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...]

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...]