Just setting the stage for the results from the rigged voting machines:
"Despite fiery base, Paul’s spark yet to spread" by Brian C. Mooney Globe Staff / October 31, 2011
CONCORD, N.H. - Fund-raising has not been Ron Paul’s problem. Neither has galvanizing a cadre of passionate supporters. They have been called crazy, fanatics, or worse by some conservative commentators, who dismiss the fundamentalist brand of small-government libertarianism the Texas Republican has been preaching for more than three decades.
With all due respect, the newspaper hasn't been very kind to him, either -- when they have deigned to cover him.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: Ron Paul's Missing Money
Supporters of the congressman are zealous and energetic, but the retirees, veterans, parents, and white-collar workers at his New Hampshire headquarters on a recent dreary, windswept night were not from the political fringe.
Paul’s problem is that he has received little affection from the hard-core Republican activists among Tea Partiers and religious conservatives. In their search for an alternative to Mitt Romney, the leading establishment candidate, they have flirted passionately, if briefly in some cases, with Representative Michele Bachmann, Governor Rick Perry of Texas, and Herman Cain, a former business executive.
Paul, meanwhile, has plodded along, averaging about 8.5 percent, or fifth place, in national polls, according to Real Clear Politics, and a distant third in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two nominating contests.
Really, Globe?
Related: Globe Raising Cain
I was just wondering if YOU are tired of the DISTORTIONS and LIES, dear readers, because I sure as hell am.
That loyal Paul core has helped keep conservatives from coalescing around another candidate, but it has not grown substantially.
So this is the conventional bit of bullshit they are going to run out to deny the people their true choice for president.
Before the Tea Party, there was Ron Paul, keeper of the flame of minimal government, critic of the Federal Reserve System, and party scold when the federal government began rolling up big deficits under President George W. Bush.
Part of Paul’s problem is undoubtedly his unique agenda, an exotic blend based on a strict interpretation of the Constitution but crossing the boundaries of contemporary definitions of conservative and liberal. His libertarianism extends beyond fiscal matters to keeping the government out of overseas military adventures and out of individuals’ lives.
Seems like a guy like that would have BROAD APPEAL! He WINS ALL the STRAW POLLS the Globe won't report!
He supports a return to “sound currency’’ (the gold standard or an equivalent), abolition of the Federal Reserve System, and decriminalization of drugs, and he opposes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Paul also opposed the Patriot Act and funds for new homeland security agencies after 9/11 and has said he will not accept a congressional pension.
Sure looks like a platform I could support!
Paul’s views overlap with the Tea Party on many economic issues, said Brendan Steinhauser, director of grass roots for FreedomWorks, a Washington-based organization advocating free-market principles and which has lent support to the Tea Party movement.
“He’s been sounding the alarm for some time and predicted a lot of the economic troubles, the cause of them, and has been outlining solutions,’’ he said.
“What are the views that are complicating things for him? His views on foreign policy, number one,’’ Steinhauser said, noting that FreedomWorks does not take positions on foreign policy.
“Ron Paul’s positions are just such that a lot of Republicans disagree with him,’’ Steinhauser said.
Besides his opposition to the wars, Paul has also provoked sharp disagreements with Republicans with his assertions that the United States’ overseas military presence is the root of terrorist attacks and that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are understandable and not worth starting another conflict over.
Thus he opposes Israel's control over US foreign policy -- and one reason why he won't come near the nomination. One does wonder, however, if they will let him in the building this time.
He has also raised eyebrows within the party with his collaboration with liberal Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, in calling for military cuts as part of budget reductions.
Yes, WHERE ARE those CROSSOVER DEMOCRATS I have been WAITING FOR!?
Dr. Paul NEEDS YOUR VOTE!
Paul has staked out the most extreme budget position in a GOP field full of budget-cutting, tax-slashing candidates. His proposal calls for a $1 trillion annual cut and the elimination of five Cabinet agencies, all foreign aid, and more than 200,000 federal jobs.
The maverick 76-year-old also worked with Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, a leftist-populist Democrat, and other Democrats to pass a bipartisan bill with 320 House sponsors to audit the Federal Reserve. It failed in the Senate, and Paul and his son, Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican and Tea Party favorite, filed it again early this year.
Paul blames the nation’s central bank for inflating the supply of money for the benefit of domestic and foreign banks and creating the economic bubbles that produce boom-and-bust cycles.
Say what you want about him; however, he is RIGHT on THAT ONE!
More than anyone, he has injected monetary policy into the national political debate, at times causing eyes to roll when he begins talking about the Austrian School, a laissez-faire theory of economics.
Yes, the elites running and controlling this show can not like that at all.
“Ron Paul redefines the notion of a political spectrum,’’ said Kucinich, who admires Paul’s adherence to his principles. “On two of the most central issues of our time - the role of the Federal Reserve and war - Ron Paul has defended the interests of the American people.’’
And THAT QUALIFIES HIM to be PRESIDENT!!
“He has great integrity; he cannot be bought,’’ Kucinich said. “It’s the reason he has such a following among young people who are earnestly searching for candidates with integrity.’’
It is NOT JUST YOUNG PEOPLE that support him, dammit!
Paul is relying on volunteers like Jon Forrester of Manchester, a 30-year-old Air Force veteran who is finishing work on an accounting degree from Southern New Hampshire University. This is his first foray into politics.
“I consider myself an average American who’s concerned about my country,’’ said Forrester, a Massachusetts native who heads the “New Hampshire Veterans for Ron Paul’’ effort. He is also worried about the future for his wife and their 10-month-old son.
We ALL ARE!
In Paul, he said, he found someone to believe in. “He seems like the only one who would stand up there and tell the truth, whether it was something you wanted to hear or not,’’ Forrester said.
Hey, I don't agree with him on everything, but he's miles ahead of the rest.
Kate Baker, a manager at a software company and mother of three from Manchester, is making her first substantial commitment to a presidential campaign. Describing herself as a lifelong Republican who is “really a fiscal conservative,’’ she tries to put in two nights of volunteer work a week, including the weekly “Women for Ron Paul’’ phone bank sessions she arranges.
“I’m really worried about the national debt and out-of-control government spending,’’ she said. “I worry about the effect it will have on my kids.’’
She was home-schooling one of her children when she learned that Paul had sponsored a bill in Congress to provide tax credits to families who sent their children to private schools. She did more research on other issues and was attracted to the congressman’s plain-spoken and unwavering advocacy for less government and lower taxes, she said.
Some of his devotees, such as Rachel French of Belmont, a retired telecommunications company worker who was making calls on his behalf recently, are “End the Fed’’ advocates.
Intrigued by Paul, she has studied the history of the Federal Reserve, which was created in 1913. “The banking cartel runs it,’’ she said, applauding her candidate for “having the same message forever.’’
“He’s served as a prophet or the conscience of these presidential debates, not only on the Federal Reserve but also the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,’’ said Dante J. Scala, professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. “He’s stuck to his guns and now, four years after he ran in 2008, it appears that the skepticism he had about American foreign policy aims and objectives are shared by a significant segment of the Republican base.’’
But he's behind and a second-tier candidate according to the corporate media. Pffffft!
In 2008, Paul finished fifth in the first two nominating contests, the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, getting 10 percent and 7.7 percent of the votes, respectively. He first ran for president in 1988 as a Libertarian.
Scala does not believe that Paul has expanded his base yet in the Granite State but does think that his support remains solid.
“It may only be 10 to 15 percent of the Republican primary vote, but it’s not going to go to one of the other very conservative candidates,’’ Scala said. “It’s an eclectic mix of people who support him and will stay with him.’’
But somehow he just isn't catching fire.
Andrew E. Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center, said his polls show that Paul “does best with young people and does well in the more rural parts of the state, like the North Country and the Upper Valley’’ of the Connecticut River.
Smith, who administers polls for the Globe, said focus groups have indicated that many college students are attracted to Paul “because he wants to legalize pot,’’ but that the candidate may also be benefiting across the Republican spectrum from “a resignation and tiredness about the wars.’’
Yeah, you can't count on those kids! They will probably forget to show up to vote.
Hey, kids, are YOU as TIRED of the ELITE F***ING INSULTS from the Boston Globe like me?
Oh, btw, that feeling across the Republican spectrum about the wars? It's the WHOLE American populace!
And that SURE IS a STRANGE STATEMENT considering the claim above that Republicans differ with him on foreign policy.
Ah, what a deadly web we weave, 'eh, Globe?
--more--"
I suppose I should be happy they gave him a three-page, front-page platform on a Monday, huh?
Methinks it makes up for the Saturday omission:
"Romney leaning hard on strong N.H. backing; Offsets plateaued support elsewhere" October 29, 2011|By Matt Viser, Globe Staff
MANCHESTER, N.H. - Mitt Romney’s support appears to have leveled off in various early voting states, with voters seeming to look askance at the former Massachusetts governor as they bounce to the newest stars in the Republican firmament rather than flock to him.
Not so in New Hampshire.
Here in the Granite State, Romney has remained consistently at the top, with no one coming close to challenging him just more than two months before voters head to the polls. He has received the biggest endorsement (from former Governor John Sununu), made no major flubs, and polls put his support above 40 percent. It is one of the few states where he is drawing more than 25 percent.
New Hampshire has remained a firewall for his campaign, allowing him to downplay expectations in other early voting states such as Iowa and South Carolina. In a fluid race, it’s the closest thing that any candidate has to a lock on a single state.
“It’s a different electorate, both because of turnout and because of the ideology of New Hampshire voters, than any of the other early states,’’ said Andy Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. “Republicans in New Hampshire by and large are northeastern Republicans, Rockefeller Republicans. And that’s, kind of, Mitt Romney.’’
New Hampshire Republicans are more prochoice than Republicans in other parts of the country. In recent polls, likely GOP primary voters are almost split evenly over whether a state law legalizing gay marriage should be repealed. Romney opposes abortion and gay marriage but less stridently than some of his foes. And while Romney’s Mormon faith may be a hindrance elsewhere, it probably won’t be in New Hampshire, the second-least religious state in the country, behind Vermont.
With all due respect, those are not issues that are going to decide this campaign.
Related: Nominating Romney Means Return of Bush
Romney continues to try to cultivate support in this state, and he returned for a town hall meeting last night at the Executive Court in Manchester. He fielded questions from a friendly crowd on immigration, health care, and the economy. He said he sympathized with some of those in the Occupy Wall Street movement, but also said the cause would be unnecessary if the economy were better....
Romney has distinct advantages in New Hampshire, in part because voters are familiar with him. He also owns a house on Lake Winnipesaukee and governed neighboring Massachusetts for four years.
See: Romney's Rooms
Maybe he could rent a couple out to all the foreclosed-upon families in America?
During this campaign, he has lavished attention on the state (last night marked his 15th New Hampshire town hall meeting of this campaign) and has focused squarely on the economy, which voters here care about, and far less on social issues, which they generally don’t....
But few of Romney’s rivals have actually challenged him here, or put themselves in a position to benefit if he falters. Michele Bachmann, after making several early trips to the state, has generally stayed away.
Newt Gingrich has made only sporadic trips here, and former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania has staked much of his candidacy on Iowa. Jon Huntsman has placed renewed emphasis on New Hampshire, but has yet to gain traction. Herman Cain has surged to second place here but is still building his campaign organization and has made infrequent campaign visits.
Related: HERMAN CAIN CAMPAIGN IS TOAST AFTER SEXUAL ASSAULT SCANDAL!
Governor Rick Perry of Texas came to New Hampshire yesterday to file his papers and meet voters in Concord. Last night, he delivered a speech in Manchester, just 6 miles from Romney’s town hall meeting, and received a positive reaction that rivaled the one Romney received two hours earlier. An enthusiastic crowd of approximately 450 gave Perry several standing ovations....
I'll give you one guess which candidate didn't get a mention in the piece.
--more--"
Monday, October 31, 2011
Globe Trick-or-Treat: Cold Hard Candy
All tricks, folks.
"Skeptic finds he now agrees global warming is real" by Seth Borenstein AP Science Writer / October 31, 2011
WASHINGTON—A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly.
So how much was he paid to change his tune?
The study of the world's surface temperatures by Richard Muller was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers.
So that makes it legit?
Yeah, forget the facts and that snow outside your window, you deniers. If anyone is in denial it is the fart-misting frauds spewing their hot air.
Related: Scientist who said climate change sceptics had been proved wrong accused of hiding truth by colleague
Hiding the truth is what the AmeriKan media does best!
He pursued long-held skeptic theories in analyzing the data. He was spurred to action because of "Climategate," a British scandal involving hacked emails of scientists....
You mean LEAKED emails, right?
See: CLIMATEGATE: A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY
I hold global warmers responsible for each and every death caused by wintry conditions.
His ultimate finding of a warming world is no different from what mainstream climate scientists have been saying for decades.
And the newspapers and authorities wonder why we tune them out as we huck another shovel full of s***?
What's different is who is behind the study. One-quarter of the $600,000 to do the research came from the Charles Koch Foundation, whose founder is a major funder of skeptic groups and the tea party....
So how many billions do the Koch brothers stand to make of carbon credit trading?
--more--"
Related: Forecasters see a tough winter for most of US
"Already an early heavy winter has settled on North America; the fourth in a row. This is the earliest an inch of snow has fallen in New York City in recorded history. And still the "Carbonazis" push their agenda for carbon trading, looting planet Earth with CO2 the way ENRON looted California with electricity (and indeed ENRON's Ken Lay helped Al Gore set the scheme up.) Still the Carbonazis proclaim the "science is settled" and we should all pay our carbon taxes to bankrupted governments like the obedient little slaves they hope us to be." -- Wake the Flock Up
And what other lens would you expect the war paper to see through?
"Global warming stance another battleground" by Michael Levenson | Globe Staff, October 29, 2011
The US Global Change Research Program, a program started by Congress in 1990 to coordinate federal research on the global environment, found in 2009, “Observations show that warming of the climate is unequivocal.’’
As you sit in that freezing apartment without power.
*************
“I believe the world’s getting warmer based on what I read.’’
You can't blame the guy if he's reading the AmeriKan media.
--more--"
"Patrick urges patience as crews work to restore power; Some customers may not see their power restored until the workweek"
Governor Deval Patrick today urged Massachusetts residents to be patient as more than a half million utility customers waited for their power to be restored after an unusually early major nor’easter that dumped as much as 30 inches of heavy, wet snow on the state. He said utility crews were “making progress” but there was “a lot more to do and a few days yet before power will be restored to everyone.”
Found out from the radio I was one of the lucky ones in the region; many went without power overnight.
With more than 519,000 customers without power, state officials said almost 1,500 crews were on the ground. They said they hoped the number of customers without power would be cut in half by the end of the day, but some people might not get their power back until Friday.
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Access to full articles and quality reporting of The Boston Globe at BostonGlobe.com
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Are you a home delivery subscriber?
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Actually, no. I'm planning another massive toss-out of unread s***.
--nomore--"
Also see: Outages are being felt across the Northeast
At least we won't be getting fat on Globe candy.
And at the bottom of it all (a$ u$ual):
"Calif. adopts cap-and-trade emission plan" October 21, 2011|By Jason Dearen, Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO - California adopted the nation’s most comprehensive “cap-and-trade’’ system yesterday, an experiment by the world’s eighth-largest economy that is designed to provide financial incentives for polluters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
State officials said they hoped other states and Washington, D.C., would follow suit, calling the plan a capstone among the suite of tools California can use to reduce the pollution linked to climate change and cut dependence on foreign oil.
“For half a century every American president has been calling for America to move away from our dependence on foreign oil and become energy independent,’’ said Mary Nichols, chairman of the California Air Resources Board.
“The reason we have not succeeded in addressing our addiction to petroleum is because we did not have the right set of policy tools,’’ Nichols said. “Now we do. Cap-and-trade provides a reward for doing the right thing.’’
Why must someone be rewarded for that?
**************************
Some businesses regulated under the program say it will increase the price of electricity for consumers and hurt job creation by raising the cost of doing business in the state. But the program’s supporters expect cap-and-trade to spur economic recovery and innovation, by pushing business to invest in clean technologies....
Related: Green Stimulus Money Costs More Jobs Than It Creates, Study Shows
--more--"
Also see: Obama's Ro$e-Colored $ungla$$e$
"Skeptic finds he now agrees global warming is real" by Seth Borenstein AP Science Writer / October 31, 2011
WASHINGTON—A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly.
So how much was he paid to change his tune?
The study of the world's surface temperatures by Richard Muller was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers.
So that makes it legit?
Yeah, forget the facts and that snow outside your window, you deniers. If anyone is in denial it is the fart-misting frauds spewing their hot air.
Related: Scientist who said climate change sceptics had been proved wrong accused of hiding truth by colleague
Hiding the truth is what the AmeriKan media does best!
