Target Centermass

Author: Gunner

  • WHO Stops Hiring Smokers

    Alright, as the steady drumbeat of smoking bans has banged over and over the last several years, raise your hand if you didn’t eventually expect to see a story about an anti-smoking hiring policy. Anybody?

    Smokers need not apply, according to the World Health Organization which has stopped hiring smokers as part of its campaign to eradicate the habit.

    “WHO has taken a very public lead in the fight against tobacco use,” said the UN agency’s spokesman Iain Simpson.

    The policy comes into effect Dec. 1 and all notices of vacancy will include this line: “WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or other tobacco users.”

    Applicants will be asked if they smoke or use other tobacco products, i.e. chewing or snuff tobacco, and if they answer “yes,” their application process will be stopped.

    Simpson says the ban is legal under international law, which governs operations at all UN agencies. WHO is based in Geneva but also has offices around the world including New York city. It employs 2,400 people.

    Staff who currently use tobacco will be encouraged to quit. They can also smoke in designated outdoor areas

    […]

    When asked whether the agency would consider eliminating obese people or those who drink alcohol from its staff, WHO officials said smoking was more of a “black and white” issue.

    “There is safe sex, one can drink alcohol in a reasonable way and one can attempt eating in a balanced fashion,” said WHO official Fadela Chaib. “But with tobacco, there is no middle ground … it kills half of those consuming it.”

    Actually, all of the distinctions between tobacco usage and the likes of dangerous sexual practices, alcohol consumption and obesity fall apart at some level, especially when the zero-tolerance policy during the application process is taken into account. Safe sex can be had, but so can frequent and unprotected anonymous sex. Social drinking is acceptable, but will they inquire about frequent binge drinking? Sure, the obese can eat a balanced diet, but many tend to reach the obesity issue by exactly not doing that.

    Actually, I would have no problem in such a hiring policy being put into place by any private entity, though a lot of ways in which I feel should privately-owned business shoulld be allowed to discriminate, possibly to their own detriment, are already deemed illegal. However, I certainly would have an issue with a governmental body enacting such an arbitrary standard. That the U.N. is allowed to act outside of our laws on our soil, laws that foreign companies are subject to, is quite simply not right. Then again, that is the case of so much about the U.N.

  • Attack on Marines Worst in Iraq Since Aug.

    There was bad, bloody news out of Iraq today.

    A roadside bomb killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 while they were on a foot patrol near Fallujah, the Marine Corps said Friday, in the deadliest attack on American troops in nearly four months.

    Thursday’s bomb, which was made from several large artillery shells, struck members of Regimental Combat Team 8 of the 2nd Marine Division near the city about 30 miles west of Baghdad, the Marine Corps said.

    […]

    Of the 11 who were wounded, seven have returned to duty, the Marine Corps said. It added that Marines from the same unit continue to conduct counterinsurgency operations throughout Fallujah and surrounding areas.

    My best wishes and condolences for the families and comrades of these fallen Marines.

  • Pager-forced Link Dump

    I have been owned by the oncall pager, but here’s some reading for y’all.

    ‘This is our Belgian kamikaze’

    Belgians were trying to come to terms Thursday with the news that a working class woman from an industrial southern city had turned from a “nice” shop assistant into a suicide bomber who blew herself up in Iraq.

    “This is our Belgian kamikaze killed in Iraq,” headlined the newspaper La Derniere Heure on Thursday over a picture of a thoroughly normal-looking, smiling girl looking into the camera.

    When her mother, Liliane Degauque, saw police coming to her doorstep on Wednesday, she immediately knew what it was about. The evening before, she had heard the reports there had been a terrorist attack on Nov. 9 by a Belgian woman.

    “When I saw the first pictures, I said to myself, ‘it is my girl.’ For three weeks already I tried to contact her by telephone but I got the answering machine,” she told the RTBF network on Thursday.

    Authorities on Thursday formally arrested 5 of the 14 suspects they detained in dawn raids the day before and charged them with involvement in a terrorist network that sent volunteers to Iraq, including Degauque’s daughter Muriel, who died at 38.

    Nine were released. Those placed under arrest were a Tunisian and four Belgians, three of whom had foreign roots.

    “This action shows how international terrorism tries to set up networks in western European nations, recruit for terror attacks in conflict areas and look for funds to finance terrorism,” said Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt.

