Authorities have arrested an alleged Zetas drug cartel leader nicknamed “El Loco,” AKA the Fool or the Crazy One, on charges that he dumped 49 headless bodies on a highway outside Monterrey, Mexico.

When the Mexican Army came to arrest Daniel Elizondo Jesus Ramirez, say authorities, Ramirez attempted to elude capture by shooting at troops and throwing a fragmentation grenade. Zetas commanders nicknamed The Shrimp and The Speaker have also been linked to the body dump, but officials have not yet apprehended them.

The mutilated bodies of 43 men and six women were found near Cadereyta, Mexico on May 13. Though the condition of the bodies made it difficult to identify any of them, some physical features and tattoos indicated that they may have been migrants from southern Mexico and Central America.

A graphic seven-minute video posted on the web last week allegedly showed gunmen dumping the bodies, and then flourishing a “narcobanner” “signed” by El Loco and two other alleged Zetas commanders.

CONTINUED at Yahoo News.

The teenage killer who allegedly shot two students dead at his high school and left another three injured posted a chilling note on his Facebook page just weeks before yesterday’s shooting.

Daniel Parmertor, 16, died on Monday morning when TJ Lane, 17, went on a rampage in a school in Cleveland, Ohio, police said. A second boy, Russell King Jr, 17, died from his wounds this morning.

Lane, whom classmates at Chardon High School described as a bullied outcast, ranted on Facebook about ‘a man with a frown. No job. No family. No crown. His luck had run out. Lost and alone.

‘Now! Feel death, not just mocking you. Not just stalking you but inside of you. Wriggle and writhe. Feel smaller beneath my might. Seizure in the Pestilence that is my scythe. Die, all of you.’

CONTINUED at The Daily Mail. Videos at link.

Two Nato officers have been killed in the interior ministry in the Afghan capital Kabul, coalition officials say.

Nato said an “individual” had turned his gun on the officers but denied earlier reports he was a Westerner.

Afghan security officials said those killed were an American colonel and major. Local media reports suggest the incident followed a “verbal clash”.

Nato commander Gen John Allen said all Nato personnel were being recalled from Afghan ministries on security grounds.

A UK embassy spokesperson had earlier said all British civilians were being withdrawn from the ministries in what was hoped would be a temporary measure.

The shootings come amid five days of deadly protests over the burning of copies of the Koran by US soldiers.

Taliban statement

The interior ministry was put in lock-down after the shootings, officials said.

The BBC’s Orla Guerin in Kabul says eight shots were reported inside the building, which should be one of the safest in the capital, and that any Afghan who carried out the attack would have had the highest clearance.

Local media reports said the gunman was an Afghan policeman but this has not been confirmed.

CONTINUED at BBC News.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I’m not going to sit here and type up some bullshit scare piece about how American society is ripping apart at the seams. However, I am going to point to the fact that the actions of our military and the words of several of our political elite in this country have come off as pretty disgusting the last few days. This has been a weird week full of strange happenings and none of it really paints a positive picture as to where this is all going. Tensions in Iran are at an all-time high and the truth is, we are at war, it just hasn’t been declared yet. I mean, between drone attacks, assassinations and secret sabotage attempts, what else would someone call it? Over in Afghanistan, tensions are also pretty high, if not even higher than they were a few days ago.

You see, two incidents have happened recently that are a bit unsettling. The first incident involves United States Marines pulling their dicks out and pissing on dead Taliban soldiers. Now while I understand that these dead men are pretty much dead dogs and terrorists, it doesn’t excuse this immature and classless act. A lot of people are really upset about this and there are also a good amount who are praising these servicemen for emptying their bladders on these slain bastards. Now while I am not a person who is easily offended by things, I do find this to be disturbing because of the message it sends.

Now I understand that war is hell and outsiders can’t necessarily put themselves in the mind frame of a soldier in the heat of battle but regardless of that, this is still inexcusable. When a man or woman wears that uniform they are representing all of us and to partake in such actions makes our country, as a whole, look like a bunch of assholes. It’s also going to just piss the Taliban off even more, as their dead are being disrespected. Granted, I could care less about showing them any respect but what this incident really does is it disrespects the United States and what it is we are supposed to stand for. This sort of behavior just paints a really clear picture of reality, that we are an evil empire toppling regimes and milking resources all over the globe. It’s obvious that this isn’t about fighting terrorism anymore considering that the guy we went in there to get, we got. Realistically, even though we just snuffed Osama bin Laden last year, it doesn’t mean that we didn’t lose sight of our purpose before that. In all honesty, I think our leaders were completely dishonest about the real reason as to why we went over there to begin with.

