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May 31, 2009
Links May 31 09
  • Embassy Envy Slate. Besides internal trouble selling ambassadorships is just stupid foreign policy.If the U.S. wants to be taken seriously, it should have serious ambassadors.

Please add your links, views and news in the comments.

Posted by b on May 31, 2009 at 06:02 UTC | Permalink
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About the Iran hanging story – Apparently the terrorist group who was responsible for the attacks has denied knowing 2 of the 3 persons hanged. The person they DID know, they claim, was not involved in the attack but was more of a propagandist for their group (ie, distributing cds, letters to people).
If what they claim is the truth of the matter, which is quite likely, it leads me to believe that the Iranians caught a bunch of do no gooders who were facing Iranian justice anyway and hanged them in order to instil fear in the populace before the elections.

Posted by: Anthony | May 31 2009 6:25 utc | 1

@Anthony – my guess too. Some official said those were persons known for crime or something like that. Maybe they just picked up some street-thugs they had on their list. Like in Casabalanca “Round up the usual suspects” That certainly makes a point but is totally unjust.

Posted by: b | May 31 2009 11:19 utc | 2

Iran defuses bomb in plane toilet

File photo shows Iranian passengers putting their luggage through a security machine at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport. Iranian security officials have defused a bomb planted on a domestic passenger plane, officials said on Sunday, the latest incident of violence in the run-up to the June 12 presidential election.
Iranian security officials defused a bomb planted on a domestic passenger plane, officials said on Sunday, the latest incident of violence in the run-up to the June 12 presidential election.
The attempted bomb attack occurred on Saturday on a Kish Air flight headed to Tehran from the oil-rich western city of Ahvaz near the border with Iraq, the Fars news agency reported.

A busy CIA or a domestic attempt to influence the election?

Posted by: b | May 31 2009 11:28 utc | 3

I’d suggest there are too many incidents too closely spaced for it to be merely domestic.
Jundallah, who claimed responsibility for the attack, was funded by the U.S. and then later disowned by them.

Posted by: china_hand2 | May 31 2009 12:36 utc | 4

…and hanged them in order to instil fear in the populace before the elections.
Or maybe they just did it to show they can — like the U.S. and all those “terrorists” it’s been rounding up. What was it, last week — four non-religious guys who were promised payment by the FBI informant, one of whom was doing it so he could get his brother a necessary medical treatment?
Even so, they were reportedly part of a terrorist group that wants to bring back the Shah. That would certainly be a group of people who’ve got ties back to the U.S.

Posted by: china_hand2 | May 31 2009 14:05 utc | 5

POOR QUALITY JOURNALISM AND HOW FALSEHOODS BECOME COMMON KNOWLEDGE
There are lots of news stories quoting that 192 boys are born for every 100 girls in China’s Jiangsu province but it is incorrect. Below is the British medical journal report (which they all cite) clearly states the figure is currently 125 boys to every 100 girls. The figure of 192 boys to every 100 girls refers to the ratio of second children born in the very few families that have a second child. If families already have a girl and the second child is also a girl then they are far more likely to abort this second child.
Obviously these journalists have just read the story or the one journalist who has at best skimmed through this report without reading it properly. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/338/apr09_2/b1211.pdf
Here is the Sunday Times and Times Online version:
‘Kidnappers swoop on China’s girls’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/china/article6396010.ece

Posted by: Charles | May 31 2009 15:12 utc | 6

It sure seems that the 10 yr treasury note was not selling and the Fed had to quietly come to the table and take those t-bills off the bidding floor. I haven’t heard this expressly addressed anywhere.
Everyone has been sold American and sold more and more till they got all the American they want. If we can’t auction off our dollars and T-bills we’re done.

Posted by: scott | May 31 2009 16:41 utc | 7

More right wing sectarian terrorism in the U.S.A.

Posted by: anna missed | May 31 2009 18:55 utc | 8

checking in from gaza city if you can believe that. met w/hamas today, just another day in the life! i will write all about it when i get home but you can see the pic on there site as they said it was going to be posted there shortly. then we got a personal tour of the bombed out parliament.
gotta go. the people here are beyond warm and generous, just amazingly friendly. i love gaza.
xx

Posted by: annie | May 31 2009 19:05 utc | 9

Thx annie for checking in – good luck, love and everything.

Posted by: b | May 31 2009 19:30 utc | 10

For b…
@annie, stay safe, I so envy you! What a great thing you are doing.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 1 2009 6:16 utc | 11

Annie, my thoughts are traveling with you and I am very much looking forward to reading your first hand impressions. I admire your courage and hope you have as good a time as one can have with the spirited people of Gaza. Best of luck and come back in one piece.

Posted by: Juan Moment | Jun 1 2009 9:54 utc | 12

Obama has proven several times over that he’s too neocon-ish in his ways to care about the safety of our troops. He, just like all neocons, only cares about protecting the pocketbooks of our war profiteers. Obama knows damn well that if he were to give the go-ahead to release photos depicting his underlings engaging in rape-based torture on brown people half a world away, the world, as a whole, will see loud and clear that the US is an even bigger threat to global security than Al-Qaeda and the Taliban combined. Then Obama with his tail between his legs must fess up to the fact that the US are doing more harm than good by keeping a military presence in the Islamic World. He then will have no other choice but to order all of our troops stationed from Baghdad to Islamabad to pack up their war toys and hightail it back home, causing an avalanche of bankruptcies to occur throughout the military industrial complex.
Let me also add that for any state, the US included, to sponsor torture most likely means that they are sponsoring rape a well. After all, there’s a very fine line between rape and torture, making a torturer only a hair’s breadth away from becoming a rapist.

Posted by: Cynthia | Jun 1 2009 16:56 utc | 13

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