tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28152507191554561712024-02-20T10:35:02.405-06:00Just Say No to CardinalsMenacingly Meaningless MonologuesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-58238672191848404382010-08-19T14:13:00.003-05:002010-08-19T14:34:56.917-05:00The same box<span style="font-style: italic;">Those with the <span style="font-weight: bold;">best reputations seemed to me nearly the most deficient</span>…while others with more paltry reputations seemed to be men more fit in regard to being prudent.</span><br />-Socrates, <span style="font-style: italic;">Apology of Socrates</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">When the game is over, the <span style="font-weight: bold;">king and the pawn go back into the same box.</span></span><br />-Anonymous<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Obama</span><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41151.html">Obama hits new polling low</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">President Barack Obama's <span style="font-weight: bold;">approval rating has dipped to a new low</span>.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Obama's 44 percent average approval in Gallup's daily tracking polls last week marks the <span style="font-weight: bold;">weakest level of support he has registered since taking office</span>.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41134.html">Obama, the one-term president</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Honest to goodness,<span style="font-weight: bold;"> the man just does not get it</span>. He might be forced to pull a Palin and resign before his first term is over.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I am not saying Obama is not smart; he is as smart as a whip. I am just saying he does not understand what savvy first-term presidents need to understand:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">You have to stay on message, follow the polls</span>, listen to your advisers (who are writing the message and taking the polls) and realize that when it comes to <span style="font-weight: bold;">doing what is right versus doing what is expedient, you do what is expedient so that you can get reelected and do what is right in the second term</span>. If at all possible. And it will help your legacy. And not endanger the election of others in your party. And not hurt the brand. Or upset people too much.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It is far better for a president to do nothing than to choose a side. Even if the side he chooses is the right one from an ethical or moral perspective, it is a “blunder” politically because inevitably it will upset some people.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The <span style="font-weight: bold;">problem for Obama is that he appears to have taken seriously all the “change” stuff he promised during his campaign</span>. And he has been unable to make the transition from candidate to president.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">You can go back to the mid-1800s and find a lot of legislators saying that <span style="font-weight: bold;">Abraham Lincoln should stop lecturing people about ending slavery and listen to them about keeping it</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">And there were plenty of lawmakers who said <span style="font-weight: bold;">President Dwight D. Eisenhower was “disconnected from the mainstream of America</span>” when he ordered the 101st Airborne Division to go down to Little Rock, Ark., to <span style="font-weight: bold;">make sure some black kids could go to school with white kids</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Both decisions may have been “off-message,” which is about the worst sin you can commit in Washington. But <span style="font-weight: bold;">what’s so wrong about being off-message if you are right about the issue?</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">And what’s the point of doing the right thing if your party is going to lose seats because of it?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Maybe Obama is disconnected. After all, as a former professor of constitutional law, he actually knows what the Constitution says.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41248.html">31% of Republicans believe Barack Obama is Muslim</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Nearly a third of all Republicans believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim</span>, according to an astonishing new poll released overnight.<br /><br />During the presidential campaign, Obama — whose father was raised as a Muslim — repeatedly found his faith questioned, most often in smear e-mails that suggested he was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and harbored a secret Islamist agenda.<br /><br />Obama confronted the rumors head-on during a debate in January 2008. "Let's make clear what the facts are: <span style="font-weight: bold;">I am a Christian</span>,” he said then. “<span style="font-weight: bold;">I have been sworn in with a Bible</span>. <span style="font-weight: bold;">I pledge allegiance</span> and<span style="font-weight: bold;"> lead the Pledge of Allegiance</span> sometimes in the United States Senate when I'm presiding."<br /><br />Still, more than a year into Obama’s presidency, his faith remains a mystery for many. Only 34 percent of Pew’s respondents identified Obama as Christian — down 14 percentage points since last year. And 43 percent said they don’t know what Obama’s religion is.<br /><br />Either way, only a relatively small minority of Americans believe Obama is relying too much on his religious views as he does his job. Eleven percent of Pew’s respondents said Obama relies too much on his religious beliefs, while 48 percent said he relies on them the right amount and 21 percent said he relies on them too little.</blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Overseas/Military</span><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/08/201081818840122963.html">Last US combat brigade leaves Iraq </a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The last US combat brigade has withdrawn from Iraq</span>, more than seven years after the US-led coalition invaded the country in a war that has claimed the lives of more than 4,000 US troops.<br /><br />The brigade left the country in the early hours of Thursday morning, two weeks before an August 31 deadline for the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom pledged by President Barack Obama upon taking office.<br /><br />Many Iraqis have mixed feelings about the troop pullout fearing more violence.<br /><br />About 50,000 US troops will remain in the country in an advisory capacity, helping to train Iraqi forces in a new mission codenamed Operation New Dawn, which will run until the end of 2011. "<span style="font-weight: bold;">They will, however, have the right to defend themselves against attacks</span> if they are targeted," our correspondent said. "But <span style="font-weight: bold;">they will not be stepping in</span>, they will not be conducting any military operations per say, <span style="font-weight: bold;">unless they are specifically called on to do so by the Iraqi government</span>."<br /><br />The war, which began when a US-led coalition invaded Iraq in 2003 and overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein, has proven costly to America both in terms of dollars and human life. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Operation Iraqi Freedom has cost more than $900 billion and seen 4,415 US troops die</span>.<br /><br />Concerns have been raised that the US is pulling out of the country too soon, most notably by Lt Gen Babaker Zebari, Iraq's most-senior army officer, who warned last week that his forces would not be ready to take control of security until 2020.</blockquote><br /><a href="http://blogs.aljazeera.net/asia/2010/08/18/afghan-ban-contractors-could-spark-chaos">Afghan ban on contractors could spark 'chaos'</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">The behaviour of some of these trigger-happy soldiers for hire has gone so much out of control that Hamid Karzai, the president, recently accused them of "being thieves during the day and terrorists at night".<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A presidential decree is calling for these companies to be shut down within four months</span>. The Afghan government says that they constitute a parallel force and are a cause of instability. </blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0810/Boxer_and_Burr_launch_Military_Family_Caucus.html">Boxer and Burr launch Military Family Caucus</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Sens. Barbara Boxer and Richard Burr announced the creation of the Senate Military Family Caucus Wednesday to improve conditions for families of those in the armed services. </blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Miscellaneous</span></span><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41238.html">Mosque a long shot to be built</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">When President Barack Obama turned the battle over a planned New York Islamic center into a national debate over religious freedom, he unwittingly allied himself and his party with an <span style="font-weight: bold;">ill-planned, long-shot development project</span> described by one of its most prominent allies as “<span style="font-weight: bold;">amateur hour</span>.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The efforts to launch the $100 million Cordoba House (now dubbed Park51) two blocks north of the World Trade Center site have been an uphill battle from the start, and not just because of controversy. And even as the “Ground Zero Mosque” emerges as a hotly debated national symbol, New York government officials and real estate insiders are privately questioning whether the project has much chance of coming to fruition.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Cordoba Initiative hasn’t begun fundraising yet for its $100 million goal. The group’s latest fundraising report with the State Attorney General’s office, from 2008, shows <span style="font-weight: bold;">exactly $18,255 – not enough even for a down payment on the half of the site the group has yet to purchase</span>. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The group also lacks even the most basic real estate essentials: <span style="font-weight: bold;">no blueprint, architect, lobbyist or engineer</span> — and now <span style="font-weight: bold;">operates amid crushing negative publicity</span>. The developers didn't line up advance support for the project from other religious leaders in the city, who could have risen to their defense with the press. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">For all its problems, the project does have a solid chance of accomplishing one thing: <span style="font-weight: bold;">further embarrassing the president</span>.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://lonelyconservative.com/2010/08/heh-bush-miss-me-yet-t-shirts-more-popular-on-marthas-vineyard-than-obama-shirts/">Heh! Bush ‘Miss Me Yet’ T Shirts More Popular on Martha’s Vineyard than Obama Shirts</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Rumor has it that George W. Bush is now more popular than Obama. I guess people stopped listening to his speeches, when he never fails to mention the mess he inherited. Even his trip to Martha’s Vineyard hasn’t generated enough buzz for vendors to sell to many Obama T-shirts. But <span style="font-weight: bold;">George Bush T-shirt sales are quite brisk</span>.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_mindset_list;_ylt=AkiCdwWDDYpXwJfjGZ6PTb6s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNrNXA3cTMwBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwODE3L3VzX21pbmRzZXRfbGlzdARjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzEwBHBvcwM3BHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDZm9ydGhlY2xhc3Nv">Wear wristwatch? Use e-mail? Not for Class of '14</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">For students entering college this fall, <span style="font-weight: bold;">e-mail is too slow, phones have never had cords and the computers they played with as kids are now in museums</span>.<br /><br />The Class of 2014 thinks of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Clint Eastwood more as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry urging punks to "go ahead, make my day</span>." Few incoming freshmen know <span style="font-weight: bold;">how to write in cursive or have ever worn a wristwatch</span>.<br /><br />Remember when <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dr. Jack Kevorkian, Dan Quayle or Rodney King</span> were in the news? These kids don't.<br /><br />Ever worry about a <span style="font-weight: bold;">Russian missile strike on the U.S</span>.? During these students' lives, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Russians and Americans have always been living together in outer space.</span></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-75122392578369404242010-08-15T00:21:00.003-05:002010-08-15T00:37:50.685-05:00This plague-spot of civilization...<span>…that <span style="font-style: italic;">worst outcrop of herd life</span>, the military system, which I abhor... This <span style="font-weight: bold;">plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed</span>. <span style="font-style: italic;">Heroism on command</span>, senseless violence, and <span style="font-style: italic;">all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism</span> -- <span style="font-weight: bold;">how passionately I hate them</span>!</span><br />-Albert Einstein<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/08/2010814211230339273.html">US helps Russia tackle wildfires </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">The first US air force planes have arrived in Russia loaded with equipment to help tackle </span><span style="font-style: italic;">wildfires that have been raging across vast areas of the country for weeks.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Valery Shuikov, the deputy head of the international department of the Russian emergencies ministry, welcomed the assistance. "<span style="font-weight: bold;">We will always remember this gesture</span>, this arm that was extended to us at a very difficult time," Shuikov said.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0814/Obama-mosque-dispute-In-backing-plans-he-parts-with-many-Americans">Obama mosque dispute: In backing plans, he parts with many Americans</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">"Ground zero is, indeed, hallowed ground," Obama told attendees at the second annual White House Ramadan dinner Friday night. "But let me be clear: As a citizen, and as president, <span style="font-weight: bold;">I believe that Muslims have the right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country</span>. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. <span style="font-weight: bold;">This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable</span>."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">While Obama and George W. Bush before him have urged Americans to distinguish between Islam and violent jihadism and to step carefully around Muslim sensitivities, the Cordoba House represents for many Americans less a religious-liberties issue and more a lack of respect for those who died on 9/11.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/08/201081461949162665.html"> Prayer hall or provocation? </a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">The project is popularly called the "Ground Zero mosque", perhaps a slight misnomer on two counts. It will not be located at Ground Zero, but rather at 45-47 Park Place, two city blocks (200 metres) north of the World Trade Centre site. The buildings currently at that location were damaged during the September 11 attacks.<br /><br />Nor is it only a mosque: Planners will spend up to $100 million to build an Islamic community centre called Cordoba House, which will house a mosque, an auditorium, a swimming pool and a bookstore.<br /><br />Critics say it would be inappropriate to build a mosque on the "hallowed ground" of Ground Zero. Yet there is already a mosque two blocks north of the Cordoba House site, Masjid Manhattan, which has been open since 1970. As several commentators have pointed out, there is also a strip club - New York Dolls - just one block north of the mosque site. <span style="font-weight: bold;">No one has complained about that profaning of the sacred</span>.<br /><br />"My job is not to vet clergy in this city," Bloomberg said. "Everyone has a right to their opinions. You don't have to worship there... [this country] is not built around only those religions or clergy people that we agree with. <span style="font-weight: bold;">It's built around freedom</span>."</blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0813/Russia-to-finish-Iran-nuclear-plant-but-won-t-deliver-missiles">Russia to finish Iran nuclear plant but won't deliver missiles</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Russia's state nuclear agency, Rosatom, announced that in one week's time it will load nuclear fuel into Bushehr's Russian-made reactor, which is the first step to making it fully operational. "The fuel will be charged in the reactor on 21 August. From this moment, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bushehr will be considered a nuclear installation</span>," said Rosatom spokesman Sergei Novikov, in a terse announcement. "<span style="font-weight: bold;">This will be an irreversible step</span>."<br /><br />In recent months, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Kremlin insiders who favor better relations with the United States and a more Westernized course for Russian foreign policy have gained the upper hand</span>, analysts say.<br /><br />Russia's acceptance of the new sanctions compels it to shelve a lucrative contract to provide advanced S-300 air defense systems, roughly comparable to the US Patriot missile, under an $800-million contract that was signed between Moscow and Tehran in 2005, but repeatedly delayed by the Kremlin for apparently diplomatic reasons.</blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10969738">Obama signs $600m US-Mexico border bill</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">US President Barack Obama has signed into law a $600m bill providing increased security along the US-Mexico border. The funds will mostly be directed to activities on the south-west border, such as hiring 1,000 border patrol agents. Money will also pay for surveillance technology, including unmanned drones. A further 250 immigration and customs enforcement agents will also be funded by the bill.<br /><br />Some Republicans appear unsatisfied though, with Senator Jeff Sessions calling the bill "a small measure" which "if it is not followed by strong, sustained action, it is yet another gesture without consequence".<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The $600m will be paid for by raising fees on some foreign work visas</span>.</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-24074145285342096532010-08-13T07:45:00.004-05:002010-08-13T08:26:47.290-05:00The Stimulating AssertionIn management, it’s <span style="font-weight: bold;">the stimulating assertion</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">not the tested hypothesis</span>, that grabs folks.