Indian police, with the help of Twitter, have now gone through Shami Witness' (Mehdi Masroor Biswas)list of 17,000 plus followers and his tweets. What have they found?

Sources privy to the investigation, meanwhile, admitted that sleuths are yet to find anything incendiary, which involves Mehdi directly. An officer said they haven't come across any tweet in which Mehdi asks for specific acts of terrorism to be committed. "He is more of a cheerleader. He supported ISIS activities, shared messages backing the outfit and egged on the cadres, saying what they were doing was right," he said.

Out of his 17,000 followers, police were interested in about 50 of them. They sent those 50 emails, asking the following questions: [More...]

Merry Christmas, everyone. Enjoy the day and your time with your families and friends. Regardless of your religion, Christmas is a special holiday.

A big snowstorm just arrived here. I'm staying in, listening to KSPN Aspen on my Sonos, and tinkering with the wordpress version of TalkLeft I keep saying we're moving to. (Yes I know there's too much white space below the header and before the content, I'm trying to figure out how to change it.) Feel free to let me know what you think.

My favorite Xmas present: An Internet password journal. It's like a phone book but for your passwords. Under $10. I don't recommend traveling with it, but at home, it's great.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

AQAP (Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula) has released Issue 13 of its Inspire Magazine. I moved some parts of the cover around in the above picture, here's the actual cover.

It's been a long time since AQAP released an issue of Inspire. It seems they wanted to get this one out for Christmas, which will be the 5th anniversary of Captain Underpants' (Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab ) failed attempt to set off a bomb on a plane traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit.

The issue gets right to the point: America is the enemy and Al Qaida's supporters in our neck of the woods will be setting off more bombs. To help them, the issue offers encouragement and instructions on how to build a bomb in their kitchen. From the Editor of the magazine:

He continues: [More....]

Anyone cooking tonight? What's on your menu?

Sony has made "The Interview" available now to everyone by streaming. Let us know what you think if you watch it.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

[Note: Video no longer available].This is the longer (12 minute) version of CNN's interview with German journalist Juergen Todenhoefer who recently returned from spending 10 days with ISIS in Iraq and Syria. (Here is the 3 minute version I wrote about Monday.)

This longer version is even more compelling. There are also new details on the overweight German fighter who defends slavery and beheadings and tells Todenhoefer ISIS will conquer Europe some day, it's only a matter of time, and that James Foley died because of the U.S. government.

He is 30 year old Christian Emde, who was jailed in Great Britain in 2011 along with 25 year old Richard Baum, for possessing a lot of extremist literature, including the AQAP articles from the issue of Inspire Magazine on how to build a bomb. They were convicted and sentenced, and deported back to Germany in 2012. They both then joined ISIS. Baum blew himself up in a suicide attack weeks ago. [More...]

Three new narco dramas begin airing in January. They look promising, although I've learned over the past two years that not every series can be an El Capo, La Reina del Sur, Senor de los Cielos or Pablo Escobar: Patron de Mal.

Duenos del Paraíso , on Telemundo, has Kate Castillo of La Reina del Sur as the lead star. An abbreviated 34 minute version of the first episode with English subtitles is available free on Xfinity on Demand. It looks like a winner. It was non-stop action with a myriad of plots. It takes place in the 70's in Mexico and Miami.

The second is a Colombian show by Caracol, airing on Unimas, Tiro de Gracia ("Shot of Grace") starring Robinson Diaz, who was one of the best characters in Senor de los Cielos. He plays two roles, an actor forced to have plastic surgery and become the double for a cartel leader, and the cartel leader. [More...]

Sony has changed its position and will offer screenings of "The Interview" after all on Christmas Day. It won't be in a huge number of theaters, maybe 200 to 300 around the country.

Here's Sony's tweet making the announcement.

Darlene Love's final performance on Letterman.

Another of my favorites:

Last night, Bon Jovi performed during the Bobby Bandiera and Friends Hope Concert at Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank. He wore a NYPD property t-shirt, saying he wanted to show support for New York City's police. [More...]

I wrote the other day about German journalist Juergen Todenhoefer, who just returned from spending 10 days with ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Here he is on CNN, speaking in English. He says ISIS may represent only 1% of Muslims, but they have the power of a nuclear tsunami. He calls their rise and current status "incredible." CNN in the written text accompanying the video, recounts several of his conversations with ISIS members.

Todenhoefer describes the euphoric atmosphere surrounding the fighters and the "glow" of their new (and plentiful) recruits -- one of whom just passed his bar exam to become a lawyer and another is from New Jersey:[More...]

The New York Times has joined the call for a criminal investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the Bush Administration's torture policy.

[A]ny credible investigation should include former Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington; the former C.I.A. director George Tenet; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who drafted what became known as the torture memos. There are many more names that could be considered, including Jose Rodriguez Jr., the C.I.A. official who ordered the destruction of the videotapes; the psychologists who devised the torture regimen; and the C.I.A. employees who carried out that regimen.

The ACLU and Human Rights Watch have sent a letter to Eric Holder asking him to appoint a special prosecutor. [More...]

R.I.P., Joe Cocker. He has died of lung cancer at age 70. He moved to Crawford, Colorado (in Delta County) in the mid-1990's where he and his wife Pam built the Mad Dog Ranch.

Cocker lived with his wife, Pam, on a 240-plus-acre plot he called "Mad Dog Ranch," named after his 1970 "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" tour, where they moved in 1995 from California. The 17,000-square-foot home they built was host to personal concerts and a garden where, in a juxtaposition to the hard-partying, drug-using reputation he held in the 1970s, the rocker tended to his tomatoes.

In Crawford, a town of less than 400 about 50 miles southeast of Grand Junction, Cocker became a well-known and well-liked member of the community, separated from his days connected to the Rock and Roll greats of which he belonged.

Here's a profile of his non-rock star life there (from the Denver Post in 2008.) [More...]

Busy day at work today. I blogged a lot this weekend, so scroll down if you haven't read the posts.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Who is leaving town for the holidays? I'll be right here.