Bear attacks 72-year-old woman ( Inside her home and inside a second home...)
I love bear stories.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Friday, September 01, 2006
DRIVER'S RAMPAGE / 'Everyone needs to be killed,' suspect told police / SUV driver faces 18 felony counts in S.F. and a murder charge in Alameda County
"Everyone needs to be killed,'' Omeed Aziz Popal calmly told officers as he sat in the back of a police car after a hit-and-run rampage that left one person dead in Fremont and 19 injured in San Francisco.Just why the 29-year-old unemployed automotive worker allegedly said that remains a mystery. His family says he is mentally ill.
But his comments, as recorded in police reports filed by three officers who spoke with Popal, suggest a level of planning that may belie claims of mental illness, authorities say.
Popal made his remarks to officers minutes after his sport utility vehicle was boxed in by police cruisers Tuesday afternoon outside a drugstore in the Laurel Heights neighborhood.
The windshield was smashed and the hood crumpled. In intersections and on sidewalks stretching for blocks east lay people who had been hit and injured by a Honda Pilot that went out of its way to run pedestrians down.
In Fremont, the body of 54-year-old Stephen Jay Wilson was under a tarp in the field where he landed after being rammed by a Honda Pilot as he walked in a bike lane. Authorities say he was Popal's first victim, and on Thursday prosecutors in Alameda County charged him with murder.
Popal was already accused of 18 counts of attempted murder and other felonies in San Francisco, where prosecutors will have first crack at him. The 19th injured person was a police officer who was in his cruiser when Popal allegedly struck it. Popal faces felony battery on a peace officer in connection with that injury.
Popal told San Francisco police that he had thought about killing people "since yesterday," according to one police report filed by an officer based at the Richmond District station.
The suspect's cousin, Hamid Nekrawesh, said Popal embarked on his rampage after he tricked his mother and sister into getting out out of his SUV shortly before noon Tuesday in Fremont and drove off.
Popal told one officer that he "wanted to come to San Francisco and kill people,'' and another officer that "everyone needs to be killed,'' the police reports said.
"I planned to kill those people I ran over last night -- they needed to be killed,'' Popal said at one point.
His antipathy for people, as portrayed in the police reports, was punctuated by particular hatred for his father. Relatives have said Popal's parents, with whom he still lives in Fremont, kept a close eye on him and allowed him little freedom because of what they described as his mental instability and their desire to shield him from "evil people."
Popal told San Francisco police that he wanted to kill his father, Najib Popal. He also said he had already killed his father by cutting off his hands.
Relatives say Omeed Popal has accompanied his father for years to garage sales and swap meets where the elder Popal sold refurbished appliances. Omeed Popal attended college at San Jose State and the former Cal State Hayward, had worked at the Nummi automotive plant in Fremont and at a local business that makes automated teller machines.
Father and son had quarreled in recent days over Omeed Popal's insistence on going back to Afghanistan, where he had traveled in July to marry a woman he had never met, Nekrawesh said. Popal's parents arranged the wedding.
Popal also told police he had hoped to kill a police officer during the hit-and-run rampage, but didn't see any, according to one police report.
The officers who spoke to Popal said he seemed rational and calm as he sat in the cruiser, offering lengthy and repetitive statements but never giving specific reason for going on the hit-and-run mission.
San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Jim Thompson quoted Popal's statements during a court hearing Thursday at which Superior Court Judge Donna Little ordered a psychiatric evaluation for Popal. He is being held in the psychiatric ward of San Francisco General Hospital.
Outside court, Public Defender Jeff Adachi said Popal suffers from serious mental illness and called the attacks a horrible tragedy.
Members of Popal's family have said he had been hospitalized at least twice this year for mental problems.
Family members attended the hearing but left without commenting, some covering their faces from television cameras. Adachi said Popal's mother, Zakia Aziz, and father were among those who went to court.
Also Thursday, Alameda County prosecutors charged Popal with one count of murder and an enhancement alleging that he used a car as a deadly and dangerous weapon in the hit-run death of Wilson, who was struck on Fremont Boulevard near Decoto Road.
