tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post1184579614208579538..comments2024-03-28T06:32:24.557-04:00Comments on The Elephant Bar: MS-13, Born in El Salvador, Tuned in USA, Cranked for crimeDeuce ☂http://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-11747491939556463372019-03-13T13:57:35.838-04:002019-03-13T13:57:35.838-04:00Ms 13 open for murder buiseniss. Cirkel Carlo Swee...Ms 13 open for murder buiseniss. Cirkel Carlo Sweeden<br />Evald Ryghs gate 12<br />0173 Oslo<br />Dead End187https://www.blogger.com/profile/06893144506701987699noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-39096620740865446452009-09-04T20:47:48.568-04:002009-09-04T20:47:48.568-04:00doug mentioned the aged KC-135 fleet, more than on...doug mentioned the aged KC-135 fleet, more than once. The WTO has held that AirBus, the company that Maverick McCain favors for the deal to replace those venerable tankers, to have been receiving illegal subsidies from its' host nations.<br /><br />Boeing thinks that should count in the decision making.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews/idUSN0418672020090904" rel="nofollow"> * Boeing backers say WTO must be factored in<br /><br /> * Airbus backers say WTO is irrelevant<br /></a><br /><br /><i> U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, a Democrat from Washington state,<br />where Boeing does much of its aircraft manufacturing, said<br />Friday that turning a blind eye was not acceptable in light of<br />the WTO ruling such as he described it.<br /><br /> "The U.S. government cannot reward illegal market actions<br />that have harmed U.S. manufacturers and stolen U.S. aerospace<br />jobs," he said in a statement.<br /><br /> Todd Tiahrt, a Republican from Kansas -- where the Boeing<br />tankers would undergo final assembly -- added: "The Department<br />of Defense can no longer put its head in the sand and ignore<br />internationally confirmed illegal subsidies that have for years<br />tipped the scales in favor of European workers."<br /><br /> Tiahrt said he had been briefed on the ruling by the Office<br />of the U.S. Trade Representative.<br /><br /><b> "It is time to move forward with the only clear solution to<br />the replacement of the KC-135 aerial refueling tanker," he<br />said, referring to the 767 offered by Boeing in the last<br />competition. "We need an American tanker built by an American<br />company with American workers."</b><br /><br /> Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, said the Defense<br />Department "needs to answer to how this violation of WTO rules<br />will be considered in the competition for the vital aerial<br />refueling tanker."<br /><br /><b>The Defense Department declined to take a stance.</b></i>desert rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369546288659566961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-79681592771242944122009-09-04T20:40:29.536-04:002009-09-04T20:40:29.536-04:00ash, there were the "camps" and there wa...ash, there were the "camps" and there was Tora Bora.<br /><br />It does not pay to equate them, as they each held different strategic, tactical and propaganda positions.<br /><br />I would grant the Tomahawk cruise missile strikes were ineffective against training camps. So to would have been large scale strikes, as there would never have been that many trainees present and they would have been of dubious value, tactically or strategically.<br /><br />The propaganda value of their destruction, really an unknowable.<br /><br />Tora Bora, though, an entirely different affair. The enemy "High Command" was there and was known to be there. The reliance on local forces to contain them, a farcical decision that should have rolled heads.<br /><br />If the US had used its' air force to maximum effect, even without tactical nukes, the "Cause" could well have died on the mountain, along with its' martyrs.<br /><br />Instead they regrouped in Pakistan and started both rebuilding their Afghan networks and creating new ones across the wide whirled of failed States.desert rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369546288659566961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-53035547443481904342009-09-04T20:20:27.984-04:002009-09-04T20:20:27.984-04:00How illuminating, a Federal to be held personally ...How illuminating, a Federal to be held personally responsible for his actions while holding and exercising Federal authority.<br />Seems there may have been a little personal responsibility attached to that authority.<br /><br />Whether Mr al-Kidd has the ability to win his suit on its' merits, another matter entirely.<br /><br /><i> Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- A federal appeals court today said former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be sued by a U.S. citizen who was detained for 16 days without charges as a material witness in a terrorism case.<br /><br />The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, upholding a lower court, rejected Ashcroft’s contention that he was legally immune because he wasn’t personally involved in the Justice Department’s detention policies. The panel reversed the lower court’s conclusion that Abdullah al-Kidd could also sue Ashcroft over the conditions of the detention. </i>desert rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369546288659566961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-9752303089647921862009-09-04T20:15:08.793-04:002009-09-04T20:15:08.793-04:00The Light is gonna shine.