He pursued long-held skeptic theories in analyzing the data. He was spurred to action because of "Climategate," a British scandal involving hacked emails of scientists....
You mean LEAKED emails, right?
See: CLIMATEGATE: A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY
I hold global warmers responsible for each and every death caused by wintry conditions.
His ultimate finding of a warming world is no different from what mainstream climate scientists have been saying for decades.
And the newspapers and authorities wonder why we tune them out as we huck another shovel full of s***?
What's different is who is behind the study. One-quarter of the $600,000 to do the research came from the Charles Koch Foundation, whose founder is a major funder of skeptic groups and the tea party....
So how many billions do the Koch brothers stand to make of carbon credit trading?
--more--"
Related: Forecasters see a tough winter for most of US
"Already an early heavy winter has settled on North America; the fourth in a row. This is the earliest an inch of snow has fallen in New York City in recorded history. And still the "Carbonazis" push their agenda for carbon trading, looting planet Earth with CO2 the way ENRON looted California with electricity (and indeed ENRON's Ken Lay helped Al Gore set the scheme up.) Still the Carbonazis proclaim the "science is settled" and we should all pay our carbon taxes to bankrupted governments like the obedient little slaves they hope us to be." -- Wake the Flock Up
And what other lens would you expect the war paper to see through?
"Global warming stance another battleground" by Michael Levenson | Globe Staff, October 29, 2011
The US Global Change Research Program, a program started by Congress in 1990 to coordinate federal research on the global environment, found in 2009, “Observations show that warming of the climate is unequivocal.’’
As you sit in that freezing apartment without power.
*************
“I believe the world’s getting warmer based on what I read.’’
You can't blame the guy if he's reading the AmeriKan media.
--more--"
"Patrick urges patience as crews work to restore power; Some customers may not see their power restored until the workweek"
Governor Deval Patrick today urged Massachusetts residents to be patient as more than a half million utility customers waited for their power to be restored after an unusually early major nor’easter that dumped as much as 30 inches of heavy, wet snow on the state. He said utility crews were “making progress” but there was “a lot more to do and a few days yet before power will be restored to everyone.”
Found out from the radio I was one of the lucky ones in the region; many went without power overnight.
With more than 519,000 customers without power, state officials said almost 1,500 crews were on the ground. They said they hoped the number of customers without power would be cut in half by the end of the day, but some people might not get their power back until Friday.
For more BostonGlobe.com, sign up or log in below
To continue enjoying BostonGlobe.com, please sign up or log in
Do I look like I'm enjoying any of this, readers?
Access to full articles and quality reporting of The Boston Globe at BostonGlobe.com
Sign up
Unlimited access to BostonGlobe.com for only 99 cents for the first 4 weeks.
Are you a home delivery subscriber?
Nope, I get it off the rack.
Get FREE access as part of your print subscription
BostonGlobe.comSubscriber Log-in
Actually, no. I'm planning another massive toss-out of unread s***.
--nomore--"
Also see: Outages are being felt across the Northeast
At least we won't be getting fat on Globe candy.
And at the bottom of it all (a$ u$ual):
"Calif. adopts cap-and-trade emission plan" October 21, 2011|By Jason Dearen, Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO - California adopted the nation’s most comprehensive “cap-and-trade’’ system yesterday, an experiment by the world’s eighth-largest economy that is designed to provide financial incentives for polluters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
State officials said they hoped other states and Washington, D.C., would follow suit, calling the plan a capstone among the suite of tools California can use to reduce the pollution linked to climate change and cut dependence on foreign oil.
“For half a century every American president has been calling for America to move away from our dependence on foreign oil and become energy independent,’’ said Mary Nichols, chairman of the California Air Resources Board.
“The reason we have not succeeded in addressing our addiction to petroleum is because we did not have the right set of policy tools,’’ Nichols said. “Now we do. Cap-and-trade provides a reward for doing the right thing.’’
Why must someone be rewarded for that?
**************************
Some businesses regulated under the program say it will increase the price of electricity for consumers and hurt job creation by raising the cost of doing business in the state. But the program’s supporters expect cap-and-trade to spur economic recovery and innovation, by pushing business to invest in clean technologies....
Related: Green Stimulus Money Costs More Jobs Than It Creates, Study Shows
--more--"
Also see: Obama's Ro$e-Colored $ungla$$e$
Globe Trick-or-Treat: College Hijinks
"Fed false logic, campus eats up a hoax and revolts" October 25, 2011|By Mary Carmichael, Globe Staff
NORTHAMPTON - All last week, students at Smith College were buzzing over a rumor that the school was going completely vegetarian and locavore. There were protests and counter-protests, with slogans chalked on walkways. There was a Twitter feed that caught the attention of VegNews, “America’s premier vegan lifestyle magazine.’’ At a student government meeting, the dining services manager came under attack: How did she expect students to pass their midterms without coffee?
But the Smith administration wasn’t really planning to ban meat, food from outside New England, or anything else.
The whole thing was a hoax - one in a decade of annual pranks perpetrated by professors Jay Garfield and Jim Henle as part of their introductory class in logic. The point is to teach rhetoric and argument, albeit in an unorthodox way. Logic classes get dry. Typically, students spend a lot of time working through inscrutable proofs on the chalkboard.
So Garfield and Henle try to liven things up by inventing a rumor just this side of believable, then assigning their 100 students to convince the campus that it’s real by whatever means the students think will be most effective - fliers, Facebook campaigns, word-of-mouth.
“It wasn’t even drug-assisted,’’ Garfield saidof the day the two hit on the idea. “We’re just brilliant and slightly weird.’’
The administration may agree with the slightly weird part. When people believe Garfield and Henle’s hoaxes - and some always do - trouble can ensue.
There was the time the professors planted the rumor that Smith, a women’s college, was planning to fire all of its male faculty members, including themselves. The president was deluged with angry letters.
There was the year of the alleged merger with nearby Mount Holyoke College, a proposal lots of students at Mount Holyoke took seriously, even as Smith’s scoffed.
And then there was the year of the supposed grass-roots attempt to start an ROTC program. Most of the campus didn’t fall for that one, but the president, Carol Christ, did.
“It was my first year, and I was just about to meet with the board of trustees,’’ she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, no, how am I supposed to handle this?’ ’’
As for the vegetarian/locavore imbroglio, about a third of Garfield and Henle’s students said they thought they had fooled the campus. After all, the college already makes a point of buying local veggies when possible, and the trustees had met the previous weekend - so in theory they could have OK’d the plan in secret.
Half the students in the class had been instructed to come up with arguments in favor of the proposition (a vegetarian campus is a healthy campus). The other half were told to argue in public against it (students wouldn’t be getting enough protein).
All were sworn to secrecy and required to go along with the pretense.
“My house was up in arms,’’ said one student in the class, Jesse Klein. “It was all we talked about at dinner.’’
Another classmate, Jan Harris, decided the best way to fuel the rumor was to tape a panel debating the pros and cons of vegetarianism for the college TV station. She invited as a guest speaker a friend who pretended to be from the “Smith Healthy Living Club.’’ The speaker was so convincing that several people e-mailed her, wanting to join the club, which does not exist....
--more--"
NORTHAMPTON - All last week, students at Smith College were buzzing over a rumor that the school was going completely vegetarian and locavore. There were protests and counter-protests, with slogans chalked on walkways. There was a Twitter feed that caught the attention of VegNews, “America’s premier vegan lifestyle magazine.’’ At a student government meeting, the dining services manager came under attack: How did she expect students to pass their midterms without coffee?
But the Smith administration wasn’t really planning to ban meat, food from outside New England, or anything else.
The whole thing was a hoax - one in a decade of annual pranks perpetrated by professors Jay Garfield and Jim Henle as part of their introductory class in logic. The point is to teach rhetoric and argument, albeit in an unorthodox way. Logic classes get dry. Typically, students spend a lot of time working through inscrutable proofs on the chalkboard.
So Garfield and Henle try to liven things up by inventing a rumor just this side of believable, then assigning their 100 students to convince the campus that it’s real by whatever means the students think will be most effective - fliers, Facebook campaigns, word-of-mouth.
“It wasn’t even drug-assisted,’’ Garfield saidof the day the two hit on the idea. “We’re just brilliant and slightly weird.’’
The administration may agree with the slightly weird part. When people believe Garfield and Henle’s hoaxes - and some always do - trouble can ensue.
There was the time the professors planted the rumor that Smith, a women’s college, was planning to fire all of its male faculty members, including themselves. The president was deluged with angry letters.
There was the year of the alleged merger with nearby Mount Holyoke College, a proposal lots of students at Mount Holyoke took seriously, even as Smith’s scoffed.
And then there was the year of the supposed grass-roots attempt to start an ROTC program. Most of the campus didn’t fall for that one, but the president, Carol Christ, did.
“It was my first year, and I was just about to meet with the board of trustees,’’ she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, no, how am I supposed to handle this?’ ’’
As for the vegetarian/locavore imbroglio, about a third of Garfield and Henle’s students said they thought they had fooled the campus. After all, the college already makes a point of buying local veggies when possible, and the trustees had met the previous weekend - so in theory they could have OK’d the plan in secret.
Half the students in the class had been instructed to come up with arguments in favor of the proposition (a vegetarian campus is a healthy campus). The other half were told to argue in public against it (students wouldn’t be getting enough protein).
All were sworn to secrecy and required to go along with the pretense.
“My house was up in arms,’’ said one student in the class, Jesse Klein. “It was all we talked about at dinner.’’
Another classmate, Jan Harris, decided the best way to fuel the rumor was to tape a panel debating the pros and cons of vegetarianism for the college TV station. She invited as a guest speaker a friend who pretended to be from the “Smith Healthy Living Club.’’ The speaker was so convincing that several people e-mailed her, wanting to join the club, which does not exist....
--more--"
Globe Trick-or-Treat: Energy Bar
$ome got them$elve$ a treat!
"White House orders review of energy loans; GOP threatens to subpoena documents" October 29, 2011|By Scott Wilson, Washington Post
WASHINGTON - The White House has authorized an independent review of all loan guarantees made by the Energy Department to foster green technology following the bankruptcy this year of Solyndra, the California company that received a $535 million loan through the program.
White House officials said yesterday that chief of staff William Daley ordered the review, which will evaluate the entire $35.9 billion loan portfolio made to support the private-sector development of new technologies that could help improve the economy and create jobs.
The review is a tacit acknowledgment that the loan program, defended by President Obama and his senior advisers for months, has raised enough internal concern that an outside assessment is necessary to clear the air and determine its future. The announcement came as congressional Republicans threatened to subpoena White House records relating to the Solyndra case if the administration does not produce a batch of requested documents....
Why is it administrations come and go but they all behave the same?
The issue has become a political problem for Obama....
In recent weeks, the White House has denied some requests for documents related to Solyndra made by Representative Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican who chairs the energy committee, and Representative Cliff Stearns, the Florida Republican who is heading the subcommittee investigating Solyndra.
In their statement yesterday, the congressmen said that “subpoenaing the White House is a serious step that, unfortunately, appears necessary in light of the Obama administration’s stonewall on Solyndra.’’
“What is the White House trying to hide from the American public?’’ the statement said. “It is alarming for the Obama White House to cast aside its vows of transparency and block Congress from learning more about the roles that those in the White House and other members of the administration played in the Solyndra mess.’’
White House officials said Daley’s decision to order the independent review, which will be looking primarily at the strength of the loan portfolio rather than the decision-making surrounding the Solyndra loan or any other specific one, was not prompted by the energy committee’s subpoena threat.
Uh-huh.
A White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal White House thinking, said the “administration has been cooperating with various agency investigations’’ on the Solyndra matter. The official said more than 70,000 pages of documents from several agencies, including 900 pages from the White House, have been made available to congressional investigators.
“The fact is that everything we produced so far has shown that this was a merit-based decision by career staffers at the Department of Energy,’’ the official said....
Everything else they kept.
--more--"
Also see: Powering up landfill
Obama's Ro$e-Colored $ungla$$e$
Related:
"An electric car company backed by more than a half-billion dollars in Energy Department loan guarantees has missed early manufacturing goals and has gradually pushed back plans for US production and the creation of thousands of jobs....
A half-billion here, a half-billion there; pretty soon we're talkin' real money.
--more--"
"White House orders review of energy loans; GOP threatens to subpoena documents" October 29, 2011|By Scott Wilson, Washington Post
WASHINGTON - The White House has authorized an independent review of all loan guarantees made by the Energy Department to foster green technology following the bankruptcy this year of Solyndra, the California company that received a $535 million loan through the program.
White House officials said yesterday that chief of staff William Daley ordered the review, which will evaluate the entire $35.9 billion loan portfolio made to support the private-sector development of new technologies that could help improve the economy and create jobs.
The review is a tacit acknowledgment that the loan program, defended by President Obama and his senior advisers for months, has raised enough internal concern that an outside assessment is necessary to clear the air and determine its future. The announcement came as congressional Republicans threatened to subpoena White House records relating to the Solyndra case if the administration does not produce a batch of requested documents....
Why is it administrations come and go but they all behave the same?
The issue has become a political problem for Obama....
In recent weeks, the White House has denied some requests for documents related to Solyndra made by Representative Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican who chairs the energy committee, and Representative Cliff Stearns, the Florida Republican who is heading the subcommittee investigating Solyndra.
In their statement yesterday, the congressmen said that “subpoenaing the White House is a serious step that, unfortunately, appears necessary in light of the Obama administration’s stonewall on Solyndra.’’
“What is the White House trying to hide from the American public?’’ the statement said. “It is alarming for the Obama White House to cast aside its vows of transparency and block Congress from learning more about the roles that those in the White House and other members of the administration played in the Solyndra mess.’’
White House officials said Daley’s decision to order the independent review, which will be looking primarily at the strength of the loan portfolio rather than the decision-making surrounding the Solyndra loan or any other specific one, was not prompted by the energy committee’s subpoena threat.
Uh-huh.
A White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal White House thinking, said the “administration has been cooperating with various agency investigations’’ on the Solyndra matter. The official said more than 70,000 pages of documents from several agencies, including 900 pages from the White House, have been made available to congressional investigators.
“The fact is that everything we produced so far has shown that this was a merit-based decision by career staffers at the Department of Energy,’’ the official said....
Everything else they kept.
--more--"
Also see: Powering up landfill
Obama's Ro$e-Colored $ungla$$e$
Related:
"An electric car company backed by more than a half-billion dollars in Energy Department loan guarantees has missed early manufacturing goals and has gradually pushed back plans for US production and the creation of thousands of jobs....
A half-billion here, a half-billion there; pretty soon we're talkin' real money.
--more--"
Get on the Boston Globe Bus
They'll give you a seat right in front:
"Thank you, driver, for getting them there; On these bus lines, the party starts and ends on board" October 29, 2011|By David Filipov and Matt Rocheleau, Globe Staff | Globe Correspondent
Thumping with nonstop 1980s techno pop, the garish former school bus rolled through Chinatown, a riot of New Wave pink, Pac-Man yellow, and blue disco lights that pulsated to the incessant beat. Two men the size of linebackers swung from a gleaming stripper pole, surrounded by 30 or so fellow carousers gyrating to the music and cheering them on. Beer flowed. Jell-O shots quivered.
It was not yet 9 p.m. The bachelor/bachelorette party of Brian Lordan and Dawn Macdonald was just getting started.
Keeping an eye on this rolling revelry from his rear view mirror was Chad White, 39, Air Force veteran, firefighter, and on this recent Saturday night, driver of the ’80s-themed bus belonging to The Bustonian, one of several Boston companies that rent out vehicles for on-board bacchanalia.
“For the most part, the police like us,’’ White said....
Really?
Such buses have become a popular means of pub crawling without walking and partying without driving. But these moveable fests have also drawn concern from law enforcement and neighborhood leaders, who see the buses as public nuisances that cannot be policed the way bars or cars are.
But they like you.
Party buses are regulated under the same laws as stretch limos or Greyhound buses, meaning that the state’s open container law does not apply to passengers carousing on board the vehicles.
The problem was highlighted by the recent arrest of an Allston man on charges of urinating out the window of a party bus on busy Newbury Street at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday.
So what's the problem?
Two Boston police detectives happened to see the act and boarded the vehicle, where they found “about 15 young males very intoxicated with beer cans all over the bus,’’ according to a police report.
The detectives did not detain the driver of the bus nor fine the company, which was not named in the report. The other morning merrymakers were allowed to ride on.
Superintendent William B. Evans, chief of the Patrol Division of the Boston Police Department, said he has been worried for some time about the buses, which have proliferated in the city over the past decade.
“We want to encourage designated drivers,’’ Evans said, but “it bothers me that we have this floating barroom going down the street.’’
But they like 'em.
