Iraq is splitting. Piece by piece.

Basra in Iraq to decide on holding autonomy vote
By SAMEER N. YACOUB – 10 hours ago
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's election commission will run a petition drive to see if there's enough support for a referendum to decide whether the oil-rich province of Basra will become a self-ruled region, officials said Wednesday.
The Iraqi election commission said it would set up 34 centers across Basra where voters can sign the petition asking for a self-rule referendum. The drive begins on Monday and will last until Jan. 14, commission officials said.
Basra lawmaker Wail Abdul-Latif said that at least 10 percent of registered voters must sign the petition in order for a referendum to be scheduled.
If a majority voted in favor in the referendum, Basra would become a self-ruled region with the same powers as the Kurdish self-ruled area in the north....

The charges aren't against the President-Elect. He needs to mind his own business and let DUE PROCESS take its course. He does believe in Due Process

Carbon-based materials and coatings was the winning project for Fraunhofer's Center (click here) for Coatings and Laser Applications (CCL). The benefits of carbon-based coatings are its electrical, thermal, optical and mechanical properties. Industrial applications range from the automotive industry to biocompatible implants, fuel cells, cell phones, and micro-electro mechanical systems (MEMS), sensor technologies, optical and electronic applications.
Fraunhofer USA, Inc. is a non-profit research and development corporation and is a subsidiary of Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Europe's largest organization for applied research. Fraunhofer USA operates through technology Centers that are partnered with major research universities in the United States and also with parent research institutes in Germany.




Obama to name Nobel physicist Steven Chu as Energy secretary
More names leaking out for the Cabinet of Barack Obama and his White House team.
Our conscientious colleague Jim Tankersley over at the Swamp has just reported that at a news conference Thursday in Chicago the president-elect will name Steven Chu, the 1997 Nobel Prize-winning physicist from Berkeley, as his secretary of Energy.

...While still continuing in laser cooling and trapping of atoms (click here), I have recently ventured into polymer physics and biology. In 1986, Ashkin showed that the first optical atom trap demonstrated at Bell Labs also worked on tiny glass spheres embedded in water....


The Governor's Plight is pettiness for a nation with the problems the USA faces. President-Elect Obama needs to continue his focus on his transition before that is derailed by his participation in gossip.

The Governor of Illinois is on trail by MEDIA. There is such a thing in this country as Due Process and I strongly suggest he seek good council and pursue it with vigor. By asking the Governor to step down, President Elect Obama is playing 'The Shame Game.' It is unwise to start down that path and become a Tabloid Darling.

He needs to continue to oversee the transition and allow the laws of the land to precide. If I were the Governor I'd be moving before a court to sue the networks for attempting to place public pressure on his decision making rather than allowing the courts to do their job. I would want a 'Gag Order' to stop THE MEDIA CIRCUS. I wish him the best of luck.

The media is compromising the opportunity for a fair trial and Patrick should be moving before the courts to insure there is no way the case can be compromised more than it has already been, but, if Patrick keeps calling on Dead Presidents there is a good guess he is vying for an interview with Vanity Fair.

In the year 2008, this is a reality?

The White House Boys, as a group of grown men now call themselves, kept one of The Florida State Reform School's most shameful secrets for half a century: what was done to them inside a squat, dark, cinderblock building called The White House.

Guards viciously beat the adolescent boys with a leather lash that was part sheet metal inside of The White House building.

The building still stands on the grounds of what is now called The Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. A graveyard, bearing crosses made of metal pipes, mark the graves of 32 unidentified bodies in an overgrown field near the school.

EMILY MICHOT / MIAMI HERALD STAF

...The four men, all of whom suffered from brutal beatings while students at the Marianna-based school for delinquent boys in the late 1950s, sent letters to Gov. Charlie Crist, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney general alleging that the boys were victims of state-sponsored hate crimes and murder....

It's tough being 'union' these days. What Governor last participated in a union action?

