Random News Stories

[Telarus]

I'm not not a racist but...I don't judge people based on their race.

Hey, did you all see this?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/14/naacps-julien-bond-its-ok-irs-target-racist-tea-pa/

Julian Bond, with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said during a Tuesday interview on MSNBC that it's only right and just that the federal government and the IRS target tea party groups.
Tea party groups are, after all, "overtly racist" and the "Taliban wing of American politics," Mr. Bond said, Mediaite reported. The IRS ought to look over these groups' shoulders, he said — at the same time condemning former President Bush, for what he alleged was that administration's biased push for the IRS to investigate the NAACP.

[Cain]

Hah, what an idiot.

It's easy to make a case for the IRS to investigate Tea Party groups anyway.  Teabaggers have a fundamental philosophical objection to paying taxes when Democrats are in power.  Therefore, logic suggests they are more likely to fudge their records to pay less, and so should come under greater scrutiny.

I mean, seriously, "Taliban wing of American politics"?  When was the last time the Teabaggers rolled into a town and started hanging people for not following God's law?

[Junkenstein]

I for one, would like to see roving mobs of Tea partiers bringing the law of Rand to the masses.

Talking of Taliban, This seems to be an unusually forward thinking step:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/10053981/Taliban-renounces-war-on-anti-polio-workers.html

The announcement comes just weeks after the Afghan government launched a new campaign to immunise more than eight million children between six months and five years old throughout the country. It said it had trained 46,000 volunteers to conduct the campaign which is funded by the American aid agency USAID, the World Health Organisation and Unicef.
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria are the three remaining countries in the world where polio remains a serious threat, but efforts to eradicate the disease have been sabotaged by the Taliban and other Islamic militants who have assassinated immunisation volunteers in all three countries.
Eleven polio workers were killed in Pakistan last year, including five women who were shot dead in Karachi in December last year. Earlier this year a police officer protecting vaccination campaigners was shot by motorcycle gunmen in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa. In Afghanistan, a 16 year old girl involved in an anti-polio vaccination campaign in Kapisa province was shot six times in the stomach outside her home last December and died later in hospital.
In March this year the Afghan government was forced to abandon its polio vaccination campaign in Nuristan province where, it said, Taliban opposition had made it impossible.
Opposition to the vaccination programme has been driven by conservative clerics who claim it is a plot to sterilise Muslim children, and Taliban commanders who fear it is being used to gather intelligence in their strongholds. Those fears increased following the 2011 killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad where Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi was arrested for running a fake hepatitis vaccination campaign to help the CIA collect DNA samples of members of the bin Laden family.

But in a sudden U-turn the Taliban leadership issued a statement offering its support for polio eradication campaigns as long as foreigners were not involved and that all volunteers respected local Islamic culture.
"According to the latest international medicine science, the polio disease can only be cured by preventive measures ie the anti-polio drops and the vaccination of children against this disease.
"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan supports and lends a hand to all those programs which works for the health care of the helpless people of our country," said a stament issued by the 'Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan'.
But it warned the World Health Organisation and Unicef to employ only "unbiased people" in a campaign "harmonised with the regional conditions, Islamic values and local cultural traditions."
It also ordered its fighters to give polio workers "all necessary support".
Mohammad Younas Fakor, an independent political analyst, said the move was aimed at boosting its popularity among Afghans as the withdrawal of foreign troops draws closer.
"I think the Taliban looks towards 2014, and they know that they will not have any other option rather than coming to the political process," he said.
Meanwhile, 13 civilians were killed in a bomb attack on mourners on their way to the funeral of two other victims of terrorism in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan today.

A ploy for more aid money or actual progress?

[Cain]

From the Sunday Times yesterday

ISRAEL is preparing to agree a defence co-operation deal with Turkey and three Arab states aimed at setting up an early warning system to detect Iranian ballistic missiles.

The proposal, referred to by the diplomats involved as "4+1", may eventually lead to technicians from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan working alongside Israelis in joint command-and-control centres.

The American-brokered plan is to build a "moderate crescent" of allied states that share a powerful vested interest in countering Iran's nuclear ambitions.

[Junkenstein]

That seems quite sensible until Israel is thrown into the mix.

They've got no problems playing with others at all.

