What Adam Curry is reading

Report: Intelligence Cable Sent To Cairo Prior To Attacks
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  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 21:05
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BuzzFeed Hires Web Video Pioneer Ze Frank - Peter Kafka - Media
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  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 20:17
  Here's a good chocolate/peanut butter combination: Buzzfeed, the click-factory that has figured out Facebook and Twitter, plus Ze Frank, the guy who figured out Web video back in its infancy.
  Together they're going to try to figure out modern-day YouTube.
  Buzzfeed has bought Ze Frank's games/video start-up, which means it has ''acqhired'' Frank and two of his three employees. Frank's job is to help Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti break into Google's video giant.
  ''Facebook and Twitter have been huge for the growth of BuzzFeed so far and YouTube has been the missing piece,'' Peretti says. ''Ze will lead the YouTube charge for us.''
  Frank is building and staffing a BuzzFeed studio in Los Angeles, but he's already been generating some video for Peretti and company, by creating some clips based on BuzzFeed posts.
  Here's his breakout hit to date, which has generated more than 4 million views and is more popular than its source material.
  But Frank says the stuff he'll be doing as a full-time BuzzFeed employee won't be limited to recreating the site's posts. ''That's just one approach,'' he says. His guiding principles: ''The thing that has always struck me is that there has always been a bit of a hole at YouTube when it comes to authenticity, human emotion, fun and play.''
  Frank has been monkeying around on the Web since 2001, but made his name with a video series he launched in 2006. Frank didn't actually use YouTube to host the daily show, but the style and content '-- Frank, close-up, riffing straight into a camera, with some very fast cuts and a confessional style '-- is now a YouTube template.
  Frank started a new show this year, backed by a Kickstarter campaign, and that's going to continue.
  In 2010, Frank started a games company that eventually raised $700,000 from backers like Andreessen Horowitz and Lerer Ventures, which is also backing BuzzFeed. He's one of two acquisitions the company has made this week '-- it also picked up Facebook ad start-up Kingfish Labs, another Lerer Ventures project.
  Here's a TED talk Frank gave in 2010. Well worth 20 minutes if you have it.
Demonstrations Against US Continue to Worsen Over Film
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  Source: News From Antiwar.com
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:38
  From the burning of the German embassy in the Sudan to Lebanese protesters sacking a Kentucky Fried Chicken and the adjacent Hardee's, the Middle East is awash in protests and riots about a number of topics, but none so much as the anti-Muslim movie Innocence of Muslims, which has a trailer but the full version of which no one has actually seen yet.
  The bloodiest incidents took place in Libya, where the Benghazi consulate was burned, killing four including the US Ambassador, and in Tunisia, where protesters stormed the embassy, killing three and wounding 28, before setting a nearby US-run school ablaze.
  But no place is immune, and from Morocco to Indonesia, and everywhere in between, protests are breaking out and the US is struggling to ratchet up security. Even Tel Aviv saw protests, as Bedouins marched on the US embassy.
  The embassy in Yemen has been stormed, and police attacked demonstrators today as they marched on it again, killing two. Egyptian forces continue to try to keep people away from the Cairo embassy, after protesters climbed the facade earlier this week and took down the US flag. Egypt's decision not to ban a march on Tahrir Square to protest the movie also led President Obama to term Egypt ''not an ally.''
  President Mursi urged Egyptians not to attack embassies, but the ability of police to keep protesters away is unclear. In Sudan, a top sheik urged the crowds on, and hundreds stormed the German embassy over claims of ''anti-Islam'' graffiti written on mosques, then urged them to move against the US embassy, where they clashed with police.
  Protests in Indonesia, Malaysia and India were mostly peaceful marches against US embassies and consulates, while the march in Iran targeted the Swiss Embassy, since they deal with Iran-US relations. In many nations, the protesters were blocked from the embassies, and fought with police.
  Several nations are trying to mitigate the riots by blocking YouTube access, keeping people from seeing the sloppily-made trailer, and the White House has confirmed it has pressed YouTube to remove the video.
  At this point it is easier to count the nation's that haven't seen protests than those who have. Syria has been immune, apparently too busy with their ongoing civil war to check YouTube, and nations like Saudi Arabia and Algeria where preemptive government crackdowns have kept the dissent from going public.
  Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz
Facebook's Growing Silent-Majority Problem | PandoDaily
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:11
  For all its talk about bringing people together online, Facebook has been a pretty divisive company. There have always been two vocal camps: One took to the the social network, sharing their quotidian lives in piecemeal updates and shifting a good portion of their social interactions onto Facebook's sprawling social graph. The other took the opposite direction, avoiding the site entirely, or canceling their accounts, or griping as they came to endure Facebook as a necessary evil of being online.
  All along, there was a third camp that was not very vocal. People who had no serious qualms with Facebook ads or privacy policies, but who didn't feel drawn to publish their daily activities. They'd lurk more than they liked. They'd check in as needed '' maybe daily, maybe weekly '' to communicate with their friends.