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Up in the Air</span><br /><br />We must be honest with ourselves. <span style="font-weight: bold;">No nation</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">no matter how powerful</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">can prevent every threat</span> from coming to fruition.<br />-John Brennan<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Obama</span><br /><a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100050002/the-obama-presidency-increasingly-resembles-a-modern-day-ancien-regime-extravagant-and-out-of-touch-with-ordinary-people/">The Obama presidency increasingly resembles a modern-day Ancien Régime: extravagant and out of touch with the American people </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">The First Lady’s ill-conceived trip to Marbella and the complete disregard for public opinion and concerns over excessive government spending is symbolic of a far wider problem with the Obama presidency – the <span style="font-weight: bold;">overarching disdain for the principles of limited government, individual liberty and free enterprise</span> that have built the United States over the course of nearly two and a half centuries into <span style="font-weight: bold;">the most powerful and free nation on earth</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">There is however <span style="font-weight: bold;">a political revolution fast approaching Washington</span> that is driven not by mob rule but by the power of ideas and principles, based upon the ideals of the Founding Fathers and the US Constitution. It is a distinctly conservative revolution that is sweeping America and is reflected in almost every poll ahead of this November’s mid-terms. It is based on a belief in individual liberty, limited government, and above all, political accountability from the ruling elites. The Obama administration’s mantra may well be “let them eat cake”, as it continues to gorge itself on taxpayers’ money, but it will be looking nervously over its shoulder as public unease mounts.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0812/Obama-as-border-cop-He-s-deported-record-numbers-of-illegal-immigrants">Obama as border cop: He's deported record numbers of illegal immigrants<br /></a><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">In 2009, the <span style="font-weight: bold;">United States deported a record 387,790 people</span> – a 5 percent increase over 2008. Nearly two months before the end of the 2010 federal fiscal year, the deportation rate is down slightly from 2009, but the number of removals is still likely to be more than triple what it was in 2001.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“<span style="font-weight: bold;">We have never, ever deported so many people from the country as we are doing now</span>,” says Douglas Massey, an immigration expert at Princeton University in New Jersey.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/40927.html">Hispanic media turn on President Obama</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Latinos are<span style="font-weight: bold;"> tired of the speeches</span>, d<span style="font-weight: bold;">isillusioned by the lack of White House leadership</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">distrustful of the president</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“He has <span style="font-weight: bold;">a credibility problem</span> right now with Latinos,” Ramos said. “We’ll see what the political circumstances are in a couple of years, but there is a serious credibility problem.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“<span style="font-weight: bold;">Words matter</span>”...“<span style="font-weight: bold;">Words are not enough</span>”...“<span style="font-weight: bold;">Obama came up short</span>”...“<span style="font-weight: bold;">Cheap and easy rhetoric</span>”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“When you have a Univision and a Telemundo taking an aggressive and active role pointing to the White House inaction, it calls attention,” said Jose Cancela, president of the media consulting firm Hispanics USA. “It is not helping the administration at this point in time.”</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/10/obama-vs-obama-on-afghani_n_676836.html">Obama vs. Obama On Endless Wars: Who Wins?</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Back in early 2007, when the Bush administration was insisting that its military intervention in a faraway land was not open-ended, Senator Barack Obama wasn't buying it.<br /><br />Senator <span style="font-weight: bold;">Obama was particularly skeptical about the administration's alleged "benchmarks" for success</span>. He wanted to know exactly what they were -- and what would happen if they weren't met. And he wanted to know the answer to this question: "<span style="font-weight: bold;">At what point do we say: 'Enough'</span>?"<br /><br />Three and a half years later, that's an excellent question for President Obama, about Afghanistan. But <span style="font-weight: bold;">he doesn't have an answer</span>.</blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Wars and Retardation</span><br /><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10922531">US engineer sold military secrets to China</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">A jury in Hawaii has convicted a former US engineer of <span style="font-weight: bold;">selling military secrets to China</span>. Noshir Gowadia, who helped design the propulsion system for the B-2 bomber, was found guilty on multiple counts - including conspiracy and money laundering.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The case is one of a series of major prosecutions targeting alleged Chinese spying in the US. According to prosecutors, Gowadia helped China to design a stealth cruise missile. It involved an exhaust nozzle that would <span style="font-weight: bold;">evade infrared radar detection and US heat-seeking missiles</span>. </span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/08/201081222714832769.html">Iraq army 'not ready' until 2020 </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Iraq's most senior military officer has said that his <span style="font-weight: bold;">security forces will not be able to secure the country until 2020</span> and that <span style="font-weight: bold;">the US should delay its planned withdrawal</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Lieutenant General Babaker Zerbari said that his forces - particularly the air force - were <span style="font-weight: bold;">not ready to take over</span>. He said the <span style="font-weight: bold;">planned withdrawal will create a "problem" and increase instability in Iraq</span>. "At this point, <span style="font-weight: bold;">the withdrawal is going well, because they are still here</span>," Zerbari told the AFP news agency on Wednesday. "But the problem will start after 2011 - the politicians must find other ways to fill the void after 2011. If I were asked about the withdrawal, I would say to politicians: <span style="font-weight: bold;">the US army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready in 2020</span>."</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38509261/ns/politics">Mullen says US has Iran strike plan, just in case</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The U.S. military has a plan to attack Iran</span>, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Sunday, although he thinks <span style="font-weight: bold;">a military strike is probably a bad idea</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Not long after Adm. Mike Mullen's aired on a Sunday talk show, the deputy chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard was quoted as saying there would be <span style="font-weight: bold;">a strong Iranian response should the U.S. take military action against his country</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"I think the <span style="font-weight: bold;">military options have been on the table and remain on the table</span>," Mullen said on "Meet the Press" on NBC. "It's one of the options that the president has. Again, I hope we don't get to that, but it's an important option and it's one that's well understood."</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/08/201081022051190697.html"> Gates seeks to trim US military </a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">The US defence department has unveiled a series of initiatives to reduce overhead, duplication and excess that will shed thousands of jobs and shut down an entire military command.<br /><br />The cost-cutting initiatives include scaling back the number of generals across the US military and slashing funds for defence department contractors by 10 per cent each year for the next three years – a potentially massive reduction involving thousands of people.<br /><br />Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, said on Monday he hoped t<span style="font-weight: bold;">he shakeup will show congress that the Pentagon will spend wisely during tough economic times </span>and address long-standing concerns about wasteful expenditure. He however warned against cutting down on overall defence budget, which stands at nearly $700bn including war spending.<br /><br />"<span style="font-weight: bold;">My greatest fear is that in economic tough times that people will see the defence budget as the place to solve the nation's deficit problems</span>," Gates said. "As I look around the world and see a more unstable world, more failed and failing states, countries that are investing heavily in their militaries ... I think that would be disastrous."</blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/11/iran-digging-graves-us-troops">Iran 'digging mass graves for US troops' in case of invasion</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Iran has dug mass graves in which to bury US troops if America attacks the country</span>, a former commander of the elite Revolutionary Guard has said.<br /><br />The digging of the graves appears to be <span style="font-weight: bold;">a show of bravado</span> after the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said last week that the US military had a contingency plan to attack Iran, although he thought a military strike was probably a bad idea.<br /><br />"<span style="font-weight: bold;">Iran will have no choice but to strike the American bases</span> in the region," he said. "The heavy costs of such a war will not be just on the Islamic Republic of Iran. America and other countries should accept that this would be the start of an extensive war in the region."</blockquote><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100811/ap_on_re_as/as_china_north_korea_visit">American boy plans NKorea trip to pitch peace idea</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">A <span style="font-weight: bold;">13-year-old American plans to visit North Korea this week</span> and perhaps <span style="font-weight: bold;">meet leader Kim Jong Il</span> to pitch his idea for a "<span style="font-weight: bold;">children's peace forest</span>" in the demilitarized zone.<br /><br />Jonathan said he expects to meet with North Korean officials and will propose the children's peace forest, "one in which<span style="font-weight: bold;"> fruit and chestnut trees would be planted and where children can play</span>."<br /><br />The DMZ that has separated North and South Korea for more than a half-century is one of the most heavily guarded areas in the world. Combat-ready troops stand guard on both sides, and the land is strewn with land mines and laced with barbed wire.</blockquote>Is this kid a peacenik or a sadomasochistic deviant who is devising a master plan to condemn the playground bullies that stole his lunch money to a certain death by inviting them to play in a forest laced with land mines and barbed wire?<is><br /></is>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-53720269946055565312010-07-28T09:07:00.002-05:002010-07-28T09:25:34.615-05:00Survivor? Restrepo.<a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/01/afghanistan200801?currentPage=1">Read it.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCPnJaxC17o&feature=related">Watch it.</a><br /><br />This is the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DjqR6OucBc">real Survivor.</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpEba2bguOU">Outwit, outplay, outlast.</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpEba2bguOU">Real boredom.</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDYjNao0YTw&feature=related">Real survival.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XXcPLmGii0">Hopefully.</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-9397056823675796622010-06-13T13:19:00.004-05:002010-06-13T13:58:47.272-05:00Humanity does not ask us to be happyHumanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Survival first</span>, then <span style="font-style: italic;">happiness as we can imagine it</span>.<br />-Mazer Rackham, <span style="font-style: italic;">Ender’s Game</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >-Israel</span><br /><a href="http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/36488_Did_Reuters_Crop_a_Photo_to_Remove_a_Peace_Activists_Weapon" target="_blank">Did Reuters Crop a Photo to Remove a Peace Activist's Weapon?</a><br /><br /><a href="http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/36489_Another_Cropped_Reuters_Photo_Deletes_Another_Knife_-_And_a_Pool_of_Blood" target="_blank">Another Cropped Reuters Photo Deletes Another Knife - And a Pool of Blood</a><br /><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/20106418259346423.html" target="_blank">Turkey flays Israel over killings </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Turkish leaders have criticised Israel further over their deadly raid on an aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip, in which nine Turkish activists were killed.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"I am speaking to them in their own language. The sixth commandment says <span style="font-weight: bold;">"thou shalt not kill". Did you not understand?</span> I'll say again. I say in English "you shall not kill". Did you still not understand? So I'll say to you in your own language. I say in Hebrew 'Lo Tirtzakh'."</span><br /></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/03/AR2010060304287.html" target="_blank">Those troublesome Jews</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">The blockade is not just <span style="font-weight: bold;">perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal</span>. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel -- a declaration backed up by more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Oh, but weren't the Gaza-bound ships on a mission of humanitarian relief? No. Otherwise they would have accepted Israel's offer to bring their supplies to an Israeli port, be inspected for military materiel and have the rest trucked by Israel into Gaza -- as every week 10,000 tons of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies are sent by Israel to Gaza.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Why was the offer refused? Because, as organizer Greta Berlin admitted, the <span style="font-weight: bold;">flotilla was not about humanitarian relief but about breaking the blockade</span>, i.e., ending Israel's inspection regime, which would mean unlimited shipping into Gaza and thus the unlimited arming of Hamas. </span></blockquote><br /><hr /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >-Iran</span><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0526/As-sanctions-loom-is-Iran-sending-peace-signals-to-the-US" target="_blank">As sanctions loom, is Iran sending peace signals to the US?</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei declared on Monday that <span style="font-weight: bold;">countries around the world “thirst” for Iran’s message of “values, humanity</span> and deliverance of nations from the grip of domineering powers.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">As viewed from Tehran, positive Iranian steps in recent weeks include Iran’s decision to embrace a nuclear fuel swap deal – a plan to export 1,200 kg of Iran’s homemade low-enriched uranium. Iran rejected a similar plan last October, when it was backed by the US and the UN, but accepted it last week after intense mediation with Turkey and Brazil.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">But Washington’s “answer,” as described by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was that the permanent five UN Security Council members had agreed on “strong” sanctions package against Iran.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/06/2010612175820455952.html" target="_blank">Iran sanctions cripple the UN </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Most commentators agree that <span style="font-weight: bold;">Resolution 1929 is so watered down</span> - as a result of Chinese and Russian efforts - that <span style="font-weight: bold;">it will have little or no impact on Iran’s nuclear energy programme</span> or Iranian trade and economic development.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">To the great majority of the people of Iran and the wider world, the <span style="font-weight: bold;">UN Security Council is growing increasingly irrelevant and biased</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The <span style="font-weight: bold;">US' games have in effect crippled the UN</span>.</span></blockquote><br /><hr /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">-Politics</span></span><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0612/South-Carolina-head-scratcher-More-curiosities-in-election-of-Alvin-Greene" target="_blank">South Carolina head scratcher: More curiosities in election of Alvin Greene</a><br /><br />[Cool or fraud? His winning on mostly-military absentee ballots doesn't necessarily indicate fraudulent activity considering his background, but it does sound pretty shady...]<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Is he a working class hero, proof that anyone can make it in politics? Or did someone put Alvin Greene up to it, paying his way to <span style="font-weight: bold;">sabotage the Democratic statewide primary</span> to take pressure off South Carolina Republican incumbent Sen. Jim DeMint?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">As calls for an investigation into Mr. Greene's surprise election widened on Saturday, <span style="font-weight: bold;">more irregularities cropped up</span> as details emerged about a US Senate race that, in essence, pitted a well-known candidate, Charleston County Council member Vic Rawl – who logged nearly 17,000 miles on the campaign trail – against a jobless guy who lives with his dad and who <span style="font-weight: bold;">described his own campaign as "nothing fancy."</span> Greene came away with 59 percent of the vote, to Rawl's 41 percent.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">So far, there are far more questions than answers in the curious case of Alvin Greene, the Senate candidate with <span style="font-weight: bold;">$114 in his campaign chest</span>.</span><br /></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2010/0526/Obama-s-National-Security-Strategy-Is-I-m-not-Bush-ending" target="_blank">Obama's National Security Strategy: Is 'I'm not Bush' ending?