*******************
Meg Mainzer-Cohen, who heads the Back Bay Association, said bar and restaurant owners welcome the business the buses bring when they stop and their patrons pile into local bars. But they do not always appreciate the bulky buses idling and blocking traffic in the neighborhood’s narrow streets....
Hey life is full of trade-off$, right?
The party stopped at a couple of bars where bands performed. The passengers entered the bars without paying a cover charge, part of a mutually beneficial deal the Bustonian has with clubs and pubs....
Oh, NOW WE KNOW WHY no one was ticketed and why they were allowed to go on their way.
This is my stop, readers.
--more--"
My problem is that I am a pure prohibitionist; if it is good enough for pot, it's good enough for booze.
And to those who say we already tried it and it didn't work: didn't try hard enough.
Now let's go fight that drunk, 'er, drug war!
How many potheads are pissing out of bus windows anyway?
"Thank you, driver, for getting them there; On these bus lines, the party starts and ends on board" October 29, 2011|By David Filipov and Matt Rocheleau, Globe Staff | Globe Correspondent
Thumping with nonstop 1980s techno pop, the garish former school bus rolled through Chinatown, a riot of New Wave pink, Pac-Man yellow, and blue disco lights that pulsated to the incessant beat. Two men the size of linebackers swung from a gleaming stripper pole, surrounded by 30 or so fellow carousers gyrating to the music and cheering them on. Beer flowed. Jell-O shots quivered.
It was not yet 9 p.m. The bachelor/bachelorette party of Brian Lordan and Dawn Macdonald was just getting started.
Keeping an eye on this rolling revelry from his rear view mirror was Chad White, 39, Air Force veteran, firefighter, and on this recent Saturday night, driver of the ’80s-themed bus belonging to The Bustonian, one of several Boston companies that rent out vehicles for on-board bacchanalia.
“For the most part, the police like us,’’ White said....
Really?
Such buses have become a popular means of pub crawling without walking and partying without driving. But these moveable fests have also drawn concern from law enforcement and neighborhood leaders, who see the buses as public nuisances that cannot be policed the way bars or cars are.
But they like you.
Party buses are regulated under the same laws as stretch limos or Greyhound buses, meaning that the state’s open container law does not apply to passengers carousing on board the vehicles.
The problem was highlighted by the recent arrest of an Allston man on charges of urinating out the window of a party bus on busy Newbury Street at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday.
So what's the problem?
Two Boston police detectives happened to see the act and boarded the vehicle, where they found “about 15 young males very intoxicated with beer cans all over the bus,’’ according to a police report.
The detectives did not detain the driver of the bus nor fine the company, which was not named in the report. The other morning merrymakers were allowed to ride on.
Superintendent William B. Evans, chief of the Patrol Division of the Boston Police Department, said he has been worried for some time about the buses, which have proliferated in the city over the past decade.
“We want to encourage designated drivers,’’ Evans said, but “it bothers me that we have this floating barroom going down the street.’’
But they like 'em.
*******************
Meg Mainzer-Cohen, who heads the Back Bay Association, said bar and restaurant owners welcome the business the buses bring when they stop and their patrons pile into local bars. But they do not always appreciate the bulky buses idling and blocking traffic in the neighborhood’s narrow streets....
Hey life is full of trade-off$, right?
The party stopped at a couple of bars where bands performed. The passengers entered the bars without paying a cover charge, part of a mutually beneficial deal the Bustonian has with clubs and pubs....
Oh, NOW WE KNOW WHY no one was ticketed and why they were allowed to go on their way.
This is my stop, readers.
--more--"
My problem is that I am a pure prohibitionist; if it is good enough for pot, it's good enough for booze.
And to those who say we already tried it and it didn't work: didn't try hard enough.
Now let's go fight that drunk, 'er, drug war!
How many potheads are pissing out of bus windows anyway?
Happy Halloween From the Boston Globe
Want to go to the haunted house?
"Zombies and witches declare war in Salem; Haunted houses feud at busiest season October 18, 2011|By Billy Baker, Globe Staff
SALEM - The series of events that culminated with the alleged assault on the zombies began when the Witch Mansion opened in the East India Square Mall, just in time for the huge Halloween season here.
The Witch Mansion is a pretty standard haunted house; it is dark and it is loud and things jump out at you. It has some 3-D gimmicks and slow animatronics, but what’s interesting about the Witch Mansion is the very end, when you exit into the mall and there, directly across the way, is another haunted house.
The Nightmare Factory opened in the mall five years ago, has been here year-round ever since and, naturally, does not like this competition one bit. So, the witches and the zombies went to war.
I'm horrified that the Globe never met a war it didn't want to promote.
I think I'll skip the haunted house after all.
The first incident, according to Marshall Tripoli, who owns the Nightmare Factory, was when one of the upstarts tried to trip one of his actors out on the pedestrian mall on Essex Street. The woman was wearing a straitjacket, which is not a good thing to trip in. Both houses leaflet heavily on the street, a main drag for October tourists, and where historical reenactors stage an arrest each day.
Tripoli countered on Friday by sending his mall ghouls, all of them very serious about their craft - “I care how I scare,’’ he said - to stand out in front of the newcomers and scream insults at Witch Mansion. When the police came, one of the ghouls said they were chanting “White Sox.’’
Then on Sunday, it got a little crazy: A zombie was hip-checked.
The zombie was walking with a group of zombies - “a family of zombies,’’ Tripoli said - handing out leaflets when one of the upstarts, dressed in a cape and a red mask, allegedly threw his hip into him. The zombie was a 60-year-old man, which is on the old side for a zombie. Police were called again.
John Denley, co-owner of the Witch Mansion, said the only explanation is that the bumping was accidental and that his actor’s vision was limited by the mask.
Tripoli is not buying it. “There is a war, a war has started,’’ he said. This isn’t a two-haunted-house mall, and Halloween is make-or-break. This is their Christmas, when he will pay his rent for the year, and there are only so many dollars out there.
This is not the first run-in between Tripoli and Denley. They have old bad blood, but Denley said he did not choose the location for his new haunted house to ruffle any feathers. But, Denley said, the location was exactly why they were going to win.
By location, he is referring to the fact that his attraction is entered on the outdoor pedestrian mall at the exact spot where the zombie family, which has been working for the Nightmare Factory for five years, goes to get its customers.
The Nightmare Factory has no outdoor frontage.
“We were smart in the first place,’’ Denley said. “We have a location outside where the people are. We won the war before it started, and that’s why he’s so upset. He’s got a gun with no bullets.’’
On Essex Street yesterday, there were people in costume everywhere soliciting. They sold haunted trolley rides and historical reenactments and fright. This is crunch time for the tourism industry in this city.
Britt Mitchell - who was portraying Bridget Bishop, the first woman executed in the witch trials - said feuds are part of October. “It’s when all the money comes in, so there is tension,’’ said Mitchell. “It’s the only month we make money.’’
In the tourist sections, it’s common for stores to pop up quickly in open spaces in October, and the year-round businesses have never been fans of this, said Bill Lazdowski, who owns Bewitched in Salem, a themed gift shop just next to both haunted houses. “It’s a pretty clear tactic that they did, to open right in front of the established business,’’ Lazdowski said.
The owners of Witch Mansion said they hoped they will be able to stay permanently at this location.
In the end, both sides say the winner will be decided where it matters: inside the haunted house. They each offer very similar experiences, though the Nightmare Factory uses more actors, jumping out in the dark with loud bangs and aggressive lighting, while the newer Witch Mansion involves 3D glasses and stopping to listen to animatronic figures talk.
But in the end, they both accomplish the same thing....
Gee, that wasn't scary at all.
--more--"
And what would a Halloween be without scary animals?
"Fungus faulted in deaths of 1m bats" October 27, 2011|By Bloomberg News
NEW YORK - A fungus is at fault for the deaths of one million North American bats, according to a study that is the first to pinpoint the cause for a phenomenon that scientists say may spur agricultural losses of $3.7 billion a year.
Yeah, whatever it is it is not genetically modified organi$m$.
The next question is how to attack it, said researchers at the US Geological Survey in Madison, Wis., who identified the Geomyces destructans fungus in a report yesterday in the journal Nature.
The war terminology continues; couldn't use the words solve or cure?
The flying mammals eat as much as two-thirds of their own weight in bugs nightly, including mosquitoes, grasshoppers, locusts, and moths that can spread disease and devastate crops....
And they are already too many hungry people.
--more--"
Related: Fear factor a black mark against darkest of cats
Problem is I know the most lovable black cat you ever saw, and I'm really, really sick of superstitious s*** posing as front page news in my flagship paper.
Okay, get your costume on and let's go trick-or-treating.
"This Is No Trick; Halloween defies push for healthy habits Some families rethink traditional glut of sweets" October 29, 2011|By Martine Powers and Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff
Let's not go to that house, readers.
Barbara Ferrer, Boston’s top health official, has railed against the perils of artery-clogging trans fat in doughnuts. She has exhorted the city’s youngsters, amid an epidemic of childhood obesity, to eat less, exercise more, and turn off the television.
That last part is good advice. Don't need all that diversion and propaganda in your ear.
Related:
"Researchers calculated the body mass index - a standard measurement of size.... There is growing debate about the accuracy of the standard method of calculating whether someone is overweight.... the system would put nearly half of NBA players in the overweight category"
Do lies make you fat because I'm full up on 'em?
So what to do on Halloween, a holiday that celebrates with abandon the delights of Snickers, Butterfingers, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups?
The great question of life to ponder, yes.
On Monday, she will fill two baskets for trick-or-treaters: one with stickers, trinkets, and packets of dried fruits; the other with candy. Most children, she knows from experience, will choose the sweets.
“While we don’t encourage people to eat candy every day,’’ said Ferrer, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission. “We certainly realize there are special occasions.’’
For parents regularly lectured on the importance of fruits and vegetables in their children’s diets, Oct. 31, it seems, is one day to ignore those admonitions.
“It’s the only time of the year when you get to eat a junkload of candy,’’ said Thelma McAvoy of Dorchester, as she shopped for a Batgirl costume with her daughter, Hailey, 5.
The problem is, Halloween’s candy cache can last weeks, said Joy Anastasia Gentry, founder of Reclaiming the Joy of Parenting, a consulting company.
Not like there is any $elf-$erving intere$t there, right?
And then, hot on its heels, comes Thanksgiving. And then, Hanukkah and Christmas, with their oil-laden latkes and gingerbread cookies....
This candy the Globe gave out tastes like s***.
--more--"
It's getting late. We better head home.
"Calif. sex offender parolees face Halloween curfew" October 28, 2011|Don Thompson, Associated Press
About 2,000 paroled California sex offenders have no permanent home partly because of a state law that bans them from living near schools or parks. This Halloween, however, many will spend the night together under supervision from authorities who want to make sure they have no contact with children out trick-or-treating.
It’s the first time the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is targeting offenders who live on the streets, under bridges or in nomadic campsites, though it has enforced a curfew on offenders who have permanent addresses for nearly 20 years under what it calls “Operation Boo.’’
Offenders have been ordered to report to parole centers from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday....
--more--"
Time to settle in with the candy and a movie:
"Mixed feelings as Hub heroes explore movie on its villain; Bulger’s portrayal may be challenge for Damon, Affleck" October 28, 2011|By Joseph P. Kahn, Globe Staff
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon grew up in Cambridge and have contributed their talents to a string of successful movies set in the Boston area, among them “Good Will Hunting,’’ “The Departed,’’ and “The Town.’’ Collectively these films have established Boston in the minds of moviegoers around the globe.
But their latest venture, a proposed movie about Boston mobster James “Whitey’’ Bulger, is already stirring mixed emotions among local people who have known Bulger and who fear it might glamorize a ruthless criminal.
Yeah, the movies and media never do that (blog editor rolls his eyes skyward).
We lionize war criminals and no one seems to have a problem with that.
“If anyone makes this movie, I’m pleased it’s these two. They’re brilliant,’’ said Tommy Donahue, whose father was allegedly killed by Bulger and his henchmen. “But I definitely have mixed emotions about this. Hopefully they can depict Whitey Bulger for what he is. They’ll need to do their homework, though.’’
How Bulger might be portrayed onscreen - Damon has indicated he wants the role - concerns attorney Anthony Cardinale as well. Bulger has been charged with 19 slayings, many shockingly brutal.
“If it’s done honestly, [Damon] will look like an idiot, a treacherous piece of junk. It’ll be a bad career move for him,’’ said Cardinale, who represented Francis “Cadillac Frank’’ Salemme, then the New England Mafia boss, in a case that helped expose Bulger’s corrupt ties with the FBI.
That would be the Fascist Bureau of Instigation for those that don't know.
If not done accurately, Cardinale added, “it’s a worse career move.’’
Bulger’s arrest in June and pending trial may yield even more details of gruesome killings and FBI corruption, heightening interest in any dramatization of the mobster’s life and crimes.
That is what they are really worried about.
But along with the interest come questions about how key pieces of the story might be treated or left out.
I understand that feeling being a reader of the Boston Globe.
On the one hand, there is widespread praise for Affleck and Damon as homegrown stars who have never abandoned their roots.
Didn't Damon narrate Inside Job?
“As a Bostonian, I’m proud of them,’’ said defense attorney Joseph Oteri, a longtime Bulger family friend.
His primary concern is whether their film does “a hatchet job’’ on William Bulger, the former Massachusetts Senate president who is the gangster’s brother, and not how it treats Whitey. “Southie is a state of mind, not a place,’’ Oteri said, and Affleck and Damon “know how to capture that mentality.’’
On the other hand, there is worry that a big-budget production built around Damon and Affleck might romanticize Bulger and his gang, or even turn Bulger himself into a sympathetic figure, no matter how dark the film is.
According to Thomas Foley, the former Massachusetts State Police colonel who helped build the criminal case against Bulger, it is critically important that any such movie strives to be more than pure entertainment. It should also, he said, be faithful to what really happened - notably, Bulger’s role as an FBI informant, which began in the 1970s - without “making [Bulger] any more of a celebrity than he is now.’’
Rare is the movie that will be faithful to history or the truth, especially coming out of Hollywood. More than likely it never gets made.
That is a tall order, conceded Foley, who is working on his own book about the Bulger case. “What angle will they take? I don’t know, but this happened over many years. It’s hard to get your arms around all that in a two-hour movie.’’
Would you mind if we watched something else, readers?
--more--"
"Zombies and witches declare war in Salem; Haunted houses feud at busiest season October 18, 2011|By Billy Baker, Globe Staff
SALEM - The series of events that culminated with the alleged assault on the zombies began when the Witch Mansion opened in the East India Square Mall, just in time for the huge Halloween season here.
The Witch Mansion is a pretty standard haunted house; it is dark and it is loud and things jump out at you. It has some 3-D gimmicks and slow animatronics, but what’s interesting about the Witch Mansion is the very end, when you exit into the mall and there, directly across the way, is another haunted house.
The Nightmare Factory opened in the mall five years ago, has been here year-round ever since and, naturally, does not like this competition one bit. So, the witches and the zombies went to war.
I'm horrified that the Globe never met a war it didn't want to promote.
I think I'll skip the haunted house after all.
The first incident, according to Marshall Tripoli, who owns the Nightmare Factory, was when one of the upstarts tried to trip one of his actors out on the pedestrian mall on Essex Street. The woman was wearing a straitjacket, which is not a good thing to trip in. Both houses leaflet heavily on the street, a main drag for October tourists, and where historical reenactors stage an arrest each day.
Tripoli countered on Friday by sending his mall ghouls, all of them very serious about their craft - “I care how I scare,’’ he said - to stand out in front of the newcomers and scream insults at Witch Mansion. When the police came, one of the ghouls said they were chanting “White Sox.’’
Then on Sunday, it got a little crazy: A zombie was hip-checked.
The zombie was walking with a group of zombies - “a family of zombies,’’ Tripoli said - handing out leaflets when one of the upstarts, dressed in a cape and a red mask, allegedly threw his hip into him. The zombie was a 60-year-old man, which is on the old side for a zombie. Police were called again.
John Denley, co-owner of the Witch Mansion, said the only explanation is that the bumping was accidental and that his actor’s vision was limited by the mask.
Tripoli is not buying it. “There is a war, a war has started,’’ he said. This isn’t a two-haunted-house mall, and Halloween is make-or-break. This is their Christmas, when he will pay his rent for the year, and there are only so many dollars out there.
This is not the first run-in between Tripoli and Denley. They have old bad blood, but Denley said he did not choose the location for his new haunted house to ruffle any feathers. But, Denley said, the location was exactly why they were going to win.
By location, he is referring to the fact that his attraction is entered on the outdoor pedestrian mall at the exact spot where the zombie family, which has been working for the Nightmare Factory for five years, goes to get its customers.
The Nightmare Factory has no outdoor frontage.
“We were smart in the first place,’’ Denley said. “We have a location outside where the people are. We won the war before it started, and that’s why he’s so upset. He’s got a gun with no bullets.’’
