Thanks Dad

I’m taking a break from researching Flemish neo-nazis and Pakistani warlords to take a moment to thank my Dad. This is for you and Johnny. 

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Robert Novak: Man in the Middle Again

Robert Novak is once again breaking news of scandal, and hoarded information — but this time it’s about two Democrat rivals — Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. More from Glen Thrush at Newsday :

Robert Novak, whose White House contacts put him at the center of the Valerie Plame investigation, reported Saturday that unspecified “agents” working for Clinton “are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information.”

In an extraordinary e-mail sent to reporters Saturday morning, Obama reprinted Novak’s three-paragraph report and claimed it had been planted by Clinton’s staff.

“In the interest of our party, and her own reputation, Senator Clinton should either make public any and all information referred to in the item, or concede the truth: that there is none,” wrote Obama.

Novak made no reference to a source, anonymous or otherwise, gave no indication what information he was referring to and didn’t seek comment from Clinton, whose staff later dismissed his account as baseless.

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Thank Our Troops During the Holidays

Please take some time to thank our troops during the Holidays – H/T Little Green Footballs, Right Wing News.

 For six long years our military has fought gallantly on foreign shore against a foe most murderous. For six long years they’ve been maligned while doing things more perfectly than any military force ever has. With the holidays upon us please take the time to pass them both your esteem for their persistent courage and valor, and pass them your regards for the love they demonstrate daily to their country.
America Supports You

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Another Al Qaeda Muslim Mass Grave Uncovered

zawahiri-dajjal.jpgAnother mass grave of Muslims murdered by Al Qaeda has been uncovered in Iraq, this one containing dozens of bodies. The former graves were reported here. This story from AP/Yahoo:

Remains of possibly dozens of people believed slain in sectarian violence were unearthed Saturday from a mass grave in a former Al-Qaida stronghold in southern Baghdad — the third such find in Iraq this month.

Also Saturday, an Iraqi television station reported one of its reporters had been kidnapped — the latest in a grim series of attacks that has made Iraq among the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists.

The badly decomposed remains were found in Baghdad’s mostly Sunni Dora neighborhood by Sunnis who have turned against al-Qaida in Iraq, police said. They were discovered in an area overlooking the main highway leading to Shiite shrine cities in the south.

Sunni extremists would often waylay travelers along that road, kidnapping and killing Shiites.

The remains were placed in black plastic bags and transferred to a Shiite mosque in Dora, according to a police officer at the mosque. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information.

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Children of Lightning

It’s not oft that I drag things out of the archives, but this is an important theme – critical not only to the future of our nation, but also our world. It bears repeating every now and again, and remember in those town hall meetings to ask candidates what their energy policy is. Don’t let them get away with buzz-words like “energy independence” or “alternative fuels research” either. That’s not enough, the stops have to be pulled out and the nation needs to go full-bore towards implementing all energy sources and improvements.

Without further ado I present:

Children of Lightning or Children of Terror?

Mankind is ingenious at tapping the energy bounty provided by nature. From the first fire, to windmills, to water wheels, to today’s electric generating plants we have progressed from superstitious awe and deification of nature to harnessing it to our every need.

Today however we have several movements that question and deny the need for more energy, and we have dangerous tyrants who oppose our advance at every opportunity. These forces all sprang from the romantic era, two driven by an idealized view of nature, and one from a religio-racist view and they all ally when it’s convenient.

There are really only three roadblocks to a great future for us and future generations:

The first consists of nihilistic neo-romantics who would prefer that the rest of humanity didn’t exist at all. Earth-firsters, Greenpeace, Greens, the radical environmentalists, the zero-population groups, all have the same wellspring: that idealized, romantic view of nature and the noble savage.

The other two roadblocks are the groups of Marxist and Islamo-fascist states who hold most of the world’s petrochemical energy resources and their peoples in thrall.

These movements, environmental, Marxist, and tyrannical racism, would prefer that mankind did not advance at all. They look upon you and me as part of a plague of humanity on this planet for either racist, geo-political, or environmental reasons, and they look on America’s dream of a better future for all as the only real opposition to their power and dreams.

Continue reading

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Islamist Plot to Kidnap Ghandi Interupted

zawahiri-dajjal.jpgIndian Police agencies continue to do a fine job of stopping terrorism; today they arrested three members of Jaish e Muhammed, an Al Qaeda allied organisation, who were planning to kidnap the son of Congress Party Chief Sonia Ghandi.

Rahul Ghandi was saved by the action, and the three men and their weapons were taken into custody. Story at BBC:

The men belonged to the Jaish-e-Mohammed group and were planning to kidnap a “very important political person”, the police said.

Local reports suggested the target could have been Rahul Gandhi, son of Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi.

Police said the arrested men were all Pakistanis.

The chief of Uttar Pradesh police Vikram Singh said the three men were arrested on the outskirts of the state capital, Lucknow.

He said the men were travelling from Delhi in a car.

Mr Singh said militants planned to kidnap a “very important person” in exchange for 42 militants lodged in various Indian prisons.

Ammunition, rifles, grenades and explosives were seized from the men, he said.

More at Stratfor and from Zee News:

Lucknow, Nov 16: In a major development, the UP Police and Special Task Force (STF) arrested three terrorists linked with the Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit here on Friday. The arrests followed a fierce encounter, which also led to the recovery of a huge cache of arms and explosives.

Addressing a press conference, the UP DGP Vikram Singh said that the Police had received crucial intelligence inputs about terrorists having recently entered Lucknow City to execute their nefarious designs. The terrorists planned to target VVIPs to create pressure on the government to release 42 militants in Indian jails. The idea was abduct well-known personalities including Rahul Gandhi and seek release of their associates as ransom. They also wanted the international community to intervene so as to highlight the matter.  