</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">President Obama’s first National Security Strategy, to be unveiled by the administration this week, is being summed up in some circles as a <span style="font-weight: bold;">repudiation of President Bush’s reliance on “unilateral” American power</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“Every presidency starts off defining itself by trumpeting the opposite of whatever its predecessor did, and that’s been true in spades going from George W. Bush to Obama,” says Robert Lieber, a professor of government and international affairs at Georgetown University in Washington. “But <span style="font-weight: bold;">at a certain point that gets old, and we’re at a point where the overplayed ‘we’re not Bush’ mantra is raising anxieties among friends and allies in Asia and the Middle East</span>.”</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38439.html" target="_blank">GOP: No notice on tanning tax?</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">When the IRS made about $40 billion in tax credits available for small businesses in accordance with the health care overhaul, it sent out 4 million postcards informing likely participants about the credit.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Now, Republicans are asking why a similar campaign isn’t in the works to inform <span style="font-weight: bold;">tanning salons and customers</span> that they’re about to get <span style="font-weight: bold;">hit with a 10 percent tax on their services</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“Every tanning salon or other business that offers separately-priced tanning services will be forced to administer this new tax and every consumer receiving services subject to this new tax will be required to pay it, regardless of their income levels or other characteristics,” Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, wrote Friday to IRS commissioner Douglas H. Shulman. “Please describe what similar measures (e.g., mailing postcards) the IRS plans to take to notify potentially affected businesses and consumers about this new $2.7 billion tax.”</span></blockquote><br /><hr /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">-International</span></span><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/06/20106485035915742.html" target="_blank">Report: WHO overstated H1N1 threat</a><br /><br />[While I have no doubt that they trumped it up, I will definitely tell you that it is not a <span style="font-style: italic;">complete</span> sham. IT IS REAL! And the symptoms are NOT <span style="font-style: italic;">"mild</span>...<span style="font-style: italic;">"</span>]<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">A joint report into the handling of the H1N1 outbreak has found that some <span style="font-weight: bold;">scientists who advised governments to stockpile drugs, had previously been on the payroll of big drug companies.</span><br /><br />Laboratory tests have confirmed more than 18,000 deaths from H1N1 infection, according to WHO figures, but the virus has turned out to be less deadly than feared.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A report by the Council of Europe, also released on Friday, accused the WHO of a lack of transparency over the pandemic announcement - saying it wasted huge sums of money and <span style="font-weight: bold;">provoked "unjustified fears".</span></span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/06/201064143032568578.html" target="_blank">S Korea seeks UN action over ship</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">South Korea has filed a formal complaint with the UN Security Council over the March sinking of one of its warships in disputed waters in an incident it has blamed on North Korea.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"If we are to once again tolerate North Korea's blatant act of violence, then I believe that will not promote but <span style="font-weight: bold;">endanger the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula and that of Northeast Asia</span>.</span><br /></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/0527/Russia-terror-attack-kills-six-wounds-dozens-in-North-Caucasus" target="_blank">Russia terror attack kills six, wounds dozens in North Caucasus</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">An explosion killed at least seven people and wounded more than 40 others Wednesday evening in Stavropol, a southern Russian city that had seemed immune from growing violence in the north Caucasus.<br /><br />The explosive used in the attack appeared to be homemade, reports Russian video news outlet RT, and was packed with shrapnel. A 12-year-old girl was among those killed.</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-22432263549409403062010-05-22T20:52:00.002-05:002010-05-23T14:56:14.035-05:00A debt to democracy, a date with destiny. . .You have just made the change from <span style="font-style: italic;">peacetime pursuits to wartime tasks</span> - from the <span style="font-style: italic;">individualism of civilian life</span> to the <span style="font-style: italic;">anonymity of mass military life</span>. You have given up comfortably homes, highly paid positions, leisure. You have taken off silk and put on khaki. An all for essentially the same reason - you have a debt and a date. A <span style="font-weight: bold;">debt to democracy, a date with destiny</span>. . .<br />-COL Oveta Culp Hobby<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/05/2010518111649460720.html">Obama and the curse of moderation </a><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">What Obama desperately needed to do was radical, but it was and remains achievable: to build credibility through offering tangible support for the peoples rather than the leaders of the region.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">He hinted at significant change in his famous Cairo speech of one year ago with his call for a "new beginning" based on "tolerance and dignity," but his rhetoric has turned out to be just more smoke and mirrors.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Not only does his administration continue to "<span style="font-weight: bold;">tolerate" dictators and systematic human rights violations</span>, he has sought to continue and in some cases even <span style="font-weight: bold;">extend policies that violate constitutional norms and/or US law</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Obama's moderation has not only failed as a foreign policy making principle. It has not worked domestically either.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/05/201052271814825709.html">The tragicomedy of Iran sanctions </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">It is <span style="font-weight: bold;">this kind of international 'leadership' that grabs defeat from the jaws of victory</span> for the non-proliferation agenda.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It has also reaffirmed the fears of many regarding US intentions: the administration of Barack Obama, the US president, remains every bit as unilateralist as that of George Bush, his predecessor, and it displays equal disdain for multilateral negotiations despite the new rhetoric.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Peace appears to be a non-option for the Nobel Peace Prize winner</span>. And with such 'leadership', the UN security council sinks further towards irrelevance or perhaps even self-destruction.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">...[T]he 2007 US <span style="font-weight: bold;">sanctions against Iranian banks ironically ensured Iran's immunity from the global financial crisis</span> that was about to explode.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Iran was among the few major economies in the world not to be severely affected by the crisis.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37631.html">Obama campaigning against Bush--again</a><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">President Barack Obama is trying to ride the wave of anti-incumbency by taking on an unpopular politician steeped in the partisan ways of Washington.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It doesn’t matter that <span style="font-weight: bold;">George W. Bush left office 16 months ago</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The White House’s mid-term election strategy is becoming clear – pit the Democrats of 2010 against the Republicans circa 2006, 2008 and 2009, including Bush.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It’s a lot to ask an angry, finicky electorate to sort out. And even if Obama can rightfully make the case that the economy took a turn for the worse under Bush's watch, he's already made it - in 2008 and repeatedly in 2009.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It’s <span style="font-weight: bold;">not clear that voters still want to hear it</span>.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/05/201051981445278398.html">Guantanamo forever? </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Two days after his inauguration in January 2009, Barack Obama, the US president, signed an executive order promising to close the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba within one year.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">But the deadline was missed, and today <span style="font-weight: bold;">some 180 men are still being held at Guantanamo</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Now many worry Guantanamo may not even close in Obama's first term, and might even stay open far into the future.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/05/201052271814825709.html"><br /></a><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-41307019960566820862010-05-05T10:49:00.002-05:002010-05-05T11:39:31.726-05:00We are unhappy if American troops lose their lives...<span style="font-weight: bold;">Every fighter gets knocked down</span>. A bad fighter doesn’t get up. A good fighter jumps right back up and starts swinging. A great fighter gets up on one knee, takes an eight count, clears his head, thinks about what he’s going to do next, then stands up and <span style="font-weight: bold;">starts fighting again with a plan to survive</span>.<br />-Mike Denton, <span style="font-style: italic;">Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/opinion/03Wood.html">Founding Amateurs? </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Actually, our founders were not all that new at it: the men who led the revolution against the British crown and created our political institutions were very used to governing themselves. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams and John Adams were all members of their respective Colonial legislatures several years before the Declaration of Independence. In fact, these Revolutionaries drew upon a tradition of self-government that went back a century or more. Virginians ran their county courts and elected representatives to their House of Burgesses. The people of Massachusetts gathered in town meetings and selected members of the General Court, their Colonial legislature.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/05/20105213620982480.html">Somali fighters seize coastal town </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Heavily armed fighters from Somalia's Hizbul Islam group have seized a town used by pirates in the country's north, residents said.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"Senior officials of the group told us they will <span style="font-weight: bold;">build a local government</span> in the city <span style="font-weight: bold;">to stabilise their presence</span> there."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Haradheere is one of the main bases for Somali pirates, who are believed to be <span style="font-weight: bold;">holding at least three hijacked vessels </span>in the town's port at the moment, Andrew Mwangura, the co-ordinator of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, said.</span></blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Iran:<br /><br /></span></span><a href="http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/8707">A conversation with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">"Because of the humanitarian vision we have, <span style="font-weight: bold;">we are unhappy if American troops lose their lives there as well</span>."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"How can a government come up with documents that are not credible enough to accuse another country of things that don't happen?"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"Every single body human body fallen in Iraq is as if an Iranian had fallen in Iraq."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"Our proposals were very solid ones. We said that we should establish a trilateral security committee for Iraq's future to fight terrorism. Those were very good proposals but <span style="font-weight: bold;">the politicians in the United States lost the moment and their opportunity to engage us on that front</span>."</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/05/20105493438528364.html">Iran to stage new Gulf 'war games' </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">The Iranian navy plans to hold more than a week of war games in the Gulf, just days after the Revolutionary Guards wrapped up another round of military exercises.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Iran routinely conducts war games in the Gulf, but it has stepped up its demonstrations over the last few months in what analysts say is a <span style="font-weight: bold;">push to deter US or Israeli strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities</span>.</span></blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">I was there:<br /><br /></span></span><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/05/201054233747138354.html"> US suspect 'admits' to NY bomb plot </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born US citizen, was charged on Tuesday with terrorism and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in Saturday's botched attack.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">According to the government's legal complaint, Shahzad, 30, confessed to buying a four-wheel-drive vehicle, rigging it with a homemade bomb and <span style="font-weight: bold;">driving it to Times Square, where he tried to detonate it</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"Based on what we know so far, it is clear that this was a<span style="font-weight: bold;"> terrorist plot aimed at murdering Americans</span> in one of the busiest places in our country," Eric Holder, the US attorney-general, said in Washington.</span><br /></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/04/who_decides_if_terrorist_claims_of_responsibility_are_real">Who Decides if Terrorist Claims of Responsibility Are Real?</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">The NCTC evaluates claims based on what is known about the groups' competence, track record, and operating methods and assigns their statements one of five levels of credibility: likely, plausible, unknown, unlikely, and inferred. "Inferred" refers to attacks in which there is no claim but a particular group's responsibility can be assumed based on the "attack signature" -- factors such as timing, location, and methods used.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The NCTC generally only releases more credible claims to the public, but keeps all of them in a classified record -- even the most dubious -- in case new information comes to light that prompts a re-evaluation. </span><br /><br /><br /></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-34723543487419860022010-04-22T05:58:00.003-05:002010-04-22T06:12:27.351-05:00Let us readopt the Declaration of Independence…Our republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let us turn and wash it white <span style="font-weight: bold;">in the spirit, if not the blood</span>, of the Revolution…Let us <span style="font-weight: bold;">readopt the Declaration of Independence</span>…Let north and south, let all Americans…join in the great and good work.<br />-Abraham Lincoln, 1854<br /><br /><br />Fights aren’t won in the ring; they’re won by running hundreds of miles in the early-morning darkness.<br />-Mike Denton, <span style="font-style: italic;">Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2010/0420/In-Afghanistan-war-a-kinder-gentler-night-raid" target="_blank">In Afghanistan war, a kinder, gentler night raid? </a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Gen. Stanley McChrystal has issued new rules designed to make night raids less invasive, as part of the broader Afghanistan war strategy to win over the population. Some soldiers say it’s hamstringing their ability to nab Taliban militants.<br /><br />According to the new regulations, Afghan security forces must [be] in the front of every raid, ritually impure animals – such as <span style="font-weight: bold;">dogs – are banned</span>, and <span style="font-weight: bold;">village elders must be warned</span> “wherever possible.” Soldiers can only barge into compounds after exhausting other options and have proof that the inhabitants inside are not cooperating.<br /><br />US soldiers, however, have complained that Afghan security forces are at best lax and often brutal; <span style="font-weight: bold;">dogs are essential </span>in sniffing out explosives; and <span style="font-weight: bold;">village elders sometimes end up tipping off the Taliban</span>. This gives insurgent fighters a head start to mask their bombmaking activities or blend into the population.</blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20040620211055/www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=397&issue_id=2907&article_id=23526" target="_blank">THE ESSENCE OF AL QAEDA: AN INTERVIEW WITH SAAD AL-FAQIH</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">I think America has fallen into a trap. It <span style="font-weight: bold;">is acting as PR for Bin Laden</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">TM: You are saying that America has over-stretched itself?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">SF: America has the material resources to extend its influence everywhere but <span style="font-weight: bold;">it lacks the ideological and moral fiber</span> to sustain this kind of domination.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">TM: Why not? American culture is becoming increasingly universal. America, in any single year, exports hundreds of billions of dollars of cultural products to all corners of the globe.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">SF: This is the problem with your understanding of culture. You are trying to calculate culture.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">TM: Quantifying it….</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">SF: Yes! <span style="font-weight: bold;">Culture is too precious to be quantified</span>. We have to admit that power in the world is wielded by Western capitalism and secularism which tends to dominate by force. Its leadership is in America. Conversely Islam is power-less from a conventional perspective. However <span style="font-weight: bold;">Islam has the devotion</span> and a rich stable text...</span></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/04/201042113113654415.html" target="_blank">French president backs veil ban </a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Sarkozy told a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that the <span style="font-weight: bold;">veil "hurts the dignity of women</span> and is not acceptable in French society".<br /><br />"We're legislating for the future. Wearing a full veil is a sign of a community closing in on itself and a rejection of our values," he said.</blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ms-gerhartstereotype042010" target="_blank">Race factors into evaluation of Gerhart</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">When NFL scouts look at Gerhart, they see a 6-foot, 231-pound power back who ran for 1,871 yards and 27 touchdowns last season, getting edged out by Alabama’s Mark Ingram in the closest Heisman vote in history. When they look at Gerhart’s numbers from the NFL scouting combine, they see that he ran a 4.50-second 40-yard dash and registered a 38-inch vertical leap, both impressive numbers for a player his size.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yet they also see a <span style="font-weight: bold;">white guy trying</span> to make it in the league as a feature back, something that has become increasingly rare in this era. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Race shouldn’t be an issue</span>, of course, but Gerhart can’t help but believe that it has colored the opinions of at least some potential employers.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“One team I interviewed with asked me about being a white running back,” Gerhart says. “They asked if it made me feel entitled, or like I felt I was a poster child for white running backs. I said, ‘No, I’m just out there playing ball. I don’t think about that.’ I didn’t really know what to say.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">One longtime NFL scout insisted that <span style="font-weight: bold;">Gerhart’s skin color will likely prevent</span> the Pac-10’s offensive player of the year <span style="font-weight: bold;">from being drafted in Thursday’s first round</span>.</span></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-5416098324118718532010-04-20T13:37:00.003-05:002010-04-20T14:01:47.207-05:00Their heroes are the Shaheeds, the martyrs"<a href="http://www.iar-gwu.org/node/163" target="_blank">Let me read the al Qaeda Internet strategy</a>. I find it quite fascinating the way this organization – which is strongly against globalization and modernization – use the most modern techniques. This was posted on an al Qaeda website:"<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Due to the advances of modern technology, it is easy to spread news, information, articles, and other information over the Internet. We strongly urge Muslim Internet professionals to spread and disseminate news and information about the jihad through email lists, discussion groups, and their own websites. If you fail to do this and our site closes down before you have done this, <span style="font-weight: bold;">you may be held to account before Allah on the Day of Judgment</span>. This way, even if our sites are closed down,<span style="font-weight: bold;"> the material will live on with the grace of Allah</span>.</span><br /></blockquote><br /><br />“You know Jerry, I’m convinced that teenagers are teenagers the world around.” I said, “How do you mean?” And he responded, “Well, you go into a pizza parlor here and the kids are talking about their favorite team, the New England Patriots. Their hero is Tom Brady, the quarterback. And some day when they grow up, they want to be an NFL player like their heroes. Well, it’s the same thing in the refugee camps. Only their favorite team is Hamas. Their heroes are the Shaheeds, the martyrs.” <span style="font-weight: bold;">They actually have Shaheed trading cards</span>, just as we do here for baseball. “And when they grow up – <span style="font-weight: bold;">which they won’t</span> – they want to be a Shaheed, like their heroes.”<br />-Jerrold Post and Ariel Merari<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/04/20104207031888327.html" target="_blank"> Chavez hosts regional allies </a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Recently acquired Chinese K-8 jets and Russian Sukhoi-30 fighter aircraft flew overhead and<span style="font-weight: bold;"> special forces troops shouted "anti-imperialist socialist</span>" slogans during the celebrations in Caracas on Monday.<br /><br />Soldiers from Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Cuba, Libya and Nicaragua joined those on the ground.<br /><br />Flanked by <span style="font-weight: bold;">Raul Castro, the Cuban president, and Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, Chavez</span> joined military generals in praising his socialist revolution.<br /><br />"More than ever, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Venezuela will not be a "yankee" colony</span>, nor a colony of anyone. The time for our true independence has come, 200 years on", Chavez said.<br /><br /><br /></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-40939578760892931992010-04-19T12:48:00.002-05:002010-04-19T12:59:30.913-05:00We want peace; we want Taliban and Islam<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Afghanistan:</span></span><br />Fascinating texts of enemy propaganda broadcasts in Afghanistan:<br /><br />Note: All of the below attack claims were posted in English on a variety of different terrorist and extremist cyber locations and were signed “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”<br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Military Operations March 22<br />-6 <span style="font-weight: bold;">Puppet Army Terrorists</span> Killed, 3 Vehicle Destroyed In Mujahideen's Attack In Kunar As many as 6 Afghan terrorists were killed and about a dozen wounded on Monday, Mar. 22, 2010, as Mujahideen rocket strikes hit three of the enemy's vehicles in Kunar's Shigal district.<br /><br />In Marjah, U.S tank destroyed More than 7 <span style="font-weight: bold;">puppet Afghan and U.S terrorists</span> were killed while on a combined patrol mission, on Friday, Mar. 19...</blockquote><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/04/20104196826856839.html" target="_blank"> Taliban takes over Afghan valley </a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">The Taliban is claiming victory in eastern Afghanistan's Korengal Valley following the withdrawal of US forces from the remote outpost.<br /><br />US officials, however, say the withdrawal in Kunar province was "a <span style="font-weight: bold;">repositioning of forces</span>" following a decision by General Stanley McChrystal, head of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, to concentrate resources on urban areas.<br /><br />"<span style="font-weight: bold;">We don't want Americans</span>, we don't want Germans or any other foreigner. <span style="font-weight: bold;">We don't want foreigners, we want peace</span>. <span style="font-weight: bold;">We want Taliban and Islam</span> - we don't want anything else."<br /></blockquote><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Hyperbole and Dissatisfaction</span></span>:<br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36007.html" target="_blank">Rage against government</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Three out of four Americans are either “frustrated” or “angry” with the federal government – and nearly a third of the public views government as a “<span style="font-weight: bold;">threat to their personal freedom</span>"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The survey shows an increasing number of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Americans are distrustful both of Washington and the elected officials who populate it</span>. Only 22 percent of those polled said they can trust the federal government “almost always” or “most of the time,” which Pew says is “among the <span style="font-weight: bold;">lowest measures in more than half a century</span>.” Moreover, <span style="font-weight: bold;">65 percent hold an unfavorable view of Congress</span> – the worst congressional approval rating Pew has seen in a quarter-century. The last year has seen public approval of Congress plummet from 50 percent in April 2009 to 26 percent this month.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35993.html" target="_blank">Today's eerie similarities to Oklahoma City</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">There are <span style="font-weight: bold;">striking similarities</span> between the tenor of that political discourse and today.<br /><br />Again, we have a <span style="font-weight: bold;">relatively liberal president who is despised and feared by the far right</span>. Again, we have controversial legislation <span style="font-weight: bold;">described in apocalyptic terms by some mainstream conservatives</span>.<br /><br />Those who say their words are only words, or say their hyperbole is justified to make their message heard, <span style="font-weight: bold;">cannot pretend that they play no role in inciting the actions that follow</span>.<br /><br />We protect free speech. Yet that does not mean those whose speech precedes bloodshed are free from blame.<br /></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-43406863756390900802010-04-13T23:08:00.005-05:002010-04-18T12:16:44.999-05:00Hypocrisy...has seemingly become the coin of the realm<a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/04/20104144134810956.html" target="_blank">Hypocrisy and the end of empires </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Hypocrisy has always been an<span style="font-weight: bold;"> important denomination of political currency</span>, but today it has seemingly become the <span style="font-weight: bold;">coin of the realm</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">In the US, the vitriolic Republican-corporate attacks on healthcareand other much needed reforms in the name of protecting the rights of individual citizens, reflect an increasingly toxic political culture and the power of the right to manipulate deep-seated fears and prejudice for its own ends.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">However, the continuities in US foreign policy between the Obama and Bush administrations reflect a more <span style="font-weight: bold;">systemic hypocrisy whose negative consequences have global implications</span>.</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" ><br />CBRN/Terrorism</span><br />[***WARNING: DO NOT WATCH IF YOU ARE FROM PETA OR HAVE FEELINGS OR ARE NOT CRUEL/HEARTLESS***]<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cubuk4QUYE" target="_blank">Al Qaeda Chemical Weapons Tests</a><br />[***WARNING: DO NOT WATCH IF YOU ARE FROM PETA OR HAVE FEELINGS OR ARE NOT CRUEL/HEARTLESS***]<br /><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/04/2010413114755795665.html" target="_blank"> Dirty bomb: How real is the risk? </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">"Two decades after the end of the Cold War, we face a cruel irony of history - the risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down but the <span style="font-weight: bold;">risk of a nuclear attack has gone up</span>,'' Obama said on Tuesday.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"<span style="font-weight: bold;">Nuclear terrorism is unfortunately a realistic possibility</span>. Though terror groups themselves may not have the technical knowledge or equipment to produce highly enriched uranium [HEU] or plutonium, it would nevertheless be possible for them<span style="font-weight: bold;"> to obtain these materials from poorly guarded nuclear facilitie</span>s," said MJ Gohel, a terrorism specialist at the Asia Pacific Foundation, an independent intelligence think-tank based in the UK.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tea Parties</span></span><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0417/Obama-s-tea-party-complex" target="_blank">Obama's 'tea party' complex</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">First there were the "bitter-clingers," then Scott Brown's truck. Now President Obama has taken on tea party protesters, saying he's "amused" by their failure to see that the average American's tax burden has lessened under his stewardship.<br /><br />"<span style="font-weight: bold;">You would think they'd be saying thank you</span>, that's what you'd think" the President said.<br /><br />A New York Times/CBS News poll says only <span style="font-weight: bold;">two percent of tea party protesters realize that their taxes have likely gone down this year</span> (compared to 22 percent of the general population who understand that). Given college tax credits, making work pay, college loan relief, and home buyer credits, <span style="font-weight: bold;">90 percent of Americans got a tax break this year. The average tax refund is 10 percent larger than last year</span>.<br /><br />"The rise of the Tea Party at time when taxes are literally at their lowest in decades is really hard to understand," William Gale of the Brookings Institution told Political Hotsheet.<br /><br />But to distill the tea party message down to simply an argument over this year's 1040 form, critics say, isn't only a failure to understand the tea party's DNA, but also factually questionable given recent analyses showing that the <span style="font-weight: bold;">tax burden on Americans is likely to rise in coming years</span>.<br /><br />What's more, tea party protesters aren't just worried about taxes, but the <span style="font-weight: bold;">rising federal debt</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">creeping entitlement programs</span> they say <span style="font-weight: bold;">threaten individual liberty</span> as defined by the Constitution. </blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35901.html" target="_blank">Tea Party Crash fizzles out</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">After several days of hype and hand-wringing about liberal plans to infiltrate Thursday’s tea party rallies, the great 2010 Tax Day Tea Party Crash did not produce much of a bang in Washington.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">To be sure, a handful of obvious crashers engaged in some mostly non-confrontational back-and-forth with tea party activists at a Thursday evening rally that drew thousands to Washington’s National Mall near the Washington Monument. And some less overt crashers subtly mocked activists from amidst their ranks at both the evening rally on the Mall and an earlier event at Freedom Plaza near the White House. And there could have been other infiltrators who evaded immediate detection.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A group of five American University students, who were on average probably at least 25 years younger than most attendees at the FreedomWorks rally, waded through the crowd with signs ranging from the direct and challenging (<span style="font-weight: bold;">“Embrace the state”</span>) to the satirical (<span style="font-weight: bold;">“I have a sign” </span>and “<span style="font-weight: bold;">Loud noises</span>”) to the malapropically mocking (“<span style="font-weight: bold;">No $ 4 educatoin. I don’t wnt it</span>”).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Kurt Beyer, a 21-year-old student at Pennsylvania’s Muhlenberg College attended with two of classmates and held aloft a sign reading “<span style="font-weight: bold;">Palin 2010. One people. One Nation. One Leader.</span>” Not only is Palin not running for anything in 2010 (she’s rumored to be considering a presidential bid in 2012), but the slogan is a translation of one used by Adolph Hitler in 1938.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A self-described infiltrator at the afternoon rally, who dressed as a monk and carried a sign reading “<span style="font-weight: bold;">God Hates Taxes</span>,” said many tea partiers lauded him for his sign.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Brooks Alexander, a 23-year-old Olney, Md., hotel worker and Obama supporter who wore an Obama t-shirt to the evening rally, said infiltrators were being disrespectful.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“<span style="font-weight: bold;">They’re doing a disservice not only to themselves, but to the people who are here trying to express their views</span>,” said Alexander, who is African American and said he traveled to the rally to verify for himself liberal accounts blasting the tea party as racist.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“All my friends told me I was crazy to come down here in an Obama shirt,” he said. “Obviously I have political disagreements [with the tea party], but I cannot lie. I cannot say that people have been anything but nice to me. They have been shaking my hand. One guy told me I had a lot of [guts] for coming down here. I will definitely walk away from this with a new understanding of the tea party.”</span></blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Iran</span></span><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/201041854124873989.html"> Iran demands US troop withdrawal </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">"The region has <span style="font-weight: bold;">no need for alien troops</span> and they should return home and let the regional states take care of their own affairs," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech marking the country's annual Army Day on Sunday.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"They <span style="font-weight: bold;">must leave the region</span> and this is <span style="font-weight: bold;">not a request but an order</span>, and the will of the regional nations," he said.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"This is the will of the regional nations that after 60 odd years, <span style="font-weight: bold;">the root of this corrupt microbe and the main reason for insecurity in the region be pulled out</span>," Ahmadinejad said.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">He said that <span style="font-weight: bold;">except the "Zionist regime</span> (Israel)," Iran considered <span style="font-weight: bold;">all other countries as "friend and brother</span>" with whom the Islamic state wanted peaceful co-existence.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/0418/Ahmadinejad-flexes-military-muscle-as-news-of-secret-Gates-Iran-memo-ripples" target="_blank">Ahmadinejad flexes military muscle as news of secret Gates Iran memo ripples</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">A secret memo from US Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned the White House in January that the US lacks a long-term plan to deal with Iran, according to reports. News of the Gates Iran memo is causing a stir in Washington.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> “On Iran, we are doing what we said we were going to do. The fact that we don’t announce publicly our entire strategy for the world to see doesn’t mean we don’t have a strategy that anticipates the full range of contingencies — <span style="font-weight: bold;">we do</span>,” [said Gen. Jones].</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"I didn’t need a secret memo to <span style="font-weight: bold;">know we didn’t have a coherent policy</span>," Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona said." "That’s pretty obvious."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">On Sunday, Ahmadinejad went a step further, <span style="font-weight: bold;">vowing to respond with “all [Iran’s] military potential” in the face of armed aggression</span>, reports Al Jazeera.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The remarks came on Iran’s Army Day when the nation showcases its military technology. The Iranian president also added that the US must withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, where he says the presence of US forces has only “increased insecurity in both countries.”