On Essex Street yesterday, there were people in costume everywhere soliciting. They sold haunted trolley rides and historical reenactments and fright. This is crunch time for the tourism industry in this city.
Britt Mitchell - who was portraying Bridget Bishop, the first woman executed in the witch trials - said feuds are part of October. “It’s when all the money comes in, so there is tension,’’ said Mitchell. “It’s the only month we make money.’’
In the tourist sections, it’s common for stores to pop up quickly in open spaces in October, and the year-round businesses have never been fans of this, said Bill Lazdowski, who owns Bewitched in Salem, a themed gift shop just next to both haunted houses. “It’s a pretty clear tactic that they did, to open right in front of the established business,’’ Lazdowski said.
The owners of Witch Mansion said they hoped they will be able to stay permanently at this location.
In the end, both sides say the winner will be decided where it matters: inside the haunted house. They each offer very similar experiences, though the Nightmare Factory uses more actors, jumping out in the dark with loud bangs and aggressive lighting, while the newer Witch Mansion involves 3D glasses and stopping to listen to animatronic figures talk.
But in the end, they both accomplish the same thing....
Gee, that wasn't scary at all.
--more--"
And what would a Halloween be without scary animals?
"Fungus faulted in deaths of 1m bats" October 27, 2011|By Bloomberg News
NEW YORK - A fungus is at fault for the deaths of one million North American bats, according to a study that is the first to pinpoint the cause for a phenomenon that scientists say may spur agricultural losses of $3.7 billion a year.
Yeah, whatever it is it is not genetically modified organi$m$.
The next question is how to attack it, said researchers at the US Geological Survey in Madison, Wis., who identified the Geomyces destructans fungus in a report yesterday in the journal Nature.
The war terminology continues; couldn't use the words solve or cure?
The flying mammals eat as much as two-thirds of their own weight in bugs nightly, including mosquitoes, grasshoppers, locusts, and moths that can spread disease and devastate crops....
And they are already too many hungry people.
--more--"
Related: Fear factor a black mark against darkest of cats
Problem is I know the most lovable black cat you ever saw, and I'm really, really sick of superstitious s*** posing as front page news in my flagship paper.
Okay, get your costume on and let's go trick-or-treating.
"This Is No Trick; Halloween defies push for healthy habits Some families rethink traditional glut of sweets" October 29, 2011|By Martine Powers and Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff
Let's not go to that house, readers.
Barbara Ferrer, Boston’s top health official, has railed against the perils of artery-clogging trans fat in doughnuts. She has exhorted the city’s youngsters, amid an epidemic of childhood obesity, to eat less, exercise more, and turn off the television.
That last part is good advice. Don't need all that diversion and propaganda in your ear.
Related:
"Researchers calculated the body mass index - a standard measurement of size.... There is growing debate about the accuracy of the standard method of calculating whether someone is overweight.... the system would put nearly half of NBA players in the overweight category"
Do lies make you fat because I'm full up on 'em?
So what to do on Halloween, a holiday that celebrates with abandon the delights of Snickers, Butterfingers, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups?
The great question of life to ponder, yes.
On Monday, she will fill two baskets for trick-or-treaters: one with stickers, trinkets, and packets of dried fruits; the other with candy. Most children, she knows from experience, will choose the sweets.
“While we don’t encourage people to eat candy every day,’’ said Ferrer, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission. “We certainly realize there are special occasions.’’
For parents regularly lectured on the importance of fruits and vegetables in their children’s diets, Oct. 31, it seems, is one day to ignore those admonitions.
“It’s the only time of the year when you get to eat a junkload of candy,’’ said Thelma McAvoy of Dorchester, as she shopped for a Batgirl costume with her daughter, Hailey, 5.
The problem is, Halloween’s candy cache can last weeks, said Joy Anastasia Gentry, founder of Reclaiming the Joy of Parenting, a consulting company.
Not like there is any $elf-$erving intere$t there, right?
And then, hot on its heels, comes Thanksgiving. And then, Hanukkah and Christmas, with their oil-laden latkes and gingerbread cookies....
This candy the Globe gave out tastes like s***.
--more--"
It's getting late. We better head home.
"Calif. sex offender parolees face Halloween curfew" October 28, 2011|Don Thompson, Associated Press
About 2,000 paroled California sex offenders have no permanent home partly because of a state law that bans them from living near schools or parks. This Halloween, however, many will spend the night together under supervision from authorities who want to make sure they have no contact with children out trick-or-treating.
It’s the first time the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is targeting offenders who live on the streets, under bridges or in nomadic campsites, though it has enforced a curfew on offenders who have permanent addresses for nearly 20 years under what it calls “Operation Boo.’’
Offenders have been ordered to report to parole centers from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday....
--more--"
Time to settle in with the candy and a movie:
"Mixed feelings as Hub heroes explore movie on its villain; Bulger’s portrayal may be challenge for Damon, Affleck" October 28, 2011|By Joseph P. Kahn, Globe Staff
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon grew up in Cambridge and have contributed their talents to a string of successful movies set in the Boston area, among them “Good Will Hunting,’’ “The Departed,’’ and “The Town.’’ Collectively these films have established Boston in the minds of moviegoers around the globe.
But their latest venture, a proposed movie about Boston mobster James “Whitey’’ Bulger, is already stirring mixed emotions among local people who have known Bulger and who fear it might glamorize a ruthless criminal.
Yeah, the movies and media never do that (blog editor rolls his eyes skyward).
We lionize war criminals and no one seems to have a problem with that.
“If anyone makes this movie, I’m pleased it’s these two. They’re brilliant,’’ said Tommy Donahue, whose father was allegedly killed by Bulger and his henchmen. “But I definitely have mixed emotions about this. Hopefully they can depict Whitey Bulger for what he is. They’ll need to do their homework, though.’’
How Bulger might be portrayed onscreen - Damon has indicated he wants the role - concerns attorney Anthony Cardinale as well. Bulger has been charged with 19 slayings, many shockingly brutal.
“If it’s done honestly, [Damon] will look like an idiot, a treacherous piece of junk. It’ll be a bad career move for him,’’ said Cardinale, who represented Francis “Cadillac Frank’’ Salemme, then the New England Mafia boss, in a case that helped expose Bulger’s corrupt ties with the FBI.
That would be the Fascist Bureau of Instigation for those that don't know.
If not done accurately, Cardinale added, “it’s a worse career move.’’
Bulger’s arrest in June and pending trial may yield even more details of gruesome killings and FBI corruption, heightening interest in any dramatization of the mobster’s life and crimes.
That is what they are really worried about.
But along with the interest come questions about how key pieces of the story might be treated or left out.
I understand that feeling being a reader of the Boston Globe.
On the one hand, there is widespread praise for Affleck and Damon as homegrown stars who have never abandoned their roots.
Didn't Damon narrate Inside Job?
“As a Bostonian, I’m proud of them,’’ said defense attorney Joseph Oteri, a longtime Bulger family friend.
His primary concern is whether their film does “a hatchet job’’ on William Bulger, the former Massachusetts Senate president who is the gangster’s brother, and not how it treats Whitey. “Southie is a state of mind, not a place,’’ Oteri said, and Affleck and Damon “know how to capture that mentality.’’
On the other hand, there is worry that a big-budget production built around Damon and Affleck might romanticize Bulger and his gang, or even turn Bulger himself into a sympathetic figure, no matter how dark the film is.
According to Thomas Foley, the former Massachusetts State Police colonel who helped build the criminal case against Bulger, it is critically important that any such movie strives to be more than pure entertainment. It should also, he said, be faithful to what really happened - notably, Bulger’s role as an FBI informant, which began in the 1970s - without “making [Bulger] any more of a celebrity than he is now.’’
Rare is the movie that will be faithful to history or the truth, especially coming out of Hollywood. More than likely it never gets made.
That is a tall order, conceded Foley, who is working on his own book about the Bulger case. “What angle will they take? I don’t know, but this happened over many years. It’s hard to get your arms around all that in a two-hour movie.’’
Would you mind if we watched something else, readers?
--more--"
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Down For the Day
And here is why:
"Residents dig out, thousands without power after ‘unbelievable’ snow" by Christopher J. Girard, Globe Correspondent, and Martine Powers, Globe Staff
Hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents remained without power today after a major nor’easter that dumped rain and up to 30 inches of wet, heavy snow. Authorities said the storm played a role in three deaths, two in a car accident and one because of a power line downed by the storm.
This is really the limit for the global-warmers. They not only look like fools after today (and the last two record-setting and brutal winters), but they also look like liars now. What's worse is they twist this to say it is proof of their truth. Even my football friend noted that. No one believes them anymore.
One National Weather Service forecaster expressed astonishment at the magnitude of the storm, which hit the state unusually early, two days before children were expected to make their rounds for Halloween.
“Fifteen thousand years ago, in the Ice Age, I’m sure they had more snow,” said Bill Simpson. “But for the modern day, this is unbelievable.”
I guess that is why it is called climate change now.
**************************
Governor Deval Patrick, who declared a state of emergency Saturday night, said it would likely be days, not hours, before power is restored for most families. He explained that the situation was unlike the aftermath of Hurricane, when repairs on a few central power lines restored power to whole neighborhoods. He said this snowstorm’s problems were much more decentralized.
Then I'm one of the lucky ones.
“This is a house-by-house, branch-by-branch kind of response,” Patrick said at a news conference in Agawam in Western Massachusetts, the portion of the state that saw the heaviest snows....
Simpson, the weather service forecaster, said Jaffrey, N.H., led the region with a record 31.4 inches of snow. In hardest-hit Western Massachusetts, Plainfield reported 30.8 inches of snow, while Ashfield reported 25.5, and Tolland reported 25....
--more--"
Power just came back about a half-hour ago, readers. I'll see what I can come up with after this lost day.
Speaking of lost days, there was not a Sunday Boston Globe anywhere in this town today and I didn't even miss it.
"Residents dig out, thousands without power after ‘unbelievable’ snow" by Christopher J. Girard, Globe Correspondent, and Martine Powers, Globe Staff
Hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents remained without power today after a major nor’easter that dumped rain and up to 30 inches of wet, heavy snow. Authorities said the storm played a role in three deaths, two in a car accident and one because of a power line downed by the storm.
This is really the limit for the global-warmers. They not only look like fools after today (and the last two record-setting and brutal winters), but they also look like liars now. What's worse is they twist this to say it is proof of their truth. Even my football friend noted that. No one believes them anymore.
One National Weather Service forecaster expressed astonishment at the magnitude of the storm, which hit the state unusually early, two days before children were expected to make their rounds for Halloween.
“Fifteen thousand years ago, in the Ice Age, I’m sure they had more snow,” said Bill Simpson. “But for the modern day, this is unbelievable.”
I guess that is why it is called climate change now.
**************************
Governor Deval Patrick, who declared a state of emergency Saturday night, said it would likely be days, not hours, before power is restored for most families. He explained that the situation was unlike the aftermath of Hurricane, when repairs on a few central power lines restored power to whole neighborhoods. He said this snowstorm’s problems were much more decentralized.
Then I'm one of the lucky ones.
“This is a house-by-house, branch-by-branch kind of response,” Patrick said at a news conference in Agawam in Western Massachusetts, the portion of the state that saw the heaviest snows....
Simpson, the weather service forecaster, said Jaffrey, N.H., led the region with a record 31.4 inches of snow. In hardest-hit Western Massachusetts, Plainfield reported 30.8 inches of snow, while Ashfield reported 25.5, and Tolland reported 25....
--more--"
Power just came back about a half-hour ago, readers. I'll see what I can come up with after this lost day.
Speaking of lost days, there was not a Sunday Boston Globe anywhere in this town today and I didn't even miss it.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Syria NATO's Next Target
That is one thing the agenda-pushing war-promoter I call a newspaper is good for: telegraphing the next country to be attacked.
"Syria action possible, McCain says" October 24, 2011|Associated Press
SOUTHERN SHUNEH, Jordan - Senator John McCain said yesterday that military action to protect civilians in Syria might be considered now that NATO’s air campaign in Libya is ending....
Related:
"General Wesley Clark, who commanded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign in the Kosovo war, recalls in his 2003 book Winning Modern Wars being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of states that Rumsfeld and deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz wanted to take down included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia [and Lebanon]."
I'm always amazed at the clairvoyance of the man.
“Now that military operations in Libya are ending, there will be renewed focus on what practical military operations might be considered to protect civilian lives in Syria,’’ McCain said at the World Economic Forum in Jordan.
“The Assad regime should not consider that it can get away with mass murder. Khadafy made that mistake, and it cost him everything,’’ he added, referring to ousted Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy, who was killed last week by fighters loyal to the new government. “Iran’s rulers would be wise to heed similar counsel.’’
Yeah, they are next on the list after Syria.
In an interview from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, her final stop on a four-nation tour of the region, Clinton warned Iran that the planned US withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq by the end of the year should not be mistaken for a lack of commitment to democracy in the region.
She conceded that Iraq’s stability is not ensured but said the United States would maintain a strong presence in Iraq, through training and support. She also noted that the US military has forces based nearby.
I'm so sick of Hitlery's horseshit.
It was not clear whether McCain, an Arizona Republican, was referring to American or NATO military action against the Syrian regime; owever, international intervention, such as the NATO action in Libya, is all but out of the question in Syria, due to concern that Assad’s ouster would spread chaos across the region.
The important point to note there is it is NOT out of the QUESTION!
Syria is a geographical and political keystone in the heart of the Middle East, bordering five countries with which it shares religious and ethnic minorities and, in Israel’s case, a fragile truce. Its web of alliances extends to Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and Iran’s Shi’ite theocracy.
That is who all this is being done for. A blind man could see it.
Most Syrian opposition groups, inside and outside Syria, also have said they oppose military intervention.
Since when did that ever stop them?
Mohammad Habash, a member of Syria’s outgoing parliament, said such military action “will only bring catastrophes, wars, and blood, and this is what we don’t wish at all.’’
No one does, but it's a little late now. The globe-kickers got the ball rolling.
--more--"
"US pulls envoy out of Syria, citing safety concern" by Bradley Klapper Associated Press / October 24, 2011
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration has pulled its ambassador home from Syria, arguing that his support for anti-Assad activists put him in grave danger....
NATO bombing coming up. This is what governments do when they are readying military actions.
Syria responded quickly Monday, ordering home its envoy from Washington.
American Ambassador Robert Ford was temporarily recalled on Saturday after the U.S. received "credible threats against his personal safety in Syria," the State Department said, pointing directly at President Bashar Assad's government.
No one believes you anymore.
Ford, who already had been the subject of several incidents of intimidation, has enraged Syrian authorities with his forceful defense of anti-Assad demonstrations and his harsh critique of a government crackdown that has now claimed more than 3,000 lives.
Calling Ford back to the U.S. is short of a complete diplomatic break but represents the collapse of the administration's hopes that it could draw Assad toward government changes and a productive role fostering Mideast peace....
Ford's presence in Damascus had been an important symbolic part of President Barack Obama's effort to engage Syria, which was without a U.S. ambassador for years after the Bush administration broke ties over Syria's alleged role in the 2005 assassination of a political candidate in neighboring Lebanon.
I'm SO SICK of SYMBOLIC SHIT!
With Moammar Gadhafi's death last week in Libya, and the revolutions that toppled long-time leaders Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Assad is among the Arab Spring autocrats left standing.
Along with Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, he is facing the most pressure from his citizens to leave power.
Yeah, I notice we see a lot less regarding the butcher of Yemen. Oh, right, he's an ally.
Yet with his vast security network and close links with Russia and China, Assad is perhaps the one best placed to withstand pressures for change -- peaceful or violent....
Uh-oh.
The world's attention is turning to Syria....
And we know what world the agenda-pushing elitist paper is referring to, don't we?
If the level of violence resembles Libya's before the NATO intervention, Syria is different because anti-government groups are insisting that they want no outside assistance. The opposition is also hindered in that it remains a largely Sunni movement, with Assad maintaining significant loyalty from his dominant Alawite sect and Syria's minority Druze, Christians and business elite.
Then NATO is going to be needed to dislodge him. That's what this is.
Related:
"Syria’s top Sunni Muslim cleric... is considered a close supporter of Assad’s regime"
So even the largely Sunni movement is a minority, 'eh?
Ford arrived in January as the first American ambassador to Syria since the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on a Beirut street. Syria at the time had thousands of troops in Lebanon and pulled many political strings there, but it has always denied any involvement in the bombing attack.
Yeah, how did killing that guy benefit Syria? If anyone benefited, it was USrael. Didn't Israel then attack a year later?
Related: Who killed Lebanon's Rafik Hariri?
The Obama administration had hoped to persuade Syria to change its often anti-American policies regarding Israel, Lebanon and Iraq, and to drop its support for extremist groups....