As for the soldiers pissing on dead people, I understand that they may have been high on adrenaline and disgusted by the evil fucksacks that they had just killed but if they are incapable of maintaining the behavior and decorum of an American man in uniform, then they need to be dealt with. In this case, they obviously weren’t able to do the right thing and not succumb to their sophomore antics. What these soldiers failed to understand, in the heat of the moment, is that America needs to be the country setting the example across the globe. If we’re going to preach all the things we preach to people, then what are they going to think when they see our military personal pissing all over their fresh kills. Just because the Taliban beheads dead American soldiers and parades them around in the streets, doesn’t make it right for us to disrespect them in a tasteless fashion. Truthfully, if you were to commit an act like this, you shouldn’t take pictures or video for fuck’s sake! On stupidity alone these guys should be court marshaled.

Needless to say, the Pentagon is pissed. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said:

I have seen the footage, and I find the behavior depicted in it utterly deplorable. Those found to have engaged in such conduct will be held accountable to the fullest extent.

Former Marine and U.S. Congressman Michael Grimm said:

This actually hurts me. This is painful. There’s no excuse for this ever happening. They were trained, and they know better, and they disgraced their country.

Former Army lieutenant colonel and U.S. Congressman Allen West said this in a letter to the Weekly Standard:

I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.

I agree with West, for a change, but do find myself at odds with his last sentence. The people don’t need to shut their mouth, they need to hold their leaders and their military accountable for their actions, whether he thinks that we can wrap our heads around war or not.

The point of all this is that when you are in the military you take an oath to serve and protect this country. With that oath comes the responsibility of carrying yourself in a certain manner, with a certain attitude and a certain set of principles. These four men who urinated on these dead Taliban soldiers did not carry themselves in such a way and should be punished for their actions. The world already sees us as a giant bully and now we’ve given them more reason to think that. In fact, we’ve probably ignited even more hatred within the hearts of our enemies and the repercussions of that could just be more of our servicemen sent back home in body bags as we continue on this pointless conquest.

All the pundits praising these guys are assholes. Then again, those same pundits want perpetual war in an effort to combat this fictitious “War on Terror”. These pundits are even praising the assassination of Iranian scientists as well, which brings me to my next point.

Just yesterday, an Iranian scientist was assassinated when men on motorcycles put a magnetic bomb on his car and detonated it. Several other people, besides this scientist, were injured in the blast. Now it is suspected that Israel was behind the attack, which means that the United States was involved or most likely knew about it. So, why was the scientist killed? Well, he was working on Iran’s nuclear program. Apparently, just because of that, he deserved to be murdered and the innocent people around him deserved to be maimed.

Now this attack wasn’t the first one like this. A similar assassination happened a few months back and that one took the lives of two people. Of course, the American mainstream media praised the attack and completely ignored the reality of the situation. With this latest attack, the mainstream media followed the exact same formula and condoned this action as well.

In fact, Sean Hannity on his radio show, just after the attacks, said:

Whoever is involved in the killing of these Iranian nuclear scientists, God bless them.. ..I wish we were involved.

You can hear him for yourself at this link.

So not only is Hannity condoning murder, he is condoning terrorism, YES terrorism. I guess where Mr. Hannity sits it is only terrorism when it is someone else doing it to us. How would he react if the roles were reversed and Iranians killed either Israeli or American scientists, not to mention innocent bystanders? Hannity and every mainstream shitcock like him would be outraged and calling for war! Hell, we’d hear about how the dead scientists were just patriots doing their duty for their country and now their children have to grow up without their mom or dad. When you flip the fucking coin, this bullshit is absolutely transparent and it is sickening! To steal an old overused cliché adage: what has America become?