Witnesses said the driver of the SUV that hit Wilson appeared to do so intentionally, "without even pausing or applying the brakes," said Assistant District Attorney Colton Carmine of Alameda County.
Carmine said that although statements by Popal's relatives could lay the foundation for a defense based on mental illness, "it's fairly beyond dispute that this person went to two universities in the Bay Area and had a large circle of college-educated friends.
"So this notion that this is a horrible American society is just infuriating to me. All I know is that he took advantage of this society, used the resources we make available and did this horrible thing where, only but the grace of God, there weren't additional murder victims in San Francisco."
End of an Affair
So the Washington (Com)(mie)Post finally 'fesses up to what FReepers have been screaming about for years -- with textbook hypocrisy and trademark disingenuousness, of course. (Also, please note the page it appeared on):
FR thread here.
So the Washington (Com)(mie)Post finally 'fesses up to what FReepers have been screaming about for years -- with textbook hypocrisy and trademark disingenuousness, of course. (Also, please note the page it appeared on):
End of an Affair
It turns out that the person who exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame was not out to punish her husband.
Friday, September 1, 2006; Page A20
WE'RE RELUCTANT to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame's cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.
Mr. Armitage was one of the Bush administration officials who supported the invasion of Iraq only reluctantly. He was a political rival of the White House and Pentagon officials who championed the war and whom Mr. Wilson accused of twisting intelligence about Iraq and then plotting to destroy him. Unaware that Ms. Plame's identity was classified information, Mr. Armitage reportedly passed it along to columnist Robert D. Novak "in an offhand manner, virtually as gossip," according to a story this week by the Post's R. Jeffrey Smith, who quoted a former colleague of Mr. Armitage.
It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage's identity been known three years ago.
That's not to say that Mr. Libby and other White House officials are blameless. As prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has reported, when Mr. Wilson charged that intelligence about Iraq had been twisted to make a case for war, Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney reacted by inquiring about Ms. Plame's role in recommending Mr. Wilson for a CIA-sponsored trip to Niger, where he investigated reports that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium. Mr. Libby then allegedly disclosed Ms. Plame's identity to journalists and lied to a grand jury when he said he had learned of her identity from one of those reporters. Mr. Libby and his boss, Mr. Cheney, were trying to discredit Mr. Wilson; if Mr. Fitzgerald's account is correct, they were careless about handling information that was classified.
Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.
How rich.
FR thread here.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Stereotyping is leading to terror, says first Muslim Miss England
Ridiculous article of the week award. New game? Count the hypocrisies!
Ridiculous article of the week award. New game? Count the hypocrisies!
The first Muslim to be crowned Miss England has warned that stereotyping members of her community is leading some towards extremism.
Hammasa Kohistani made history last year when she was chosen to represent England in the Miss World pageant.
But one year on, the 19-year-old student from Hounslow feels that winning the coveted beauty title last September was a "sugar coating" for Muslims who have become more alienated in the past 12 months.
She said: "The attitude towards Muslims has got worse over the year. Also the Muslims' attitude to British people has got worse.
"Even moderate Muslims are turning to terrorism to prove themselves. They think they might as well support it because they are stereotyped anyway. It will take a long time for communities to start mixing in more.
"People may feel I am just a sugar coating on the situation. I am a symbol to show it's not really that bad.
But at the same time, she said, "there is this hostility", which comes "mainly from the Government".
The Prime Minister told MPs last month that moderate Muslims were not doing enough to tackle extremists in their own community.
Miss Kohistani said: "Tony Blair addressed Muslims in particular, telling them that they need to sort out the problem within. That was a huge stereotype of the Islamic community. Even the more moderate Muslims have been stereotyped negatively and feel they have to take actions to prove themselves.
Born in Uzbekistan and raised in Afghanistan, Miss Kohistani divided Muslim opinion when she entered and won the Miss England pageant in Liverpool.
Several community leaders openly declared her to be betraying the laws of Islam while radical Muslims sent the teenager and her family death threats.
But after a busy year travelling around the world as an ambassador for England, Miss Kohistani said she feels Muslims are unfairly being branded as terrorists.