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Now That’s a Knife

Think your Swiss army knife has it all? Think again.

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Pakistan Update: History Made, History lost

Rather than commiserate for an hour on a lead in, tonight I will just launch into the news.

Today the Pakistani National Assembly dissolved, it was historic in that this is the first time a National Assembly in Pakistan has served its full five year term. The assembly was replaced by a Musharraf-appointed caretaker government. The other parties fell out of the negotiations to set up the caretaker government over the PCO order that established emergency rule.

Musharraf continues to promise that he will resign as Chief of Army Staff and remove the uniform (Wardi) as soon as the newly sworn in justices of the Musharraf Supreme Court clear him legally as duly-elected President of Pakistan. Today is also the day that Musharraf is officially supposed to resign, and if the Constitution were in effect, his holding of both offices past midnight Islamabad time would be unconstitutional.

Foreign pressure is mounting against him, and against this backdrop he’s sent the real army as opposed to Frontier Corps to Swat to quell the rising insurrection there. This after “Radio Maulana”, or Mullah Fazlullah has taken over six provinces with the FC troops melting and surrendering their arms to him as quick as he advanced.

Not much reporting is coming from behind the Taliban advance, so it’s unknown if the “Eagle Force” campaign against crime with Sharia justice is resulting in more beheadings and amputations. The Mullah did eliminate his key FM radio rival, proving who the “boss-jock of Swat” is for the moment. The area is purely tribal/medieval now, traveling there would be like going upriver to meet Kurtz.

The Army has started an offensive, here’s the report on that:

MINGORA: Around 33 militants, two soldiers and five civilians were killed as army helicopters continued targeting Taliban positions in various areas of Swat for the third consecutive day on Wednesday.

Separately, eight military personnel were injured as unidentified miscreants targeted their convoy with a remote-controlled bomb in Batkhela.

Military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told AFP that 17 militants were killed when gunship helicopters attacked their vehicle, while the remaining 16 were killed in separate clashes. Six loyalists of rebel cleric Maulana Fazlullah were eliminated as they tried to free four colleagues that had been arrested by security forces near Saidu Sharif Airport, Arshad said, adding that two soldiers died in the clash. The military spokesman said that another four militants were killed in Hazara village. “We will make sure that the militants are completely wiped off before we end the operation,” he vowed.

Troops also arrested four militants carrying radio sets and grenades, Arshad said, reported AFP.

Meanwhile Dawn is reporting that the “miltants” are gaining strength in Swat, bolstered by 500 — 800 “foreign Militants” and driven by the “MMA’s constant appeasement of Maulana Fazlullah.” I don’t know about the rest of you, but this is now getting interesting. In other worries, the NATO forces in Afghanistan are working contingency plans in case key supply routes get cut during the fighting in Pakistan, and they also said that they thought that Pakistan’s nukes “were secure”.
 

Bhutto is now openly calling for President Musharraf to step down from both offices, this from house arrest. The house arrest is in light of the planned protest “long march” which under the PCO is illegal — and in light of intel indicating that suicide bombers would once more try to make another Bhutto a martyr.

She has also closed ranks with Imran Khan, the popular cricket-player turned Politico of PTI, which has ties to the student branches of Jamaat Islamayeh. He’s been organizing student protests against the PCO, but was arrested.. freed… arrested… freed depending on whose rumor you follow.

There are pictures of him being tossed in a van by JI-Talaba, but … some blog commenters say they are his friends. more to come on this I am sure. (Imran also demonstrated against Bush, in the Quran desecration marches, and with Islamists of the MMA often in the past.) There’s been bubbling dissension between many student groups and JI bubbling undersurface for months now, and I hope that inter-group rioting does not start on the campus’.

Meanwhile Bhutto’s niece has launched another polemic screed against her with the media, something she is known for doing (the last one I was quite against – basically she blamed Bhutto for the deaths caused by suicide bombers who attacked her motorcade — the same twisted  warped logic that continually excuses the real problem and the real extremists in Pakistan.)

There’s also been sporadic rioting in Karachi, and reports of PPP gangs firing on Police.

Meanwhile the police have arrested between 5,000 and 13,000 PPP leaders depending on whose reports you believe. Not much is being heard from PML-N, which is strange.

 Against this backdrop Parliamentary elections are sheduled for Monday.

More on the protests at Metroblogging Islamabad; Lawhawk has coverage of what Bhutto’s niece said.

 This report is comprised of news compiled from Daily Times Pakistan, Pakistan Observer, Dawn, and Frontier Post.

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Patch Now!

It’s Black Tuesday — the day when Microsoft releases it’s monthly security updates. Please go to Microsoft Update if you use Microsft and get patched now. There’s a pernicious virus exploit already out there in the wild for the Skype / IE7 problem.

Summary of patches from The Internet Storm center at SANS:
Overview of the November 2007 Microsoft patches and their status.

# Affected Contra Indications Known Exploits Microsoft rating ISC rating(*)
clients servers
MS07-061 An input validation failure allows remote code execution. Replaces MS06-045
Windows shell – exposed via IE7, skype, acrobat, …

CVE-2007-3896 KB 943460
Well known problem, exploit in the wild Critical PATCH NOW

Important
MS07-062 Lack of entropy in pseudo random number generation results in weak transaction IDs and therefore in DNS spoofing vulnerabilities. DNS spoofing can lead to man-in-the-middle attacks and more.
Replaces MS07-029
Windows

CVE-2007-3898 KB 941672 No publicly known exploits Important Important(**) Critical(**)

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As the Day Closes

As the day closes, one last look and word of appreciation to those who serve their country.

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