox News
Federal Authorities indicted three men in New Jersey in a massive identity theft case that the Justice Department is labeling as the largest in American history.
Albert Gonzalez of Miami, 28, is charged with acting with two unnamed conspirators to locate large corporations and steal vital account information in a crime that the Department of Justice calls “the single largest hacking and identity theft case ever prosecuted.”
Authorities say more than 130 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen in a corporate data breach involving three different corporations and two individuals. The card numbers, along with additional account information, were allegedly stolen from Princeton-based Heartland Payment Systems; 7-Eleven Inc., a Texas-based convenience store chain and Hannaford Brothers Company, a Maine-based supermarket chain.
The indictment also mentions two other unidentified corporate victims as being hacked by the co-conspirators.
According to the Justice Department, the suspects used a sophisticated hacking technique called an “SQL injection attack,” which “seeks to exploit computer networks by finding a way around the network’s firewall to steal credit card and debit information.”
The DALEY GATOR Anti-Obama Pic O’ The Day!
Props To THE OTHER MCCAIN From Whose Website We Stole This Image.
Your Monday Feel-Good Headline
U.S. A CONSERVATIVE NATION GALLUP POLL REVEALS
The Gallup Poll has undertaken an interesting project: measuring the ratio of self-identified conservatives to self-identified liberals on a state by state basis. Gallup interviewed 160,000 adults (not, apparently, likely voters) to compile its numbers.
The results will be gratifying to anyone who believes that America has been, and remains, a center-right country. Gallup classified states as Most Conservative, More Conservative, Somewhat Conservative or Less Conservative, depending on the percentage by which conservatives outnumber liberals. Here is the resulting map, with the darker colors being the most conservative; click to enlarge:
But what about liberal states? There is only one jurisdiction in which self-identified liberals outnumber conservatives: Washington, D.C.
How a mostly-conservative electorate can elect governments, year after year, that pursue mostly-liberal policies is a question for another day.
Is This New Zealand’s Dumbest Criminal? – Stuff.co.nz
A thief has made a bid for the title of New Zealand’s dumbest crook after providing his name and contact details to a store clerk minutes before grabbing money from the cash register in full view of the Christchurch store’s eight surveillance cameras.
The long-time customer of Penny Lane Records on Colombo St in Sydenham began his bad caper on Friday afternoon. He approached the counter with a copy of Pink Floyd’s classic rock CD The Wall and asked for it to be held for him. He wrote his name and contact details on a sticker, which was placed on the CD.
A minute later, when the store attendant went to help another customer, the man leaned over the counter and opened the till. He grabbed a handful of $10 and $20 notes, pushed past a woman who spotted him, and fled the store.
Click on image above for video footage of crime
Record store manager Garry Knight said if the man had cared to look up he would have seen a monitor showing him dipping into the till from four different angles.
If that was not stupid enough, the man was a long-time, regular customer who had previously left his name and phone number in the store’s “wants” book for people who had standing requests for rare records.
Knight said there were eight or so people in the store, including two eyewitnesses. “It’s comical.”
Police were called but the man had already left the area. Knight predicted the case would not take long to crack.
One Administration Official: Sebelius Misspoke – Another Official: No She Didn’t
An administration official said tonight that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “misspoke” when she told CNN this morning that a government run health insurance option “is not an essential part” of reform. This official asked not to be identified in exchange for providing clarity about the intentions of the President.
The official said that the White House did not intend to change its messaging and that Sebelius simply meant to echo the president, who has acknowledged that the public option is a tough sell in the Senate and is, at the same time, a must-pass for House Democrats, and is not, in the president’s view, the most important element of the reform package.
A second official, Linda Douglass, director of health reform communications for the administration, said that President Obama believed that a public option was the best way to reduce costs and promote competition among insurance companies, that he had not backed away from that belief, and that he still wanted to see a public option in the final bill.
“Nothing has changed,” she said. “The President has always said that what is essential that health insurance reform lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and increase choice and competition in the health insurance market. He believes that the public option is the best way to achieve these goals.”
A third White House official, via e-mail, said that Sebelius didn’t misspeak. “The media misplayed it,” the third official said.
Gatordoug
darcprynce
Dave C
