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The GOP-dominated Texas House has made it a crime to touch your junk during an airport security patdown.
Approved late Thursday night, the measure makes it illegal for anyone conducting searches to touch “the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of another person” including through clothing. It also prohibits searches “that would be offensive to a reasonable person.” The bill’s chief sponsor is Republican Rep. David Simpson, who said, “this has to do with dignity and travel, and prohibiting indecent, groping searches.” He believes it will keep Transportation Security Administration officials from treating travelers like criminals, though the measure may be superseded by federal law.
This should please the Obama haters.
In a unique twist on the Osama bin Laden saga, Iran's intelligence minister says Tehran has "genuine intelligence showing that the terrorist leader died of disease long before the alleged raid" by the United States, the Iranian semiofficial FARS news agency reports. "We have accurate information that bin Laden died of illness some time ago," Heidar Moslehi said on the sidelines of a Cabinet meeting Sunday, FARS reports. "If the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus have really arrested or killed bin Laden, why don't they show him (his dead body)? Why have they thrown his corpse into the sea?" Moslehi asked, according to a TV report, FARS says.
This won't mean anything to American deathers, of course.
Al-Qaida on Friday confirmed the killing of Osama bin Laden and warned of retaliation, saying Americans’ ”happiness will turn to sadness.” The confirmation came in an Internet statement posted on militant websites, signed by “the general leadership” of al-Qaida. The announcement opens the way for the group to name a successor to bin Laden. His deputy Ayman al-Zawahri is now the most prominent figure in the group and is a very likely contender to take his place. The statement, dated May 3, was the first by the terror network since bin Laden was killed Monday by U.S. commandos in a raid on his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The statement’s authenticity could not be independently confirmed, but it was posted on websites where the group traditionally puts out its messages.The statement closes with a call to Pakistanis to "rise up in revolt" in protest of their government conspiring with the United States.
The Pakistan government said yesterday that if the United States carries out any more "unauthorized" raids within its borders, it will have to review the relationship with Washington.
Earlier Thursday, Pakistan's Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir warned America Thursday of "disastrous consequences" if it carries out any more raids and hit back at international allegations it may have been harboring the al Qaeda chief. But the government in Islamabad stopped short of labeling Monday's helicopter raid on bin Laden's compound an illegal operation and insisted relations between Washington and Islamabad remained on course. With calls from some U.S. lawmakers to cut aid to Pakistan following the raid, the European Union said it would not turn its back on the nuclear-armed nation that is seen by many as key to helping negotiate an end to the war in Afghanistan.
According to the New York Daily News, Dubya declined to join President Obama at Ground Zero today because he feels he didn't get enough credit for taking down Osama Bin Laden.
Bush's visit to the rubble after the 9/11 attacks was the emotional high point of his presidency, but associates say the invitation to return with his successor was a non-starter. "He doesn't feel personally snubbed and appreciates the invitation, but Obama's claiming all the credit and a lot of other people deserve some of it," the source added. "Obama gave no credit whatsoever to the intelligence infrastructure the Bush administration set up that is being hailed from the left and right as setting in motion the operation that got Bin Laden. It rubbed Bush the wrong way." Bush spokesman David Sherzer said Bush "appreciated the invite, but has chosen in his post-presidency to remain largely out of the spotlight." Associates familiar with his thinking say Bush does not believe Obama or his handlers wanted to exploit his presence. But the tag-team idea "was for the benefit of Obama, and Obama withheld credit from people Bush believes deserved it," a source said.Since leaving office, Bush has maintained the presidential tradition of declining to criticize his successor.
The White House just announced that it will not be releasing the reportedly gruesome death photos of Osama Bin Laden. Right-wing news outlets have been clamoring for the photos to be published, both as evidence of Bin Laden's actual death and for their potential use to intimidate other terrorists. Others have argued that the photos could inflame anti-American sentiment and endanger U.S. soldiers and civilians living abroad.
"Whenever America uses violence in a way that makes its citizens cheer, beam with nationalistic pride, and rally around their leader, more violence is typically guaranteed. Futile decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may temporarily dampen the nationalistic enthusiasm for war, but two shots to the head of Osama bin Laden -- and the We are Great and Good proclamations it engenders -- can easily rejuvenate that war love. One can already detect the stench of that in how Pakistan is being talked about: did they harbor bin Laden as it seems and, if so, what price should they pay? We're feeling good and strong about ourselves again -- and righteous -- and that's often the fertile ground for more, not less, aggression." - Glenn Greenwald, writing for Salon.
The Associated Press reports:
A U.S. official says Osama bin Laden has been buried at sea. After bin Laden was killed in a raid by U.S. forces in Pakistan, senior administration officials said the body would be handled according to Islamic practice and tradition. That practice calls for the body to be buried within 24 hours, the official said. Finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult, the official said. So the U.S. decided to bury him at sea.
NYFD ladder trucks arrived in Times Square around 12:30am to the wild cheers of the ever-growing crowds. I tried to get down there myself to witness some history, but at this writing there's about 200 people frantically waving for cabs along my block on the Upper East Side.
NOTE: The above photos have been retweeted so many thousands of times tonight that attribution, for now, is impossible.
Coming home from San Francisco last night I finally had my first trip through one of them there full body scanners, after which I got the complete junk inspection from an elderly TSA agent who looked startlingly like Morgan Freeman. The agent was as pleasant as can be, considering, and I was surprised at how nonchalant I felt while being felt up by a septuagenarian in the middle of a busy airport. The whole thing is a ridiculous and probably ineffective exercise, to be sure, but I really can't see the point of cursing out the miserable agents, as the woman behind me did at great length. Complain to the people who can actually make changes, folks.
Remember in 2009 when former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge confessed that he'd been pressured to raise the terrorism threat level in order to help Dubya's 2004 campaign? And how that totally worked? Today Homeland Security announced that they are doing away with the color-coded system, effective in March. The new system will only announce known threats to specific locations, so they say.
A reported suicide bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo airport today has killed dozens and left more than 100 injured.
Russian news agencies, citing witnesses, said airport halls were filled with smoke, so much so that it was difficult to count the number of dead. International arrivals were being diverted to nearby, according to local media reports. The explosion occurred at 4:32 p.m. local time, according to RT television. The airport, southeast of the capital, is Russia’s largest hub for international travelers, with more than 20 million passengers passing through last year.CNN is currently reporting the death toll at 31. The bomb is said to have gone off in the international arrivals baggage claim area, which is unsecured.
