Open Threads

So I was reading this:

Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Craig Wilson was placed on the 15-day disabled list Sunday with a fractured left pinky.

Wilson, who has had just 96 at-bats this season, was hit on the hand by a pitch from Chicago Cubs starter Greg Maddux in the first inning of Saturday’s 3-0 victory and left the game.

And for no particular reason, I found the appearance of the word ‘pinky’ in a news report amusing. Then I realized I did not know why the little finger is called the pinky. Google to the rescue:

Actually, pinkie `little finger’ comes from an early Dutch word which meant `small;’ that word was pinck. The Dutch word is also the source of English pink `pale red,’ because pinck was what the Dutch called a flower of the species Dianthus, which has small, often pink flowers with pinked edges.

Interesting.

Something You Probably Did Not KnowPost + Comments (4)

This was just passed on to me:

At least two men who have connections to last week’s London bombings are alive and still at large.

The first is a man, who was seen on surveillance tapes at Luton station, located outside of London, as he bid farewell to the four bombers the morning of the attacks. The other is Magdy El Nashar, an Egyptian chemist, who attended and received training at North Carolina State University…

Officials tell ABC News the London bombers have been connected to an al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in the Pakistani city of Lahore.

The laptop computer of Naeem Noor Khan, a captured al Qaeda leader, contained plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway system, as well as on financial buildings in both New York and Washington.

“There’s absolutely no doubt he was part of an al Qaeda operation aimed at not only the United States but Great Britain,” explained Alexis Debat, a former official in the French Defense Ministry who is now a senior terrorism consultant for ABC News.

At the time, authorities thought they had foiled the London subway plot by arresting more than a dozen young Britons of Pakistani descent last August in Luton, a city known for its ties to terrorism.

“For some time, the locus of terrorism in Britain has been around the Luton area and in some of the northern cities,” said Michael Clark, professor of defense at King’s College in London.

Security officials tell ABC News they have discovered links between the eldest of the London bombers, Mohammed Sadique Khan, 30, and the original group in Luton. Officials also believe it was not a coincidence the subway bombers all met at the Luton train station last week.

It appears that is this is the same Naeem Noor Khan who had been flipped that the Brits had to arrest early after the administration apparently blew his cover (or so it was reported):

The disclosure to reporters of the arrest of an al-Qaida computer expert allowed several wanted suspects from Osama bin Laden (news – web sites)’s terror network to escape, government and security officials said Tuesday.
Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a 25-year-old Pakistani computer engineer, was nabbed in a July 13 raid in the eastern city of Lahore. He then led Pakistani authorities to a key al-Qaida figure and cooperated secretly by sending e-mails to terrorists so investigators could trace their locations.

His arrest was first reported in American newspapers on Aug. 2 after it was disclosed to reporters by U.S. officials in Washington. Later, the Pakistan government also confirmed his capture but gave no other details.

Two senior Pakistani officials said the reports in “Western media” enabled other al-Qaida suspects to get away.

“Let me say that this intelligence leak jeopardized our plan and some al-Qaida suspects ran away,” one of the officials said on condition of anonymity.

I also remember something about someone in the ISI in Pakistan outing Khan, but I don’t know what is going on. I am so spinned out by everyone and everything it is hard to make heads or tails of events anymore. If it is true this administration blew his cover, and these folks that bombed London were part of the same crew, not good. Again, buyer beware until this is sorted out.

Al Qaeda and the London BombingsPost + Comments (36)