I can’t just point the gun of reason at Sean Hannity, I’ve also got to point it at my favorite punching bag, the big bag of dicks himself.. Rick Santourm! Of course this piece of crap asshole had to open his mouth in regards to all this. Here’s what the bastard said:

On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that’s a wonderful thing, candidly. I think we should send a very clear message that if you are a scientist from Russia, North Korea, or from Iran and you are going to work on a nuclear program to develop a bomb for Iran, you are not safe. And people say ‘well, you can’t go out and assassinate people.’ Well tell that to al-Awlaki. Okay, we’ve done it. We’ve done it to an American citizen, so we can certainly do it to someone who is producing a nuclear bomb that can be dropped in the state of Israel or provides a nuclear shield for a country which spreads terrorism with impunity and changes the face of the world.

Hey, here’s the video!

God, I hate this guy. Santorum is so quick to fight abortion yet so quick to murder anyone he can paint as a fucking boogeyman and he does it while carrying the cross. This sanctimonious fucksack is the worst kind of evil and the fact that people would vote for this guy just blows my goddamned mind! The fact that the people in the room when he said this didn’t throw the closest objects they had next to themselves at Santorum’s head is a fucking travesty. Guys like Santorum, with comments like that, are just terrorists themselves. Rick Santorum will never let the crusades end, he won’t stop until he drowns in the blood of Islam as he is blinded by faith in a God he thinks he understands. The difference between Rick Santorum and the crusaders of the past is that Mr. Santorum is a fucking coward. He would never fight this perceived evil himself, he’d rather just send countless kids over there to die for his archaic vision and just like Sean Hannity, he would condone all acts of terrorism by our guys and our allies because we are on the right side of this bullshit holy war.

So while condoning all these evil deeds, these guys keep trying to sell us on the idea that Iran is either building a bomb or already has one. Funny, considering Leon Panetta was caught on tape admitting that Iran has no immediate plan for nuclear weapons. That came directly from the mouth of our Defense Secretary yet these establishment conservative cockpuppets continue to ignore facts and preach insanity. These are the same vile dickbags that are high-fiving each other over soldiers pissing on terrorists, even if they don’t publicly support that action. The fact is, we’re a nation lead by and preached to by cowards who would never pick up arms themselves. Fuck these cockroaches.

To be frank, America’s behavior is becoming deplorable in the realm of the military, politics and the media. At least there are us sane people that can see through this sort of bullshit and not succumb to its influence. Then again, guys like O’Reilly and Hannity have consistently high ratings and the attendance at patriotic organizations like Tea Party events has been overtaken by Fox News drones and Newt Gingrich supporters instead of real constitutional conservatives and libertarians who are willing to look passed party politics and promote liberty. I guess I have to wait for that third group to emerge that bridges the gap between the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement and is strictly made up of the best from both groups not the joiners and sycophants. I don’t think this country can wait on that however.

Now I know that this is probably coming off as negative but I do think that there are enough of us that see the forest for the trees. In fact, I know that our numbers grow by the day and even if we have to ride out this storm awhile longer, we are still going to come to a point where enough is enough and the sort of actions and rhetoric that taint the image of our unique society will no longer be effective. The mainstream media and the horrible politicians and the bully military will no longer have a hold on the free minds of the public and they will lose their power. “Live free or die” used to mean something and even if it seems like some overused throwaway slogan from a few hundred years ago, the truth in those words will mean something incredibly significant again.

TEHRAN, Iran — Two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to the car of an Iranian university professor working at a key nuclear facility, killing him and wounding two people on Wednesday, a semiofficial news agency reported.

The attack in Tehran bore a strong resemblance to earlier killings of scientists working on the Iranian nuclear program. It is certain to reinforce authorities’ claims of widening clandestine operations by Western powers and allies to try to cripple nuclear advancements.

The bomb killed Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemistry expert and a director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported. Natanz is Iran’s main enrichment site, but officials claimed earlier this week that they are expanding some operations to an underground site south of Tehran with more advanced equipment.

Witnesses told Reuters they had seen two people on the motorcycle fix a bomb to the car.

“The bomb was a magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and is the work of the (Israelis),” Fars quoted Tehran’s Deputy Governor Safarali Baratloo as saying. “The terrorist attack is a conspiracy to undermine the (March 2) parliamentary elections.”

‘Our path is irreversible’
Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said the country’s nuclear path would not change despite the killing, which it branded a “heinous act”.