Governor Supports Workers At Factory (click title to entry - thank you)
Gov. Rod Blagojevich visited the workers occupying the recently closed Republic Windows factory. (Scott Olson - Getty Images)
By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 9, 2008; Page A02
CHICAGO, Dec. 8 -- Workers occupying a Chicago factory that closed abruptly last week gained a significant political ally Monday in their fight to receive back benefits, when Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) ordered state agencies to stop doing business with Bank of America until it uses some of its federal bailout money to keep the factory open.
The standoff at Republic Windows & Doors, which began Friday, has been a throwback to tactics hardly seen since the 1930s that labor experts and union leaders say may become more common if the economy continues its downturn.
More than 200 unionized employees say they will not allow Republic or its creditor, Bank of America, to remove equipment from the factory until they get severance and vacation pay they are owed. Their union alleges that Republic violated federal law by giving its workers only three days' notice before shutting down. Workers were told the company was closing because Bank of America did not extend it enough credit to keep operating....


Gov. Rod Blagojevich visited the workers occupying the recently closed Republic Windows factory. (Scott Olson - Getty Images)

Workers occupying shuttered Chicago factory offered a deal (click here)
8 hours ago
CHICAGO (AFP) — Workers occupying an abruptly shuttered Chicago factory have been offered a lifeline after the bank which cut off financing to the window maker said it would give the company a new loan to help cover the costs of their vacation and severance pay.
The 240 workers who began the sit-in on Friday to fight for compensation they were guaranteed by law have become a symbol of the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people who lost their jobs amid a deepening recession....

It's tough being union sometimes. This company wants to open a plant in Iowa. This is no small issue. Where the heck is the billions US in bailout already? Making Wall Street actually do 'the right thing' is getting resistance. Why?

State threatens Bank of America (click here)

The governor of Illinois has threatened to stop doing business with Bank of America if it does not help laid-off workers occupying a Chicago factory.
Rod Blagojevich said the bank would lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars in fees and commission.
About 200 workers have been occupying Republic Windows and Doors demanding severance pay since they were laid off with only three days notice....

41 Day until Inauguration - "Ever play the child's game "You're getting warmer..."

India and Pakistan must fight this war together. They are no longer on opposite sides of the issue. The terrorist networks that hide in Pakistan 'are' the ones that contain the most dangerous terrorists in the world. India, Pakistan and the USA, along with Afghanistan MUST continue their movement into these two areas, both Kunan and Lahore, to finally dismantle the 'strongest' element of al Qaeda and thus leading to its end.

This is like shutting down "The World Headquarter." We are getting close, very close. It must be pursued. To have NATO, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan all on the same side with the same intent at the same time, rather than fracturing into 'sovereignty only issues' is too good to be true. When they don't work together for the sake of maintaining 'the status quo' the terrorist networks win and thrive.



...A HOAX caller claiming to be India's foreign minister threatened Pakistan's president with war during the final hours of the Mumbai attacks, prompting Pakistan to put its air force on its highest alert for nearly 24 hours, according to a news report.
The report in Pakistan's English-language newspaper Dawn on Saturday underscored the volatile atmosphere between the nuclear-armed neighbours during the 60-hour rampage by gunmen in Mumbai less than a fortnight ago.
India's Ministry of External Affairs responded to the report by issuing a statement expressing concern "that a neighbouring state might even consider acting on the basis of such a hoax call".
It accused Pakistan of trying to "divert attention from the fact of an attack on India from Pakistani territory by elements in Pakistan"....(click here)

Lashkar-e-Taiba had its origins in the Kunar Province of Afghanistan. It is the province the USA believes Osama bin Laden calls home. It is also the place where fighting continues through the winter in Afghanistan with the Taliban. The 'idea' that all these attacks are stemming from the same 'circle' of terrorists is correct. This attack was as much based in 'al Qaeda authority' as any other.
Lashkar-e-Taiba now operates out of Lahore, Pakistan.

...However, before we consider how the world will approach Pakistan (click here), we must take a look at what kind of evidence the Indians will present to Pakistan. Unfortunately, the truth is that India is throwing out hints of aggressive action before concluding the process of putting together all the evidence. The latest finding that domestic Indian terrorists could be involved in the Mumbai attack should change the Indian approach to the matter. Pakistan’s stance has been that if the spoor leads to Pakistan it could only be to the “non-state actors”, and that India should not rule out its own “non state actors”. The latest news from India tends to point to a cooperative approach rather than confrontation....
continued...

