Pakistan’s Spies Aided Group Tied to Mumbai Siege

WASHINGTON — Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani-based militant group suspected of conducting the Mumbai attacks, has quietly gained strength in recent years with the help of Pakistan’s main spy service, assistance that has allowed the group to train and raise money while other militants have been under siege, American intelligence and counterterrorism officials say. From the New York Times

With intelligence agencies backing up the links between ISI and lakshar e toiba it seems like only a matter of time for the Pakistani government to crack down hard on its rogue elements or risk destabilizing the entire region. It will be interesting to see the response in the coming days. Stay tuned.

The Observer also reports that it has located the family of captured Mumbai terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab in a small village in Pakistan's Punjab state. By reviewing electoral lists and cross referencing regional maps, Saeed Shah met the family of Kasab and found that the local people there say that they knew his identity immediately after shootings. It is notable that a journalist tracked down the family before Pakistani law enforcement was able to. It shows how slow the wheels are turning despite rhetoric to begin investigations of their own.

When Rats Ate My Engine

My car has been acting a little funny lately. At low speeds was jump and was real shaky until I got moving at a steady clip. The alarm stopped working and I could never seem to keep any water in the windshield wiper reservoir. I don't really know much about cars, so for a while I blamed it on the rain. Or maybe, I thought, I needed to change the oil. Just in case it was something serious, I decided to send it over to the Hyundai dealer to see if he could sort out the problems.

Yesterday morning I got a call.

"Hello, Sir?"
"Yes"
"You have rats in your engine."
"Rats? Are you sure?
"Yes, many rats. They have eaten most of the wiring? There are droppings everywhere."
"Can't you think of a better excuse to void my warranty, what's the proof?"
"I'll send you a picture, hold on."


Five minutes later he takes a picture of my spark plug caps and e-mails it to me. Yes, those are teeth marks. Some time in the last couple months the giant raccoon-sized rats that feed on temple scraps downstairs (this is a real problem, there are festivals every other day sponsored by the temple in my building and they leave lots and lots of food (aka rat food)in my parking lot overnight...but I digress) climbed into my car's engine and snacked on the tasty plastic bits.

Or, as this New York Times article on the engine rat problem in New York suggests "“They hang out, and during the night they must get bored, and they eat the wires.” Indeed, a rat expert Paul D. Curtis, an associate professor at Cornell University who specializes in wildlife management, said rodents in general tend to be attracted to plastic tubing and wires. “They do need to chew constantly to wear down their incisors,” he said, “and there’s something about the texture of the plastic that they really like.”

So the question on the table now is does anyone know of a substance that I can sprinkle on my engine to make it taste bad.

The New Indian Express "Bobitises" Itself

Amid the array of conflicting stories in the Indian media over the Mumbai attacks last week comes an article that tests the true strength of the local newspaper industry. I'm reprinting it here as it appears on page 9 of today's New Indian Express. Tell me if you think anything is amiss.

Lady dentist bobbitises lover

Bangalore: A city-based private dentist bobbitised her lover with whom she continued to have a relationship even after her marriage.

"Arshad Ali, 33, a Mysore-based practicing doctor, was bobbitised by his lover Syeda Amina, 32, a dentist running her own clinic in Bangalore, on Saturday." Deputy Commissioner of police, South-east division, Soumendhu Mukherjee said on Tuesday.

"Though the motive could be jealousy or sudden change of mind, it is still surprising, since Ali who has known Amina for the past ten years had informed her about his marriage. His wife infact knew of their relationship, which continued even after the marriage," Mukherji said.

"It could be a sudden feeling of jealousy, a perverted mind which made Amina call Ali, who had come home to Bangalore on some work to her clinic. She gave him a glass of juice with sedatives and then bobbitized him in a state of semi-consciousness," he said. Amina then admitted him to a private hospital here on November 20, he added." - Press Trust of India

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So it's official, "bobbitise" has been accepted as a verb by the Indian news media. Did the reporter just not know what the word "bobbitise" meant, but decided to write the story assuming that his readers would, or was PTI so squeamish about printing its meaning that they decided that only readers familiar with the famous John Bobbit case should know the news of the day.

Addendum: I've noticed a surge in traffic from people looking for the official meaning of "bobbitize" and I realize that I haven not answered their pressing questions. The word comes from the famous incident in 1993 when Lorena Bobbit cut off her husband John's penis with a kitchen-knife and threw the member out the window of her car. For more information check out the Wikipedia entry.