She added: "For a Muslim to represent England is asking for controversy at the moment. I feel after everything that's happened Muslims are being stereotyped negatively. The whole community has been labelled and, whether they are guilty of crime or not, they are getting penalised for it.
"I like being in the limelight because people can look at me and see I am a Muslim but good. Most of the people being pinpointed are judged by their outer appearances and people assume because they are Muslim and have a beard they have done something wrong.
She continued: "The bridge I have made is slowly being broken by more and more wars. Now the Iran situation is brought up and another Islamic country is under scrutiny - and the recent Heathrow scare. I guess I am needed even more now than last year to an extent because of what has happened.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Relatives: Rampage suspect may have been stressed...(Details on Afghan-American who ran down 14)
Kudos to Daniel Pipes for the brilliant new term -- Sudden Jihad Syndrome.
Kudos to Daniel Pipes for the brilliant new term -- Sudden Jihad Syndrome.
Carter Agrees to Hold Talks With Khatami
Great FReeper comment here:
Oh, brother.For an event that would turn a page in American history, former president Jimmy Carter has agreed in principle to host former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami for talks during his visit to the United States starting this week.
Carter's term as president was dominated by the rupture in relations after the 1979 Iranian revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days until the day he left office.
Iranians made the overture for the meeting, and the Carter Center in Atlanta is working on the possible timing, said Phil Wise, the former president's aide.
"President Carter, in his role since leaving the White House, has made his office and services and center available to basically anybody who wants to talk. He believes that it is much better to be talking to people who you have problems with than not to, and that's the approach he takes now," Wise said. "I can confirm that President Carter is open to a meeting if the former president of Iran would like to have one."
Despite mounting tensions between Washington and Tehran over the latter's nuclear program, the Bush administration issued a visa for Khatami yesterday, as well as for about a dozen family and staff members, for a visit lasting about two weeks, the State Department confirmed. Khatami is expected to arrive in the United States tomorrow.
Great FReeper comment here:
George Will was right again:
Jimmy Carter actually is an even worse former-president than he was a president!
And that's really saying something.13 posted on 08/30/2006 12:55:13 AM CDT by TaxachusettsMan
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
France faces claims over Nazi deportation
Now that's what I call the epitome of shameless bureaucracy. I don't think Orwell could have written it better.
Many of the cases are being brought by pensioners who as children were interned in Drancy, the transit camp north of Paris known as the "antechamber of death" - from which about 67,000 Jews were sent to their deaths in the concentration camps. They were transported to the camp on the national railway system, often crammed into cattle trucks. SNCF classified them as third-class passengers and continued to send bills for their tickets even after the liberation of France.
Now that's what I call the epitome of shameless bureaucracy. I don't think Orwell could have written it better.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Rumsfeld says terrorists manipulate media
Come on Rummy, you're smarter than that... you know the reason why they succeed is because the majority of the "Western media" is ON THEIR SIDE.
"The enemy is so much better at communicating," he added. "I wish we were better at countering that because the constant drumbeat of things they say - all of which are not true - is harmful. It's cumulative. And it does weaken people's will and lessen their determination, and raise questions in their minds as to whether the cost is worth it," he said alluding to Americans and other Westerners.
Come on Rummy, you're smarter than that... you know the reason why they succeed is because the majority of the "Western media" is ON THEIR SIDE.
Saddam's cartoon torture
Same tale as earlier (Saddam forced to watch SP), with a little added tidbit:
Same tale as earlier (Saddam forced to watch SP), with a little added tidbit:
The American animators also confirmed that Tom Cruise threatened to pull out of all publicity for Mission Impossible III unless Paramount, which also makes South Park, axed a repeat showing of an episode lampooning him.
It showed a Scientologist character called Tom Cruise struggling to come out as gay. Cruise was dumped by Paramount last week.
Canadian school knocked for mocking Yale grad Bush|US News|Reuters.com
TORONTO (Reuters) - Posters and a Web site mocking President Bush have put the spotlight on a small Ontario university that thought a bold and edgy recruiting campaign was just the ticket to attract potential students.
The Web site, http://www.yaleshmale.com, has a black and white picture of Bush, with the caption: "Graduating from an Ivy League university doesn't necessarily mean you're smart."