I assume that this "Moderate Crescent" is basically going to encompass Arabic states friendly to US political ambitions. None of those mentioned (Apart from Israel) are really likely targets of Iranian wrath. That makes me think this is pretty much "Operation Human Shield" to protect Israel. Given the Israeli Lobby in the US, that's not particularly surprising.

They seem to be talking a lot about Iran, but I can't help but think the impetus now is due to Syria.

[Junkenstein]

The New Hampshire city of Keene is suing "Robin Hood and His Merry Men" — a group that has made a name for itself by putting coins in people's parking meters before parking enforcement agents can slap them with a ticket.
The New Hampshire Union Leader reported this week that the six "Robin Hooders" named in the suit troll downtown Keene — often tracking parking enforcement officers — in search of cars parked at expired meters.
When they find one, they pay the meter and slip notes under the windshield wiper of the vehicle that says: "Your meter expired; however, we saved you from the king's tariffs, Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Please consider paying it forward." The note includes an address where people can send donations for the effort.
The city claims in the lawsuit that the "Robin Hooders" are taunting and harassing the city's three parking enforcement officers and causing them so much anxiety and distress that they've considered leaving their jobs — an outcome that would force the city to pick up the tab for hiring and training replacements.
"They say video recording or talking to them is harassing them, but I don't agree with that," James Cleaveland, a member of the group, told the Union Leader.
The city is asking the court to establish a "safety zone" that blocks these six "Robin Hooders" from coming within 50 feet of the parking agents. The city said that will allow parking enforcement officers to do their job without interference, and denied it was trying to prevent members of the group from "exercising their constitutional rights."

One- Are you really a city when you only have 3 parking wardens? Round here they go out in gangs of 3, mainly for protection.

Two - I suspect this is what happens when you give the wrong lunatic a parking ticket.

The Union Leader reported that the group is tied to Free Keene, which describes itself on its website as a group of people who have realized that government is "the violent monopoly" and says that "aggressing against one's neighbors, regardless of the goals one is looking to accomplish, is unacceptable and morally bankrupt."
"The next great step for mankind is the step toward the voluntary society," the website reads. "We are going to accomplish this using peaceful, market-based actions. This is not a revolution. We are not revolving, or going back to the beginning. This is evolution."

[Junkenstein]

Recent Benghazi boom put down to "Fishing Explosives"
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/14/us-libya-blast-idUSBRE94D0MB20130514?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=71&google_editors_picks=true

A blast that killed three people in Libya's second city Benghazi was caused by fishing explosives that detonated accidentally, not a car bomb as originally thought, a local government official said on Tuesday.

But rights activists said the incident was symptomatic of deteriorating security in a country whose government exerts scant authority beyond the capital Tripoli.

The oil-producer is largely split into fiefdoms of armed groups that were instrumental in the 2011 revolution that ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi and are now competing for influence.

"The vehicle belonged to a fisherman, who was killed in the blast caused by the explosive materials he was carrying in his car," Tarik Bozribe, a Benghazi city councilor, told Reuters.

The car blew up on Monday near a hospital in the city in eastern Libya, killing the three people, including a child, and injuring another 14, the Health Ministry said.

Libyan fishermen often use explosives to snare their catch.

Nothing to see here, move along.

[Junkenstein]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/14/armed-security-officer-accidentally-shoots-student-at-aurora-school/

A man who police said had a second job as an "armed security officer" was being investigated after he accidentally shot a student Rangeview High School in Aurora, Colorado on Monday.

According to KMGH-TV, a school employee who also has a second job as a security officer had offered a student a ride home at the end of the day. The gun discharged, hitting the student in the leg, when the school employee tried to secure his weapon in the glove box of the car.

The man took the student to a nearby hospital, where he was rushed into surgery with a "significant injury," police said. The injuries were not expected to be fatal.

It was not immediately clear what type of work the man did for the school, but police said that he was not a teacher.

Police did not say if the employee would face charges.

If more people were armed then this event could have been avoided. Somehow.

[Junkenstein]

Things that are probably much more than they seem:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/world/americas/2-are-arrested-in-killing-of-malcolm-xs-grandson.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=WO_2WA_20130514&_r=2&

MEXICO CITY — The police here arrested two men on murder and robbery charges on Monday in the beating death last week of Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson of Malcolm X, though many questions about the case remained unresolved.

The men taken into custody, David Hernández Cruz and Manuel Alejandro Pérez de Jesús, worked as waiters at the Palace Club, a downtown bar where Mr. Shabazz, 28, was beaten, in what the city prosecutor called a dispute over an excessive bill.

