Month: December 2006

Police killer suspect fled Britain in a veil

Police killer suspect fled Britain in a veil – Britain – Times Online
A man who was being hunted for the murder of a policewoman is understood to have escaped from Britain by disguising himself as a veiled Muslim woman.

Mustaf Jama, a prime suspect in the fatal shooting of PC Sharon Beshenivsky, assumed his sister’s identity — wearing the niqab and using her passport — to evade supposedly stringent checks at Heathrow, according to police sources.

The use of the niqab, which leaves only a narrow slit for the eyes, highlights flaws in British airport security. At the time, Jama was Britain’s most wanted man, while Heathrow was on a heightened state of alert after the 7/7 terrorist atrocities in London five months previously.

Iraqi soldiers eat frogs, rabbit at handover ceremony

Iraqi soldiers eat frogs, rabbit at handover ceremony | International News | Reuters.com

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NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi soldiers bit the heads off frogs and ate the heart of a rabbit as signs of courage on Wednesday at a ceremony to transfer Najaf province, home to one of Shi’ite Islam’s holiest shrines, from U.S. to Iraqi control.

Politicians, tribal and religious leaders and soldiers watched displays of military prowess and one demonstration, hailed as a display of courage, in which five soldiers stopped before the grandstand to bite the heads off frogs.A sixth holding a live rabbit slit open its stomach and ate its heart before tossing the carcass to his comrades to chew on.

Aurora Over Iowa

APOD: 2006 December 18 – Aurora Over Iowa
Last Thursday evening, stars were not the only lights in Iowa skies. Spectacular northern lights also shone from the heavens, extending across the midwestern USA and other locations not often graced with auroral displays. The wide-ranging auroral activity was triggered as a large solar flare – an energetic cloud of particles blasted outward from the Sun a few days earlier – collided with planet Earth’s magnetosphere. Alerted to conditions ripe for aurora, photographer Stan Richard recorded this apparition over Saylorville Lake, near Des Moines, Iowa, USA. While the colorful rays seem to end just above the water, they are actually at altitudes of 100 kilometers or more.

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There are only three options in Iraq.

There are only three options in Iraq. – By Christopher Hitchens – Slate Magazine
In 1991, which is also the year when the present crisis in Iraq actually began, it was Saudi influence that helped convince President George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker to leave Saddam Hussein in power and to permit him to crush the Shiite intifada that broke out as his regime reeled from defeat in Kuwait.

Many people write as if the sectarian warfare in Iraq was caused by coalition intervention. But it is surely obvious that the struggle for mastery has been going on for some time and was only masked by the apparently iron unity imposed under Baathist rule. That rule was itself the dictatorship of a tribal Tikriti minority of the Sunni minority andconstituted a veneer over the divisions beneath, as well as an incitement to their perpetuation

Continue reading “There are only three options in Iraq.”

Top Woman Climber Missing

Welcome to TODAY’S TMJ4 – The NBC Affiliate in Milwaukee, WI – News, Weather, Sports
Christine Boskoff is not just any climber; she’s considered the top woman climber in the world.

She recently traveled to China to climb unscaled mountains. She was supposed to fly back to America two weeks ago, but no one has heard from her. Two teams of 25 searchers are combing an uncharted mountain in China.

Boskoff’s family in Appleton is very worried, especially her mother.

“She always calls me every time she comes, does any trip or mountain,” said Joyce Feld, mother. “She always calls me always and tells me that she’s safe, but she didn’t call… so…”

Christine Boskoff has climbed six of the world’s highest peaks, including Mount Everest. She and her climbing partner, Charlie Fowler, are experienced, but her family knows anything can happen during a climb.

“I have such faith in her because she knows what she’s doing,” Feld said. “She’s an excellent climber, and she didn’t call me this time.” Thanks to Maria Collier for this one.

The New UberRich

The Atlas of New Money – WSJ.com
Just as the hedge-fund industry is remaking the global economy, so too is it remaking the world of wealth. A surge of money is reshaping these wealthy communities as drastically as did the dot-com boom of nearly a decade ago or the wealth of such industrial icons as Rockefeller and Carnegie did a century ago. In less than a decade, hedge funds have created a class of centimillionaires. Lightly regulated, with a propensity for high risk, hedge funds have drawn wealthy investors and institutions looking for bigger paydays than they can get from stocks and bonds.

The roughly $1.2 trillion controlled by the world’s 8,000-plus hedge funds is dwarfed by the $10 trillion in U.S. mutual funds, which are regulated and make their investments public. While mutual funds generally charge fees of 1% or 2% of assets, hedge-fund managers typically add on an additional 20% or more of any profit. Last year, according to Hedge Fund Research, hedge funds returned 9.3% on average. The top 26 hedge-fund managers last year received pay averaging $363 million — up 45% from 2004, according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine.

Like other booms, this one could bust. Hedge funds have returned about 11% this year — down from more than 31% in 1999, according to Hedge Fund Research, a Chicago firm.

Why they deny the Holocaust

Why they deny the Holocaust – Los Angeles Times

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali, AYAAN HIRSI ALI, a Somali immigrant who served in the parliament of the Netherlands until earlier this year.

ONE DAY IN 1994, when I was living in Ede, a small town in Holland, I got a visit from my half-sister. It was the first time, I had heard of the Holocaust. I was 24 years old at that time, and my half-sister was 21.I saw pictures of masses of skeletons, even of kids. I heard horrifying accounts of some of the people who had survived the terror of Auschwitz and Sobibor. I told my half-sister all this and showed her the pictures in my history book. What she said was as awful as the information in my book.

With great conviction, my half-sister cried: “It’s a lie! Jews have a way of blinding people. They were not killed, gassed or massacred. But I pray to Allah that one day all the Jews in the world will be destroyed.”

She was not saying anything new. As a child growing up in Saudi Arabia, I remember my teachers, my mom and our neighbors telling us practically on a daily basis that Jews are evil, the sworn enemies of Muslims, and that their only goal was to destroy Islam. We were never informed about the Holocaust.