Yeah, right, whatever. It was all about instigating a self-serving split between Syria and Iran.
--more--"
"Defectors claim they made attack in Syria; Arab neighbors press for peace" October 27, 2011|By Nada Bakri, New York Times
BEIRUT - A force of Syrian army defectors claimed responsibility for an attack yesterday that killed a military officer and eight soldiers in central Syria, another signal that disaffected troops are taking a larger role in the antigovernment uprising and pushing it into more violence after months of a brutal government crackdown.
Gee, I just can't imagine from where they would be getting support.
Also, an Arab delegation headed by the Qatari prime minister met with President Bashar Assad in Damascus to press his government to negotiate with the street protesters and end the conflict....
I don't even take talk of peace seriously in the war paper anymore. If they wanted peace we would have it.
In the hours before the meeting, the government mustered tens of thousands of supporters to rally in the capital. The Syrian satellite television station Addounia showed footage of thousands of demonstrators filling Umayyad Square in the heart of Damascus. They were waving Syrian flags, holding pictures of the president, and chanting, “The people want Bashar Assad.’’
With most foreign journalists barred from Syria and the government retaining tight control on information, it is difficult to assess how great a role coercion plays in such displays.
As opposed to the anti-Wall Street protests back home that the controlled-opposition creeps are trying to get a hold on and direct. No coercion there, just good, old-fashioned outrage as motivation.
I can't tell you how sick I am of pot-hollering kettle journalism, readers. I guess that's why AmeriKa's newspapers are going extinct.
The country’s military and security forces, which had long appeared largely cohesive, have lost perhaps 10,000 to defections, according to a US official. A fraction of that number have coalesced into two groups, the Free Syrian Army and the Free Officers Movement. Their clashes with Syrian security forces have increased in the past weeks, especially in central and northern Syria....
This is the logical progression when a government is being overthrown by foreign intelligence agencies and their agents.
Speaking of which:
Meanwhile, activists said, several towns in southern, central, and northern Syria complied with a call for a general strike yesterday by the Syrian National Council, an umbrella group of opposition parties and figures. Yesterday’s strike, the group had said, was to be the first phase in a campaign of civil disobedience to bring down the government.
Some regime change is good, right?
Activists said that Syrian security forces had killed at least seven people in the central city of Homs, including an 18-month-old baby....
Syrian baby-killers, got it.
The delegation to Damascus followed a session of the Arab League last week in Cairo, where officials urged the Syrian leadership to end its crackdown before possible foreign intervention and gave Assad until the end of this month to end the oppression or face a vote to suspend Syria’s league membership....
Yes, EVERYONE KNOWS IT IS COMING!
--more--"
"Syrian security forces fire on rallies, killing 40; UN inspections are rejected by government
"Syria action possible, McCain says" October 24, 2011|Associated Press
SOUTHERN SHUNEH, Jordan - Senator John McCain said yesterday that military action to protect civilians in Syria might be considered now that NATO’s air campaign in Libya is ending....
Related:
"General Wesley Clark, who commanded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign in the Kosovo war, recalls in his 2003 book Winning Modern Wars being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of states that Rumsfeld and deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz wanted to take down included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia [and Lebanon]."
I'm always amazed at the clairvoyance of the man.
“Now that military operations in Libya are ending, there will be renewed focus on what practical military operations might be considered to protect civilian lives in Syria,’’ McCain said at the World Economic Forum in Jordan.
“The Assad regime should not consider that it can get away with mass murder. Khadafy made that mistake, and it cost him everything,’’ he added, referring to ousted Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy, who was killed last week by fighters loyal to the new government. “Iran’s rulers would be wise to heed similar counsel.’’
Yeah, they are next on the list after Syria.
In an interview from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, her final stop on a four-nation tour of the region, Clinton warned Iran that the planned US withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq by the end of the year should not be mistaken for a lack of commitment to democracy in the region.
She conceded that Iraq’s stability is not ensured but said the United States would maintain a strong presence in Iraq, through training and support. She also noted that the US military has forces based nearby.
I'm so sick of Hitlery's horseshit.
It was not clear whether McCain, an Arizona Republican, was referring to American or NATO military action against the Syrian regime; owever, international intervention, such as the NATO action in Libya, is all but out of the question in Syria, due to concern that Assad’s ouster would spread chaos across the region.
The important point to note there is it is NOT out of the QUESTION!
Syria is a geographical and political keystone in the heart of the Middle East, bordering five countries with which it shares religious and ethnic minorities and, in Israel’s case, a fragile truce. Its web of alliances extends to Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and Iran’s Shi’ite theocracy.
That is who all this is being done for. A blind man could see it.
Most Syrian opposition groups, inside and outside Syria, also have said they oppose military intervention.
Since when did that ever stop them?
Mohammad Habash, a member of Syria’s outgoing parliament, said such military action “will only bring catastrophes, wars, and blood, and this is what we don’t wish at all.’’
No one does, but it's a little late now. The globe-kickers got the ball rolling.
--more--"
"US pulls envoy out of Syria, citing safety concern" by Bradley Klapper Associated Press / October 24, 2011
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration has pulled its ambassador home from Syria, arguing that his support for anti-Assad activists put him in grave danger....
NATO bombing coming up. This is what governments do when they are readying military actions.
Syria responded quickly Monday, ordering home its envoy from Washington.
American Ambassador Robert Ford was temporarily recalled on Saturday after the U.S. received "credible threats against his personal safety in Syria," the State Department said, pointing directly at President Bashar Assad's government.
No one believes you anymore.
Ford, who already had been the subject of several incidents of intimidation, has enraged Syrian authorities with his forceful defense of anti-Assad demonstrations and his harsh critique of a government crackdown that has now claimed more than 3,000 lives.
Calling Ford back to the U.S. is short of a complete diplomatic break but represents the collapse of the administration's hopes that it could draw Assad toward government changes and a productive role fostering Mideast peace....
Ford's presence in Damascus had been an important symbolic part of President Barack Obama's effort to engage Syria, which was without a U.S. ambassador for years after the Bush administration broke ties over Syria's alleged role in the 2005 assassination of a political candidate in neighboring Lebanon.
I'm SO SICK of SYMBOLIC SHIT!
With Moammar Gadhafi's death last week in Libya, and the revolutions that toppled long-time leaders Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Assad is among the Arab Spring autocrats left standing.
Along with Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, he is facing the most pressure from his citizens to leave power.
Yeah, I notice we see a lot less regarding the butcher of Yemen. Oh, right, he's an ally.
Yet with his vast security network and close links with Russia and China, Assad is perhaps the one best placed to withstand pressures for change -- peaceful or violent....
Uh-oh.
The world's attention is turning to Syria....
And we know what world the agenda-pushing elitist paper is referring to, don't we?
If the level of violence resembles Libya's before the NATO intervention, Syria is different because anti-government groups are insisting that they want no outside assistance. The opposition is also hindered in that it remains a largely Sunni movement, with Assad maintaining significant loyalty from his dominant Alawite sect and Syria's minority Druze, Christians and business elite.
Then NATO is going to be needed to dislodge him. That's what this is.
Related:
"Syria’s top Sunni Muslim cleric... is considered a close supporter of Assad’s regime"
So even the largely Sunni movement is a minority, 'eh?
Ford arrived in January as the first American ambassador to Syria since the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on a Beirut street. Syria at the time had thousands of troops in Lebanon and pulled many political strings there, but it has always denied any involvement in the bombing attack.
Yeah, how did killing that guy benefit Syria? If anyone benefited, it was USrael. Didn't Israel then attack a year later?
Related: Who killed Lebanon's Rafik Hariri?
The Obama administration had hoped to persuade Syria to change its often anti-American policies regarding Israel, Lebanon and Iraq, and to drop its support for extremist groups....
Yeah, right, whatever. It was all about instigating a self-serving split between Syria and Iran.
--more--"
"Defectors claim they made attack in Syria; Arab neighbors press for peace" October 27, 2011|By Nada Bakri, New York Times
BEIRUT - A force of Syrian army defectors claimed responsibility for an attack yesterday that killed a military officer and eight soldiers in central Syria, another signal that disaffected troops are taking a larger role in the antigovernment uprising and pushing it into more violence after months of a brutal government crackdown.
Gee, I just can't imagine from where they would be getting support.
Also, an Arab delegation headed by the Qatari prime minister met with President Bashar Assad in Damascus to press his government to negotiate with the street protesters and end the conflict....
I don't even take talk of peace seriously in the war paper anymore. If they wanted peace we would have it.
In the hours before the meeting, the government mustered tens of thousands of supporters to rally in the capital. The Syrian satellite television station Addounia showed footage of thousands of demonstrators filling Umayyad Square in the heart of Damascus. They were waving Syrian flags, holding pictures of the president, and chanting, “The people want Bashar Assad.’’
With most foreign journalists barred from Syria and the government retaining tight control on information, it is difficult to assess how great a role coercion plays in such displays.
As opposed to the anti-Wall Street protests back home that the controlled-opposition creeps are trying to get a hold on and direct. No coercion there, just good, old-fashioned outrage as motivation.
I can't tell you how sick I am of pot-hollering kettle journalism, readers. I guess that's why AmeriKa's newspapers are going extinct.
The country’s military and security forces, which had long appeared largely cohesive, have lost perhaps 10,000 to defections, according to a US official. A fraction of that number have coalesced into two groups, the Free Syrian Army and the Free Officers Movement. Their clashes with Syrian security forces have increased in the past weeks, especially in central and northern Syria....
This is the logical progression when a government is being overthrown by foreign intelligence agencies and their agents.
Speaking of which:
Meanwhile, activists said, several towns in southern, central, and northern Syria complied with a call for a general strike yesterday by the Syrian National Council, an umbrella group of opposition parties and figures. Yesterday’s strike, the group had said, was to be the first phase in a campaign of civil disobedience to bring down the government.
Some regime change is good, right?
Activists said that Syrian security forces had killed at least seven people in the central city of Homs, including an 18-month-old baby....
Syrian baby-killers, got it.
The delegation to Damascus followed a session of the Arab League last week in Cairo, where officials urged the Syrian leadership to end its crackdown before possible foreign intervention and gave Assad until the end of this month to end the oppression or face a vote to suspend Syria’s league membership....
Yes, EVERYONE KNOWS IT IS COMING!
--more--"
"Syrian security forces fire on rallies, killing 40; UN inspections are rejected by government
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Syria Sliding Toward Civil War
Which really makes it part of WWIII when you think about it (before the thing becomes official with the attack on Iran).
"Troops in Syria storm defiant town" September 28, 2011|By Zeina Karam, Associated Press
BEIRUT - Syrian troops firing machine guns mounted on tanks stormed a rebellious town in central Syria before dawn yesterday as part of military operations aimed at crushing the six-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad, activists said.
The offensive in Rastan, just north of the central city of Homs and on the highway to Turkey, continued through yesterday morning, leaving at least 20 people wounded, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Rastan has emerged as a hotbed of dissent against Assad’s autocratic regime during six months of antigovernment protests, and alleged army deserters have frequently clashed there with the military and security forces in the past.
The Local Coordination Committees activist network, the Observatory, and other groups reported yesterday’s attacks in Rastan. They said the tanks and armored vehicles entered Rastan early yesterday and dozens of troops were deployed.
The United Nations estimates that more than 2,700 civilians have been killed in the government’s crackdown on the uprising that began in mid-March, inspired by the Arab revolutions that have toppled autocratic rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.
The Syrian government’s bloody crackdown has prompted the international community, including the United States and European nations, to impose stiff sanctions on the regime.
Assad insists the unrest is being driven by terrorists and Islamic extremists acting out a foreign conspiracy to fracture Syria.
Ignoring the mounting death toll from his government’s bloody crackdown, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem of Syria told the United Nations on Monday that external critics were to blame for the violence and for causing delays in Assad’s plans for democratic reforms.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly, he sought to paint the Assad regime as having been on the brink of wide-ranging democratic reforms when foreign-inspired religious radicals and armed groups forced the Assad regime to put down the rebellion to hold the country together.
Moallem said reforms “had to take a back seat to other priorities. Our overriding priority was facing the external pressures which were at times tantamount to blatant conspiracies.’’
The longtime foreign minister said that internal desires for reform “have been manipulated to future objectives which are alien to the interests and express desires of the Syrian people.’’
--more--"
Want confirmation of a conspiracy?
"Killings of Syrian intellectuals continue with nuclear expert; Engineer is fourth man assassinated since Sunday" September 29, 2011|By Zeina Karam, Associated Press
BEIRUT - A Syrian nuclear engineer was assassinated in a hail of bullets in central Syria yesterday, the latest casualty in a string of killings this week of academics and scientists, Syria’s state-run news agency and activists said....
Smells like Mossad to me. Did it in Iraq, doing it in Iran.
The dead men came from different religious backgrounds - Shi’ite, Alawite, and Christian - and it unclear whether the killings had any sectarian motives. None of those killed were Sunni, Saleh said.
It's not unclear to me when the media basically confirm it with their newspeak.
Syria, like Iraq, has a volatile sectarian divide, making civil unrest a frightening prospect. The Assad regime is dominated by the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, but the country is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.
The agenda-pushing agitators always use that wedge and I'm no longer buying it. Problem is you can always find a few assholes on a local level.
--more--"
"Angry Syrians pelt US envoy with tomatoes; Assad backers attack diplomat critical of regime" September 30, 2011|By Bassem Mroue, Associated Press
BEIRUT - Angry supporters of President Bashar Assad’s regime hurled tomatoes and eggs at the US ambassador to Syria yesterday as he entered the office of a leading opposition figure, then trapped him inside the building for three hours.
Truthfully, our politicians deserve it. Heck, they deserve a tar-and-feathering and swim in the harbor. I'm nonviolent, but I will not stop and will step aside and submit to the mob if it is their wish. Then I will be a spectator and witness, right?
The Obama administration blamed the Syrian government for the attack in Damascus, saying it was part of an ongoing orchestrated campaign to intimidate American diplomats in the country. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the attack as wholly unjustified....
Such incidents are usually not spontaneous in Syria, and the attack yesterday came amid accusations by Damascus that Washington is inciting violence in the country.
Oh, I firmly believe this is a CIA-inspired effort with regional help from our Saudi partners. The agenda-pushing media's focus on it is all I needed to be convinced.
The protesters, who were waiting with eggs and tomatoes when Ford’s delegation arrived, launched the attack as the Americans entered the building.
We drop missiles, bombs, and artillery on people, American.
In Washington, the State Department said that a rowdy, violent mob tried to attack Ford and several American embassy workers in Damascus. Spokesman Mark Toner said Ford and his colleagues were unharmed and are now safe.
However, several heavily armored embassy vehicles sent to help extricate the embassy workers from the situation were badly damaged when the same crowd hurled rocks, White House and State Department officials said.
“This inexcusable assault is clearly part of ongoing campaign of intimidation aimed at diplomats … who are raising questions about what is going on inside Syria,’’ Clinton said. “It reflects an intolerance on the part of the regime and its supporters.’’
Sort of like your Iran and Pakistan war rhetoric of late, right?
--more--"
"Syrian troops battle renegades; 11 protesters killed as army defectors fight with loyalists" by Bassem Mroue, Associated Press / October 1, 2011
BEIRUT - Syrian troops fought intense battles yesterday with hundreds of fellow soldiers who have turned their weapons against the regime of President Bashar Assad, revealing the increasingly militarized nature of an uprising started months ago by peaceful protesters.
Across the country, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets as they do each Friday, braving gunfire by government forces who have waged a relentless crackdown....
The army defections as well as reports that once-peaceful protesters are increasingly taking up arms to fight the government crackdown have raised concerns of the risk of civil war in a country with a deep sectarian divide....
There they go again.
Syria has a volatile sectarian divide, making this kind of civil unrest one of the most dire scenarios....
Yeah, yeah, I got the point the first time.
--more--"
"Syrian troops reclaim most of central rebel town" by Bassem Mroue Associated Press / October 2, 2011
BEIRUT - Syrian troops retook most of a rebellious central town yesterday after five days of intense fighting with army defectors who sided with protesters in one of the worst clashes of the 6-month-old antigovernment uprising, a rights group said.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the troops spread out across Rastan after defectors pulled out of the town.
The army defections as well as reports that once-peaceful protesters are increasingly taking up arms to fight the government crackdown have raised concerns of the risk of civil war in a country with a deep sectarian divide.
The outpouring against President Bashar Assad’s regime began in mid-March with rallies by peaceful, unarmed protesters. Attacks by proregime gunmen and Syrian military forces have failed to stop the demonstrators from continuing to take to the streets....
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"Syrian opposition introduces new national council; Accuses Assad of working to start civil war" by Zeina Karam Associated Press / October 3, 2011
BEIRUT - Syrian dissidents formally established a broad-based national council yesterday designed to overthrow President Bashar Assad’s regime, which they accused of pushing the country to the brink of civil war. Syrians took to the streets in celebration, singing and dancing.