Uh, he also has an MBA from Harvard, siwwy wabbits.
CU student union votes to fire Churchill ( Ward )
A little update on the Mental Ward.
A little update on the Mental Ward.
The University of Colorado student union voted Thursday in support of firing tenured ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill.
The union's legislative council voted 9-6 in favor of a resolution supporting former Interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano's recommendation to fire Churchill for plagiarism and research misconduct.
The resolution will be sent to the student government's tri-executives and will go into effect if two of the three student leaders sign it.
"This is not a problem that is attached to the entire ethnic studies department — just a not-so-good professor and he doesn't deserve to be employed here," ...
"He takes away from the value of our degree."
Churchill drew national attention over an essay that compared some Sept. 11 victims to a notorious Nazi.
A subsequent investigation into Churchill's work found that he committed serious, repeated and deliberate research misconduct, prompting the chancellor's recommendation that he be fired.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
How right wing the left sounds after its moment of racial truth
The ending snippet:
The ending snippet:
Multiculturalism insisted that communities always changed, were in a permanent state of flux and that if you were white and lived in Oldham or Burnley or Tower Hamlets then you had better get used to the idea quickly.
This was a doublethink because the same latitude was not extended to the host population; while it was accepted that immigrants would naturally wish to band together and preserve their cultural identity, when the white working-class communities made similar protestations, this was regarded, once again, as evidence of an antediluvian racism. Your fish and chip shop is now a halal butcher? Your daughter’s school now has a majority of Urdu-speaking children? Good! Celebrate the change! Get over it.
One assumes that Kelly would still be telling the white working class to get over it were it not for the BNP’s inroads into the Labour vote (where they have candidates who can read without moving their lips over every word) and, of course, the presence within our midst of people who are possessed of such a loathing of our culture, of our very existence, that they wish to kill us all.
It has transpired that this was the final triumph of multiculturalism — to create within British society a sizeable body of people who have been assured that it is absolutely fine not to integrate because, if we’re honest, the prevailing culture is worthless: oppressive and decadent. People who are, as a result, perhaps terminally estranged and who have been relentlessly encouraged in their sense of alienation.
The news that the bombers of July 7 last year and those who allegedly plotted to blow up a whole bunch of aeroplanes were British born apparently came as a shock to the government. Well, it did not come as a shock to those of us who viewed multiculturalism as both dangerous and inherently racist.
It seemed, to people like Honeyford, a simple case of cause and effect. In the end, it is not the mad mullahs at whom we should direct our wrath, but the white liberals who enabled them to prosper. That the creed has now been binned should be a cause for celebration; but don’t for a moment expect an admission that they got it wrong in the first place.
Smileys BANNED in Islam!
Answer 15707
Chatting on the internet is similar to speaking on the telephone. It is not permissible for male or female to speak on the telephone to the opposite gender who is a Ghayr Mahram (not prohibited in marriage) freely and without necessity. If there is a genuine need which is valid in Shari’ah, then members of the opposite gender may speak through the telephone with modesty and confine the discussion to the need.
To speak freely and beyond necessity is a sin. The same rule applies for chatting on the internet. No person should decide him/herself what is a valid reason in Shari’ah to speak on the phone or chat on the internet. Many people have their own interpretations of genuine need which is not acceptable in Shari’ah. We are aware of many such people who have caused ruin to their lives especially by chatting on the internet with the opposite gender. The expression of smiley faces and sad faces through internet chatting falls in the category of drawing pictures of animate objects which is prohibited. As an alternative, one may express his/her happiness and sadness in words.
Stevie Nicks Gives iPods To Wounded Soldiers
Oldie but goodie:
Oldie but goodie:
She explains, "I refuse to be pulled into the politics of war. But once these soldiers sign up, go to war and come back to a hospital, I will do whatever it takes to make them better." Nicks has provided iPods loaded with her music, along with fellow artists Aerosmith and Elvis Presley.
She has also sent baby clothes to war widows, joined bedside vigils and with the United Service Organization (USO), hopes to provide every returning soldier with a music player. She adds, "Any one of them could be my own child. You can't help falling in love with every one of them."