</span></blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Obama's Press</span></span><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/onmedia/0410/Anon_WH_reporter_confesses_to_saving_info_for_book.html?showall" target="_blank">Anon. WH reporter confesses to saving info for book</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Media observers are no doubt familiar with the debate over whether it's appropriate for journalists to save nuggets of news for books they plan on writing later. The purists argue that journalists are simply looking to cash in on their beats and, in the process of doing so, depriving the public of valuable information. Other authors more inclined to save scoops for later are reluctant to admit to doing it, but they'd still argue that a) oftentimes those scoops are only offered under the condition that they not be used until later; b) news takes some time to leak out; and c) there's something to be said for the long view in journalism. And so on and so on...</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35944.html" target="_blank">Press airs grievances to Gibbs</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs met with a delegation from the White House press corps for 75 minutes on Thursday in an effort to improve frayed relations between the two sides.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The immediately precipitating event for the meeting was <span style="font-weight: bold;">an April 10 incident in which President Barack Obama left the White House complex to attend one of daughter’s soccer games at 9:20 a.m., without being accompanied by the usual traveling press pool, which had been told to show up by 11:30 a.m</span>. About fifteen minutes after his departure, press officials scrambled to assemble a partial pool that departed at 9:43 a.m. But <span style="font-weight: bold;">the pool did not catch up, and the president got back to the White House 10 minutes before the reporters</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">At the time, Gibbs apologized to NBC News, the network assigned to the travel pool that day, and said it was an “unintentional … oversight” — a miscommunication between the president and his staff.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">During the meeting, Gibbs did not to promise that such an instance would never happen again, but pointed out it was the first time in 15 months, attendees said.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The White House official told POLITICO: “<span style="font-weight: bold;">Our percentage [of including the press] is pretty damn high, and we expect it to stay that way</span>."</span></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-46238320077342286692010-04-12T06:33:00.004-05:002010-04-12T07:25:42.596-05:00Tragedy is likely to result...I make no effort to discern the intended meaning of the authors because authors do not control the meaning of their own words once they are uttered in public.<br />-Ted Hopf,<span style="font-style: italic;"> Social Construction of International Politics</span><br /><br />Something in human nature causes us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest accomplishment. As you become successful, you will need a great deal of self-discipline not to lose your sense of balance, humility and commitment.<br />-H. Ross Perot<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35647.html" target="_blank">Congress sees no budget rush</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Congress is poised to miss its April 15 deadline for finishing next year’s budget without even considering a draft in either chamber.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Unlike citizens’ tax-filing deadline, Congress’s mid-April benchmark is nonbinding. And members seem to be in no rush to get the process going.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Indeed, some Democratic insiders suspect that leaders will skip the budget process altogether this year — a way to </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">avoid the political unpleasantness of voting on spending, deficits and taxes in an election year</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> — or simply go through a few of the motions, without any real effort to complete the work.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The practical consequences of failing to produce a federal budget for next year are about the same as they are for a family that doesn’t set a plan for income and spending: </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Congress doesn’t need a budget to tax or spend</span><span style="font-style: italic;">, but enforcing discipline is harder without one.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/122870/analysis/russia_understanding_russian_military?ip_auth_redirect=1" target="_blank">Understanding the Russian Military</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">The Russian military is often dismissed offhand based on perceptions with outdated roots in the mid-1990s and the turn of the century. In truth, the Russian military has seen very significant improvements since that time, and the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Kremlin’s net military capability exceeds the Western perception of it</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Western analysts have already begun to pick apart the Russian invasion of Georgia, citing details that they argue denigrate the performance of the Kremlin’s military. But something very different is going on. Where they see failures based on modern Western standards of military performance (inappropriately applied to today’s Russian and yesterday’s Soviet militaries alike), <span style="font-weight: bold;">we see the effective exercise of military force</span>. When the moment came, the Russian military achieved the Kremlin’s objectives without suffering unreasonable losses. Though widely touted as a failure, this is the essence of any successful military operation. They are never pretty. But by the above measure, the Georgian operation was a success — tactically, operationally and strategically — for Russia.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Former Russian President and current Prime Minister <span style="font-weight: bold;">Vladimir Putin is an intelligence officer</span>, and the <span style="font-weight: bold;">cultivation of false perceptions is an inherent part of the skill</span>s he learned and the trade he plied as a professional. Furthermore, he has long understood the value of technology-focused espionage.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Russia’s net military capability exceeds the perception</span>, and that is no accident. The perception is carefully cultivated by Russia and compounded by a tendency in the West to judge Moscow by Western military standards.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/faultlines/2010/04/2010481251991166.html" target="_blank">Working through the US jobs crisis </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">To be unemployed in the US – to lose your identity as a consumer in an economy where 70 per cent of all activity is consumption – is in some way to inhabit another country.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">In fact, if you count all the </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">unemployed, underemployed, and those who have given up looking for work</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> in the US, you have a population of </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">almost 30mn – a country about the size of Canada.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The political future of Barack Obama's presidency may hinge on his ability to bring the unemployment rate down. So the question that immediately comes to mind is </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">why he has not yet proposed a single big idea or bold plan commensurate with the scope of the crisis</span><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span><br /></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/04/201041173452920826.html" target="_blank">Follow the chain of command </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Rules of engagement are designed to manage risk. The more they are calibrated to minimise the risk to one's own troops, the greater the potential risk to innocents. Equally, </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">the more one takes precautions to avoid collateral casualties, the greater the potential risks to one's comrades</span><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">McChrystal, aware of the importance to the overall political struggle of avoiding civilian casualties, has decreed that in such circumstances, unless those in the building pose an immediate and direct threat to deployed troops, the compound cannot be attacked.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It does suggest, however, that </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">if ill-prepared and impressionable personnel are armed with loose rules of engagement in a non-traditional conflict zone</span><span style="font-style: italic;">, where most of those on at least one side of the conflict do not wear uniforms,</span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> tragedy is likely to result -</span> and that those responsible for allowing such circumstances to come together might well stand justly accused of criminal negligence.</blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/11/martin.confederate.extremist/index.html" target="_blank">Were Confederate soldiers terrorists?</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">When you make the argument that the South was angry with the North for "invading" its "homeland," Osama bin Laden has said the same about U.S. soldiers being on Arab soil. He has objected to our bases in Saudi Arabia, and that's one of the reasons he has launched his jihad against us. Is there really that much of a difference between him and the Confederates? <span style="font-weight: bold;">Same language; same cause; same effect</span>.<br /><br />If a Confederate soldier was merely doing his job in defending his homeland, honor and heritage, what are we to say about young Muslim radicals who say the exact same thing as their rationale for strapping bombs on their bodies and blowing up cafes and buildings?<br /><br />We can't on the one hand justify the actions of Confederates as being their duty as valiant men of the South, and then condemn the Muslim extremists who want to see Americans die a brutal death. These men are held up as honorable by their brethren, so <span style="font-weight: bold;">why do Americans see them as different from our homegrown terrorists</span>?</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-13949872138758809342010-04-09T14:04:00.003-05:002010-04-09T14:23:00.608-05:00The fundamental obligation of the executive to protect the American people trumps the basic right to life of that individual...<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2010/0407/Anwar-al-Awlaki-Is-it-legal-to-kill-an-American-in-war-on-terror">Anwar al-Awlaki: Is it legal to kill an American in war on terror?</a><br /><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://justsaynotocardinals.blogspot.com/2010/04/america-cannot-and-will-not-win.html"></a><blockquote><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://justsaynotocardinals.blogspot.com/2010/04/america-cannot-and-will-not-win.html">Anwar al-Awlaki</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> is an American hiding in Yemen. Tied to the Fort Hood shooting and Christmas Day bomber, he is thought to be plotting attacks on the US. In fighting the war on terror, the Obama administration has put him on the <span style="font-weight: bold;">kill-or-capture list</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Obama administration says it <span style="font-weight: bold;">will use lethal force against Anwar al-Awlaki, an American</span> hiding in Yemen who is thought to be <span style="font-weight: bold;">plotting terrorist attacks against the US</span>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“<span style="font-weight: bold;">Awlaki is a proven threat</span>,” a US official told Reuters news agency. “<span style="font-weight: bold;">He’s being targeted</span>.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A report Wednesday in The New York Times indicated that what triggered US officials putting the Muslim cleric on the kill-or-capture list was their determination that he was not only inciting attacks against the US but also “participating” in them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“By making that declaration, the administration has at least admitted the possibility that <span style="font-weight: bold;">the fundamental obligation of the executive to protect the American people trumps the basic right to life of that individual</span>,” says Mr. Newton.</span><br /></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35546.html?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell#ixzz0kWyImUNC">CBO chief says debt 'unsustainable'</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">The <span style="font-weight: bold;">nation’s fiscal path is “unsustainable</span>,” and the problem “cannot be solved through minor tinkering,” the head of the Congressional Budget Office said.<br /><br />Elmendorf noted a recent CBO report that pegged an <span style="font-weight: bold;">increase in the public debt from $7.5 trillion at the end of 2009 to $20.3 trillion at the end of 2020</span> if President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget were to be implemented as written. As a <span style="font-weight: bold;">percentage of gross domestic product, the debt would rise from 53 percent to 90 percent</span>, CBO forecasted. The last time the percentage was that high was right after World War II.<br /><br />“If at the end of the day we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes,” Volcker said.<br /><br />“These choices are difficult, and it always seems easier to put them off — until the day they cannot be put off anymore,” Bernanke said.</blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35521.html">New era for Russia-U.S. relations</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Like so many people around the world, including Americans after 9/11, we Russians are now painfully reminded of our common vulnerability when confronting a ruthless cause that has no respect for human life.</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-45353378719513019322010-04-06T22:49:00.004-05:002010-04-06T22:54:36.286-05:00Relax, We’ll Be Fine<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i.imgur.com/NVih0.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 746px; height: 717px;" src="http://i.imgur.com/NVih0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/opinion/06brooks.html?ref=opinion" target="_blank">Relax, We’ll Be Fine</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">The United States already measures at the top or close to the top of nearly every global measure of economic competitiveness. A comprehensive 2008 Rand Corporation study found that the U.S. leads the world in scientific and technological development. The U.S. now accounts for a third of the world’s research-and-development spending. Partly as a result, the average American worker is nearly 10 times more productive than the average Chinese worker, a gap that will close but not go away in our lifetimes.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">In sum, the U.S. is on the verge of a demographic, economic and social revival, built on its historic strengths. The U.S. has always been good at disruptive change. It’s always excelled at decentralized community-building. It’s always had that moral materialism that creates meaning-rich products. Surely a country with this much going for it is not going to wait around passively and let a rotten political culture drag it down.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/05/karzais-taliban-threat-af_n_526373.html" target="_blank">Karzai's Taliban Threat: Afghan Leader TWICE Said He Might Join Insurgency</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened over the weekend to quit the political process and join the Taliban if he continued to come under outside pressure to reform.<br /><br />Lawmakers dismissed the latest comment as hyperbole, but it will add to the impression the president – who relies on tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO forces to fight the insurgency and prop up his government – is growing increasingly erratic and unable to exert authority without attacking his foreign backers.<br /></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0405/Russia-Islamist-network-takes-shape-as-Caucasus-hit-by-another-terrorist-attack" target="_blank">Russia Islamist network takes shape as Caucasus hit by another terrorist attack</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Five terrorist attacks that killed almost 60 people in a single week have left Russians deeply shaken.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Some experts worry that an Islamist insurgent network led by Chechen "emir" Doku Umarov, who took responsibility for the suicide bombings that killed 40 people at two Moscow metro stations a week ago, may be preparing to launch a new wave of assaults against Russia's heartland.</span></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-32585377247182435962010-04-01T22:04:00.004-05:002010-04-20T12:02:26.510-05:00America cannot and will not win“Whoever does not have the stomach for this fight <span style="font-style: italic;">let him depart</span>. Give him money to speed his departure since <span style="font-weight: bold;">we wish not to die in that man’s company</span>.”<br />-<span style="font-style: italic;">Henry V</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36032813/" target="_blank">Bin Laden issues new threat in tape</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Osama bin Laden threatened in a new message released Thursday to <span style="font-weight: bold;">kill any Americans al-Qaida captures </span>if the U.S. executes the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks or other al-Qaida suspects.<br /><br />"It's the height of absurdity for anyone associated with al-Qaida to even suggest that now, at long last, they're going to start treating captives badly," said the counterterrorism official.<br /><br />"They may have forgotten Danny Pearl and all the others they've slaughtered, but <span style="font-weight: bold;">we haven't</span>."</blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbAr1Ms1CeA&feature=related" target="_blank">Anwar al-Awlaki: A Call to Jihad </a><br />[from the Imam that handled MAJ Hassan and the Christmas Day bomber]<br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">To the American people, I say: remember the days when Americans were enjoying the blessings of security and peace? When the word terrorism was rarely invoked and when you were oblivious to any threats? I remember a time when you could purchase an airline ticket from the classified section of your local or college newspaper and use it even though it was issued to a different name because no one would bother asking you for an ID before you boarding the plane. No long lines, no elaborate search, no body scans, no sniffing dogs, no taking off your shoes and emptying out your pockets. <span style="font-weight: bold;">You were a nation at ease.</span><br /><br />...<span style="font-weight: bold;">America has not been safe</span>. Nine years after September 11 - nine years of spending and nine years of beefing up security - <span style="font-weight: bold;">you are still unsafe</span>...<br /><br />If America failed to win when it was at its pinnacle of economic strength, how can it win today with a recession at hand? The simple answer is that <span style="font-weight: bold;">America cannot and will not win. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">How many more bodybags are American families willing to receive</span>? How much more can the US treasury handle?<br /><br />For how long can the US survive this war of attrition?<br /><br />We will fight to the last man against whoever stands in our way. We, the Muslims, do not have an inherent animosity towards any racial group or ethnicity. We are not against Americans for just being American; we are against evil. And <span style="font-weight: bold;">America, as a whole, has turned into a nation of evil</span>. What we see from America is the invasion of two Muslim countries, we see Abu Ghraib, Baghram, and Guantanamo Bay; we see cruise missiles and cluster bombs...<span style="font-weight: bold;">we cannot stand idly in the face of such aggression.</span><br /></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-56547669450208674922010-03-27T19:11:00.003-05:002010-03-27T19:28:05.089-05:00Why can't he talk to his friends?“Arguing against globalization is like <span style="font-style: italic;">arguing against the forces of gravity</span>.”<br />-Kofi Annan<br /><br /><br />In 2008, the <span style="font-style: italic;">urban population of the world overtook that of the rural population</span> for the first time, and it is projected to continue to grow so fast that <span style="font-weight: bold;">by 2050 two out of every three humans will live in a town or city</span>.<br />-John McCormick, <span style="font-style: italic;">Comparative Politics in Transition</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/business/economy/25social.html?hp" target="_blank">Social Security to See Payout Exceed Pay-In This Year</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">This year, the system <span style="font-weight: bold;">will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes</span>, an important threshold it was <span style="font-weight: bold;">not expected to cross until at least 2016</span>, according to the Congressional Budget Office.<br /><br />The problem, he said, is that <span style="font-weight: bold;">payments have risen more than expected</span> during the downturn, because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned. At the same time, the program’s revenue has fallen sharply, because<span style="font-weight: bold;"> there are fewer paychecks to tax</span>.<br /><br />Analysts have long tried to predict the year when Social Security would pay out more than it took in because they view it as a tipping point — the first step of a <span style="font-weight: bold;">long, slow march to insolvency</span>, unless Congress strengthens the program’s finances. </blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/35085.html" target="_blank">History on President Obama's side in health care debate</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">At first blush, the spasms of anger over the health care law signed into law by President Barack Obama this week seem strong enough to fuel a years-long argument over government power.<br /><br />History suggests there is a better chance the passions over the country's new health care regime will cool with an alacrity that seems unthinkable amid the clenched fists and snarling insults of the recent debate.<br /><br />This has been a familiar pattern since New Deal days: Government programs from Social Security to Medicare that were <span style="font-weight: bold;">launched amid incendiary arguments </span>within a short time <span style="font-weight: bold;">became sacrosanct</span> — <span style="font-weight: bold;">protected by a bipartisan consensus </span>that was nowhere to be found at passage.<br /><br />In fact, historians of social programs see<span style="font-weight: bold;"> no correlation between the intensity of controversy at the birth of a program and its ultimate popularity</span>.<br /><br />That is why "it's damn hard to get things done," in the words of Yale expert Theodore Marmor, "and harder still to get them undone."<br /><br />"I think that's what the Republicans were frightened of," said Marmor. "They think <span style="font-weight: bold;">President Obama has a chance of making health care reform do for him</span>," and perhaps for the Democratic Party, <span style="font-weight: bold;">what "the Social Security Act of 1935 did for FDR."</span></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/35111.html" target="_blank">Senate gone, Obama seats nominees</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">President Barack Obama will bypass the Senate and for the first time since taking office <span style="font-weight: bold;">unilaterally install 15 nominees</span> to his adminstration, including two members of the National Labor Relations Board, in a move that infuriated Republicans.<br /><br />Obama used his executive power to install Craig Becker, who was blocked by a GOP filibuster last month, and Mark Pearce, who Republicans also oppose because of his <span style="font-weight: bold;">ties to labor unions</span>.<br /><br />In announcing the recess appointments Saturday afternoon, Obama presented his decision as a last-resort move forced on him by the Senate Republicans. The president issued a statement in which he blamed “<span style="font-weight: bold;">partisan politics</span>” for bottling up 77 of his nominees.<br /><br />“The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disapprove of my nominees. But <span style="font-weight: bold;">if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility</span>, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis,” Obama said in the statement.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Obama did not install Republican Brian Hayes</span>, the other pending nominee to the five-member labor board, which some thought he might do to take the partisan edge off the Democratic appointments.<br /><br />The White House tried to pre-empt the GOP criticism by outlining a detailed defense of the president’s decision. Officials even included the number of days the <span style="font-weight: bold;">15 nominees combined have been waiting: “3204 days or almost 9 years</span>."<br /><br />The administration was also quick to point out that Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, had used the same presidential prerogative. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Obama’s 15 recess appointments Saturday do not exceed Bush’s total at the same point into his first term</span>.</blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2010/0327/For-Obama-no-buddies-abroad" target="_blank">For Obama, no buddies abroad</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Fourteen months into the Obama presidency, one striking feature of an American president who took office to a swooning world is the <span style="font-weight: bold;">absence of any strong personal ties</span> – or even a go-to working relationship – <span style="font-weight: bold;">with any other world leader</span>. Where Ronnie had Maggie, and Bill and even George W. had Tony, Mr. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Obama has no one leader</span>. Instead, the former law professor has what seems to be a preference for big-themed foreign speeches (think Cairo; Prague, Czech Republic; Moscow; Accra, Ghana) and policy gatherings (his UN nuclear summit, the Pittsburgh Group of 20 economic summit, a White House nuclear nonproliferation summit in May) bereft of the warm and fuzzy.<br /><br />Obama's cool, all-business demeanor with his global peers is all the more striking because it follows the polar-opposite style of George W. Bush. President Bush's policies were widely reviled overseas, and he was not particularly articulate. But he strove to forge personal links with a few key leaders. He cultivated Tony Blair's friendship on Iraq, and he developed a hierarchy of visit venues – White House, Camp David, his Texas ranch – that signaled where a leader stood in his estimation.<br /><br />"It really is striking about Obama: Most presidents have had a special or close relationship with a foreign leader they could turn to," says Thomas Henriksen, a US foreign-policy scholar at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif. "But it appears to be his nature or personality, the so-called no-drama-Obama thing."<br /><br />"<span style="font-weight: bold;">Who knows if Sarkozy would have made the same decision if he hadn't suffered some of these slights on the part of Obama</span>," he says. "What it comes down to is that <span style="font-weight: bold;">relationships do matter</span>."<br /><br />Dale says he still has ringing in his ear the words of a senior European diplomat, who recently told him, "<span style="font-weight: bold;">[Obama] talks to his enemies. Why can't he talk to his friends?</span>"<br /></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/03/2010326164719466997.html" target="_blank"> S Koreans missing after ship sinks </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">A South Korean navy ship has sunk near the disputed maritime border with North Korea after an unexplained explosion, leaving 46 sailors missing.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A government source quoted by the South's Yonhap news agency said officials were investigating various possible causes: an <span style="font-weight: bold;">attack by a North Korean torpedo boat, a mine laid by North Korea</span> or an explosion of munitions aboard the ship.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Paul Chamberlin, a former US naval attache to South Korea, told Al Jazeera: "If it becomes clear this was an attack from North Korea, <span style="font-weight: bold;">a major escalation that would lead to general war is very unlikely</span>."</span></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/03/2010326144017201412.html" target="_blank"> US and Russia agree nuclear deal </a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Barack Obama, the US president, and Dmitry Medvedev, his Russian counterpart, have finalised the terms of a new nuclear arms reduction agreement.<br /><br />The two leaders approved the deal for a successor to the landmark Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), which will <span style="font-weight: bold;">cut the amount of missiles deployed by both countries by one third</span>.<br /><br />Under the terms of the treaty the <span style="font-weight: bold;">two countries will reduce their number of warheads to 1,515 each</span>.<br /><br />Both countries will also be allowed <span style="font-weight: bold;">no more than 700 active nuclear launchers </span>worldwide.<br /><br />The US has said it currently has about 2,200 nuclear warheads, while Russia is believed to have about 3,000.<br /></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.aljazeera.net/europe/2010/03/25/kremlin-red-squares-cold-war-rival" target="_blank">Kremlin 'red-squares' with cold war rival</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Moscow is gearing up for one of the biggest events of the year, the May 9 parade, the day when Russia rolls out its military hardware over Red Square.<br /><br />...This year's parade - the 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany - a <span style="font-weight: bold;">contingent of US troops is being welcomed into the fold</span>.<br /><br />In the context of the "reset" in US-Russia relations, <span style="font-weight: bold;">the Kremlin is more than aware of how striking the image of American and Russian troops marching together on Red Square will be</span>.<br /></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br /></span><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/35050.html" target="_blank">2,000 House staffers make six figures</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Nearly 2,000</span> House of Representatives <span style="font-weight: bold;">staffers </span>pulled down <span style="font-weight: bold;">six-figure salaries </span>in 2009, including <span style="font-weight: bold;">43 staffers who earned the maximum $172,500</span> — or more than three times the median U.S. household income.<br /><br />Starting salaries on Capitol Hill are still low — many entry-level congressional jobs pay less than $30,000 a year.</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-48474748078693566012010-03-24T10:34:00.002-05:002010-03-24T10:48:38.944-05:00Facts are stubbornAll this <span style="font-style: italic;">will not be finished in the first 100 days</span>. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this Administration, <span style="font-style: italic;">nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet</span>. But <span style="font-weight: bold;">let us begin</span>.<br />-John F. Kennedy, 1961 Inauguration Address<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Everyone thinks of changing the world</span>, but <span style="font-weight: bold;">no one thinks of changing himself</span>.<br />-Leo Tolstoy<br /><br />Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe. Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"—a <span style="font-weight: bold;">struggle against the common enemies of man</span>:<span style="font-style: italic;"> tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself</span>.<br />-John F. Kennedy, 1961 Inauguration Address<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100323/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_overhaul_fact_check;_ylt=ArxMKrBIjHLgA8cMzXYJijys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTN0NGJkYzRwBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMzIzL3VzX2hlYWx0aF9vdmVyaGF1bF9mYWN0X2NoZWNrBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMgRwdANob21lX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDaGVhbHRoY2FyZWZh" target="_blank">FACT CHECK: Spinning the new health care law</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Facts are stubborn, the saying goes. But myths about the legislation are likely to persist as well. And a lot of people don't agree on which is which.<br /><br />With the U.S. population getting older, and medical science pushing the technological envelope, <span style="font-weight: bold;">there's very little reason to think premiums will go down</span>. The best Obama can hope for is to slow the pace of increases.<br /><br />The legislation sets up a research center to compare the effectiveness of medical treatments, and critics fear that bureaucrats will start issuing justifications for denying patients access to the latest medical technology.<br /><br />Although some polls show a majority oppose the bill, <span style="font-weight: bold;">most surveys find the public about evenly divided</span>. Blendon, the public opinion expert, believes it's <span style="font-weight: bold;">premature to say that the public has rejected it</span>. Curiously, many individual components — doing away with insurance denials for pre-existing conditions, tax credits to help pay premiums, insurance purchasing pools — are <span style="font-weight: bold;">widely popular.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34900.html#ixzz0j6osV4Yi" target="_blank">Health bill may exempt top Hill staffers</a><br />[Interesting to note that, contrary to popular myth, <span style="font-weight: bold;">members of Congress do</span>, in fact, <span style="font-weight: bold;">have to buy insurance through the exchanges</span>. But their senior staffers - the ones who actually wrote the policy - <span style="font-style: italic;">may </span>be exempt. Just goes to show you it doesn't always pay to be on top...]<br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">The health care reform bill signed into law by President Barack Obama Tuesday <span style="font-weight: bold;">requires members of Congress and their office staffs to buy insurance through the state-run exchanges</span> it creates – but it <span style="font-weight: bold;">may exempt staffers</span> who work for congressional committees or for party leaders in the House and Senate.<br /><br />Staffers and members on both sides of the aisle call it an “inequity” and an “outrage” – a <span style="font-weight: bold;">loophole that exempts the staffers most involved in writing and passing the bill from one of its key requirements</span>.</blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100324/ap_on_re_as/as_india_disappearing_island;_ylt=AuDy0Xd8V.2kd6CiPj6qqP6s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTQwaG5tOXRxBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMzI0L2FzX2luZGlhX2Rpc2FwcGVhcmluZ19pc2xhbmQEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM5BHBvcwM2BHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDZGlzcHV0ZWRpc2xl" target="_blank">Disputed isle in Bay of Bengal disappears into sea</a><br />[I shouldn't laugh at this, but this struck me as supremely hilarious. But since no one died, I can laugh.]<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: <span style="font-weight: bold;">the island's gone</span>.</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />"<span style="font-weight: bold;">What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming</span>," said Hazra.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100323/ap_on_he_me/us_med_last_supper_obesity;_ylt=ApfR4ePYFtWHgRsENut0XV.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFpMnV2aHVrBHBvcwMzNQRzZWMDYWNjb3JkaW9uX21vc3RfcG9wdWxhcgRzbGsDc3R1ZHlsYXN0c3Vw" target="_blank">Study: Last Supper paintings supersize the food</a><br />[Amidst all the news...just remember, this is life for some people.]<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">The food in famous paintings of the meal has grown by biblical proportions over the last millennium, researchers report in a medical journal Tuesday.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The study is "<span style="font-weight: bold;">not very meaningful science</span>," said Martin Binks, a behavioral health psychologist and a consultant at Duke University Medical Center. "We have real life examples of the increase in portion size — all you have to do is <span style="font-weight: bold;">look at what's being sold at fast-food restaurants</span>."</span><br /></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-66623469856715665642010-03-21T16:47:00.002-05:002010-03-21T16:54:41.124-05:00Ask not what America will do for you...Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that <span style="font-style: italic;">we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe</span>, in order to <span style="font-weight: bold;">assure the survival and the success of liberty.</span><br />-John F. Kennedy, 1961 Inauguration Address<br /><br />Seek not good from without: <span style="font-style: italic;">seek it from within yourselves</span> or <span style="font-weight: bold;">you will never find it</span>.<br />-Epictetus<br /><br />We shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom—and to remember that, in the past, <span style="font-style: italic;">those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">ended up inside</span>.<br />-John F. Kennedy, 1961 Inauguration Address<br /><br />What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather <span style="font-weight: bold;">the way people think things are</span>.<br />-Epictetus<br /><br />Let us <span style="font-style: italic;">never negotiate out of fear</span>. But let us <span style="font-weight: bold;">never fear to negotiate</span>. Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.<br />-John F. Kennedy, 1961 Inauguration Address<br /><br />Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in <span style="font-weight: bold;">having few wants</span>.