Yes, at bottom it is ONCE AGAIN about REGIME CHANGE!
And get this:
Meanwhile, in a restive northern area, gunmen killed the 21-year-old son of Syria’s top Sunni Muslim cleric in an ambush, the state-run news agency reported. The cleric, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, is considered a close supporter of Assad’s regime and has echoed its claims that the unrest in Syria is the result of a foreign conspiracy....
Gee, WHO would have wanted to DO THAT?
Syria’s volatile sectarian divide means that an armed conflict could rapidly escalate in scale and brutality....
Until now, the opposition movement has focused on peaceful demonstrations, although recently some protesters have been reported to have taken up arms to defend themselves against military attacks. Army defectors have also been fighting government troops.
I've noticed the defectors in Yemen are not accorded the same attention or sympathy in regard to the U.S. butcher Saleh, but that's just me.
Yesterday’s killing of the mufti’s son took place in the Saraqeb region of the restive northern Idlib Province as he left the university where he studied. He was shot in the chest and kidney and died later of his injuries. The news report gave no details on who might have been behind the killing.
In forming a national council, the Syrians are following in the footsteps of Libyan rebels....
And thus you know it is a western intelligence overthrow.
That's not good news for Syria. Are you guys prepared to be smashed by NATO?
Although the mass demonstrations in Syria have shaken one of the most authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, the opposition has made no major gains in recent months. It holds no territory and still has no clear leadership.
The Syrian opposition consists of a variety of groups with differing ideologies, including Islamists and secularists, and there have been many meetings of dissidents claiming to represent Syria’s popular uprising since it erupted seven months ago. But the new council is the broadest umbrella movement of revolutionary forces formed so far....
The council’s statement said it categorically rejects any foreign intervention or military operations to bring down Assad’s regime but called on the international community to protect the Syrian people from “the declared war and massacres being committed against them by the regime.’’
Libya.
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"Syrian troops detaining thousands; Violence in town of Rastan raises fear of civil war" by Zeina Karam Associated Press / October 4, 2011
BEIRUT - Syrian troops going house to house have detained more than 3,000 people in the past three days in the rebellious town of Rastan, which saw some of the worst fighting of the six-month-old uprising recently, activists said yesterday.
Over the past week, the military fought hundreds of army defectors who sided with anti-regime protesters in Rastan. The fighting demonstrated the increasingly militarized nature of the uprising and heightened fears that Syria may be sliding toward civil war....
Syria’s opposition movement has until now focused on peaceful demonstrations, although recently there have been reports of protesters taking up arms to defend themselves against military attacks. Army defectors have also been fighting government troops, particularly in Rastan, which government forces retook on Saturday.
The fears of civil war, possibly along sectarian lines, were heightened by the assassination Sunday of the 21-year-old son of Syria’s top Sunni Muslim cleric - the latest in a string of targeted killings.
The state-appointed cleric, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, is considered a loyal supporter of President Bashar Assad’s regime, heading a host of Sunni clergymen who have been a base of support for the president’s ruling Alawite sect.
Say what? So much for sectarian divide s***, sigh.
Hassoun, who has echoed regime claims that the unrest in Syria is the result of a foreign conspiracy, accused the opposition of creating the climate for his son’s killing and blamed anti-Assad Sunni clerics for allegedly issuing fatwas (religious edicts) inciting violence against him.
“My brothers who were misguided and carried arms, you should have assassinated me because some clerics issued such fatwas. Why did you kill a young man who did nothing and harmed no one,’’ Hassoun, holding back tears, said in a sermon at his son’s funeral in the northeastern city of Aleppo, aired on Syrian television stations.
Saria Hassoun’s killing was the latest in a series of targeted executions that included a nuclear engineer, university professors, and physicians.
And who would want to kill Syria's brains, huh? Who benefits?
The other men, a mixture of Alawites, Christians, and Shi’ites, were all killed in the past week, most of them in central Homs province - one of the hotbeds of antigovernment protests.
The regime has accused “terrorist gunmen’’ of carrying out the killings, while the opposition accused the regime of trying to foment sectarian strife to maintain its grip on power.
Syria’s volatile sectarian divide means that an armed conflict could rapidly escalate in scale and brutality.
Yeah, except a bunch of Sunnis support the Shi'ite Assad, wah-wah-wah.
The Assad regime is dominated by the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, but the country is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.
Alawite dominance has bred resentments, which Assad has worked to tamp down by pushing a strictly secular identity for the state. He has exploited fears of a civil war by portraying himself as the only power who can keep the peace.
Yeah, whatever, AmeriKan media.
--more--"
What do you mean you were duped?
"Syrian raises doubts about killing" October 06, 2011|By Zeina Karam, Associated Press
BEIRUT - A woman appeared on Syrian state television yesterday saying that she is the young Syrian who was widely reported to have been beheaded and mutilated by security agents while in custody last month. The station said the interview was intended to discredit foreign “media fabrications.’’
Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, and Syrian activists reported last month that 18-year-old Zainab al-Hosni was found dead and mutilated after she was detained in her hometown of Homs. The young woman quickly became a symbol of the 6-month-old uprising against authoritarian President Bashar Assad, with protesters hailing her as the “flower of Syria.’’
I am tired of war propaganda and demonization of official enemies from a mass-murdering, war-criminal accomplice of a media.
Last month, Amnesty said the mutilated teenager had reportedly been detained by security agents to pressure her activist brother to turn himself in. Activists said she was the first woman to die in custody since the uprising began in March and it reinforced what witnesses and the UN human rights office said was a fearsome new tactic of retaliating against protesters’ families.
You can just smell the stink, can't you?
But in the state television interview, a black-clad young woman who identified herself as Zainab al-Hosni said she had run away from her family home in late July because her brothers abused her. She said her family did not know that she was alive and she asked her mother for forgiveness.
“I am very much alive and I have opted to tell the truth because I am planning to get married in the future and have kids who I want to be registered,’’ she said.
There is a hint in there for AmeriKa's media.
She said she decided to speak out after hearing on TV that she had been arrested and beheaded. Her appearance was similar to the woman whose photos were carried by protesters in Homs, but her identity could not be independently verified, as all media are severely restricted from reporting on events in Syria.
Amnesty International issued a statement after the interview saying it raised questions about the information the group received that led to its initial report on the death.
The rights group said its initial statement on the death was “based on information provided by sources close to the incident itself, who passed Amnesty International video footage of a dismembered body.’’ It was not immediately clear who those sources were.
I think I know.
The statement went on to say: “If the body was not that of Zainab al-Hosni, then clearly the Syrian authorities need to disclose whose it was, the cause and circumstances of the death, and why Zainab al-Hosni’s family were informed that she was the victim.’’
The episode, and Amnesty’s statement raised the prospect that the story may have been a hoax planted by Syrian authorities, possibly in an effort to embarrass the media and human rights group who have been reporting critically on the government’s brutal crackdown on protesters that has killed nearly 3,000 people in six months.
First of all, the media doesn't need any help embarrassing itself. And this laughable notion that it was a Syrian hoax is a scream!
--more--"
Now back to the regularly-scheduled propaganda:
"7 killed as Syrian troops hunt defectors" October 07, 2011|Associated Press
BEIRUT - Syrian troops stormed villages close to the border with Turkey yesterday, hunting armed military defectors in clashes that left at least four soldiers and three others dead, activists said.
The fighting in the country’s restive northern region of Jabal al-Zawiya, where Syrian military defectors are active, was the latest sign of a trend toward growing militarization of the seven-month-old uprising.
The Syrian opposition had until recently focused on nonviolent resistance. But since late July, a group calling itself the Free Syrian Army has claimed attacks across the country and emerged as the first significant armed challenge to President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian regime.
The soft coup technique didn't work, so....
The opposition has mostly welcomed the armed group’s formation, and the movement could propel the Syrian revolt by encouraging senior officers to desert the regime. But the escalation could also backfire horribly, giving the regime a new pretext to crack down even harder than it already has. The sectarian divide in Syria, where a regime composed mostly of the Alawite offshoot of Shi’ite Islam rules over Sunnis and others, also means that any insurgency could escalate quickly into civil war.
I guess you can SEE WHAT IS COMING given my agenda-pushing articles, 'eh?
--more--"
"Leading opposition figure, 8 others killed amid widespread protests in Syria" October 08, 2011|By Associated Press
BEIRUT - Syrian security forces opened fire on protesters in several parts of the country yesterday, killing at least eight people and wounding scores, while masked gunmen burst into an apartment in the predominantly Kurdish northeast and shot dead one of Syria’s most prominent opposition figures.
Another leading opposition figure was beaten up by progovernment gunmen and rushed to a hospital in Damascus, activists said.
The slaying of Mashaal Tammo, a 53-year-old former political prisoner and a spokesman for the Kurdish Future Party, was the latest in a string of targeted killings in Syria as the country slides further into disorder, seven months into the uprising against President Bashar Assad.
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I think we are in it. Can it be any clearer, folks?
Tammo, killed by unknown gunmen in the city of Qamishli, was a member of the executive committee of the newly formed Syrian National Council, a broad-based front bringing together opposition figures inside and outside the country in an attempt to unify the deeply fragmented dissident movement.
Qamishli erupted in protests as thousands of outraged people took to the streets and swarmed the hospital were Tammo was taken, many of them shouting “Azadi,’’ the Kurdish word for freedom, said Mustafa Osso, a Kurdish lawyer and activist from the city.
Tammo, a vocal regime opponent, had been instrumental in organizing antigovernment protests in Qamishli in recent months.
The killing could spark violent protests in the Kurdish region at a time when Syria’s security forces have their hands full in trying to stamp out dissent across much of the rest of the country. Kurds, the largest ethnic minority in Syria, make up 15 percent of the country’s 23 million people and have long complained of neglect and discrimination.
Yeah, so who would want to get the Kurds upset? Cui bono?
Since mid-March, the Syrian government crackdown has left at least 2,900 people dead.
--more--"
"Funeral for Kurdish activist draws thousands to Syrian city" October 09, 2011|By Anthony Shadid, New York Times
BEIRUT - Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets of a Syrian city yesterday for the funeral of a celebrated Kurdish opposition leader whose assassination the day before unleashed fury in the country’s Kurdish regions and prompted condemnations from the United States and the European Union....
It is truly beginning to smell like a western intelligence agency hit.
Mashaal Tammo, 53, was a respected activist who had been released last summer after spending more than three years in prison. Activists and relatives said he was killed by four masked gunmen who stormed his house Friday, and they blamed government forces for his death.
The founder of the liberal Kurdish Future Movement Party, Tammo had angered both the government and rivals in the Kurdish community with his outspoken support for a pluralistic democratic state, in which Kurds would be an essential component.
Hmmmmmm.
Kurds make up about 10 percent of Syria’s 20 million people, concentrated in the remote northeast, which borders Iraq and Turkey, but also in Damascus and Aleppo, the country’s two largest cities. They have long faced harassment and discrimination, and for years many were denied Syrian citizenship.
Though the community has sympathized with the uprising, its traditional leadership has yet to decisively enter the fray against Assad, and the government itself, veering between crackdown and concession, had appeared reluctant to provoke the Kurds.
And WHICH FORCES WOULD BENEFIT by GETTING THEM INVOLVED? Who wants Assad overthrown?
Early in the uprising, the government had informally negotiated with Kurdish leaders, reaching what some had termed “a gentleman’s agreement’’ to forestall mass unrest. Assad even promised to give tens of thousands citizenship in April, though activists say few, in fact, have received it.
Then how does Assad benefit from this action? (Answer; he doesn't)
The Syrian news agency blamed an “armed terrorist group’’ for Tammo’s death, a phrase it often deploys to underline its view of the uprising as an armed insurgency led by militant Islamists....
The sad fact is that is the truth. When those guys work for the empire it is not a problem.
--more--"
"Syria vows measures against nations that recognize opposition" October 10, 2011|By ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIRUT - Syria’s foreign minister warned the international community yesterday not to recognize a new umbrella council formed by the opposition, threatening “tough measures’’ against any country that does so.
Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem did not specify what measures Damascus might take. But he went on to say that countries that do not protect Syrian missions could find their own embassies treated in the same way.
“We will take tough measures against any country that recognizes this illegitimate council,’’ Moallem said without elaborating.
The Syrian National Council, announced last week in Turkey, is a broad-based group that includes most major opposition factions. No country or international body has recognized it as a legal representative of the Syrian people. Bourhan Ghalioun, the opposition council’s most prominent official, said he expects the organization will be recognized “in the coming few weeks.’’ Moallem’s comments came as the council was scheduled to hold two meetings yesterday, one in Cairo and another in Stockholm.
Damascus appears concerned that if the Syrian National Council is recognized by the international community, it could play the same role as the National Transitional Council in Libya that ultimately overthrew Moammar Khadafy.
Syria’s top diplomat was speaking during a joint news conference with a delegation from the left-leaning ALBA bloc of mostly Latin American countries, which includes Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. The ALBA officials were visiting Damascus to express solidarity with Syria and met yesterday with President Bashar Assad.
State-run news agency SANA quoted Assad as telling the delegation that Syria aims to make political reforms, then end armed presence. But past promises of sweeping reforms have not been carried through, and the opposition says it will accept nothing short of his departure.
--more--"
"EU plans expansion of Syrian sanctions, looks to opposition" October 11, 2011|By Malin Rising, Associated Press
LUXEMBOURG - The European Union said yesterday it will reach out to the Syrian opposition movement to determine whether it can play a role in ousting President Bashar Assad, whose crackdown on prodemocracy protesters has killed nearly 3,000 people....
Diplomats said Syria’s opposition needs more work to become an effective political force and gain formal recognition as a legal representative of the Syrian people....
Earlier in the day, Syrian opposition members, including representatives of the newly formed Syrian National Council, said they had agreed on a democratic framework for a future nation and they want international observers to be allowed into the Arab state to examine the situation.
Ghied Al Hashmy, a political scientist who participated in a conference in Sweden of Syrian opposition members, including council representatives, said they oppose military intervention but want more political pressure on Syria....
The international community’s unwillingness to get directly involved stems from a mix of international political complications, worries over unleashing a civil war, and plausible risks of touching off a wider Middle East conflict with archfoes Israel and Iran in the mix.
That's where the heads of Empire are taking it, yeah.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said last week the alliance has no intention of entering the Syrian conflict. Still, the prospect of such an intervention seems to have rattled the Assad regime.
Syria’s top Sunni Muslim cleric has warned Western countries against military intervention and threatened to retaliate with suicide bombings in the United States and Europe if his country comes under attack.
That's a SUNNI in the land of the great sectarian divide?
In a speech late Sunday, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, a state-appointed cleric and Assad loyalist, issued a clear warning to the West. “I say to all of Europe, I say to America, we will set up suicide bombers who are now in your countries, if you bomb Syria or Lebanon,’’ Hassoun said. “From now on an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’’
It leaves the whole world blind and toothless; however, I can certainly understand where the feeling comes from.
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"Tens of thousands of Syrians rally in support of Assad" October 13, 2011|By Albert Aji Zeina Karam, Associated Press
DAMASCUS, Syria - Tens of thousands of Syrians thronged a main square of the nation’s capital and nearby streets yesterday in a show of support for President Bashar Assad, as he struggles to quell a 7-month-old uprising. Opponents charge such rallies are staged by the regime.
I am really, really, tired of the pot-hollering-kettle, agenda-pushing AmeriKan media.
Yesterday’s demonstration was intended to show that Assad still enjoys the support of many Syrians. The gathering was huge in comparison with the almost daily antiregime protests that have been taking place across the country since March....
Organizers said the Damascus rally was also meant to thank Russia and China for blocking a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria for its brutal crackdown. Their vetoes last week drew heavy criticism from the United States....
You think you can beat both of 'em in a war, AmeriKa?
It's going to take nukes, isn't it, you unimaginable bastards?
--more--"
Did you SEE HOW MANY PEOPLE were in that PICTURE?!!!!
Yes, dear American reader, you are constantly being filled with lies, distortions, obfuscations, and omissions from your newspaper.
Speak of the devils!
"US accuses Va. man of working as Syrian spy" October 13, 2011|New York Times
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department accused a Syrian-American man yesterday of secretly working for Syrian intelligence. It said he collected information about people in the United States who were protesting the Syria’s crackdown on its prodemocracy movement as part of a scheme to “silence, intimidate, and potentially harm the protesters.’’
*************
The indictment of the man - Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid, 47, a resident of Leesburg, Va. - says that he undertook surveillance of protesters against the Syrian regime, including recruiting others to make videos of rallies and interviews with people at the rallies. He also gathered names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of protesters and sent the materials to the Syrian intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, the indictment says.