... former Attorney Gen...The Light is gonna shine.<br /><br /><i><b>... former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be held liable for people who were wrongfully detained as material witnesses after 9/11.</b></i><br /><br />Courtesy of the Associated Press.desert rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369546288659566961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-90550261741211481692009-09-04T20:02:24.361-04:002009-09-04T20:02:24.361-04:00Taliban militants had hijacked the two tankers on ...<i>Taliban militants had hijacked the two tankers on the main road out of Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, and driven them to Omar Kheil, which is under their control, about 12 miles from the city. The hijacking, on Thursday night, was reported to the German Nato soldiers garrisoned nearby, who spotted the lorries this morning. At some point the German commander called in an air strike to deal with the problem. Estimates differ as to how many people were killed in the fireball, but they range from a few score to more than a hundred.<br /><br />Moeen Marastial, a member of parliament from Kunduz, said: <b>"Local people are telling me 130 people have been killed despite all the promises of Nato to do fewer bombardments and reduce civilian casualties. There will be a reaction to this. It is a very bad day for international forces in Afghanistan."</b></i><br /><br />Reported by the Guardian, out of the UKdesert rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369546288659566961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-54001554325915819362009-09-04T19:58:51.286-04:002009-09-04T19:58:51.286-04:00Little wonder that bob has left Idaho ...
BOISE, ...Little wonder that bob has left Idaho ...<br /><br /><i>BOISE, Idaho — A federal appeals court delivered a stinging rebuke Friday to the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 detention policies, ruling that former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be held liable for people who were wrongfully detained as material witnesses after 9/11.<br /><br />A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government's improper use of material witnesses after Sept. 11 was "repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history."<br /><br />The court found that a man who was detained as a witness in a federal terrorism case can sue Ashcroft for allegedly violating his constitutional rights. Abdullah al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen and former University of Idaho student, filed the lawsuit against Ashcroft and other officials in 2005, claiming his civil rights were violated when he was detained as a material witness for two weeks in 2003.<br /><br />al-Kidd said the investigation and detention not only caused him to lose a scholarship to study in Saudi Arabia, but cost him employment opportunities and caused his marriage to fall apart.<br /><br />He argued that his detention exemplified an illegal government policy created by Ashcroft to arrest and detain people — particularly Muslim men and those of Arab decent — as material witnesses if the government suspected them of a crime but had no evidence to charge them.<br /><br />Ashcroft had asked the judge to dismiss the matter, saying that because his position at the Department of Justice was prosecutorial he was entitled to absolute immunity from the lawsuit.<br /><br />Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller would only say Friday that the agency is reviewing the opinion.<br /><br />al-Kidd's attorney, Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the ruling by the three-judge panel had implications reaching far beyond the government's actions in detaining material witnesses post-Sept. 11.<br /><br />"The use of the material witness statute as a post-9/11 detention tool is one of the least understood parts of the post 9/11 landscape, but it has enormous implications because it was done in secret and the government has never renounced the policy," Gelernt said. "Our hope is that we can now begin the process of uncovering the full contours of this illegal national policy."<br /><br />The 9th Circuit judges said Al-Kidd's claims plausibly suggest that Ashcroft purposely used the material witness statute to detain suspects whom he wished to investigate and detain preventively.