<br />-Epictetus<br /><br />And so, my fellow Americans: <span style="font-style: italic;">ask not what your country can do for you</span>—<span style="font-weight: bold;">ask what you can do for your country</span>. My fellow citizens of the world: <span style="font-weight: bold;">ask not what America will do for you</span>, but what <span style="font-style: italic;">together we can do for the freedom of man</span>.<br />-John F. Kennedy, 1961 Inauguration Address<br /><br />The greater the difficulty the <span style="font-weight: bold;">more glory in surmounting it</span>. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.<br />-Epictetus<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0310/Chief-Justice-John-Roberts-and-Obama-White-House-a-tit-for-tat">Chief Justice John Roberts and Obama White House: a tit for tat</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">“On the other hand,” he continued, “there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances, and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government, standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court – according the requirements of protocol – has to sit there expressionless, <span style="font-weight: bold;">I think is very troubling.</span>”</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2010/0310/Internet-aids-terrorist-recruiting-radicalization-Pentagon-says">Internet aids terrorist recruiting, radicalization, Pentagon says</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Militant groups and some individuals have “maximized” the use of technologies such as the Internet. Government officials say the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly attempted to blow up an American airliner in Detroit on Christmas Day, points to just how fast groups can radicalize an individual. Mr. Abdulmutallab was identified, contacted, recruited, and trained all within six weeks, according to a Pentagon counterterrorism official. That’s much faster than the two and a half years it took for Osama bin Laden to hatch the plan to attack the US nine years ago. While the two plans vary widely in scope, the faster time frame indicates how adaptive radicalized groups and individuals have become, say experts.</blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34753.html">Nancy Pelosi steeled White House for health push</a><br />A good summary of the health care battle thus far.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Health care reform bill 101:</span><br />A good plain-English look at what exactly is in the healthcare bill.<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Health%20care%20reform%20bill%20101:%20Who%20will%20pay%20for%20reform?">Who will pay for reform?</a></li><li><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0320/Health-care-reform-bill-101-How-long-will-reform-take">How long will reform take?</a></li><li><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0320/Health-care-reform-bill-101-Who-gets-subsidized-insurance">Who gets subsidized insurance?</a></li><li><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0319/Health-care-reform-bill-101-Who-must-buy-insurance">Who must buy insurance?</a></li></ul>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-20869134824417499022010-03-10T08:48:00.002-06:002010-03-10T14:48:46.866-06:00Allah is on our side“Putin – and Russia – bitterly regrets that <span style="font-weight: bold;">Russia is no longer a world power</span> and that no one is interested or concerned or afraid of them. At present, Russia is not a near-term threat and Russia will not become dangerous to the national security of the US, the Western world, or other allies.”<br />-Ted Sorensen<br /><br />“<span style="font-weight: bold;">We are not intimidated</span> by the size of the armies, or the type of hardware the US has brought.”<br />-Saddam Hussein<br /><br />“<span style="font-weight: bold;">Allah is on our side.</span> That is why we will beat the aggressor.”<br />-Saddam Hussein<br /><br />“I am one of the servants of Allah and I obey his orders. Among those is the <span style="font-weight: bold;">order to fight for the word of Allah</span> ... and to <span style="font-weight: bold;">fight until the Americans are driven out of all the Islamic countries</span>... We are certain - with the grace of Allah - that we shall prevail over the Jews and over those fighting with them.”<br />-Osama bin Ladin<br /><br />“God the Almighty has made our nation. By defending its existence <span style="font-weight: bold;">we are defending His work</span>.”<br />-Adolph Hitler<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.int-review.org/terr42a.html" target="_blank">Spanish Muslims issue 'fatwa' against bin Laden</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">(</span><u style="font-style: italic;">March 12, 2005</u><span style="font-style: italic;">) Spain's leading </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Muslim clerics have issued a religious order declaring Usama bin Ladin an apostate</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> and to have forsaken Islam by backing attacks such as the Madrid train bombings.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"We declare ... that Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation, responsible for the horrendous crimes against innocent people who were despicably murdered in the 11 March terrorist attack in Madrid, are outside the parameters of Islam," the commission said. The fatwa said that according to the Koran “the </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">terrorist acts of Osama bin Laden and his organization al-Qaeda … are totally banned</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> and must be roundly condemned as against Islam.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It added: “Inasmuch as Osama bin Laden and his organization defend terrorism as legal and try to base it on the Koran --- they are committing the crime of ‘istihlal’ and thus </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">become apostates that should not be considered Muslims or treated as such.</span><span style="font-style: italic;">” The term “istihlal” refers to the act of making up one’s own laws.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8559084.stm" target="_blank">Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attacks US for Afghan 'double game'</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Mr Ahmadinejad: "They themselves created terrorists and now they're saying that they are fighting terrorists."<br /><br />Mr Ahmadinejad criticised the US for its troops' presence, saying: "Your country is located on the other side of the world, so <span style="font-weight: bold;">what are you doing here</span>?"</blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2010/03/09/jihad-jane-pa-woman-charged-with-supporting-terrorists/" target="_blank">Jihad Jane – Philly Woman Charged With Supporting Terrorists</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">A </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Pennsylvania woman</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> known to authorities online as “JihadJane” has been charged in federal court with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, making false statements to a government official and attempted identity theft according to a Fox News report.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The indictment, unsealed Monday, charges that Colleen R. LaRose and five unindicted co-conspirators recruited men on the Internet to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe, and recruited women on the Internet who had passports and the ability to travel to and around Europe in support of violent jihad.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34158.html" target="_blank">Leaving Afghanistan moves beyond left vs. right</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) plans to use a parliamentary maneuver to force a Wednesday House <span style="font-weight: bold;">vote on the removal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan</span>. Kucinich’s <span style="font-weight: bold;">resolution directs President Obama to remove troops 30 days</span> from the day it is passed or, depending on whether troops can be removed safely in that time frame, no later than Dec. 31.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34141.html" target="_blank"><br />Don't withdraw troops prematurely</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">While U.S. Marines continue their offensive against Taliban insurgents in Helmand province — facing snipers, mines, improvised explosive devices and a skeptical Afghan public — the House is expected this week to debate whether American military forces should be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of the year.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">This ill-timed resolution, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), threatens to <span style="font-weight: bold;">undermine the hard-fought gains</span> made by thousands of U.S. troops and their Afghan partners by <span style="font-weight: bold;">discouraging Afghans who covet peace</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">emboldening Taliban fighters and their never-ending cycle of violence</span>.</span><br /></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-44660223257972620582010-03-05T23:44:00.001-06:002010-03-05T23:46:06.690-06:00...the time has come to inquire seriously...We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation.<br />-Theodore Roosevelt<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6252949n" target="_blank">Stealing America's Secrets</a><br />60 Minutes has obtained an FBI videotape showing a Defense Department employee selling secrets to a Chinese spy that offers a rare glimpse into the secretive world of espionage.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100303/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanunrestmediataliban" target="_blank">Taliban condemn Afghan ban on live coverage of attacks</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">They banned music, television and education for girls during their rule of Afghanistan, but the Taliban on Wednesday condemned a government ban on live broadcasts of their attacks.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Western-backed government has banned live coverage of militant assaults in a bid to prevent the Taliban exploiting television news to help their operatives. As the measure -- which applies to domestic and international media -- was criticised by journalists and rights groups, the Taliban joined the fray, calling it an attack on free speech.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"This totally undermines freedom of the press and expression and cannot be justified by any means," Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP. The Taliban "respects all those media which are free and independent and support their rights," he said, reading from a statement. "We invite them to cover all our activities against the invaders. Imposing a ban on free media means the government is trying to cover its failures. They have failed... and are trying to hide that," he said.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34007.html" target="_blank"><br />Abortion could be health bill deal breaker in House</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">...it looks like the final act in the year-long health care fight could once again come down to abortion – so much so that Pelosi invited a group of women’s rights groups to the Capitol on Thursday, along with a number of her closest allies, for a preliminary discussion to strategize about the way ahead.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">And a day after Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said he’s willing to derail reform if the bill didn’t block federal funding of abortion, the rhetoric on both sides of the issue was fierce – suggesting that even Pelosi’s usual ability to bridge her diverse caucus might not be enough to salvage President Barack Obama’s top legislative priority.</span><br /></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-83675550876494748812010-03-02T15:33:00.002-06:002010-03-02T15:39:20.657-06:00Death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirationsDespite the international terrorist threat from al-Qaeda, some analysts claim that <span style="font-weight: bold;">radical Islam is on the wane</span>. We are already, so they say, in the era of post-Islamism…However, the movement as a whole is still vigorous and exercises a measure of influences in various Muslim societies, including on politics. This influence continues, despite the fact that in most places, the <span style="font-style: italic;">movement is unlikely to take power</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">either by ballots or bullets</span>.<br />-Emmanual Sivan,<span style="font-style: italic;"> The Clash within Islam</span><br /><br /><br />The al-Qaeda dream is that success against the ‘far enemies’ – the United States and Israel – will rebound into the successful toppling of the ‘near enemy’, apostate Arab regimes. But this is the <span style="font-style: italic;">dream of an apocalyptic future</span>, a <span style="font-weight: bold;">dream most radical Muslims do not share</span>.<br />-Emmanual Sivan, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Clash within Islam<br /></span><br /><br />[They] envisioned dar al-Harb (“House of War”) as an area torn by perpetual conflict and a constant threat to the peace of the dar al-Islam (“House of Islam”). Although extended periods of truce would be permissible, <span style="font-style: italic;">war between these two abodes was understood to be the normal state</span>, until such time that the <span style="font-weight: bold;">dar al-Islam would prevail</span>.<br />-Assaf Moghadam, <span style="font-style: italic;">Mayhem, Myths, and Martyrdom: The Shi’a Conception of Jihad</span><br /><br /><br />God is our objective; the Quran is our constitution; the Prophet is our leader; <span style="font-style: italic;">Jihad is our way</span>; and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations.</span><br />-The Credo of the Muslim Brotherhood<br /><br /><br />Beginning in the early 1980s, and continuing until today, Salafi-Jihadists would frame the <span style="font-style: italic;">concept of jihad as the result of a long history of perceived Western subjugation of Islam</span> that includes the occupation of Muslim lands by ‘infidel’ Western countries and ‘apostate’ regimes in the Arab Middle East.<br />-Assaf Moghadam, <span style="font-style: italic;">Mayhem, Myths, and Martyrdom: The Shi’a Conception of Jihad</span><br /><br /><br />Most Muslims, including non-violent Salafis, cite a number of Quranic and hadith <span style="font-weight: bold;">sources against the killing of civilians</span>, although mainstream Salafis recognize that innocent civilians may be killed in the course of war, which is an acceptable consequence if the war is just.<br />-Assaf Moghadam, <span style="font-style: italic;">Mayhem, Myths, and Martyrdom: The Shi’a Conception of Jihad</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br />[I]f Sunni and Shiite governments alike do not curb the belligerent voices in their midst…the struggle might break out of the boundaries of Iraq and engulf other parts of the region. Encouraged by pinpoint Al-Qaeda operations, tensions will likely mount in the Gulf area and in Lebanon. If and when the US decides to recall its forces from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other Sunni states will probably get embroiled in the bloody struggle in order to prevent its extension into their own territories, making it necessary for Iraqn to increase its own involvement. What is now a fundamentally political struggle might thus become<span style="font-weight: bold;"> another set of religious wars within Dar al-Islam</span>.<br />-Dr. Dror Ze’evi, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Present Shia-Sunna Divide: Remaking Historical Memory</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0227/SeaWorld-resumes-shows-with-killer-whales-but-no-Tilikum" target="_blank"><br />SeaWorld resumes shows with killer whales – but no 'Tilikum'</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Shows featuring killer whales reopened at SeaWorld marine parks Saturday, days after the tragic death of whale trainer Dawn Brancheau in Orlando, Fla.<br /><br />Park managers in Orlando decided not to use the male orca, Tilikum, involved in Brancheau's death, on Saturday. And trainers did not get into the water – riding or jumping with the whales – as they have typically done in what has become a signature event for the theme parks. </blockquote><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0302/US-Postal-Service-delivers-bad-news-No-Saturday-mail-delivery" target="_blank">US Postal Service delivers bad news: No Saturday mail delivery?</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">The Postal Service’s volume has been declining rapidly. Now its leaders are increasing the pressure on Congress to allow big changes in how the US mail is handled – including the ending of Saturday deliveries.</span></blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/03/201032175017919479.html" target="_blank"><br />Ukraine PM's coalition collapses</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Ukraine's coalition government has collapsed after Viktor Yanukovych, the newly-elected president, moved to oust the prime minister from parliament.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Yulia Tymoshenko had refused to recognise Yanukovych's victory in polls last month, claiming the vote was unfair and fraudulent, and remained in office. But her majority has now crumbled after a number of politicians from minority parties switched their allegiance following her defeat in the February 7 polls.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"As of today there is no coalition in parliament. Therefore I announce that the coalition has ceased to exist," Volodymr Lytvyn, parliament speaker, said on Tuesday.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Under the Ukrainian constitution, the country's political leaders have 30 days to form a new coalition. If they fail, Yanukovych can exercise his right to dissolve parliament and call snap legislative elections that would otherwise not be due until 2012.</span></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-27264854464365020402010-02-27T11:02:00.002-06:002010-02-27T11:08:00.656-06:00We’ll split America into 54 pieces<a href="http://content1.clipmarks.com/content/7E8ADC46-F3DD-4D6F-B184-3A07CF501B7C" target="_blank">Waterboarding</a><br />Playboy sends a 'lab rat' journalist to do waterboarding. It's an interesting five-minute watch.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://video.pbs.org/video/1423567086/" target="_blank">Behind Taliban Lines</a><br />Excellent PBS Front Line piece by an Afghan[i?] journalist who embedded with a Hezb-e-Islam/Al Qaeda cell for 10 days. Thoughts:<br /><br />• From around 37:30-38:15 there are some dead body images if you’re queasy.<br />• They SLEEP in their turbans…<br />• If capitalism is so bad, why are these fighters wearing store-bought sneakers?<br />• “We split Russia into 25 pieces, and <span style="font-weight: bold;">God willing, now we’ll split America into 54 pieces</span>.”<br />• You really have to admire their dedication not only to the cause, but to learning their religion and praying and such. But they’re sooo delusional!!!!! They actually <span style="font-style: italic;">believe </span>all their propaganda!