CONTINUED at MSNBC.

From Fox 13 in Tampa comes the horrifying story of Nick Christie, a 62-year-old Ohio man who was detained by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office for being publicly intoxicated. While Christie’s wife asked that he be taken to the hospital, Lee County cops decided instead to strip Christie naked, tie him to a chair, cover his face, and then pepper spray him repeatedly, until he died:

The District 21 Medical Examiner ruled his death was a homicide because he had been restrained and sprayed with pepper sprayed by law enforcement officers. But to this day, nobody has ever been charged with a crime, and the Lee County State Attorney cleared the sheriff’s office of any wrong doing.

It’s been more than two and a half years and his wife still can’t accept what happened.

“I was shocked. This was something out of a horror movie,” says Joyce Christie. She said her husband was depressed and was showing signs of erratic behavior a few days before leaving for Florida.

She called authorities and pleaded with them to take her husband to a hospital and be given his medications. Instead, he was taken to jail for disorderly intoxication.

Her lawsuit alleges he was pepper sprayed 10 times over a 48-hour period, at times while in a restraint chair.

Monshay Gibbs was a deputy trainee at the jail at the time. In a video deposition, she testified that she thought the way Nick Christie was treated was excessive.

“He had a spit mask on and was naked,” she said on the video while under oath. Gibbs testified that Christie pleaded with guards to take off the spit mask because he couldn’t breathe.

Source: Reason.

Every so often, a college newspaper is thrust into the national spotlight. ForThe Collegiate Times at Virginia Tech University, this has happened twice in recent years — once in 2007 when a gunman opened fire and killed 33 people, including himself, in the deadliest mass shooting in American history.

The second time was on Thursday, when another shooting was reported on the campus. [The Lede blog has updates on the shooting, which has left two people, including a police officer, dead.]

In 2007, The Collegiate Times did not have a tool for publishing real-time updates and informing fellow students about what they had reported. On Thursday, the newspaper’s Twitter account, @collegiatetimes, was providing updates every few minutes, quickly becoming a source for information about the shooting and the response on campus as students and staff members were locked down during the afternoon.

Twitter became even more critical when the newspaper’s Web site crashed and the staff was evacuated from the newspaper office and moved to a secured area. (The paper’s Web site redirected to the Twitter feed.) The editors also posted Twitter updates on the newspaper’s Facebook page.

Within a few hours, the paper’s Twitter following grew by more than 18,000 — to more than 20,000 from 2,000 just before the news broke. The growth shows just how Twitter can amplify a single message, or a single account, even if that account is a college newspaper without a local following.

The Collegiate Times’s reporting began at 12:44 p.m., with a post relaying the university’s first alarm about the gunshots.

CONTINUED at NY Times.

Top national security lawyers in the Obama administration say U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida.

The lawyers were asked at a national security conference Thursday about the CIA killing of Anwar al-Alwaki, a U.S. citizen and leading al-Qaida figure. He died in a Sept. 30 U.S. drone strike in the mountains of Yemen.

The government lawyers – CIA counsel Stephen Preston and Pentagon counsel Jeh Johnson – did not directly address the al-Alwaki case. But they said U.S. citizens don’t have immunity when they’re at war with the United States.

Johnson said only the executive branch, not the courts, are equipped to make decisions about who qualifies as an enemy.

Source: AP.

Muammar Gaddafi’s fugitive spy chief, one of the last key figures from Libya’s old regime still on the run, has been captured in the country’s south. It comes just days after Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam was also caught.

The National Transitional Council has since said it won’t hand him over to the Hague Tirbunal. Instead it’s vowed to try him at home for crimes against the Libyan people, that could result in the death penalty.

Muammar Gaddafi’s most influential son was also seized in the south of the country on Saturday along with his aides as they tried to escape to neighbouring Niger.

Following the toppling of his father at the end of an 8-month civil war, many questions about the regime remain. Saif is believed to be one of the few who could answer them. Political analyst and author Adrian Salbuchi says Saif al-Islam will be silenced by either the Hague or the National Transitional Council.

In Egypt, at least 13 people have been killed and hundreds injured after two days of clashes between protesters and security forces. Troops used tear gas and rubber bullets in a major assault on demonstrators, who are demanding the military rulers transfer power to a civilian government.