    In her younger years, Muriel lived a conventional life in the Charleroi area. Media reports said she finished high school before taking on several jobs, including selling bread in a bakery. “She was so nice,” said her mother. The picture in the paper dated from that time.

    She told media, however, that her daughter could easily be influenced.

    Muriel changed first when she married an Algerian man and later one with Moroccan roots. She was increasingly drawn into fundamentalist religion.

    “It is the first time that we see that a Western woman, a Belgian, marries a radical Muslim, and is converted up to the point of becoming a jihad fighter,” said federal police director Glenn Audenaert.

    Belgium. France. The Netherlands. All have been served notice of the Islamist danger in their midst. None yet have taken their individual national wake-up calls seriously enough yet. This is not just a condemnation of these three countries but also of all around them. After all, to paraphrase Otto von Bismarck, any fool can learn from his own mistakes, but it is preferable to learn from the mistakes of others, as well.

    Ramadi Insurgents Flaunt Threat

    Armed fighters claiming allegiance to Abu Musab Zarqawi took to the streets of a western Iraqi provincial capital Thursday in a fleeting show aimed at intimidating Iraqi Sunni Arab leaders taking part in dialogue with U.S. Marines in a stronghold of the insurgency, provincial officials, residents and other witnesses said.

    The scene — lean figures, many in masks and dark tracksuits lugging shoulder-mounted rocket launchers or wielding AK-47 assault rifles — reinforced what the U.S. military has acknowledged is the strong insurgent presence in the Euphrates River cities and towns of Anbar province, an overwhelmingly Sunni area near the Syrian border. The appearance of the fighters dismayed many of the residents of Ramadi, the war-blighted provincial capital.

    […]

    The armed fighters on the streets left statements in the name of Zarqawi’s group, saying their show of force was in response to negotiations between the “Sunni midgets and the stooges of the occupation forces.” The statements contained pledges to kill each Sunni leader participating.

    The U.S. military, which maintains Marine bases and thousands of troops on the outskirts of Ramadi, denied the accounts of unrest, saying that the city was largely calm Thursday and that insurgents were manipulating the news media. “Today I witnessed inaccurate reporting, use of unreliable sources, media using other media as sources, an active insurgent propaganda machine, and the pack journalism at its worse,” Capt. Jeffrey Pool, a spokesman for the 2nd Marine Division, said in an e-mail to news organizations.

    Witnesses in Ramadi said they saw some of the armed fighters instruct a journalist for an Arabic-language news outlet to report that Zarqawi’s group, al Qaeda in Iraq, had taken over the entire city. The Arabic outlet by late Thursday was reporting only that the fighters had held some streets of the city center — a description of events in line with the eyewitness accounts and reports from other news organizations. News directors for the organization did not respond to requests for comment. The news organization is not being identified for security reasons.

    This is about as clear evidence as you can have that there are two wars being conducted — on the battlefield and in the media. The terrorists know this and, unfortunately for them, showed themselves to be truly crippled if little stunts like their assaulting and briefly holding a couple of city blocks comprise their current hope to pull of a Tet offensive-type media success.

    Germany: No ransom for Iraq kidnappers

    German leaders said Thursday they still have had no contact with the kidnappers of a German woman seized in Iraq and Chancellor Angela Merkel said considering paying a ransom was “not up for discussion” at this time.

    Susanne Osthoff and her Iraqi driver were taken last Friday, and were pictured in a videotape blindfolded on a floor, with militants – one armed with a rocket propelled grenade – standing beside them.

    The militants are reportedly demanding that Germany cease its dealings with Iraq’s government or they will kill the hostages. Germany was an ardent opponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has refused to send troops there, but has been training Iraqi soldiers and police outside the country.

    Merkel indicated in a speech Wednesday that Germany will not change its Iraq policy, stressing that the country “will not let ourselves be blackmailed” over Osthoff’s abduction.

    On Thursday, Merkel told reporters that the government was “doing all its can to save her life and that of her companion.”

    Asked if Germany would consider paying a ransom, Merkel said that was “not up for discussion at all now.”

    “At the moment it is about very elementary questions … First of all, we are interested in finding out how to make contact” with the kidnappers, Merkel said.

    Well, that’s not actually a very strong stance. Hopefully, Merkel will prove to have more of a spine than to cave in to terror and help finance future bloodshed for short-term political gain. You know, like the Philippines. Or allegedly the Italians and French.

