Shami Witness, the tweeter from India who posted ISIS news updates with favorable comments, went to court yesterday. His police detention is over, and he has been remanded to judicial custody until Jan. 15.

Bengaluru City Police Commissioner M.N. Reddi told reporters: "During interrogation, we figured that he (Biswas) was in direct touch with ISIS fighters. We have gathered evidence to show that he supported IS. Apart from proactively tweeting for the group, his messages prove that he encouraged youths to join the organisation."

The police also said that their investigation into his role in working as a propagandist was complete. "He cooperated during interrogation and never refused to share any information that we sought. We will seek his custody if required in the coming days based on inputs from the National Investigation Agency," a police source said.

Another police source says: [More...]

Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo died today at age 82 of heart failure. The tributes are pouring in.

President Obama:

Obama said Cuomo was a "determined champion of progressive values, and an unflinching voice for tolerance, inclusiveness, fairness, dignity, and opportunity. His own story taught him that as Americans, we are bound together as one people, and our country’s success rests on the success of us all, not just a fortunate few."

Here is a letter Gov. Cuomo wrote to the New York Times in 2003 opposing the death penalty. [More...]

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, accused of the Boston Marathon bombings. Yesterday, hours after the trial court refused its most recent request for a continuance, the defense filed a petition for writ of mandamus with the First Circuit Court of Appeals requesting a change of venue, or in the alternative, an order compelling the trial judge to hold an evidentiary hearing on its change of venue motion. You can read it here. It also filed a motion in the trial court requesting that jury selection be delayed until the appeals court has ruled.

The petition makes several references to the ruling of Judge Matsch in the OKC bombing case of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols (available here.) Judge Matsch rejected the Government's arguments that a fair trial could be held outside of OKC, but still in Oklahoma. He ruled a fair trial was not possible anywhere in the state of Oklahoma, and moved the trial to Denver. [More...]

2014 is coming to an end. Are you glad or sorry?

For those of you heading out on the town, have a great time.

For those of you staying in, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Happy New Year everyone!

My new Spanish learning program, Fluenz, arrived yesterday. I'm going to try it out now, so I won't be blogging much today.

It is really cold here.

Forecasters say temperatures in Denver will top out at 4 degrees on Tuesday before dropping to as low as minus 9 at night with a wind chill of minus 15. A 70 percent chance of snow remains until this evening through which about an inch is expected to fall.

This is an open thread. All topics welcome.

(I also put up an open thread at the wordpress site. You can comment at either or both. Comments there will help me get the bugs out.)

ISIS is undoubtedly the story of the year, in my opinion. Taking a look back, I wonder, where are these ISIS newsmakers now?

"Jihadi John"

ISIS military superstar Abu Wahib

[More...]

ISIS has released issue No. 6 of Dabiq Magazine. You can read it here. Shorter version:

The Muslims will continue to defy the kāfir war machine, flanking the crusaders on their own streets and bringing the war back to their own soil.

I don't think it's as interesting as prior issues, despite the graphic photo of the captured Jordanian pilot wearing an orange jumpsuit. [More...]

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers are asking for a trial delay, primarily due to last minute document dumps by the Government, as well as new expert witness disclosures. The Government opposes the delay. I've uploaded the defense motion here and the Government's motion here. (Addresses and phone numbers of defense counsel redacted.) From the Defense motion:

The size of the witness list:

On December 15, the government provided a witness list (comprised of 590 “law enforcement personnel” and 142 “civilian witnesses”) and an exhibit list (naming 1,238 exhibits and an additional 413 “files contained on digital exhibits”).

On the recent document dumps: [More...]

I wasn't the only one spending hours on Wordpress this week. So was ISIS (or a government agency pretending to be ISIS.) It has a newly remodeled website containing official releases of reports and videos from their various states, in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Algeria, etc. According to the twitter feed for the website, it went live on December 17. (The website is here, but don't click through the entries unless your are prepared to see a lot of violence. I'm writing about it because of the design, not the content. Also, it's in Arabic, so you'll need to use Google translate.)

The site designer chose the Dynamic News theme. There's a free Lite version and a Pro version, and they have the Lite version (no purchase funds to trace.)

The site has an FAQ page. Ir doesn't have comments, but it does have a contact page and they encourage communication, although the form requires an e-mail address. (Maybe it's not really an ISIS creation, but a sting site by some government agency to get information on would be ISIS recruits?)[More...]

An AirAsia Flight from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore has gone missing.

"The aircraft was on the submitted flight plan route and was requesting deviation due to enroute weather before communication with the aircraft was lost while it was still under the control of the Indonesian air traffic control," the airline said in a statement.

No distress signal was sent. It was somewhere between the port of Tanjung Pandan in Indonesia and West Kalimantan on Borneo island, when contact was lost.

Here is the airline's full statement.

I've been working on the Wordpress version of TalkLeft since Xmas Eve. I just put up an open thread there, so you can help me see what the comment section will look like with a lot of comments. If you have a few minutes, please check it out and let me know what you think in the comments. You have to be registered to leave a comment, but it just takes a few seconds and you can use the same user name you use here. Since it's an open thread, you don't have to write about the site, you can write about whatever you want -- both there and here.

I don't have a specific date for it to replace this site, but I'm getting closer.

Again, all topics welcome, here and there.

The father of 1st Lt. Mu’ath al-Kaseasbeh, the Jordanian pilot captured by ISIS, has issued a plea for his return.

"I direct a message to our generous brothers of the Islamic State in Syria: to host my son, the pilot Mu'ath, with generous hospitality," he said. "I ask God that their hearts are gathered together with love, and that he is returned to his family, wife and mother."

"We are all Muslims," he added.

Here are very large-size (non-violent) photos of his capture. What are the chances the pilot will not be killed? [More...]