Oh, like AmeriKan law enforcement officials did at antiwar protests?
It also says that he was working with an official at the Syrian Embassy in the United States, and that in June 2011 the Syrian government paid for him to travel to Syria, where he met with intelligence officials and spoke with the Syrian president, Bashar el-Assad, in private.
The Syrian Embassy called the charges “baseless and totally unacceptable,’’ and said they were part of a “campaign of distortion and fabrications against the Embassy of Syria in the US.’’
That I believe. Smells like another FBI frame-up.
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"13 killed in fighting with Syrian troops" October 14, 2011|Associated Press
RASTAN, Syria - Syrian troops clashed yesterday with armed men believed to be military defectors in a southern village and a northwestern town, killing at least 13 people in the latest sign that the 7-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad is becoming increasingly militarized, activists said.
In an attempt by the regime to show it still had the upper hand, the government took journalists on a tour of a central town where the most serious insurrection in recent weeks drew a crushing response. Many buildings in Rastan were burned, shops were shuttered, and soldiers manned military checkpoints.
Several residents told of gunmen who they said terrorized the area. And government escorts displayed rifles and light weapons they said had been seized from gangs or terrorists, not from army defectors.
Despite the spiraling violence and continuing protests, Assad said Syria has passed the most difficult period and is working to become “a model to be followed in the region.’’
He was apparently referring to promised political reforms, most of which have yet to be delivered. The comments, to a visiting Lebanese delegation, were reported by the official news agency....
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"UN says Syria deaths top 3,000" October 15, 2011|By Zeina Karam, Associated Press
BEIRUT - Thousands of Syrian protesters called on soldiers yesterday to abandon President Bashar Assad’s regime and join a dissident army numbering in the small thousands, as the top UN human rights official warned of a “full-blown civil war’’ in Syria, saying the death toll in the 7-month-old crackdown has passed 3,000.
Security forces opened fire at protesters, killing at least 11, including a 14-year-old boy, in what has become a weekly ritual of protests met by gunfire, according to activists.
Yesterday’s protests, dubbed “Free Soldiers,’’ were in honor of army officers and soldiers who have sided with the protesters and are reportedly clashing with loyalists in northern and central Syrian cities in an increasing militarization of the uprising.
“The army and people are one!’’ protesters shouted in the southern village of Dael, where most of the deaths occurred yesterday. In other locations, some protesters held up banners that read: “Free soldiers do not kill free people asking for freedom.’’
“I will not serve in an army that destroys my country and kills my people,’’ read a posting on the Syrian revolution’s main Facebook page that was meant to encourage defections.
Yesterday’s demonstrations were the most explicit show of support so far by the country’s protest movement for the defectors. Faced with gunfire, bullets, mass arrests, and a lack of willingness by the international community to intervene militarily, many Syrians now feel the armed dissidents are their only hope to topple Assad’s regime.
The Free Syrian Army, as the dissidents are known, are led by an air force colonel who recently fled to Turkey. The group is said to include more than 10,000 members and is gaining momentum as the first armed challenge to Assad’s authoritarian regime after seven months of largely nonviolent resistance....
Analysts say that until the rebels can secure a territorial foothold as an operational launching pad - much like the eastern city of Benghazi was for the Libyan rebels - the defections are unlikely to pose a real threat to the unity of the Syrian army.
Still, the increased military operations have raised concerns that the country may be sliding into civil war.
International intervention, such as the NATO action in Libya that helped topple Moammar Khadafy, is all but out of the question in Syria.
Meaning it is NOT out of the question!
Washington and its allies have shown little appetite for intervening in another Arab nation in turmoil. There also is real concern that Assad’s ouster would spread chaos around the region.
What a crock of crap given the last ten years.
Syria is a geographical and political keystone in the heart of the Middle East, bordering five countries with which it shares religious and ethnic minorities and, in Israel’s case, a fragile truce.
Its web of alliances extends to Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement and Iran’s Shi’ite theocracy. There are worries that a destabilized Syria could send unsettling ripples through the region.
Arab League officials said Arab foreign ministers will meet in Cairo tomorrow to discuss the situation in Syria after a request for an emergency meeting by the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council.
Several Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, have pulled their ambassadors out of Syria to protest the government’s brutal crackdown on the protest movement.
They have never been friends anyway.
A top UN official warned that the unrelenting crackdown by the Assad government could worsen unless further action is taken.
Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement issued in Geneva: “The onus is on all members of the international community to take protective action in a collective and decisive manner.’’
While most in the Syrian opposition still reject military intervention, some now say it’s a necessity....
TO WAR!!!!!
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"Syrians revive protest effort" October 22, 2011|By Anthony Shadid, New York Times
BEIRUT - The death of Moammar Khadafy reverberated across Syria yesterday, reviving protests that had begun to stall and focusing attention on a newly organized, unarmed opposition group seeking to challenge the Assad family’s four decades of rule.
With an ambitious task, the Syrian National Council, announced in Istanbul this month, has begun trying to emulate the success of Libya’s opposition leadership, closing ranks in the most concerted attempt yet to forge an alternative to President Bashar Assad and courting international support that proved so crucial in Libya.
“The focus of the world will now turn to Syria,’’ Samir Nachar, an activist from Aleppo and leader of the group, said yesterday. “It’s Syria’s turn to receive attention.’’
--more--"
Update: Rubio to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad: You’re next, buddy
"Troops in Syria storm defiant town" September 28, 2011|By Zeina Karam, Associated Press
BEIRUT - Syrian troops firing machine guns mounted on tanks stormed a rebellious town in central Syria before dawn yesterday as part of military operations aimed at crushing the six-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad, activists said.
The offensive in Rastan, just north of the central city of Homs and on the highway to Turkey, continued through yesterday morning, leaving at least 20 people wounded, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Rastan has emerged as a hotbed of dissent against Assad’s autocratic regime during six months of antigovernment protests, and alleged army deserters have frequently clashed there with the military and security forces in the past.
The Local Coordination Committees activist network, the Observatory, and other groups reported yesterday’s attacks in Rastan. They said the tanks and armored vehicles entered Rastan early yesterday and dozens of troops were deployed.
The United Nations estimates that more than 2,700 civilians have been killed in the government’s crackdown on the uprising that began in mid-March, inspired by the Arab revolutions that have toppled autocratic rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.
The Syrian government’s bloody crackdown has prompted the international community, including the United States and European nations, to impose stiff sanctions on the regime.
Assad insists the unrest is being driven by terrorists and Islamic extremists acting out a foreign conspiracy to fracture Syria.
Ignoring the mounting death toll from his government’s bloody crackdown, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem of Syria told the United Nations on Monday that external critics were to blame for the violence and for causing delays in Assad’s plans for democratic reforms.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly, he sought to paint the Assad regime as having been on the brink of wide-ranging democratic reforms when foreign-inspired religious radicals and armed groups forced the Assad regime to put down the rebellion to hold the country together.
Moallem said reforms “had to take a back seat to other priorities. Our overriding priority was facing the external pressures which were at times tantamount to blatant conspiracies.’’
The longtime foreign minister said that internal desires for reform “have been manipulated to future objectives which are alien to the interests and express desires of the Syrian people.’’
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Want confirmation of a conspiracy?
"Killings of Syrian intellectuals continue with nuclear expert; Engineer is fourth man assassinated since Sunday" September 29, 2011|By Zeina Karam, Associated Press
BEIRUT - A Syrian nuclear engineer was assassinated in a hail of bullets in central Syria yesterday, the latest casualty in a string of killings this week of academics and scientists, Syria’s state-run news agency and activists said....
Smells like Mossad to me. Did it in Iraq, doing it in Iran.
The dead men came from different religious backgrounds - Shi’ite, Alawite, and Christian - and it unclear whether the killings had any sectarian motives. None of those killed were Sunni, Saleh said.
It's not unclear to me when the media basically confirm it with their newspeak.
Syria, like Iraq, has a volatile sectarian divide, making civil unrest a frightening prospect. The Assad regime is dominated by the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, but the country is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.
The agenda-pushing agitators always use that wedge and I'm no longer buying it. Problem is you can always find a few assholes on a local level.
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"Angry Syrians pelt US envoy with tomatoes; Assad backers attack diplomat critical of regime" September 30, 2011|By Bassem Mroue, Associated Press
BEIRUT - Angry supporters of President Bashar Assad’s regime hurled tomatoes and eggs at the US ambassador to Syria yesterday as he entered the office of a leading opposition figure, then trapped him inside the building for three hours.
Truthfully, our politicians deserve it. Heck, they deserve a tar-and-feathering and swim in the harbor. I'm nonviolent, but I will not stop and will step aside and submit to the mob if it is their wish. Then I will be a spectator and witness, right?
The Obama administration blamed the Syrian government for the attack in Damascus, saying it was part of an ongoing orchestrated campaign to intimidate American diplomats in the country. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the attack as wholly unjustified....
Such incidents are usually not spontaneous in Syria, and the attack yesterday came amid accusations by Damascus that Washington is inciting violence in the country.
Oh, I firmly believe this is a CIA-inspired effort with regional help from our Saudi partners. The agenda-pushing media's focus on it is all I needed to be convinced.
The protesters, who were waiting with eggs and tomatoes when Ford’s delegation arrived, launched the attack as the Americans entered the building.
We drop missiles, bombs, and artillery on people, American.
In Washington, the State Department said that a rowdy, violent mob tried to attack Ford and several American embassy workers in Damascus. Spokesman Mark Toner said Ford and his colleagues were unharmed and are now safe.
However, several heavily armored embassy vehicles sent to help extricate the embassy workers from the situation were badly damaged when the same crowd hurled rocks, White House and State Department officials said.
“This inexcusable assault is clearly part of ongoing campaign of intimidation aimed at diplomats … who are raising questions about what is going on inside Syria,’’ Clinton said. “It reflects an intolerance on the part of the regime and its supporters.’’
Sort of like your Iran and Pakistan war rhetoric of late, right?
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"Syrian troops battle renegades; 11 protesters killed as army defectors fight with loyalists" by Bassem Mroue, Associated Press / October 1, 2011
BEIRUT - Syrian troops fought intense battles yesterday with hundreds of fellow soldiers who have turned their weapons against the regime of President Bashar Assad, revealing the increasingly militarized nature of an uprising started months ago by peaceful protesters.
Across the country, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets as they do each Friday, braving gunfire by government forces who have waged a relentless crackdown....
The army defections as well as reports that once-peaceful protesters are increasingly taking up arms to fight the government crackdown have raised concerns of the risk of civil war in a country with a deep sectarian divide....
There they go again.
Syria has a volatile sectarian divide, making this kind of civil unrest one of the most dire scenarios....
Yeah, yeah, I got the point the first time.
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"Syrian troops reclaim most of central rebel town" by Bassem Mroue Associated Press / October 2, 2011
BEIRUT - Syrian troops retook most of a rebellious central town yesterday after five days of intense fighting with army defectors who sided with protesters in one of the worst clashes of the 6-month-old antigovernment uprising, a rights group said.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the troops spread out across Rastan after defectors pulled out of the town.
The army defections as well as reports that once-peaceful protesters are increasingly taking up arms to fight the government crackdown have raised concerns of the risk of civil war in a country with a deep sectarian divide.
The outpouring against President Bashar Assad’s regime began in mid-March with rallies by peaceful, unarmed protesters. Attacks by proregime gunmen and Syrian military forces have failed to stop the demonstrators from continuing to take to the streets....
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"Syrian opposition introduces new national council; Accuses Assad of working to start civil war" by Zeina Karam Associated Press / October 3, 2011
BEIRUT - Syrian dissidents formally established a broad-based national council yesterday designed to overthrow President Bashar Assad’s regime, which they accused of pushing the country to the brink of civil war. Syrians took to the streets in celebration, singing and dancing.
Yes, at bottom it is ONCE AGAIN about REGIME CHANGE!
And get this:
Meanwhile, in a restive northern area, gunmen killed the 21-year-old son of Syria’s top Sunni Muslim cleric in an ambush, the state-run news agency reported. The cleric, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, is considered a close supporter of Assad’s regime and has echoed its claims that the unrest in Syria is the result of a foreign conspiracy....
Gee, WHO would have wanted to DO THAT?
Syria’s volatile sectarian divide means that an armed conflict could rapidly escalate in scale and brutality....
Until now, the opposition movement has focused on peaceful demonstrations, although recently some protesters have been reported to have taken up arms to defend themselves against military attacks. Army defectors have also been fighting government troops.
I've noticed the defectors in Yemen are not accorded the same attention or sympathy in regard to the U.S. butcher Saleh, but that's just me.
Yesterday’s killing of the mufti’s son took place in the Saraqeb region of the restive northern Idlib Province as he left the university where he studied. He was shot in the chest and kidney and died later of his injuries. The news report gave no details on who might have been behind the killing.
In forming a national council, the Syrians are following in the footsteps of Libyan rebels....
And thus you know it is a western intelligence overthrow.
That's not good news for Syria. Are you guys prepared to be smashed by NATO?
Although the mass demonstrations in Syria have shaken one of the most authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, the opposition has made no major gains in recent months. It holds no territory and still has no clear leadership.
The Syrian opposition consists of a variety of groups with differing ideologies, including Islamists and secularists, and there have been many meetings of dissidents claiming to represent Syria’s popular uprising since it erupted seven months ago. But the new council is the broadest umbrella movement of revolutionary forces formed so far....
The council’s statement said it categorically rejects any foreign intervention or military operations to bring down Assad’s regime but called on the international community to protect the Syrian people from “the declared war and massacres being committed against them by the regime.’’
Libya.
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"Syrian troops detaining thousands; Violence in town of Rastan raises fear of civil war" by Zeina Karam Associated Press / October 4, 2011
BEIRUT - Syrian troops going house to house have detained more than 3,000 people in the past three days in the rebellious town of Rastan, which saw some of the worst fighting of the six-month-old uprising recently, activists said yesterday.
Over the past week, the military fought hundreds of army defectors who sided with anti-regime protesters in Rastan. The fighting demonstrated the increasingly militarized nature of the uprising and heightened fears that Syria may be sliding toward civil war....
Syria’s opposition movement has until now focused on peaceful demonstrations, although recently there have been reports of protesters taking up arms to defend themselves against military attacks. Army defectors have also been fighting government troops, particularly in Rastan, which government forces retook on Saturday.
The fears of civil war, possibly along sectarian lines, were heightened by the assassination Sunday of the 21-year-old son of Syria’s top Sunni Muslim cleric - the latest in a string of targeted killings.
The state-appointed cleric, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, is considered a loyal supporter of President Bashar Assad’s regime, heading a host of Sunni clergymen who have been a base of support for the president’s ruling Alawite sect.
Say what? So much for sectarian divide s***, sigh.
Hassoun, who has echoed regime claims that the unrest in Syria is the result of a foreign conspiracy, accused the opposition of creating the climate for his son’s killing and blamed anti-Assad Sunni clerics for allegedly issuing fatwas (religious edicts) inciting violence against him.
“My brothers who were misguided and carried arms, you should have assassinated me because some clerics issued such fatwas. Why did you kill a young man who did nothing and harmed no one,’’ Hassoun, holding back tears, said in a sermon at his son’s funeral in the northeastern city of Aleppo, aired on Syrian television stations.
Saria Hassoun’s killing was the latest in a series of targeted executions that included a nuclear engineer, university professors, and physicians.
And who would want to kill Syria's brains, huh? Who benefits?
The other men, a mixture of Alawites, Christians, and Shi’ites, were all killed in the past week, most of them in central Homs province - one of the hotbeds of antigovernment protests.
The regime has accused “terrorist gunmen’’ of carrying out the killings, while the opposition accused the regime of trying to foment sectarian strife to maintain its grip on power.
Syria’s volatile sectarian divide means that an armed conflict could rapidly escalate in scale and brutality.
Yeah, except a bunch of Sunnis support the Shi'ite Assad, wah-wah-wah.
The Assad regime is dominated by the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, but the country is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.
Alawite dominance has bred resentments, which Assad has worked to tamp down by pushing a strictly secular identity for the state. He has exploited fears of a civil war by portraying himself as the only power who can keep the peace.
Yeah, whatever, AmeriKan media.
--more--"
What do you mean you were duped?
"Syrian raises doubts about killing" October 06, 2011|By Zeina Karam, Associated Press
BEIRUT - A woman appeared on Syrian state television yesterday saying that she is the young Syrian who was widely reported to have been beheaded and mutilated by security agents while in custody last month. The station said the interview was intended to discredit foreign “media fabrications.’’
Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, and Syrian activists reported last month that 18-year-old Zainab al-Hosni was found dead and mutilated after she was detained in her hometown of Homs. The young woman quickly became a symbol of the 6-month-old uprising against authoritarian President Bashar Assad, with protesters hailing her as the “flower of Syria.’’