    Finally, two blog must-reads:

    The Telegraph’s Nose Just Grew Ten Feet

    Should we hold newspapers accountable for exagerating or just lying? No, I do not mean legally, but as consumers we do drive their paychecks to print out blatent lies and mischaracterizations. Take for instance the following article in The Telegraph [headlined US ‘paid journalists to lie about war’]

    […]

    As a member of the free press, that is unless George Soros has purchased The Telegraph, the rag should know how the same press they operate under works. Apparently they do not. First things first though in this abysmal piece of journalism. Even though The Telegraph cites the Los Angeles Times for breaking the story, no where in the LA Times piece is there any information regarding the United States “paid journalists to lie about war” as stated in the title. I urge everyone to read the original LA Times piece to verify.

    Read it all. This story is growing and needs to be seen for its absurdity as early as possible.

    Picturing Polls, Red vs. Blue

    Here are recent (already outdated) poll numbers put into picture form of President George W. Bush’s approval ratings as seen on numerous Leftist websites.

    Not a good show for Chimpy-Bushitler, that is for sure!

    Too bad their data is no longer accurate. The current and respected Rasmussen Report has his approval rating back to 46%.

    These earlier polls do make you assume that if “W” is having such a hard time, then surely his democratic opponents are reaping the benefits. Right?

    But, looking at Congressional Democratic approval ratings you get this…

    Go see Gateway Pundit’s collection of red-blue maps. Interesting and unheralded, though not surprising.

  • 14 Terror Suspects Detained In Belgium

    The war in Iraq continues, and Europe continues to be a front despite the distance.

    Belgian police raided homes in four cities Wednesday and detained 14 people suspected of involvement in a terrorist network that sent fighters to Iraq, including a Belgian woman reported to have carried out a suicide bombing in Baghdad.

    Belgian authorities “want to dismantle this network, which we knew was on our territory and which aimed to send volunteers” to fight in Iraq, Glenn Audenaert, the federal police director, told reporters.

    More than 200 police officers took part in raids at dawn in Brussels and three other cities following media reports that a Belgian woman had blown herself up in a Nov. 9 attack in Baghdad. The woman reportedly carried out a car bombing against an American patrol. U.S. officials said she was the only person killed.

    The woman was 38, her first name was Mireille and she came from a middle-class background in Charleroi, about 30 miles south of Brussels, an official close to the investigation said on condition of anonymity.

    The woman converted to Islam after she married a man from Morocco, officials said. “This is how she came into contact with the organization which allowed her to become a fighter,” Audenaert said.

    Her husband was killed in Iraq in a separate incident, officials said.

    Nine of the 14 suspects detained Wednesday were Belgian. Three were Moroccan and two were Tunisian.

    Europe’s longstanding immigration policies, poisonously too generous to the north of Africa and its included radical elements, and its willingness for years to overlook a growing militant threat are now bearing fruit. Unfortunately, the Euro nations, while seemingly willing to play hardball and police up the symptoms after the fact, refuse to address the disease of the radical and growing Islamist elements in their societies.

  • Saudi Women Make Electoral Breakthrough

    There is little in this world more inspiring than the tales of those who faced incredible odds, who took unprecedented steps, who were true pioneers. These two Saudi women have to rank among the bravest and most daring on the globe today.

    Two candidates became the first women to win elected office in Saudi Arabia yesterday when they took seats on the board of Jeddah’s chamber of commerce.

    In a country where women are generally excluded from public life the surprise result was viewed as significant. When the conservative kingdom held local government elections earlier this year – the first in more than half a century – women were not allowed to vote or run for office.

    “I’m a bit in shock, but this shows people are ready for women to play a role,” Lama Sulaiman, one of the winners, told Reuters. She and fellow-businesswoman Nashwa Taher will join 10 elected men on the board, along with six other people to be appointed by the government.

    Some 21,000 members of the chamber were entitled to vote, with a choice of 71 candidates – 17 of whom were women. Voting was spread over four days and, in accordance with the Saudi tradition of segregating the sexes, the first two days were reserved for female voters.

    It became clear yesterday that the women, who both secured more than 1,000 votes, had been elected mainly through male support. About 100 women voted, compared with around 4,000 men.

    Americans have a long history of admiration for their pioneers who ventured westward, who stepped forward for their race, who ventured into space.