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Friday, August 25, 2006
Annan to Israel: Ask me first -- Israel may not shoot back without permission
'M okay. Israel best set stUN phasers to ignore.
'M okay. Israel best set stUN phasers to ignore.
CNN.com to Replay 9/11 Attacks Coverage
CNN will mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks by replaying on the Internet the cable network's coverage of that day's events.
Viewers can watch how events unfolded starting at 8:30 a.m., minutes before the first reports of an airplane hitting the World Trade Center. The feed will run in real time, as the network showed it five years ago, until midnight.
...
For the day, CNN will make its online video service, CNN Pipeline, available for free. Normally, viewers pay $2.95 a month or $24.95 a year for four separate video feeds.Online viewers will be able to watch live reports of memorial services through one of the feeds. So that viewers won't accidentally stumble upon graphic footage from 2001, the replay feed will be covered with a notice instructing users to click only if they want to watch.
"Our users may choose to view the stream of coverage from Sept. 11, or live coverage of memorial services at Ground Zero, or they may click through the numerous interactive elements on the site," said David Payne, senior vice president and general manager of CNN.com. "They have the power to determine the best way for them to remember the anniversary."
CNN is a unit of Time Warner Inc.
Mexico not the hell activist claims it to be
BY NEIL STEINBERG SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Opening shot
Never been to Mexico. Been close: San Diego. Just north of the border. Went there to interview Tom Landry, the late Cowboys coach. He was very religious. We spoke of God and football.
The evening was my own, however, and thoughts of faith far away. I considered driving into Tijuana. But rattling around Tijuana by myself for a night seemed a Bad Idea, and the same self-protective instinct that keeps clams in their shells told me to stay put at the hotel.
So I haven't been to Mexico. I understand it is a much poorer nation than the United States, and many Mexicans eagerly abandon it to come here to work and live, finding this country an improvement over their former home.
But Mexico isn't hell, right? A hundred million people live there, often lives of richness and satisfaction. Right? Because you wouldn't know it, not the way that activist Elvira Arellano, holed up at a Humboldt Park church, has been carrying on. The way she -- or rather her lawyer -- has been talking, you'd think perdition awaits her and her son south of the border.
I don't want to romanticize the place -- as I said, I've never been there. But I don't think I'm going out on a limb betting it's somewhere a woman can live and raise a child -- heck, she already speaks Spanish, which is helpful in Mexico. Or so I hear.
And today's new right is ...
One last thing -- people are always conjuring new rights for themselves. Flattering to the ideal of American freedom, I suppose. But the truth is that freedom goes only so far. Your right to make a fist, as a legal light once said, ends at the tip of my nose.
Arellano's son certainly doesn't have the right as an American citizen to keep his mother from being deported to Mexico. There's nothing in the Constitution about having mom at hand. If that right existed, then no parent could ever be sent to jail. The government can put mothers in prison, it can execute them, it can certainly send them to Mexico, which is not as bad as prison or death. Or so I presume.
There is a thudding lack of sympathy for the woman. This space normally stands tall for immigrants -- but it draws the line at dreaming up new rights where none exist. Or dragging God into police matters.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Megadeth angry at United Nations
LOL.
NEW YORK (Billboard) -- Heavy metal maven Dave Mustaine is so angry with the United Nations that he is naming his group Megadeth's next album "United Abominations."
LOL.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
UN Peacekeepers Spring Into Action, Open Gates for Hizballah (Hizballah Pushes Past UN Guards!)
From LGF.
Typical.
From LGF.
UN Peacekeepers Spring Into Action, Open Gates for Hizballah
Hizbollah pushes past guards in show of force. (Hat tip: Ethel.)
Hizbollah mourners on a funeral parade shoved aside anti-tank barriers at a United Nations base in Lebanon yesterday in a demonstration of their new political strength.
The party had been told it would be allowed to bury three “martyrs” at the Naqoura town cemetery inside the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) compound, but only if there was no flag-waving or political sloganising.
When the chanting procession, several hundred strong, reached the gates, it found the way barred by cruci-form steel tank traps. Mourners argued with the French guards, but failed to gain entry.
A mob of young men then dragged the barriers away and the UN opened the gates. “They will eat us alive,” said a middle-aged official as the throng surged in.