<br /><br /><b>"Sadly, however, even now, more than 217 years after the ratification of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, some confidently assert that the government has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end, in sometimes primitive conditions, not because there is evidence that they have committed a crime, but merely because the government wishes to investigate them for possible wrongdoing, or to prevent them from having contact with others in the outside world,"</b> <br /><br />Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., for the majority.<br /> <br /><b>"We find this to be repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history."</b></i>desert rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369546288659566961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-79903071057916446942009-09-04T19:45:48.743-04:002009-09-04T19:45:48.743-04:00Shabbat ShalomShabbat Shalomallenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01798524644256471907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-45933590424173947422009-09-04T19:25:02.702-04:002009-09-04T19:25:02.702-04:002164th wrote:
"Those camps were known."...2164th wrote:<br /><br />"Those camps were known."<br /><br />really? I'd guess that the 'camps' were pretty darn small and innocuous making it a tough job for intel to identify and locate. Even assuming we knew all the locations at the time and we wiped them out would that really have solved the Afghanistan problem? Is not the 'problem' more intimately entwined with the culture and the population as a whole?Ashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16688752302081088907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-48404222580796699062009-09-04T14:19:21.803-04:002009-09-04T14:19:21.803-04:00Yes, allen, when you shoot your own folks, you can...Yes, allen, when you shoot your own folks, you can get over it.<br /><br />When others shoot you, claiming they're there to protect you, the memory lives on, forever.<br /><br />It is not about us. <br />It is about them. They are not going to "get over it". Sometimes, on some issues, you are dumber than a rock.<br /><br />For someone to claims to be retired military, you sure aren't up to speed on military standards and practices.<br /><br />Seven years ago, doug?<br />I knew 27 years ago. <br />Not much has changed.desert rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369546288659566961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-80234678658011486372009-09-04T13:15:53.067-04:002009-09-04T13:15:53.067-04:00WiO said,
"UAR begins deporting Palestinians...WiO said,<br /><br />"UAR begins deporting Palestinians claiming they represent a security risk"<br /><br />Why, WiO, that is SOOOOO sectarian!<br /><br />;-)<br /><br />Re: "Army way"<br /><br />The US Navy once killed and wounded hundreds of US Army paratroopers. Here is a clue, war ain't bean bag and bad stuff happens. Get over it!allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01798524644256471907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-58922620448308669742009-09-04T12:30:48.405-04:002009-09-04T12:30:48.405-04:00Say it ain't so!Say it ain't so!Doughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16770268554450465514noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-25002505892177516472009-09-04T12:01:58.535-04:002009-09-04T12:01:58.535-04:00UAR begins deporting Palestinians claiming they re...UAR begins deporting Palestinians claiming they represent a security risk_<br /><br /><br />ha ha haWhat is "Occupation"https://www.blogger.com/profile/08237879055691019968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-63914022137909130662009-09-04T11:49:16.614-04:002009-09-04T11:49:16.614-04:00"All of the actors in health care—from doctor..."<i>All of the actors in health care—from doctors to insurers to pharmaceutical companies—work in a heavily regulated, massively subsidized industry full of structural distortions.</i>"<br />---<br />Obviously, more subsidization and regulation is the answer!<br />Single Payer Now!Doughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16770268554450465514noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-48174756887634595342009-09-04T11:38:02.765-04:002009-09-04T11:38:02.765-04:0012 guys on horses accomplished 90% of the mission....12 guys on horses accomplished 90% of the mission.<br />Would have been VERY bad form to finish it in Tora Bora.<br />Long Wars Rock!Doughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16770268554450465514noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-47515964666074900382009-09-04T11:32:29.945-04:002009-09-04T11:32:29.945-04:00"Expand the cluster fuck!