    Then again, a lot of our pioneers died in their endeavours, whether the victim of nature or those they openly struggled against. If I were these two, I would not worry overly much about what percentage of my check to dedicate toward retirement. Still, the wall had to be cracked, and potential sacrifices sometimes just have to be faced.

    Lama Sulaiman. Nashwa Taher. Honor them and remember them, no matter what may come, as truly courageous pioneers.

  • Sharp Objects may be Allowed on Planes

    The decorations, the music, so many other signs tell me we’re moving into the December holiday season, but, for some reason, it really seems that we instead are heading backward … to Sept. 10.

    Airport security screeners are reportedly going to let passengers bring sharp objects on board airplanes again. Today’s Washington Post says the Transportation Security Administration plans to announce security changes Friday.

    Sources quoted by the paper say the new rules will allow things like scissors in carry-on bags. The reasoning is that such items are no longer regarded as the greatest threat to airline security. Homeland Security Department officials are said to be more concerned about preventing suicide bomb attacks at airports. Officials want screeners to focus more on finding things that can explode rather than things that are sharp.

    The Post reports the newly relaxed rules would allow scissors under four inches long tools [sic] shorter than seven inches.

    TSA spokeswoman says the new initiatives will be positive for both security and customer service.

    Hmmm … about those “tools shorter than seven inches,” would those include boxcutters? Scissors are fine, as terrorists will be asked to run with them.

    Look, I don’t care about customer service anywhere near the amount I care about customers not being turned into corpses and innocent people on the ground dying, possibly again by the thousands. It does not matter that sharp devices are no longer considered the greatest threat. If they are any threat at all, there is no reason for a change that may cost lives.

  • Activists’ Group Blames U.S., Britain for Iraq Kidnappings

    Idiots.

    A peace group has blamed the United States and Britain for the abduction of four of its activists in Iraq.

    The activists were kidnapped on Saturday.

    Among them is 74-year-old Norman Kember, a retired professor from London.

    Christian Peacemaker Teams, which has been working in Iraq since 2002, has released a statement saying it is saddened by a video tape, which aired on Arabic television channel Al Jazeera, showing the four men being held hostage by insurgents.

    It says the kidnapping is a direct result of the actions of the US and UK governments due to the illegal attack on Iraq.

    Unless the nabbed peaceniks are in the hands of coalition forces, which they’re not, I’d say that the U.S. and U.K. are no more to blame — no, wait, make that far, far less to blame — than the captured idealistic twits who foolishly, recklessly and quite voluntarily put themselves into danger. While I wish for the best for these activists, blaming those who will work to save them is pathetic.

    Hey, here’s a crazy notion — why can’t we blame the thugs who actually did the kidnapping?

  • Texas Guard Unit Heading Home

    My dear friend William J. Hartmann, my former tank crewmate and close buddy of several years, prepped for deployment to Iraq. He served there. Now, he and his comrades from the Texas Army National Guard’s 36th Brigade are honorably returning home.

    The Dallas Morning-News recently covered this deployment and return by interviewing the brigade’s Lt. Col. Jeffrey Breor. The following is the paper’s intro to the story:

    After almost a year in Iraq, the 3,000 soldiers of the National Guard’s 56th Brigade Combat Team are heading home this month, completing the largest deployment of the Texas National Guard since World War II.

    They traveled more than a million miles, providing security for supply convoys and searching for roadside bombs. They built new schools in impoverished villages and helped secure ballots for the country’s historic elections.

    And they saw some of their friends and neighbors die.

    “Yes, we’re getting to the end of our mission,” said Lt. Col. Jeffrey Breor of McKinney, speaking recently from Camp Tallil in southern Iraq. “But I’m not ready to say we’re done.”

    Staff writer Vernon Smith Jr., who spent time with the brigade earlier this year in Iraq, spoke to Col. Breor by telephone about the brigade’s experiences over the last year.

    As the full story of the interview requires free subscription (which I have found tolerable), I have waited a few days and posted the rest of the insightful Q&A at the option of the reader.

    (more…)

  • Two Arrested in Attacks on Oakland Liquor Stores

    Though media attention during the war against radical Islamism has been focused on international culprits, the rising danger of militancy of a made-in-America variety has occasionally found the limelight. Usually, this has tended to be descendants of Arab immigrants or caucasian converts like that bastard John Walker Lindh. Stories about black Moslems in America have tended to be about how they have been a people of peace, quite happy and settled in American society, aside from the occasional threat of Islamist gang-related terror.