Indeed they will.
Typical.
Paris Hilton praises her debut album
This is classic.
Hmmm... Ditzy Chix and Paris. Guess the world, unfortunately, isn't anywhere close to ending today.
*sigh*
This is classic.
Paris Hilton is no stranger to self-promotion. But when she asked DJs to play songs from her upcoming debut album, "Paris," last spring, she wasn't so confident.
"People go crazy," the 25-year-old socialite/reality TV star/singer says in an interview in the September issue of Blender, on newsstands Tuesday. "They love it. Everyone's like, `Who is this?' I don't tell. Because I don't want someone putting their phone up and recording it and making a ring tone off of it.
"I think when people don't know it's me, they won't judge it. But if they know it's me, then they'll be like, `Ugh.' They won't even dance."
...
Of her album, she says, "I, like, cry, when I listen to it, it's so good."
Hmmm... Ditzy Chix and Paris. Guess the world, unfortunately, isn't anywhere close to ending today.
*sigh*
Dixie Chicks Deprived of Right to Free Speech
Great comments here, and, dare I say it, inspiration for a counter-doc.
=:-o
Great comments here, and, dare I say it, inspiration for a counter-doc.
=:-o
Monday, August 21, 2006
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Top Chavez Opponent Holds First Rally
What opposition. Chavez isn't left enough for this guy. Venezuela is apparently quite SOL.
*shakes head*
What opposition. Chavez isn't left enough for this guy. Venezuela is apparently quite SOL.
*shakes head*
Friday, August 18, 2006
Authorities Warning Women Not to Wear Gel Bras As Worries of Possible Female Bombers Increase
I'm too pressed for time today, or this would have produced the mother-of-all-rants.
I'm really starting to get irritated.
I'm too pressed for time today, or this would have produced the mother-of-all-rants.
I'm really starting to get irritated.
Mark Steyn: It's breeding obvious, mate
A must-read. But since it's already labelled "Steyn", that's redundant.
A must-read. But since it's already labelled "Steyn", that's redundant.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Spectator/YouGov poll (dramatic shift in Britons view of terrorism)
[snip]
Almost three quarters of the British public are now convinced that we are fighting a new world war against extremist Islamic terrorists — and although they may not recognise the names, on this issue at least, most are in the same camp as leading US conservatives such as Eliot Cohen, Norman Podhoretz and Newt Gingrich. The public is also deeply concerned at how this new conflict is developing, with four out of five judging the West to be losing and the terrorists to be winning. Almost nobody believes that last week’s foiled plot to blow up a large number of transatlantic flights will be the last such attempt, or that the police and security services will be as effective next time; 86 per cent of respondents believe that Britain is likely to suffer a major terrorist attack within the next year.What will stun Westminster most, however, is that the public is convinced that the key to winning this new global war against terrorists lies in a much more aggressive foreign policy, as well as in severe reductions in civil liberties in Britain. One of the most important lessons from the Spectator/YouGov poll is the growing chasm between the views of large portions of the chattering classes, including most of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, and the views of the population at large.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the public’s extraordinary dismissal of civil libertarian arguments. In a bitter blow to the Conservatives and the Labour Left, who have long opposed the policy, the public supports Tony Blair’s favourite option of detaining suspects without charge for up to 90 days by three to one (69 per cent to 23 per cent). When asked whether Britain should change its foreign policy in response to terrorism, just 12 per cent say that it should be made more conciliatory, against 53 per cent who say it should become more aggressive and 24 per cent who don’t want to change the current relatively tough stance.
Perhaps most controversially of all, the Spectator/YouGov poll reveals that by a majority of 55 per cent to 29 per cent the public supports the introduction of ‘passenger profiling’ by the authorities in airports. There is also mass support for tougher security at airports, regardless of inconvenience: almost two thirds say they feel safer as a result of increased airport security.
[snip]
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Kidman condemns Hamas, Hezbollah
NICOLE Kidman has made a public stand against terrorism.
The actress, joined by 84 other high-profile Hollywood stars, directors, studio bosses and media moguls, has taken out a powerfully-worded full page advertisement in today's Los Angeles Times newspaper.