December 10, 2008
Mumbai terrorists 'part of a larger group' (click here)
The 10 men known to have carried out the Mumbai terror attacks were part of a larger cadre of 30 who were given military training on how to conduct a suicide mission, according to police.
"Another 20 were ready to die," Mumbai Police Deputy Commissioner Deven Bharti said. "This is the very disturbing part of it," he told the New York Times.
The whereabouts of the 20 other men are unknown....
...Leaders from Lashkar-e-Taiba picked out Kasab and the nine other Mumbai gunmen some months before the attacks. The chosen militants were then divided into five two-man teams, each of which was assigned a target in Mumbai. Each team was forbidden from sharing the information about their target with the others and never saw the other 20 trainees again, according to police.
Each of the 10 gunmen was armed with about a dozen grenades, a 9 mm pistol with two magazines, one AK-47 assault rifle with about seven magazines and 100-150 rounds of ammunition, police said....


Two senior Lashkar members arrested: Pakistani PM (click here)
59 minutes ago
MULTAN, Pakistan (AFP) — Pakistan has arrested two senior members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group considered the prime suspect in the Mumbai attacks, the country's prime minister said Wednesday.
"The two have been arrested and an investigation is under way," Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told journalists in response to a question about Lashkar members Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah.
Gilani said the two, who are both senior members of the banned Islamist group, were being questioned.
Indian media have said the sole surviving Mumbai attacker named Lakhvi as one of the planners of the devastating siege on India's financial capital.
Under intense international pressure, Pakistan launched a major operation over the weekend against militant organisations in the country, raiding a camp in Kashmir run by a charity linked to Lashkar and arresting 15 people....

The good news is they still seem limited to a ground assault. Should that be the best news of the day?


Just ten trained terrorists caused carnage (click here)
By Andrew Buncombe in Mumbai and Jonathan Owen
Sunday, 30 November 2008
Mumbai's ordeal ends after three days with 200 dead – and the Indian authorities piecing together how a small unit of Islamist fanatics were able to mount such terrible attacks
Mumbai's 60 hours of terror were the work of a small team of professionally trained "commando killers", who spent weeks planning their atrocities, according to initial evidence emerging here yesterday.
Officials said they believe the terrorists who carried out attacks that left almost 200 people dead, and who held off the security forces for three days, may have numbered as few as 10. Only one – apparently a Pakistani national identified as Mohammed Ajmal Qasam by a senior Indian official – was captured alive. And a report claimed that, under interrogation, he told officials that he and his colleagues wanted to carry out "India's 9/11" – a title that local television channels have already attached to this week's events. Other reports said the men were linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based group that has fought Indian forces in disputed Kashmir and was blamed for a 2001 attack on India's parliament....



Description: A black AK-47 rifle, placed against a yellow sun in the center, protrudes vertically from an open, green Koran. Above the rifle, in black, is a semi-circular Koranic phrase which translates: "And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah." These images are set against a light blue background. Below the Koran is white lettering against a red background; it bears the group's original name: Markaz al-Dawa wa al-Irshad (the Center for Preaching and Guidance).

Explanation: The Koran signifies the centrality of Islam to Lashkar-e-Taiba's ideology; green is also Islam's traditional color. The blue background represents Allah's mercy and the sun symbolizes wisdom and virtue. The rifle's placement above the Koran, and the inscription above, denote the organization's belief that violent jihad will establish a society based on Islamic precepts. The red on the bottom is a symbol of strength and violence.

Military jet crashes in San Diego neighborhood

Military jet crashes into San Diego neighborhood (click here)
9.December 2008, 08:20
An American military jet on a training mission crashed into a suburban San Diego neighborhood on Monday, destroying two houses, killing three people and leaving one missing, officials said. The pilot of the F/A-18D fighter was able to eject safely after the jet encountered mechanical problems, which some reports say could have been an engine failure.