Two other bar employees who the authorities said participated in the beating, which left Mr. Shabazz with fatal skull, jaw and rib fractures, were being sought.

The body of Mr. Shabazz, who for years had wrestled with living in the shadow of his grandfather's fame, was still at a city morgue on Monday while American consular officials worked to have it returned to the United States. A family spokeswoman said they would have no comment, and no funeral plans have been announced.

I know fairly little about this. I would guess that there's a great deal more to this though.

[Junkenstein]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/14/famed-texas-con-man-billie-sol-estes-dies/?test=latestnews

Billie Sol Estes, a flamboyant Texas huckster who became one of the most notorious men in America in 1962 when he was accused of looting a federal crop subsidy program, has died. He was 88.
Estes, whose name became synonymous with Texas-sized schemes, greed and corruption, died in his sleep at his home in DeCordova Bend, a city about 60 miles southwest of Dallas, his daughter said Tuesday. A local funeral home confirmed it would be handling the services.
Estes reigned in the state as the king of con men for nearly 50 years. At the height of his infamy, he was immortalized in songs by Allan Sherman (in "Schticks of One and Half a Dozen of the Other") and the Chad Mitchell Trio (in "The Ides of Texas"). Time magazine even put him on its cover, calling him "a welfare-state Ponzi ... a bundle of contradictions and paradoxes who makes Dr. Jekyll seem almost wholesome."
"He considered dancing immoral, often delivered sermons as a Church of Christ lay preacher," the magazine wrote. "But he ruthlessly ruined business competitors, practiced fraud and deceit on a massive scale, and even victimized Church of Christ schools that he was supposed to be helping as a fund raiser or financial adviser."

He truly lived the american dream

[The Johnny]

Things that are probably much more than they seem:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/world/americas/2-are-arrested-in-killing-of-malcolm-xs-grandson.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=WO_2WA_20130514&_r=2&

MEXICO CITY — The police here arrested two men on murder and robbery charges on Monday in the beating death last week of Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson of Malcolm X, though many questions about the case remained unresolved.

The men taken into custody, David Hernández Cruz and Manuel Alejandro Pérez de Jesús, worked as waiters at the Palace Club, a downtown bar where Mr. Shabazz, 28, was beaten, in what the city prosecutor called a dispute over an excessive bill.

Two other bar employees who the authorities said participated in the beating, which left Mr. Shabazz with fatal skull, jaw and rib fractures, were being sought.

The body of Mr. Shabazz, who for years had wrestled with living in the shadow of his grandfather's fame, was still at a city morgue on Monday while American consular officials worked to have it returned to the United States. A family spokeswoman said they would have no comment, and no funeral plans have been announced.

I know fairly little about this. I would guess that there's a great deal more to this though.

i only know the bill was around $1,200 dollars... i cant say im surprised

looks like it had something to do with prostitutes and pimps

[Junkenstein]

Probably closer to financial fuckery:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22549710

BP wants Prime Minister David Cameron to intervene over the escalating cost of compensating US companies for the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster in 2010.

BBC business editor Robert Peston has learned that BP feels its financial recovery is in jeopardy because the compensation system is being abused.

The financial burden of paying fictitious and inflated claims may even make BP a takeover target, it fears.

BP hopes Mr Cameron will raise the issue with the US government.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster killed 11 oil rig workers and released an estimated four million barrels of oil into the Gulf and along the coastline.

BP put aside $7.8bn (£5.2bn) when it agreed to pay compensation in 2012, but the company now expects the final figure to be much higher.

The justification:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22547971

BP gives many examples of businesses which have received huge compensation payments when they have suffered no harm from the oil spill. Here are some choice ones:

1) "The Claims Administrator awarded more than $3m in base compensation to a rice farmer based on a 'simple one month delay in the receipt of 91% of the claimant's revenues,' because the bulk of the claimant's 2009 revenue was recorded in November while the bulk of its 2010 revenues was recorded in December".

2) "A construction company located in Zone D - the farthest area from the spill - was awarded $4.8m by the Claims Administrator despite 'negative revenue and other obvious revenue mis-statements' and even after the claimant had admitted its monthly records 'over-stated benchmark year profits by over $1m".

