Arab League Suspends Syria Mission Over Increasing Violence

You know things are really bad in Syria when Hamas leaders no longer consider it safe for them to stick around in Damascus despite the cordial relations between Bashar al-Assad and the terror group.

Now, the Arab League's observer mission to try and reduce the level of violence is suspending its operations because the situation is too violent for them to contend with. Once again, Assad's regime blames terrorists and external forces for the violence and attacks, even as his own regime continues targeting civilians throughout the country:

The move comes just days after President Bashar al-Assad's government agreed to a one-month extension of the mission, which began December 26.

The mission is part of a peace initiative in Syria. The 22-member group has called on al-Assad's regime to stop violence against civilians, free political detainees, remove tanks and weapons from cities and allow outsiders -- including the international news media -- to travel freely in Syria.

The mission has been monitoring government activities in various hotspots. In the last two days, opposition activists reported scores of deaths, with one group, the Local Coordination Committees of Syria reported 135 deaths Thursday and Friday.

Violence continued to rage on Saturday as an "armed terrorist group" killed seven soldiers in an attack Saturday, state-run media reported.

The Syrian Arab News Agency said the attackers fired at a bus in the Damascus countryside and killed the soldiers, one of whom was a first lieutenant. They were traveling between the towns of Douma and Adra.

Terrorists were also blamed for an explosion on an oil pipeline in northeastern Deir Ezzor province, SANA said, quoting a source at the country's oil ministry.

The SANA report said production wasn't affected by the attack but that 2,000 barrels of oil were lost. Firefighters extinguished the blaze and crews began repair work. It said the pipeline had been attacked before.

The LCC confirmed a pipeline explosion and said 12 people were killed Saturday, eight of them were killed in the restive city of Homs.

Consider also that security forces opened fire on mourners during a funeral procession with live ammo. That's not something that can go unnoticed by Syrians throughout the country; that's why the regime is increasingly under pressure from within the country. Assad has no regard for the lives of his own countrymen; he's only concerned about continuing the regime at any costs and crushing the opposition according to the Hama rules set in place by his father. Crush the opposition and hear the lamentations of those whose lives he's crushed.

The Arab League has little leverage in trying to prod Assad to accept reforms. Assad continues claiming that he's engaged in reforms, but his regime is under ongoing attack from terrorists and external elements (an excuse frequently given by other Arab League regimes in their own crackdowns against protesters during the Arab Spring). Thus, there's no way that the Arab League plan will get accepted by Assad. Assad simply wont give up power, even if it's on paper only.

Assad has repeatedly claimed to have given amnesty to those who have protested against the regime, released prisoners, etc., but the murderous attacks continue and the indefinite detentions and deprivations of rights continue throughout Syria at the hands of Assad's loyalists. If Assad's security forces are taking casualties, its increasingly at the hands of those security forces who have defected to the opposition and are no longer willing to murder fellow Syrians for Assad to remain in power.

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Suspect In North Jersey Synagogue Attacks Plotted Firebombing Additional Congregations

The suspect in a rash of attacks on synagogues around Northern New Jersey was planning another attack, against the Paramus Jewish Community Center. Having attended that congregation during the high Holy Days (Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana) a few years back this hits home even more than most:

Synagogue firebombing suspect Anthony Graziano was planning another attack — on the Jewish Community Center of Paramus — and was stockpiling beer bottles and gasoline in woods nears the center, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said Friday.

The discovery prompted new charges of attempted aggravated arson, bias intimidation, possession of a destructive device, he said. A court appearance on those charges is scheduled for Tuesday morning at Superior Court in Hackensack.

Molinelli said investigators had seized Graziano’s two computers, which showed that the suspect had searched for information about how to make Molotov cocktails and how to burn down buildings. He added that Graziano had tried to delete the information in a way that made it difficult to retrieve, but that investigators had succeeded in reconstructing it.

Graziano, 19, was arrested Monday night and charged with trying to start a fire with gasoline at the Congregation K’hal Adath Jeshurun in Paramus on Jan. 3. The fire went out quickly, and no one was injured, authorities said.

Authorities also accused him of throwing Molotov cocktails into the residential quarters of the Congregation Beth El synagogue in Rutherford on Jan. 11. Rabbi Nosson Schuman, who was sleeping at the time, said he escaped with his wife and five children.

Meanwhile, the list of congregations that received an anti Semitic pamphlet in the mail has grown to include the Fair Lawn Jewish Center, which isn't too far from our home.

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Human Rights Groups Warn of Horrifying Slaughter of Civilians In Syria

While the videos could not be independently verified because Bashar al-Assad's iron-fisted grip on media and propaganda, human rights groups inside the country are claiming that Assad's loyalists murdered dozens of people, including women and children in the city of Homs.

The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella group of activists, both said the death toll in Homs was at least 35, but the reports could not be confirmed. The groups cited a network of activists on the ground in Syria.
The Observatory said 29 people were killed in the religiously mixed Karm el-Zaytoun neighborhood of Homs on Thursday, including eight children, most of them when a building came under heavy mortar and machine gunfire.