I am tired of war propaganda and demonization of official enemies from a mass-murdering, war-criminal accomplice of a media.
Last month, Amnesty said the mutilated teenager had reportedly been detained by security agents to pressure her activist brother to turn himself in. Activists said she was the first woman to die in custody since the uprising began in March and it reinforced what witnesses and the UN human rights office said was a fearsome new tactic of retaliating against protesters’ families.
You can just smell the stink, can't you?
But in the state television interview, a black-clad young woman who identified herself as Zainab al-Hosni said she had run away from her family home in late July because her brothers abused her. She said her family did not know that she was alive and she asked her mother for forgiveness.
“I am very much alive and I have opted to tell the truth because I am planning to get married in the future and have kids who I want to be registered,’’ she said.
There is a hint in there for AmeriKa's media.
She said she decided to speak out after hearing on TV that she had been arrested and beheaded. Her appearance was similar to the woman whose photos were carried by protesters in Homs, but her identity could not be independently verified, as all media are severely restricted from reporting on events in Syria.
Amnesty International issued a statement after the interview saying it raised questions about the information the group received that led to its initial report on the death.
The rights group said its initial statement on the death was “based on information provided by sources close to the incident itself, who passed Amnesty International video footage of a dismembered body.’’ It was not immediately clear who those sources were.
I think I know.
The statement went on to say: “If the body was not that of Zainab al-Hosni, then clearly the Syrian authorities need to disclose whose it was, the cause and circumstances of the death, and why Zainab al-Hosni’s family were informed that she was the victim.’’
The episode, and Amnesty’s statement raised the prospect that the story may have been a hoax planted by Syrian authorities, possibly in an effort to embarrass the media and human rights group who have been reporting critically on the government’s brutal crackdown on protesters that has killed nearly 3,000 people in six months.
First of all, the media doesn't need any help embarrassing itself. And this laughable notion that it was a Syrian hoax is a scream!
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Now back to the regularly-scheduled propaganda:
"7 killed as Syrian troops hunt defectors" October 07, 2011|Associated Press
BEIRUT - Syrian troops stormed villages close to the border with Turkey yesterday, hunting armed military defectors in clashes that left at least four soldiers and three others dead, activists said.
The fighting in the country’s restive northern region of Jabal al-Zawiya, where Syrian military defectors are active, was the latest sign of a trend toward growing militarization of the seven-month-old uprising.
The Syrian opposition had until recently focused on nonviolent resistance. But since late July, a group calling itself the Free Syrian Army has claimed attacks across the country and emerged as the first significant armed challenge to President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian regime.
The soft coup technique didn't work, so....
The opposition has mostly welcomed the armed group’s formation, and the movement could propel the Syrian revolt by encouraging senior officers to desert the regime. But the escalation could also backfire horribly, giving the regime a new pretext to crack down even harder than it already has. The sectarian divide in Syria, where a regime composed mostly of the Alawite offshoot of Shi’ite Islam rules over Sunnis and others, also means that any insurgency could escalate quickly into civil war.
I guess you can SEE WHAT IS COMING given my agenda-pushing articles, 'eh?
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"Leading opposition figure, 8 others killed amid widespread protests in Syria" October 08, 2011|By Associated Press
BEIRUT - Syrian security forces opened fire on protesters in several parts of the country yesterday, killing at least eight people and wounding scores, while masked gunmen burst into an apartment in the predominantly Kurdish northeast and shot dead one of Syria’s most prominent opposition figures.
Another leading opposition figure was beaten up by progovernment gunmen and rushed to a hospital in Damascus, activists said.
The slaying of Mashaal Tammo, a 53-year-old former political prisoner and a spokesman for the Kurdish Future Party, was the latest in a string of targeted killings in Syria as the country slides further into disorder, seven months into the uprising against President Bashar Assad.
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I think we are in it. Can it be any clearer, folks?
Tammo, killed by unknown gunmen in the city of Qamishli, was a member of the executive committee of the newly formed Syrian National Council, a broad-based front bringing together opposition figures inside and outside the country in an attempt to unify the deeply fragmented dissident movement.
Qamishli erupted in protests as thousands of outraged people took to the streets and swarmed the hospital were Tammo was taken, many of them shouting “Azadi,’’ the Kurdish word for freedom, said Mustafa Osso, a Kurdish lawyer and activist from the city.
Tammo, a vocal regime opponent, had been instrumental in organizing antigovernment protests in Qamishli in recent months.
The killing could spark violent protests in the Kurdish region at a time when Syria’s security forces have their hands full in trying to stamp out dissent across much of the rest of the country. Kurds, the largest ethnic minority in Syria, make up 15 percent of the country’s 23 million people and have long complained of neglect and discrimination.
Yeah, so who would want to get the Kurds upset? Cui bono?
Since mid-March, the Syrian government crackdown has left at least 2,900 people dead.
--more--"
"Funeral for Kurdish activist draws thousands to Syrian city" October 09, 2011|By Anthony Shadid, New York Times
BEIRUT - Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets of a Syrian city yesterday for the funeral of a celebrated Kurdish opposition leader whose assassination the day before unleashed fury in the country’s Kurdish regions and prompted condemnations from the United States and the European Union....
It is truly beginning to smell like a western intelligence agency hit.
Mashaal Tammo, 53, was a respected activist who had been released last summer after spending more than three years in prison. Activists and relatives said he was killed by four masked gunmen who stormed his house Friday, and they blamed government forces for his death.
The founder of the liberal Kurdish Future Movement Party, Tammo had angered both the government and rivals in the Kurdish community with his outspoken support for a pluralistic democratic state, in which Kurds would be an essential component.
Hmmmmmm.
Kurds make up about 10 percent of Syria’s 20 million people, concentrated in the remote northeast, which borders Iraq and Turkey, but also in Damascus and Aleppo, the country’s two largest cities. They have long faced harassment and discrimination, and for years many were denied Syrian citizenship.
Though the community has sympathized with the uprising, its traditional leadership has yet to decisively enter the fray against Assad, and the government itself, veering between crackdown and concession, had appeared reluctant to provoke the Kurds.
And WHICH FORCES WOULD BENEFIT by GETTING THEM INVOLVED? Who wants Assad overthrown?
Early in the uprising, the government had informally negotiated with Kurdish leaders, reaching what some had termed “a gentleman’s agreement’’ to forestall mass unrest. Assad even promised to give tens of thousands citizenship in April, though activists say few, in fact, have received it.
Then how does Assad benefit from this action? (Answer; he doesn't)
The Syrian news agency blamed an “armed terrorist group’’ for Tammo’s death, a phrase it often deploys to underline its view of the uprising as an armed insurgency led by militant Islamists....
The sad fact is that is the truth. When those guys work for the empire it is not a problem.
--more--"
"Syria vows measures against nations that recognize opposition" October 10, 2011|By ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIRUT - Syria’s foreign minister warned the international community yesterday not to recognize a new umbrella council formed by the opposition, threatening “tough measures’’ against any country that does so.
Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem did not specify what measures Damascus might take. But he went on to say that countries that do not protect Syrian missions could find their own embassies treated in the same way.
“We will take tough measures against any country that recognizes this illegitimate council,’’ Moallem said without elaborating.
The Syrian National Council, announced last week in Turkey, is a broad-based group that includes most major opposition factions. No country or international body has recognized it as a legal representative of the Syrian people. Bourhan Ghalioun, the opposition council’s most prominent official, said he expects the organization will be recognized “in the coming few weeks.’’ Moallem’s comments came as the council was scheduled to hold two meetings yesterday, one in Cairo and another in Stockholm.
Damascus appears concerned that if the Syrian National Council is recognized by the international community, it could play the same role as the National Transitional Council in Libya that ultimately overthrew Moammar Khadafy.
Syria’s top diplomat was speaking during a joint news conference with a delegation from the left-leaning ALBA bloc of mostly Latin American countries, which includes Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. The ALBA officials were visiting Damascus to express solidarity with Syria and met yesterday with President Bashar Assad.
State-run news agency SANA quoted Assad as telling the delegation that Syria aims to make political reforms, then end armed presence. But past promises of sweeping reforms have not been carried through, and the opposition says it will accept nothing short of his departure.
--more--"
"EU plans expansion of Syrian sanctions, looks to opposition" October 11, 2011|By Malin Rising, Associated Press
LUXEMBOURG - The European Union said yesterday it will reach out to the Syrian opposition movement to determine whether it can play a role in ousting President Bashar Assad, whose crackdown on prodemocracy protesters has killed nearly 3,000 people....
Diplomats said Syria’s opposition needs more work to become an effective political force and gain formal recognition as a legal representative of the Syrian people....
Earlier in the day, Syrian opposition members, including representatives of the newly formed Syrian National Council, said they had agreed on a democratic framework for a future nation and they want international observers to be allowed into the Arab state to examine the situation.
Ghied Al Hashmy, a political scientist who participated in a conference in Sweden of Syrian opposition members, including council representatives, said they oppose military intervention but want more political pressure on Syria....
The international community’s unwillingness to get directly involved stems from a mix of international political complications, worries over unleashing a civil war, and plausible risks of touching off a wider Middle East conflict with archfoes Israel and Iran in the mix.
That's where the heads of Empire are taking it, yeah.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said last week the alliance has no intention of entering the Syrian conflict. Still, the prospect of such an intervention seems to have rattled the Assad regime.
Syria’s top Sunni Muslim cleric has warned Western countries against military intervention and threatened to retaliate with suicide bombings in the United States and Europe if his country comes under attack.
That's a SUNNI in the land of the great sectarian divide?
In a speech late Sunday, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, a state-appointed cleric and Assad loyalist, issued a clear warning to the West. “I say to all of Europe, I say to America, we will set up suicide bombers who are now in your countries, if you bomb Syria or Lebanon,’’ Hassoun said. “From now on an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’’
It leaves the whole world blind and toothless; however, I can certainly understand where the feeling comes from.
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"Tens of thousands of Syrians rally in support of Assad" October 13, 2011|By Albert Aji Zeina Karam, Associated Press
DAMASCUS, Syria - Tens of thousands of Syrians thronged a main square of the nation’s capital and nearby streets yesterday in a show of support for President Bashar Assad, as he struggles to quell a 7-month-old uprising. Opponents charge such rallies are staged by the regime.
I am really, really, tired of the pot-hollering-kettle, agenda-pushing AmeriKan media.
Yesterday’s demonstration was intended to show that Assad still enjoys the support of many Syrians. The gathering was huge in comparison with the almost daily antiregime protests that have been taking place across the country since March....
Organizers said the Damascus rally was also meant to thank Russia and China for blocking a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria for its brutal crackdown. Their vetoes last week drew heavy criticism from the United States....
You think you can beat both of 'em in a war, AmeriKa?
It's going to take nukes, isn't it, you unimaginable bastards?
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Did you SEE HOW MANY PEOPLE were in that PICTURE?!!!!
Yes, dear American reader, you are constantly being filled with lies, distortions, obfuscations, and omissions from your newspaper.
Speak of the devils!
"US accuses Va. man of working as Syrian spy" October 13, 2011|New York Times
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department accused a Syrian-American man yesterday of secretly working for Syrian intelligence. It said he collected information about people in the United States who were protesting the Syria’s crackdown on its prodemocracy movement as part of a scheme to “silence, intimidate, and potentially harm the protesters.’’
*************
The indictment of the man - Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid, 47, a resident of Leesburg, Va. - says that he undertook surveillance of protesters against the Syrian regime, including recruiting others to make videos of rallies and interviews with people at the rallies. He also gathered names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of protesters and sent the materials to the Syrian intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, the indictment says.
Oh, like AmeriKan law enforcement officials did at antiwar protests?
It also says that he was working with an official at the Syrian Embassy in the United States, and that in June 2011 the Syrian government paid for him to travel to Syria, where he met with intelligence officials and spoke with the Syrian president, Bashar el-Assad, in private.
The Syrian Embassy called the charges “baseless and totally unacceptable,’’ and said they were part of a “campaign of distortion and fabrications against the Embassy of Syria in the US.’’
That I believe. Smells like another FBI frame-up.
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"13 killed in fighting with Syrian troops" October 14, 2011|Associated Press
RASTAN, Syria - Syrian troops clashed yesterday with armed men believed to be military defectors in a southern village and a northwestern town, killing at least 13 people in the latest sign that the 7-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad is becoming increasingly militarized, activists said.
In an attempt by the regime to show it still had the upper hand, the government took journalists on a tour of a central town where the most serious insurrection in recent weeks drew a crushing response. Many buildings in Rastan were burned, shops were shuttered, and soldiers manned military checkpoints.
Several residents told of gunmen who they said terrorized the area. And government escorts displayed rifles and light weapons they said had been seized from gangs or terrorists, not from army defectors.
Despite the spiraling violence and continuing protests, Assad said Syria has passed the most difficult period and is working to become “a model to be followed in the region.’’
He was apparently referring to promised political reforms, most of which have yet to be delivered. The comments, to a visiting Lebanese delegation, were reported by the official news agency....
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"UN says Syria deaths top 3,000" October 15, 2011|By Zeina Karam, Associated Press
BEIRUT - Thousands of Syrian protesters called on soldiers yesterday to abandon President Bashar Assad’s regime and join a dissident army numbering in the small thousands, as the top UN human rights official warned of a “full-blown civil war’’ in Syria, saying the death toll in the 7-month-old crackdown has passed 3,000.
Security forces opened fire at protesters, killing at least 11, including a 14-year-old boy, in what has become a weekly ritual of protests met by gunfire, according to activists.
Yesterday’s protests, dubbed “Free Soldiers,’’ were in honor of army officers and soldiers who have sided with the protesters and are reportedly clashing with loyalists in northern and central Syrian cities in an increasing militarization of the uprising.
“The army and people are one!’’ protesters shouted in the southern village of Dael, where most of the deaths occurred yesterday. In other locations, some protesters held up banners that read: “Free soldiers do not kill free people asking for freedom.’’
“I will not serve in an army that destroys my country and kills my people,’’ read a posting on the Syrian revolution’s main Facebook page that was meant to encourage defections.
Yesterday’s demonstrations were the most explicit show of support so far by the country’s protest movement for the defectors. Faced with gunfire, bullets, mass arrests, and a lack of willingness by the international community to intervene militarily, many Syrians now feel the armed dissidents are their only hope to topple Assad’s regime.
The Free Syrian Army, as the dissidents are known, are led by an air force colonel who recently fled to Turkey. The group is said to include more than 10,000 members and is gaining momentum as the first armed challenge to Assad’s authoritarian regime after seven months of largely nonviolent resistance....
Analysts say that until the rebels can secure a territorial foothold as an operational launching pad - much like the eastern city of Benghazi was for the Libyan rebels - the defections are unlikely to pose a real threat to the unity of the Syrian army.
Still, the increased military operations have raised concerns that the country may be sliding into civil war.
International intervention, such as the NATO action in Libya that helped topple Moammar Khadafy, is all but out of the question in Syria.
Meaning it is NOT out of the question!
Washington and its allies have shown little appetite for intervening in another Arab nation in turmoil. There also is real concern that Assad’s ouster would spread chaos around the region.
What a crock of crap given the last ten years.
Syria is a geographical and political keystone in the heart of the Middle East, bordering five countries with which it shares religious and ethnic minorities and, in Israel’s case, a fragile truce.
Its web of alliances extends to Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement and Iran’s Shi’ite theocracy. There are worries that a destabilized Syria could send unsettling ripples through the region.
Arab League officials said Arab foreign ministers will meet in Cairo tomorrow to discuss the situation in Syria after a request for an emergency meeting by the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council.
Several Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, have pulled their ambassadors out of Syria to protest the government’s brutal crackdown on the protest movement.
They have never been friends anyway.
A top UN official warned that the unrelenting crackdown by the Assad government could worsen unless further action is taken.
Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement issued in Geneva: “The onus is on all members of the international community to take protective action in a collective and decisive manner.’’
While most in the Syrian opposition still reject military intervention, some now say it’s a necessity....
TO WAR!!!!!
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"Syrians revive protest effort" October 22, 2011|By Anthony Shadid, New York Times
BEIRUT - The death of Moammar Khadafy reverberated across Syria yesterday, reviving protests that had begun to stall and focusing attention on a newly organized, unarmed opposition group seeking to challenge the Assad family’s four decades of rule.
With an ambitious task, the Syrian National Council, announced in Istanbul this month, has begun trying to emulate the success of Libya’s opposition leadership, closing ranks in the most concerted attempt yet to forge an alternative to President Bashar Assad and courting international support that proved so crucial in Libya.
“The focus of the world will now turn to Syria,’’ Samir Nachar, an activist from Aleppo and leader of the group, said yesterday. “It’s Syria’s turn to receive attention.’’
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Update: Rubio to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad: You’re next, buddy
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