3) "An advertising firm was awarded almost $3m as a result of a $2.1m bulk purchase of advertising time in August 2010. Because this advertising purchase was not matched with the revenue to which it corresponded... the firm appeared to have an artificial monthly loss in August, followed by artificially high profits when the advertising time was used".

4) "$3.3m [was awarded] to a law office in central Louisiana, even though its profit in the year of the spill exceeded its benchmark profits by 10%".

BP says that the way its settlement is being implemented by the Courts Administrator, with the support of the Louisiana district court, is "poised to become a black mark on the American justice system", when it could have become a positive landmark because of "its ambitious size, its innovative nature and the speed with which it was negotiated to compensate injured parties".

It continues: "If this travesty is allowed to continue, BP will be irreparably harmed and future defendants will be reluctant to settle because they cannot be confident that settlement agreements will be construed textually and fairly".

No real mention of Bhopal and various others like it. I'm sure they're next on the list after this is dealt with.

So anyway, it looks like BP is going to be whipped for a while longer until they're in a better position to be bought on the cheap. BP is selling and dismantling a number of assets worldwide and as far as I know this is due to continue until late 2014 at the earliest.

[Junkenstein]

This is actually quite shitty:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22551914

The BBC is to apologise for a Newsnight report about military charity Help for Heroes that gave the false impression it was responsible for shortcomings in support offered to wounded veterans.

A BBC investigation found the report was misleading and unfair.

The programme has also been under fire for dropping a report into disgraced BBC DJ Jimmy Savile and wrongly linking Lord McAlpine to a sex abuse inquiry.

The apology to Help for Heroes will be broadcast on TV and radio later.

The internal investigation into the report by former Bureau of Investigative Journalism chief reporter Angus Stickler found that there was no evidence to back Newsnight's claim about Help for Heroes.

In the apology, the BBC will say: "Following an investigation by its Editorial Complaints Unit, the BBC now accepts that its coverage was misleading and unfair to Help for Heroes.

"Help for Heroes" has been widely known as a scam for quite some time. There have been several reports about mismanagement of funds, Executive Pay, it's general propaganda and actually doing rather little to "Help" "Heroes". I'm guessing Newsnight is taking such a beating due to the ongoing fallout from Savile. They are still getting the blame for fucking that one up quite badly and the poor decisions taken immediately afterwards. As a result it's now become a bit of a soft target for those it reports against. Note that the Savile and Mcalpine incidents are in the opening lines. This just helps remind people of the fuck ups and undermines any actual reporting.

The BBC also has a bit of a tendency to flog itself in public over any actual or perceived wrongdoing on its part. If Newsnight is still going in 5 years, I'd put money on the Savile incident being mentioned in any future fuckups.

[Junkenstein]

No surprises:

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/0515/KFC-smugglers-bring-buckets-of-chicken-through-Gaza-tunnels

For six years, Rafat Shororo longed for the taste of a KFC sandwich he had eaten in Egypt. This week, he got his finger lickin' fix at home in the Gaza Strip after a local delivery company managed to smuggle it from Egypt through underground tunnels.

"It has been a dream, and this company has made my dream come true," says Mr. Shororo, an accountant, as he receives his order from the delivery guy.

The al-Yamama company advertises its unorthodox new fast-food smuggling service on Facebook. It gets tens of orders a week for KFC meals despite having to triple the price to 100 shekels ($30) to cover transportation and smuggling fees. The deliveries go from the fryers at the Al-Arish KFC joint 35 miles away to customers' doorsteps in about three hours.

The fact that the tunnels operate quickly and cheaply enough for the Colonel's secret recipe to be enjoyed in the tightly controlled Gaza Strip shows just how much of a sieve the Egypt-Gaza border has become.

Further proof that Walls and borders just becomes a profit mechanism for those most adept at crossing it.

I also love this:

Ironically, one of the reasons smugglers agreed to start dealing in KFC is because Israel's easing of restrictions on trade since the November cease-fire with Hamas has dealt a serious blow to the tunnel business.

[Junkenstein]

Also of note:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4380183,00.html

A reconciliation is in sight between the divided factions governing the Palestinians, as Hamas announced it has reached a deal with rival Fatah regarding the formation of a new unity government within three months.

Hamas's deputy politburo chief, Musa Abu Marzook, spoke with the Palestinian news agency Ma'an and claimed that representatives from both sides have decided to go forward with the deal in wake of the talks held in Cairo.

I've not got high hopes, but I'd guess a united front would help the region greatly.