It's the Army ..."<i>Expand the cluster fuck! <br />It's the Army Way!</i>"<br />---<br />Special Forces detailed all that was wrong with the RA 7 years ago.<br />(When they were told they were no longer needed.)Doughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16770268554450465514noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-4299031505582851842009-09-04T11:12:11.138-04:002009-09-04T11:12:11.138-04:00No Ash, as usual you get it 85% right. I will rest...No Ash, as usual you get it 85% right. I will restate for you once more. The only interest that the US should have had after 911 was to punish the people that attacked us and send a message to any other state (country) that hosts and welcomes terrorist camps.<br /><br />Those camps were known. The enemy hit the Pentagon, tried to take out the Capitol, and took down both Trade Towers in New York City. They killed 3000 Americans and did hundreds of billions in economic damage.<br /><br />The US hold thousands of tactical nuclear weapons. There was never more provocation or better targets and use for those weapons. They should have been used promptly.<br /><br />The message would not have been lost on anyone except the insane. There would have been no future need for the US to occupy Afghanistan.<br /><br />It would have been appropriate, disproportionate and violent to the extreme. Similar conditions do not exist now.<br /><br />The bombing of a couple of fuel trucks stuck in a river must have been approved by a moron who has no clue about the culture in a poor country.<br /><br />It would be the equivalent of attacking an overturned Brinks truck on a US interstate because peole were climbing all over it for the money.Deuce ☂https://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-6211794279118266782009-09-04T09:59:41.407-04:002009-09-04T09:59:41.407-04:00"Indeed, I suspect that our collective search..."Indeed, I suspect that our collective search for villains—for someone to blame—has distracted us and our political leaders from addressing the fundamental causes of our nation’s health-care crisis. All of the actors in health care—from doctors to insurers to pharmaceutical companies—work in a heavily regulated, massively subsidized industry full of structural distortions. They all want to serve patients well. But they also all behave rationally in response to the economic incentives those distortions create. Accidentally, but relentlessly, America has built a health-care system with incentives that inexorably generate terrible and perverse results. Incentives that emphasize health care over any other aspect of health and well-being. That emphasize treatment over prevention. That disguise true costs. That favor complexity, and discourage transparent competition based on price or quality. That result in a generational pyramid scheme rather than sustainable financing. And that—most important—remove consumers from our irreplaceable role as the ultimate ensurer of value."<br /><br />http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-careAshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16688752302081088907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-9912545815208558362009-09-04T09:54:37.838-04:002009-09-04T09:54:37.838-04:00As you know I've been not impressed with most ...As you know I've been not impressed with most of the health care debate so far. David Brooks has a good op/ed piece that suggests some decent areas to debate.<br /><br />" Goldhill’s main message is that the American health care system is dysfunctional at the core. He vividly describes how the system hides information, muddies choices, encourages more treatment instead of better care, neglects cheap innovation, inflates costs and unintentionally increases suffering.<br /><br />The essay is about the real problem: the insane incentives. Goldhill is especially good on the way the voracious health care system soaks up money that could go to education, the environment, economic development and a thousand other priorities. Health care, he writes, “simply keeps gobbling up national resources, seemingly without regard to other societal needs.”<br /><br />Then I’d ask Obama to go to the Brookings Institution Web site and read a report called “Bending the Curve: Effective Steps to Address Long-Term Health Care Spending Growth.” This report was written by a bipartisan group of battle-tested experts, including Mark McClellan, David Cutler, Elizabeth McGlynn, Joseph Antos and John Bertko.<br /><br />This report also focuses on the key issue: perverse incentives. It’s got a series of proposals on how to restructure insurance markets, reorganize provider payments, change the way effectiveness-research findings are implemented and cap the employee tax deduction."