another novel
Or a subplot in the last one:
Jamie Paulin-Ramirez was a straight-A nursing student when she abruptly left Colorado last fall with her 6-year-old son and turned up in Ireland, where her parents say she was arrested this week in an alleged plot to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist.
Jihad Jane
There is a novel in the details of this as well.
Colleen LaRose spent long days caring for her boyfriend’s father in a second-floor apartment in Pennsburg, a small town north of Philadelphia.
But online, federal authorities say, the devoted caretaker developed a daring alter ego, refashioning herself as “Jihad Jane” while helping recruit and finance Muslim terrorists — and eventually moving overseas to try to kill an artist she perceived as an enemy to Islam.
a different kind of crash blossom
“If it fails, either way, doing nothing, I’m going to get the same amount of hurt. So I picked it up and threw it off the roof.”
Operation Exodus got its name in part “because of its Biblical relevance”
In a video of the first training session, posted on the sheriff’s office’s website, the recruits — almost all white, and many appearing to be past middle-age — gamely practice their hand-to-hand combat techniques:
reptiles of concern
Next month is Python hunting season in Florida.
The special season, created by executive order, will allow anyone with a hunting license and a $26 management area permit to take reptiles of concern — including Indian python; reticulated python; northern and southern African rock python; amethystine or scrub python; green anaconda; and Nile monitor lizard. Hunters may use rifles, pistols or shotguns, but no centerfire rifles. They may not bring reptiles out alive and must report all they kill to the FWC within 36 hours.
state of the union
Hate to tell you that blacks were not allowed into combat intell 1947, that fact. World War II ended in 1945. So all that feel good, one black man killing two dozen Nazi, is just that, PC bull.
quote out of context
‘Yes, we drank vodka,’ he would reply. And here is a toast we had: To Roosevelt, To Stalin, To Studebaker!’
Mossad identity theft?
The Tom Clancy-esque assassination of a Hamas commander presumably by Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency) in Dubai recently caused some Israeli citizens to be concerned about identity theft.
At least seven people who live in Israel share names with suspects identified by Dubai police. One, a British-Israeli citizen named Melvyn Adam Mildiner, said the passport photo on the Dubai wanted flier was not him but the passport number was correct. He also denied having been to Dubai.
Another of the seven, Stephen Hodes, denied any link to the case in an interview with Israel Radio and said he, too, had never visited Dubai.
“I’m shocked. I don’t know how they got to me. Those aren’t my photographs, of course,” Hodes said. “I don’t know how they got to my details, who took them. …. I’m simply afraid. These are powerful forces.”
While we’re at it, I’ll post the picture again. It feels less Tom Clancy to me and more Wes Anderson.
from the sacramento valley
spoiler below the fold Read more
Authorities also released photos of the 11
Dubai’s police chief said Monday an 11-member hit squad carrying European passports and disguised in wigs, fake beards and tennis clothes was behind the mysterious killing of a Hamas commander in his hotel room last month.
For Cindy
This is how it will be, our new life.
time can ease the restrictions on some secrets
Children of CIA agents:
“Mom said: ‘Don’t ever get on that phone. When I am on it, get away,’ ” said Sullivan, whose office staff greets callers with a chirpy “Hello, irregular warfare.” “The notes my mom would keep, she kept in a safe. Now, the safe is gone.”
His younger brother Jimmy Sullivan, however, recalled picking up the Spy Phone when playing video games with friends. “We’d be playing Atari, and we’d listen in,” he said. “Or we’d pick up, and it’d be some dude in German ranting and raving.”
“Where Feet, Fist and Faith Collide”
“Hard punches!” he shouted from the sidelines of a martial arts event called Cage Assault. “Finish the fight! To the head! To the head!”
Update:
Trailer for El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky. 1970)
The strangest movie I’d recommend?
Allen Klein presents an ABKCO Film.
the law was “just wrong”
Looks like don’t ask don’t tell is finally going away.
A White House official said that Mr. Obama’s call for repeal stayed through six drafts of the speech, despite reports of internal battles over how far he should go.
Live video of Tony Blair giving evidence to the Iraq War Inquiry
quote out of context
My wife made a good observation yesterday when we were talking about this story, and that is, “Hey, wait a minute, the Taliban and the extremists — what is it they say just before they blow themselves up which kills somebody, they say, ‘Allahu Akbar’.” So if anybody’s making this a religious thing, they started it.
dear clusterflock
What happened to gum commercials?
the first legal male prostitute
I think for a male, if you want to be successful in this type of venture, you’re not a prostitute. You’re a surrogate lover. You encompass everything that’s required of you—not only emotionally, physically—but psychologically. Because women are wired differently. They’re much more sensitive creatures. You actually have to enjoy what you do. You can’t necessarily say, “Oh, it’s just a job.” You actually have to say it’s a passion. I think it’s the same situation as with anything that happens when you break apart a social institution. There has to be some kind of change in terminology to describe persons like myself. And it’s more of a civil rights thing now. Basically this is the first time in the economy of the United States that a male has actually stood up and said, “I want to do this for a living.” And be protected under law to do it. It’s just the same as when Rosa Parks decided to sit at the front instead of the back. She was proclaiming her rights as a disadvantaged, African-American older woman. And I’m doing the same. I’m actually standing up now, and hopefully I can be supported by the male community and be understood as a person. This actually isn’t about selling my body. This is about changing social norms.
Congratulations.
(via marginal revolution)
Spanish Osama
A Spanish lawmaker was horrified to learn that the FBI used an online photograph of him to create an image showing what Osama bin Laden might look like today.
I beg to differ
“We need to use the human brain — which is the best technology of them all,” he said.
double atomic bomb survivor dies at 93
Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only person officially recognized as a survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings at the end of World War II, has died at age 93.
from the comments
To rely on the usefulness of fear is to affirm the efficacy of tyranny.
Name one other specific recommendation the president could implement right now to fix this
I think one main thing would be to — just himself to use the word terrorism more often.
quote out of context
Farmer Dave puts an airbag in a plastic bag, wires it up to a car battery and places it in the water where he cut out a chunk of the ice with a chainsaw.