    I propose that this is all a little too politically correct and that there is a militancy in portions of the American Moslem population that would readily lend itself to the efforts of our civilization’s enemies. As anecdotal evidence, I present the following duo, allegedly two of a group willing to commit violent crime based upon their rigid religious beliefs.

    Two men were arrested late Tuesday for their role in vandalizing a pair of stores for selling alcohol to blacks, Oakland police said.

    Deputy Police Chief Howard Jordan said that Donald Cunningham, 73, and Yusef Bey IV, 19, turned themselves in to face charges including robbery, felony vandalism, conspiracy and terrorist threats. Police have obtained warrants charging four other suspects with similar crimes and expect arrests soon.

    Bey, who has been linked to a black Muslim group that runs the Your Black Muslim Bakery store chain, was taken to North County Jail and was being held on $200,000 bail, according to police.

    The arrests cap a bizarre week that has included the vandalism of the San Pablo Liquor store and the New York Market last Wednesday by men wearing suits and bow ties.

    The men, all of whom were black, smashed liquor bottles and toppled food racks while demanding that both stores stop selling alcohol to black people, authorities said.

    Then, days later, the store clerk at the New York Market was kidnapped and the business was burned down.

    Store employee Abdel Hamdan was found safe in the trunk of a car Monday, about 12 hours after the fire, as police sought to get to the bottom of the attacks.

    “We’re very happy that he came back safe,” said Frank Hernen, manager of New York Market. “We don’t want this to go further.”

    […]

    The incident at San Pablo Liquor was caught on surveillance tape, and police said they have identified six of the 10 or 11 vandals and believe the same men trashed the New York Market.

    Suspicion immediately fell on the Nation of Islam, a group of Muslims whose members often wear suits and bow ties. However, Jordan said the suspects are not members of the Nation of Islam. He held out the possibility that they belong to a separate Muslim group based in Oakland.

    In 1993, Muslims affiliated with a group which operates the Your Black Muslim Bakery store chain and whose members also wear suits and bow ties, were involved in a similar incident at a Richmond liquor store, police said.

    Investigators were looking into the recent vandalism as hate crimes because the store owners are of Middle Eastern background and are Muslims, Jordan said Monday.

    “In both incidents, the suspects entered the store and questioned why a Muslim-owned store would sell alcoholic beverages when it is against the Muslim religion,” police said in a statement.

    Interestingly, currently this is apparently a matter of Moslem-on-Moslem violence. I see little reason to see that this could not expand to other targets and grow to more violent methods. There are, after all, only large chunks of the history of the religion in question upon which to base these possibilities of escalation.

  • Venezuelan Opposition Quit Poll

    Too long have I failed to mention Venezuela and the growing problems caused by its potentially unstable president, Castro-wannabe Hugo Chavez. That oversight needed to be corrected, as I feel the country, already grown quite problematic, is going to shortly become quite a thorn in the side of regional stability.

    Today, its own stability took a hit, as opposition parties have bailed out of congressional elections only five days before the scheduled voting.

    Three Venezuela opposition parties have pulled out of Sunday’s congressional poll, accusing the electoral body of favouring pro-government candidates.

    The head of the main opposition party, Democratic Action, said they felt the result would be biased against them.

    However, Vice-President Jose Vicente Rangel said the party was pulling out because it was facing defeat.

    Venezuelans will vote for an expanded 167-seat congress, where supporters of President Hugo Chavez have a majority.

    Correspondents say that the government has vowed to increase its majority to two-thirds, which would allow it to pass constitutional reforms that opposition leaders strongly oppose.

    Democratic Action chief Henry Ramos said his party was demanding a suspension of the elections until equal conditions existed for parties.

    He told a news conference the electoral board had not convinced opposition candidates that the software used in the computerized voting system did not endanger voters’ confidentiality.

    He said the decision to pull out had been a difficult one to take at such a late stage in the campaign.

    “Imagine what it means to us to say today that under these conditions we cannot participate in the electoral process.”

    Project Venezuela and the Social Christian Party, or Copei, later said they too were withdrawing and called for a suspension.

    Publius Pundit and Gateway Pundit bring us stories of rioting breaking out in the oil-rich South American state, both in reaction to today’s news and in opposition to the strongly anti-American Chavez.