<br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/opinion/04brooks.html<br /><br />He references an article (by Goldhill) in the Atlantic which is worth reading:<br /><br />Keeping Dad company in the hospital for five weeks had left me befuddled. How can a facility featuring state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment use less-sophisticated information technology than my local sushi bar? How can the ICU stress the importance of sterility when its trash is picked up once daily, and only after flowing onto the floor of a patient’s room? Considering the importance of a patient’s frame of mind to recovery, why are the rooms so cheerless and uncomfortable? In whose interest is the bizarre scheduling of hospital shifts, so that a five-week stay brings an endless string of new personnel assigned to a patient’s care? Why, in other words, has this technologically advanced hospital missed out on the revolution in quality control and customer service that has swept all other consumer-facing industries in the past two generations?<br /><br />I’m a businessman, and in no sense a health-care expert. But the persistence of bad industry practices—from long lines at the doctor’s office to ever-rising prices to astonishing numbers of preventable deaths—seems beyond all normal logic, and must have an underlying cause. There needs to be a business reason why an industry, year in and year out, would be able to get away with poor customer service, unaffordable prices, and uneven results—a reason my father and so many others are unnecessarily killed."<br /><br />http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-careAshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16688752302081088907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-65837251321914856062009-09-04T09:35:24.814-04:002009-09-04T09:35:24.814-04:00The targeting of Tora Bora, with heavy weapons cou...The targeting of Tora Bora, with heavy weapons could have been justified, and would have created an even greater "Gadaffi Effect", than Iraq did.<br /><br />Tactical nukes or massive conventional weapons strikes against that mountain could have made sense, geopolitically.<br /><br />Hitting an abandoned tanker truck, surrounded by the local villagers, that's just bad form.desert rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369546288659566961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-85515513691208411992009-09-04T09:25:59.784-04:002009-09-04T09:25:59.784-04:00I thought that was deuce's answer to our probl...I thought that was deuce's answer to our problems - death from above, only bigger faster and nuclear?Ashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16688752302081088907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-83415570666194440662009-09-04T09:24:14.927-04:002009-09-04T09:24:14.927-04:00Instead of targeting base camps and infrastructure...Instead of targeting base camps and infrastructure in Pakistan, the US is striking at local villagers, with our substantial "Death from Above" capacity, well after the enemy has left the area.<br /><br />We could not have fallen further into the trap set by Osama, if we had tried.<br /><br />The obvious solution, send more guys.<br />Next to fuckin' insane, that plan.<br /><br />Expand the cluster fuck! <br />It's the Army Way!desert rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369546288659566961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-60463089951376349972009-09-04T09:11:37.513-04:002009-09-04T09:11:37.513-04:00FOXNews.com
The unemployment rate rose to 9.7 per...FOXNews.com<br /><br /><i>The unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent in August, the highest since June 1983, as employers eliminated a net total of 216,000 jobs.<br /><br />Analysts expect businesses will be reluctant to hire until they are convinced the economy is on a firm path to recovery. Many private economists, and the Federal Reserve, expect the unemployment rate to top 10 percent by the end of this year.<br /><br />While the jobless rate rose more than expected, the number of job cuts is less than July's upwardly revised total of 276,000 and the lowest in a year, according to Labor Department data released Friday. Economists expected the unemployment rate to rise to 9.5 percent from July's 9.4 percent and job reductions to total 225,000.<br /><br />If laid-off workers who have settled for part-time work or have given up looking for new jobs are included, the so-called underemployment rate reached 16.8 percent, the highest on records dating from 1994.</i>desert rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369546288659566961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-10653319820567929572009-09-04T08:59:31.308-04:002009-09-04T08:59:31.308-04:00Yep, for those folks inside the wire, why it is ba...Yep, for those folks inside the wire, why it is back to the future.<br /><br />Where they can <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5LX16zia2k&feature=related" rel="nofollow">party all the time</a>, on the taxpayer dimedesert rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02369546288659566961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21297199.post-33043570598694759482009-09-04T08:53:02.694-04:002009-09-04T08:53:02.694-04:00Add to that those private security contractors and...Add to that those private security contractors and you have a public relations nightmare.Deuce ☂https://www.blogger.com/profile/13472858446242700869noreply@blogger.com