Residents spoke of another massacre that took place when shabiha — armed regime loyalists — stormed the district, slaughtering residents in an apartment, including children.

"It's racial cleansing," said one resident of Karm el-Zaytoun, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. "They are killing people because of their sect," he said.

The casualties apparently occurred when a building came under heavy mortar and machine gun fire.

That comes just days after the head of the Muslim Red Crescent was killed (that's the Muslim humanitarian group equivalent to the Red Cross).

Meanwhile, there are indications that Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal has left Syria and is staying elsewhere as the terror group assesses the situation and is considering leaving the country for safer locales (Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar being the alternatives):

Analysts say Meshaal was also embarrassed by Assad's violent crackdown, with more than 5,000 people reported killed. Many victims of the security forces have been Sunni Muslims allied to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose support Meshaal relies on.

Assad is backed mainly by his minority Alawite sect and other minorities.

The sources said Meshaal would not publicly shut down the political headquarters of Hamas in Syria, where it has long been hosted by Assad and by his father before him.

"In the past month he may have only stayed five days in Syria and the rest he spent in Qatar, Turkey and Egypt," said the diplomat. "But he did not close the headquarters in Syria in full and there are some Hamas officials still there."

"Our belief is that Hamas will not announce a departure from Syria even if it happened," the diplomat added.

Elsewhere in Syria, the Free Syrian Army (the opposition militia) is claiming that they've captured a group of Iranian soldiers that have been operating at the behest of Assad. That conflicts with the Iranian account, which claims that these individuals are engineers who were kidnapped by unknown assailants. Separately, several other groups of Iranians have been taken by unknown groups inside Syria - some purportedly making their way through the country on pilgrimages.

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Volkswagen Rolls Out Teaser Ad For Super Bowl

Volkswagen, who won acclaim with its immensely popular Super Bowl ad last year featuring a kid who was enthralled with being Darth Vader, is prepping the field for another ad along the same vein.

To do so, it's rolling out a teaser featuring a dog chorus barking out the Imperial March:



For those who have forgotten, here's the full Darth Vader ad:



In many respects, putting these ads online allows for bigger bang for the buck and word of mouth and gives the sponsors of the ad the ability to run its advertising in multiple channels for no additional cost other than uploading it online.

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MTA Decides To Fast Track East Side Access Project

One has to wonder why the Department finally came around to fast tracking the long-delayed East Side Access project considering that such a move would have helped save costs over the life of the project and would have provided much-needed facilities access for commuters.

The East Side Access project allows LIRR trains to access Grand Central Terminal through newly constructed tunnels bored beneath the East River from Sunnyside Yards. Previously, LIRR trains would have to go to either Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn or Penn Station on the West Side of Manhattan. For those commuting to Midtown on the East Side, it would result in a far longer commute that was less reliable.

By building the East Side Access, LIRR and MTA officials could improve reliability, expand commuter options, and upgrade facilities at Grand Central Terminal.

The scope of the project is daunting in its complexity:

Upon completion of the project, which is expected to happen by 2016, the new terminal will have eight new station tunnels — each with a diameter of 22 feet — will expand the total number of tracks from 67 to 75, and will add another four platforms taking the total number in the Terminal to 48.

A new mezzanine will provide stores, restaurants, bars, food halls, public amenities and other facilities.

The tunnel length will stretch approximately 7,200 feet — from 37th St. up to 63rd St. The area of the mezzanine will take up to 60,000 square feet, an MTA spokesman said.

The lower platform levels will take up to nearly 48,000 square feet, while the upper platform sections will measure out to 46,000 square feet and the concourse itself will take up 350,000 square feet.

The project is considered perhaps the most ambitious and challenging one undertaken by the MTA in recent years, and comes as other major transportation projects across the city have been mired with budget constraints, including Moynihan Station, which is one day destined to become a gleaming rail hub.

Not for nothing, the project has been behind schedule for the past couple of years and wasn't expected to be completed before 2016. Now, it appears that the project is on schedule for completion in 2013.

Yet, when the project was originally conceived, it was expected to be in revenue service in 2012 (that would be this year). The Federal Transit Administration believed that the project would not be completed before the fourth quarter of 2018 as the MTA noted a 2016 completion date just a few months ago. And it doesn't begin to go into the spiraling costs of construction. East Side Access is now expected to cost $7.4 billion when completed, though the FTA thinks it will be over $8 billion. The project was originally sold to the public on a cost basis of $3 billion when initially proposed to more than $7 billion.

Part of the issue is that the costs are purposefully minimized so as to get the project started, and additional funding will come later. It also is the result of unanticipated issues that arise during construction and other related issues. However, it is also the result of the MTA inability to manage projects of this size and scope and keep them on budget and on schedule. Mind you that the Sunnyside Yards are the focus of several high profile projects to upgrade rail access in and out of New York City (upgrading and separating the interlocking to permit high speed rail for Amtrak to Boston, additional capacity for subways and commuter rail, and the East Side Access project).

