Bryan Strawser

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Bryan Strawser

Taking a Jump

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SEOUL, South Korea — A top official with the Hyundai group has committed suicide by jumping off a building that is part of the company’s headquarters, South Korean media reports.

Chung Mong-hun, chairman of Hyundai Asan Co. which focuses on tourism, killed himself at about 6 a.m. Monday (2010 GMT Sunday) by leaping from his 12th-floor office, the reports said.

Chung was being investigated in connection with an alleged payment of hundreds of millions of dollars to North Korea in exchange for its holding a summit between South and North Korean leaders. [MSNBC]

Hoping to Capture Saddam Alive

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TIKRIT, Iraq, Aug. 3 %u2014  U.S. soldiers hunting for Saddam Hussein in the restive territory around his home town said on Sunday they hoped to capture him alive, as another guerrilla attack gravely wounded an Iraqi in Baghdad.

[…]

Soldiers of the 4th Infantry’s 1st Brigade, which has led several raids, said that if Saddam was found they would aim to capture him alive so that he could be questioned.

“Clearly we’ll be going in to take him alive to extract the maximum intelligence,” Lieutenant Jason Price of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, told Reuters in Tikrit. [MSNBC]

On the Trail of Saddam

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Even when he ruled Iraq, Saddam Hussein led a nomad’s life. As President he was too paranoid to sleep in the massive, marble-lined palaces he erected all over Iraq as monuments to his power. According to close associates, he would stay instead in small houses on the edges of his various compounds, changing location every eight to 10 hours and keeping an assistant on duty around the clock to pack and unpack his suitcases. Saddam, his former secretary says, so admired the fortitude of the Bedouin tribes that wander the Iraqi wilderness that he often headed into the mountains%u2014accompanied, of course, by caravans of aides, cooks and bodyguards%u2014to bed down among them. “He lived very simply,” says the secretary. “He didn’t need much.”

That can be a useful quality when you’re running for your life. If Saddam’s circumstances are anything like those of his sons Uday and Qusay, who died in a shoot-out with U.S. forces in Mosul two weeks ago, he is traveling with only the barest essentials: money and guns. [Time Magazine]

Al-Qaeda: Do Not Harm Detainees

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Aug. 3, 2003.  An audiotape purportedly from top al-Qaida official Ayman al-Zawahri warned the United States on Sunday it would pay a high price if it harmed any of the detainees at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

THE VOICE on the tape, broadcast by the Dubai-based Arabic television Al Arabiya, also told the United States that the “real battle” against it has not started yet.
       “America has announced it will start putting on trial in front of military tribunals the Muslim detainees at Guantanamo and might sentence them to death,” said the voice, which Al Arabiya television identified as that of Zawahri.
       “I swear in the name of God that the crusader America will pay a dear price for any harm it inflicts on any of the Muslim detainees.” [MSNBC]

Taunton’s Budget Crisis

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This is just one of the many results that we’re seeing here in Taunton due to the fine budgeting and political process that we’re seeing between the Mayor, the City Council, and others in City government.

Years of nice surpluses gave them extra money over the last decade. So what did they do? They spent it.

Now we don’t have a rosy economy and they’re unable to reducing spending to a reasonable level because they’ve acted like pigs at a trough.

I want my police and fire departments staffed at levels that make sense and provide a safe and crime-free environment here in Taunton – so do my neighbors.

Get it done…

TAUNTON — Fire Chief Thomas Downey Jr. says his department will run out of money to pay for electricity and gas to operate the fire stations and gasoline to fuel the trucks by April under the current budget.

He added that taking fire equipment out of service is the only way to make his budget work even that well.

In an effort to save jobs during the city%u2019s extreme fiscal stress, Downey proposed allowing seven firefighter positions to go unfilled before firefighters are called in for overtime pay.

As a result, Downey has cut his overtime expenditures from last year sevenfold.

But there has been a cost, noticed by citizens who see signs stating that the Central Fire station is closed, as it is when seven firefighters miss work because of sickness or vacation. [Taunton Gazette]

Erin’s First Post

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No, I’m not going to be sorry. You’ll write from your heart, validate it [sometimes] from your head, and what you post here will be interesting to us all.

If nothing else, it’s a way to be less lonely. Welcome to the world of blogging….

Well, I am trying to do my best in a world I truly do not fathom…computers. Anyone I know who works in this field right now is chuckling because they know it can be a lesson in futility….

At least one person had faith in me and nerves of steel to listen to all of my inane questions now and in the future. Thanks Bryan. You are going to be sorry. [Alma Libra]