An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Morning Coffee 10/24/07
Police seize ‘world jihad’ team
The six, allegedly linked to international Islamic terrorist activity, were seized in an operation involving U.S., Danish and Swedish intelligence agencies, the statement said.
“A large part of the activity was carried out on restricted Internet ‘chats’ and forums, which shows that the cell arrested was the first one detected and dismantled in Spain that promoted ‘world jihad’ through the Internet,” the statement said.
Aren’t these the same folks who want to live in the 12th century? I’m no history expert, but I’m fairly sure there was no internet way back when. Algore was still in diapers.
Exhausted and sometimes discouraged, firefighters struggled for a third day Tuesday to wrest control of more than a dozen wildfires in Southern California that threatened such familiar landmarks as the Mt. Palomar Observatory and the resort communities around Lake Arrowhead.
Fire crews threw everything they had at the fires, but though there were notable successes, the toll of acreage, homes and lives lost continued to rise — as did the volume of criticism from those who said the region was woefully unprepared for the cataclysm.
Haven’t the environmental wackos done enough damage? How often does California have to burn before they get it? Prayers with the firefighters. And with those who have lost everything.
Choice may not improve schools, study says
“The report you are reading did not yield the results we had hoped to find,” George Lightbourn, a senior fellow at the institute, wrote in the paper’s first sentence.
“We had expected to find a wellspring of hope that increased parental involvement in the Milwaukee Public Schools would be the key ingredient in improving student performance,” Lightbourn wrote. But “there are realistic limits on the degree to which parental involvement can drive market-based reform in Milwaukee.”
You can change the location of a kid, but if you don’t have strong leadership from parents and teachers, it’s not going to be any different from the prior school. I’m still all for school choice, but I think we really need to rethink the union influence on the schools.
Photographs Said to Show Israeli Target Inside Syria
Independent experts have pinpointed what they believe to be the Euphrates River site in Syria that was bombed by Israel last month, and satellite imagery of the area shows buildings under construction roughly similar in design to a North Korean reactor capable of producing nuclear material for one bomb a year, the experts say.
Photographs of the site taken before the secret Sept. 6 airstrike depict an isolated compound that includes a tall, boxy structure similar to the type of building used to house a gas-graphite reactor. They also show what could have been a pumping station used to supply cooling water for a reactor, say experts David Albright and Paul Brannan of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).
The Israelis are darn good at their job, so I’m more inclined to take their word, over those who habitually lie to infidels.
Singer Robert Goulet Seeks Lung Transplant to Save His Life
Singer and actor Robert Goulet is heavily sedated and breathing through a respirator in a Los Angeles hospital while he awaits a lung transplant, his wife told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
“He can hear me but he can’t respond,” Vera Goulet said of the 73-year-old crooner.
Vera Goulet said doctors told her the lung transplants are the most successful operation of any transplant, with a success rate of 88 percent. A suitable donor has yet to be found, she said.
Prayers for the Goulets. I’ve always like him.
Hamas: Schalit collaborators arrested
The Hamas controlled Interior Ministry in the Gaza Strip announced Wednesday that members of a “very dangerous collaborators network” were arrested in the Gaza Strip.
According to the announcement, the collaborators kidnapped Mohawah al-Qadi, a senior member of Hamas’s military wing and a commander in the Executive Force, and handed him over to the IDF.
Al-Qadi is believed to be involved with the kidnapping of Schalit in June 2006.
How ’bout returning Schalit? Then I’d be impressed.
New California law labeled anti-family, ‘insidious’
An official with the World Congress of Families says it was a surprise when California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a measure into law that many believe is a blatant attack on the natural family.
SB 777 prohibits any instruction or school-sponsored activity that would promote discrimination against gender. That means terms like “mom and dad” and “husband and wife” cannot be used in California textbooks because they suggest that heterosexuality is the norm. And under the new law, teachers and students who oppose same-sex “marriage” or who express disapproval of cross-dressing or sex-change operations could face disciplinary measures.
What the hell is wrong with those people out there? Do they even live on the same planet? If we don’t stop this kind of attack on the family, it’s going to spread to the semi sane states. I no longer have even a smidge of respect for the Wimpinator!
Turkish Troops Bomb Suspected Rebel Positions in Iraq
Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships attacked positions of Kurdish rebels along the rugged Iraqi-Turkish border on Wednesday, the country’s official Anatolia news agency reported.
Several F-16 warplanes loaded with bombs took off from an air base in southeastern city of Diyarbakir, private Dogan news agency and local reporters said.
Pretty soon, there isn’t going to be a country on the planet that isn’t at war with somebody.
Thompson hits Giuliani, Romney on immigration
Republican Fred Thompson said Tuesday the government should yank federal dollars from cities and states that don’t report illegal immigrants.
In his first major policy proposal, Thompson challenged presidential rivals Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney by criticizing “sanctuary cities” where city workers are barred from reporting suspected illegal immigrants who enroll their children in school or seek hospital treatment.
“Taxpayer money should not be provided to illegal immigrants,” Thompson said at a round-table discussion that included Collier County, Fla., Sheriff Don Hunter.
The fact that this is even an issue tells me just how far down into the cesspool we’ve traveled.
State budget allows free samples of liquor
Maybe it’s their way of trying to apologize for a budget that’s more than 110 days late.
Wisconsin lawmakers quietly slipped a provision into the overdue budget that allows liquor and grocery stores to hand out free samples of liquor.
Each customer could have up to three samples of half an ounce or less, or about a shot-and-a-half. Stores could offer the samples between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m.
Or maybe said lawmakers want the citizens to be too fuzzy headed to realize how much they get screwed over?