It is curious that the MTA now finds that they can proceed with the fast tracking of East Side Access at this time.

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Spaced Out

Newt Gingrich gave a speech in Florida where he indicated that he would oversee the construction of a manned US space platform on the Moon by 2020.

He's hardly the first to consider a return to the moon and go beyond towards Mars and the outer planets. But because this is the Space Coast that has seen lost jobs due to the end of the space shuttle program, they're willing to grasp at straws in the hopes that some jobs could come back as a result of a renewed manned space program. It's also a political ploy in the hopes that he can gain votes over Mitt Romney.

Yet, it's a rather ambitious timeline considering the fact that President George W. Bush first indicated an intention to send a manned mission to Mars and unveiled the Constellation program. That program would provide the heavy-lift capabilities needed to send men to the Moon and then to Mars. President Obama likewise called for a return to the moon, but budgetary concerns have all but scrapped the Constellation program's manned components.

The Ares rocket system has undergone some tests, including the heavy rocket launch into Earth orbit, but no testing has been carried out for the systems designed to send men back to the moon. Even then, those systems were largely based on a combination of space shuttle and Apollo-type technologies (modern variations of the shuttle solid rocket boosters and a J-2X engine based on the engines that powered the Saturn boosters).

How can Gingrich claim that he can return the US to the moon in the number he claims when he's pulling the plug on all kinds of spending.

After all, this is the same Republican party that has called for reductions in spending that will saddle the NOAA with a diminished fleet of satellites critical for weather forecasting.

Indeed, Gingrich has repeatedly claimed that NASA has squandered billions of dollars over the years. His solution to the money crunch is to cut even more fat and to offer incentives to businesses to reach back to the Moon. Incentives still require money, and pose all kinds of questions over what incentives would be sufficient to draw businesses into such risky ventures.

The infrastructure and equipment costs for a project of this size are considerable. The costs for a manned moon mission would still be in the billions of dollars that the country can't seem to allocate for such purposes.

There's no timeline in place for a return of a US manned space program through NASA, though several private programs are in the process of testing equipment that could return Americans to space without having to hop aboard the Russian Soyuz rocket systems. The SpaceX and Dragon systems are undergoing testing, but they are incapable of the heavy-lift missions needed for a manned mission to the Moon.

Those are the two programs that are furthest along in returning Americans to space. Everything else is still on the drawing board.

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NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly's Mounting Problems

First, there is the ongoing fallout from revelations that the NYPD repeatedly screened the anti-Muslim film "The Third Jihad" despite claims from the Department that only a limited number of people saw the film. Commissioner Ray Kelly regrets for his role in the film, and how it was shown to new recruits. Mayor Mike Bloomberg indicated that someone at the Department exercised poor judgment in showing the film. There are also mounting calls for Kelly's resignation.

Now, there's word that Commissioner Kelly's son, Greg Kelly, has been accused of rape. Greg Kelly is the current anchor of Fox 5's Good Day New York with Roseanna Scotto. Kelly was missing from this morning's broadcast.

“Good Day New York” co-host Greg Kelly — son of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly — was a no-show on the program Thursday morning after reports that a Manhattan woman had accused him of rape.

The woman told cops she had drinks with Kelly, 43, at the South Street Seaport Oct. 8 before he sexually assaulted her in the law office where she worked, sources said.

The accuser, who is around 30, did not report the alleged assault until Tuesday night, when she walked into the 13th Precinct stationhouse and gave her account, sources said.

Cops interviewed the woman, but because of the conflict created by probing the commissioner’s son, they quickly turned the case over to the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.

Greg Kelly’s co-host, Rosanna Scotto, expressed her support for him as she walked into the FOX studios about 5:30 a.m.

Since the Department needs to avoid any kind of conflict of interest in investigating the case, they turned it over to the District Attorney's Office. Kelly's attorney strenuously denies the allegations and maintains Kelly's innocence. The issue came to light following the woman's boyfriend encountering Commissioner Kelly and indicating that Greg has ruined the woman's life:

The woman, who is in her late 20s or early 30s, walked into the 13th Precinct station house with her sister sometime after 8 p.m. on Tuesday and made her complaint, according to one of the law enforcement officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation and the sensitivity of discussing accusations against the police commissioner’s son.

The woman told the police that she met the younger Mr. Kelly on the street and that the two went to South Street Seaport for drinks on Oct. 8. They then proceeded to her office at a Lower Manhattan law firm. The woman told the police that the rape occurred at the office. The two continued to have contact by phone and text message after the encounter.

According to the woman’s account, when her boyfriend later learned about the night, he became angry. He then approached the police commissioner at a public event and told him that the younger Mr. Kelly had sexually assaulted his girlfriend.

The commissioner, according to the woman’s account, told him to write a letter. It was unclear if the man did so.

Commissioner Kelly’s account of his encounter with the boyfriend is similar, though according to Mr. Browne, the man told the commissioner that his son had “ruined my girlfriend’s life” but declined it to discuss it there. So the commissioner suggested that he write the letter.

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