<br />• For being so dedicated to their cause, they’re a bunch of WHINERS.<br />• Wow…I watched this whole clip kinda sick to my stomach, knowing that the video would end with (an) American soldier(s) dying. It ended up being a providentially good ending for America this time, but this is just one op out of dozens a month in one small region out of the whole country.<br />• I guess not all of them aren’t completely into anarchy, eh? I love their handcuffs.<br />• This cameraman/reporter is an amazing guy. I don’t know if it’s courageous exactly, but it definitely takes some balls…yea, I might call him brave. I could not imagine doing that embed job…<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33558.html" target="_blank">Truth-squading the summit</a><br />I'm all about fact-finding and getting past the sizzle and subterfuge to find substance, so I liked this article.<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Obama exaggerated. Boehner lied. Reid was incorrect. Ryan is wrong.<br /><br />An army of partisan fact checkers bombarded the media through seven hours of the health care summit with such deep thoughts — replete with cherry-picked data — confirming the adage that there’s lies, damn lies and statistics.<br /><br />Some of the jabs were dead on, but some were merely meant to back up partisan talking points. Still, there were plenty of factually challenged statements. </blockquote><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33561_Page3.html" target="_blank"><br />'Mitch the knife' eyes 2012 run </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">After months of Shermanesque denials, Indiana GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels’ admission that he’s now willing to consider a White House run has roused his long-standing, if unofficial, fan club. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Republican admirers from Washington, Indiana and elsewhere, hoping to encourage their favorite Hoosier, are out in force to make the case that a balding, blunt, unprepossessing, listed-at-5-foot-7 policy wonk would be a strong contender to take on President Barack Obama. Their shorthand is that he’s the un-Obama. If the country has soured on a charismatic orator who brought glamour but little executive experience to the presidency, the thinking goes, then Daniels could provide the antidote. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“Do we want a president that’s pretty, or do we want one who can get the job done?” </span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">At 60, Daniels’s résumé is exhaustive: He’s a Princeton-educated former Senate chief of staff-turned political operative-turned think tank chief-turned Fortune 500 executive-turned White House budget director-turned two-term governor. </span></blockquote><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100227/ap_on_re_us/us_tacoma_school_shooting" target="_blank">Wash. teacher killed outside school before classes</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">The stalking began with bursts of phone calls — 10 or 15 in a day, about once a year, from an old college acquaintance. Then, flowers and unwanted visits, an anti-harassment order, an arrest — and bail.<br /><br />Jennifer Paulson, a 30-year-old special education teacher at a Tacoma elementary school, knew she was in danger this week when her alleged stalker was released from the Pierce County Jail, three days after she had him arrested. She started staying away from her home in an attempt to avoid him.<br /><br />It didn't work. When she showed up for work Friday morning, he was already there — and had been waiting for hours, according to reports neighbors gave police. Paulson was shot more than once as she walked into the school. Her body lay near the base of a large evergreen tree with blood seeping from her mouth.<br />A Pierce County sheriff's deputy tracked down the suspected killer, Jed R. Waits, 30, of Ellensburg, outside a daycare about 10 miles away and killed him in a shootout.<br /></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-19283295319069112622010-02-26T08:50:00.004-06:002010-02-27T08:43:30.864-06:00People of the world, unite and defeat the US aggressors<span style="font-weight: bold;">War</span> is not only a practical necessity, it is also a <span style="font-weight: bold;">theoretical necessity</span>, an exigency of logic…That <span style="font-style: italic;">war should ever be banished from the world</span> is a hope not only <span style="font-weight: bold;">absurd</span>, but <span style="font-weight: bold;">profoundly immoral</span>.<br />-Heinrich von Treitschke<br /><br /><br />The Maoist cult was sustained by the publication of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Little Red Book</span> of quotations from Mao. The more militant have been longer remembered: Political power grows out of the <span style="font-weight: bold;">barrel of a gun</span>; politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed; all reactionaries are paper tigers; people of the world, <span style="font-weight: bold;">unite and defeat the US aggressors</span> and all their running dogs.<br />-John McCormick, <span style="font-style: italic;">Comparative Politics in Transition</span><br /><br /><br />Now for a thumbnail view of the news I think is interesting:<br /><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/02/201022603559185422.html" target="_blank"><span id="DetailedTitle">US health debate stalls </span></a><br />Here's a nice little snapshot of the highlights of the healthcare debate. Intended for an international audience, it's a good intro to the topic if you haven't been following too closely.<br /><br />I thought his remarks were funny (if not slightly classless), but I think McCain needs to shut up and move on. In other news, I like Obama's tie, and I can't help but thinking about the security ramifications of having the President, Vice President, and plenty of senior citizens in the same tiny office...<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/23/AR2010022303880.html" target="_blank">Al-Qaida leader in Yemen threatens new US attacks</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Qasim al-Raimi, a top military commander for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, warned Americans in an article published in an online militant magazine that the group "<span style="font-weight: bold;">will blow up the earth from below your feet."</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"You have attacked us in the midst of our household, so <span style="font-weight: bold;">wait for what will attack you in the midst of yours</span>," al-Raimi said.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Al-Raimi claimed in the article that U.S. efforts have backfired, and only succeded in pushing more Yemenis into the militant fold. "You united us with our people, made our catastrophe one," he said.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/2010226125223264122.html" target="_blank">Iranian rebel 'admits US links' </a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">An alleged member of a Sunni Muslim group fighting the Iranian government has said in a televised confession that his group received help from the United States.<br /><br />"They<span style="font-weight: bold;"> [Americans] said they would co-operate with us and will give me military equipment</span>," Rigi said in Farsi in the prerecorded television statement.<br /><br />"They also promised to give us a base along the border with Afghanistan near Iran."<br /><br />Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said...that accusations that Washington supported Jundallah or any other anti-goverment groups fighting in Iran were "nothing more than Iranian propaganda."<br /><br />"Allegations that we played some role in creating or supporting Jundallah is just another false claim in a long list of ridiculous Iranian fabrications."</blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1152316.html" target="_blank">Ahmadinejad: Arab world will usher in new Mideast without Zionists </a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday that Arab nations will usher in a new Middle East without Zionists and without colonialists.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Iranian president also said that "<span style="font-weight: bold;">if the Zionist regime wants to repeat its past mistakes, this will constitute its demise and annihilation.</span>"</span><br /> <br /> <span style="font-style: italic;">Ahmadinejad said Iran, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon will all stand against Israel.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"(The Americans) want to dominate the region but they feel Iran and Syria are preventing that," Ahmadinejad said during a news conference with Assad. "We tell them that instead of interfering in the region's affairs, to pack their things and leave."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Ahmadinejad is also scheduled to meet senior officials from the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.</span></blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2010/0223/Navy-to-allow-women-to-serve-aboard-submarines" target="_blank">Navy to allow women to serve aboard submarines</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">The Navy will soon permit female sailors to serve aboard submarines, removing one of the last barriers to women in the military serving equally alongside men.<br /><br />The integration is likely to be phased in, with the first women serving on some subs perhaps within a year or so. Women might serve first on some of the larger submarines that are easier to reconfigure to accommodate them. Before women are assigned to a submarine, they must receive nuclear training, which can take up to a year, say military officials. The Navy isn't speaking about the plan until it planners determine how it will be implemented. </blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=36073&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=be6c3aeeb0" target="_blank">Russia’s Military Doctrine: New Dangers Appear</a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Aleksandr Khramchikhin, the Deputy Director of the Institute for Political and Military Analysis, highlighted the potential for conflict on the Russian border, which had nothing to do with NATO, but was likely, if unleashed, to lead to a much wider war. Khramchikhin pointed to increased tensions between the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. He warned that neither Seoul nor Pyongyang, and neither Beijing nor Washington wanted to start a conflict, but the <span style="font-weight: bold;">large arsenals and the heightened tension might lead to an uncontrolled escalation bringing in other powers</span>.<br /><br />US intervention on the side of South Korea would not fundamentally change that military balance, or bring the war to a rapid conclusion. US forces are currently overcommitted in other theaters and lack the strategic reserve to occupy the North. Khramchikhin characterized such a conflict as a catastrophe for everyone. Moreover, <span style="font-weight: bold;">North Korea could make use of it nuclear arms delivered by short-range missiles and aircraft or as nuclear mines. Such an escalation would demand that China acted.</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/0226/Qaddafi-calls-for-jihad-against-Switzerland-Is-it-funny" target="_blank">Qaddafi calls for jihad against Switzerland: Is it funny?</a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi has ratcheted up his campaign against Switzerland by calling for jihad, or holy war, against the European nation.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The British daily the Telegraph quoted Qaddafi after he gave a "rambling" address.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> "Any Muslim in any part of the world who works with Switzerland is an apostate, is against [the Prophet] Mohammad, and God and the Koran," he told a meeting in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.</span><br /><br /> <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">"The masses of Muslims must go to all airports in the Islamic world and prevent any Swiss plane landing, to all harbors and prevent any Swiss ships docking, inspect all shops and markets to stop any Swiss goods being sold."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Later in his address, Qaddafi distinguished his proposed holy struggle from Al-Qaeda-style terrorism, saying: </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">"There is a big difference between terrorism and jihad which is a right to armed struggle."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The BBC reported that, in his speech, Qaddafi also slammed Switzerland's vote in November last year to ban minarets, or spires on Moslem mosques used for the call to prayer.</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-55692577891444329722010-02-19T16:22:00.003-06:002010-02-27T08:43:58.752-06:00Justice is the end of government.If they fear you, they will respect you. If they love you, they might respect you. But if they don’t fear you, they’ll never love you or respect you and they don’t have to!<br />-Richard Nixon, <span style="font-style: italic;">Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms</span><br /><br />There are probably as many reasons for committing terrorist acts as there are terrorists.<br />-David E. Long, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Anatomy of Terrorism</span><br /><br />Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.<br />-Publius/James Madison, <span style="font-style: italic;">Federalist No. 51</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1151039.html" target="_blank"><br />Russia to supply Iran with S-300 defense systems </a><br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Russia intends to fulfill a contract to supply S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran<br />Israel and the United States have repeatedly asked Russia to scrap a contract to sell Iran the truck-mounted S-300, which can shoot down hostile missiles or aircraft up to 150 km (90 miles) away.<br /><br />Israel and the United States have repeatedly asked Russia to scrap a contract to sell Iran the truck-mounted S-300, which can shoot down hostile missiles or aircraft up to 150 km (90 miles) away.<br /><br />"There is a contract to supply these systems to Iran, and we will fulfill it," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.</blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31Jihadist-t.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">The Jihadist Next Door </a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Hammami was every bit as Alabaman as his mother, a warm, plain-spoken woman who sprinkles her conversation with blandishments like “sugar” and “darlin’.” Brought up a Southern Baptist, Omar went to Bible camp as a boy and sang “Away in a Manger” on Christmas Eve. As a teenager, his passions veered between Shakespeare and Kurt Cobain, soccer and Nintendo.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Some 8,500 miles from Alabama, on the eastern edge of Africa, he has become a key figure in one of the world’s most ruthless Islamist insurgencies. That guerrilla army, known as the Shabab, is fighting to overthrow the fragile American-backed Somali government. The rebels are known for beheading political enemies, chopping off the hands of thieves and stoning women accused of adultery. With help from Al Qaeda, they have managed to turn Somalia into an ever more popular destination for jihadis from around the world. </span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2815250719155456171.post-43161466517371372412010-02-03T16:06:00.004-06:002010-02-27T08:44:32.214-06:00...A false humanity has restrained your arms and stopped your blows...If a capitalist economy is subjected to <span style="font-weight: bold;">increasing degrees of state control</span>, a point (not precisely specificiable at this time) will be reached at which <span style="font-weight: bold;">democratic governance becomes impossible</span>.<br />-Peter Berger, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Capitalist Revolution</span>, 1986<br /><br />If…I nevertheless conclude that I believe that the welfare state…is really worth fighting for and even dying for as compared to any rival system, it is because, <span style="font-weight: bold;">despite its imperfection in theory and practice</span>, in the aggregate it <span style="font-weight: bold;">provides more promise </span>of preserving and enlarging human freedoms, temporal prosperity, the extinction of mass misery, and the dignity of man and his moral improvement than any other social system which has previously prevailed, which prevails elsewhere today or which outside Utopia, the mind of man has been able to provide a blueprint for.<br />-Abramovitz, 1981<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Maritime piracy</span> represents an area where the mixing of militant Islamic terrorism and crime can converge with potentially <span style="font-weight: bold;">severe consequences for global military and economic security</span>. Particularly alarming is the fact that criminals and terrorists…have the resources to commandeer lethal cargoes such as chemicals, gas, arms, and specialized dual-use equipment. A potential nightmare scenario for governments would be the hijacking and sinking of one or more ships in one of the worlds’ most important canals or narrow shipping lanes…The 500,000 ton ships that traverse these waterways carry a crew of only thirty and have no armed guards to repel raiding parties. <span style="font-weight: bold;">A scuttled supertanker in one of these locations could create major economic disruptions.</span><br />-Thomas M. Sanderson, <span style="font-style: italic;">Transnational Terror and Organized Crime</span>, 2004<br /><br />Five or six hundred heads would have guaranteed your freedom and happiness but <span style="font-weight: bold;">a false humanity has restrained your arms and stopped your blows</span>. If you <span style="font-weight: bold;">don’t strike now, millions of your brothers will die,</span> your enemies will triumph and your blood will flood the streets. They’ll slit your throats without mercy and disembowel your wives. And their bloody hands will rip out your children’s entrails to <span style="font-weight: bold;">erase your love of liberty forever</span>.<br />-Jean-Paul Marat, 1790<br /><br /><a href="http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=9679" target="_blank">Amusingly sad video</a> - some conspiracy theorist guy convinces too many ignoramouses to sign a petition repealing the 'outdated' First Amendment.<br /><br /><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/01/20101269170257444.html" target="_blank">The Euro Xenophobia continues</a> - is this philosophically and morally ok? Is it a slippery slope? Is the potential endstate of this slippery slope desirable? Does this do anything to get at the root of the problem or does it exacerbate the problem and accomplish a few of 'their' objectives for them?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2010/02/02/al-qaeda-attack-in-3-6-months-may-be-in-works/" target="_blank">al Qaeda Attack In 3-6 Months May Be In Works</a> - “The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11. It is that Al Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect,” Panetta told the Senate Intelligence Committee. Panetta also warned of the danger of extremists acting alone: “It’s the lone-wolf strategy that I think we have to pay attention to as the main threat to this country,” he said.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0