It specifically targets "terrorist organisations" such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.
"We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas," the ad reads.
"If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die.
"We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs."
A who's who of Hollywood heavyweights joined Kidman on the ad.
The actors listed included: Michael Douglas, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Danny De Vito, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton and William Hurt.
Directors Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Dick Donner and Sam Raimi also signed their names.
Other Hollywood powerplayers supporting the ad included Sumner Redstone, the chairman and majority owner of Paramount Pictures, and billionaire mogul, Haim Saban.
President of Lebanon Damns Israel for starting war, Praises Hezbollah
Denial isn't just a river in Egypt... apparently it runs through Lebanon as well.
Denial isn't just a river in Egypt... apparently it runs through Lebanon as well.
Leno
What a crazy day. I guess you know U.S. and British authorities foiled a terrorist plot. The plan was to blow up planes in mid air. How frightening is that? That makes flying almost as dangerous as Amtrak.
Remember the good old days when the only bomb you had to worry about on a plane was the Rob Schneider movie?
British authorities said they were able to detect the terrorist plot using a surveillance program that the "New York Times” hadn’t got around to exposing yet.
Janesville man spotted doctoring of photo from war in Middle East
Looking closely at the photography, he saw an odd pattern in the thick, black clouds of smoke rising from the bombed area. He recognized the effect, a bit of Adobe Photoshop magic called cloning.
To clone, you simply click on part of a picture, then paste an exact copy of that part somewhere else on the photo. Thorson recognized the effect because he'd used it. Sometimes he'd worked on catalog photographs of the tools his company distributes. Sometimes, on close inspection, he would find on the photograph a speck of dust, a piece of dirt, a hair or some other imperfection. By cloning, he could replace the imperfection with a clean image.
The photo on the Yahoo site was different, though. It was supposed to be journalism.
"I was shocked," Thorson said later. "This is supposed to be serious. Reuters is a very well-known and respected wire service."
Within minutes Thorson went to the political blog Little Green Footballs and sent a comment about his suspicions that the photo had been doctored. He thought of the blog because it had been among those questioning the authenticity of the documents "60 Minutes II" used in a report on President George W. Bush's record in the Texas Air National Guard.
The very next morning, Aug. 6, Thorson saw his suspicions posted on Little Green Footballs, and the story soon caught fire.
"I was really surprised that the story got to be as big as it did," Thorson said. "I certainly didn't mean for anybody to lose their job or anything like that. I am glad that it was exposed.
"I think people do need to have some sort of skepticism about the news: What's being presented? Who's presenting it? Do they have an agenda? What's being left out?"
BRIT 'BABY BOMB' BEASTS [PLOT TO BLOW UP OWN CHILD & JET]
Twisted young British parents planned to sacrifice their precious baby in the evil cause of jihad by mass murder.
Fanatical terror suspect Abdula Ahmed Ali, 25, and his wife, Cossor, 23, are among those being interrogated by police as suspects in the massive plot to attack trans-Atlantic flights in midair.
What the outwardly normal couple had secretly plotted is almost too horrifying to consider, cops said.
The Alis planned to use 6-month-old son Zain's baby bottle as a liquid bomb, blowing themselves and their child up, along with hundreds of others aboard the flight.
[snip]
To their stunned friends and neighbors in a housing project in north London, the Alis were known as quiet, struggling parents and observant Muslims who showed no signs of terror ties.
[snip]
But British security experts suspect that Cossor Ali is an example of a chilling phenomenon that is growing in popularity among the terror set - a woman willing to use her innocent appearance to allay suspicions and carry out a suicide bombing. At least 20 Muslim women have blown themselves up in such attacks.
Particularly disturbing was Cossor Ali's apparent intent to conceal the liquid trigger for a bomb in Zain's baby bottle when the family boarded a jetliner.
"It may be beyond belief, but we are convinced that there are now women in Britain who are prepared to die with their babies for their twisted cause," a security adviser to the British government told The Times of London.
"They are ruthless, single-minded and totally committed."
Cossor, a British citizen like her husband, lived with her parents and two older sisters before marrying Ali three years ago. The couple moved into the project and were receiving government assistance.
[snip]
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
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