  This third group '' the silent majority of Facebook users '' hold the key to the company's future. Facebook is never going to win over its harshest critics, and it's unlikely to alienate the people who see it as part of the fabric of their everyday lives. If the company can persuade that silent majority to become more engaged in the site '' interacting with bands, liking consumer brands, clicking on the ads targeted to their surfing habits '' its future looks pretty bright.
  But that's a big if. Inactivity among Facebook users is becoming a vexing problem. Facebook's overall user base continues to grow globally, even if growth in the U.S., its largest and most mature market, is relatively sluggish. Yet it seems that people are using the site less. In August, according to comScore, the time people spent on Facebook's website dropped 12 percent from a year earlier. By contrast, time spent on Google grew 11 percent in the same period.
  It's not just because of the migration away from the Web. Evercore Partners analyst Ken Sena noted that Facebook's mobile growth was in line with that of peers like Google. So Facebook is maintaining mobile market share while losing share on the Web. Or as Sena put it on an interview with CNBC, ''When you're talking about combining the two, desktop and mobile, Facebook looks to be a share loser.''
  It's helpful to weigh cold metrics like comScore with anecdotal evidence. Mark Zuckerberg has often said he likes to gather such evidence by asking high-school and college students '' the core of Facebook's market '' how they use software. He even overhauled Facebook's messaging system after he discovered that many people in that demographic don't use email as much anymore. So I started doing the same. And what I've found over the past year constitutes ample anecdotal evidence to back up the comScore numbers: Many people under the age of 25 say that Facebook is growing more peripheral to their daily lives.
  The shift, as one high-school senior explained it, is a subtle one: It's not that people are abandoning Facebook, or that they're not using it every day. It's that they use it in a less compelling way than they used to. Some said they are checking in daily just to connect with their friends who are still very much into the site. The social network, for many, has become just one way of several for people to communicate on the Web. The ''modern messaging system'' Zuckerberg unveiled after talking with young users is being bypassed in favor of, for example, good old text messaging.
  That's borne out by the data showing that Facebook users between 12 and 17 spent 42 percent less time on its website last month, and those between 18 and 24 spent 25 percent less time. Again, the migration to mobile devices accounts for some of that decline, but not all of it. The remainder is caused by a trend that could be even more vexing to Facebook than its mobile quandary: Facebook's social graph isn't the ubiquitous social Web that it had hoped for. It's not '' as some had fretted '' taking over our lives. It's just one more part of our online lives.
  This doesn't mean that Facebook's future is at risk. But it does suggest that it is going to have a lot of trouble growing into the vision it's outlined for itself. The social graph the company is building was supposed to become the very infrastructure of a new social Web. In Zuckerberg's letter to shareholders, he spoke of his ''hope to rewire the way people spread and consume information'' through a social platform built from the bottom up.
  In one sense, that is happening. Facebook is the largest website in the world. Its social platform has linked many of its users' news feeds with some of the Web's most trafficked websites. Its Ad Exchange is helping the company better target ads to its users, based on their activities elsewhere on the web. That will help keep its revenue growing at a 30 percent clip, admirable for any company Facebook's size.
  Viewed from another angle, Facebook is falling short of its vision at the very moment it should be redoubling its efforts to achieve it. The company may count nearly a billion users, but more and more of them seem to be joining that silent majority. And as long as that continues, it means Facebook will need to grow revenue by focusing more on a smaller percentage of its most active users, drawing them to interact with more features, apps and targeted advertisements.
  The company's best hope of re-engaging that silent majority lies in mobile. The integration of Facebook technology into iOS 6 could be a first step, but there's more work to do. I notice people using Facebook on mobile devices mostly when they're waiting '' in checkout lines, on train platforms. Robert Scoble recently defended Facebook's mobile prospects after observing on a recent trip to Disneyland that ''everyone was on Facebook.'' But isn't 90 percent of time at Disneyland spent waiting?
  And that's what Facebook is becoming in 2012 for many of its users. Not the ubiquitous social Web utility that would become indispensable to our online lives. But a way of filling the grey spaces, to kill the time we would otherwise be sitting and waiting '-- perhaps useful, but not the grand vision Zuckerberg has in mind.
  [Image Credit: WikiMedia]
An idea for reporters conducting live interviews
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:01
  Just heard part of an interview between George Stephanopoulos and Mitt Romney.
  It went something like this.
  George: You going to take back what you said?
  Mitt: No, basically the White House agreed with what I said.
  George: They agreed that the President sympathizes with the people who attacked the embassy?
  Mitt: Basically the White House agreed with what I said (repeating his previous statement).
  George: You refuse to answer a direct question.
  Now, that's what I thought I heard Stephanopoulos say, but he actually went on from there.
  I propose that when you're interviewing someone who doesn't answer a question, that you say exactly those words. "You refuse to answer a direct question." It's like a receipt. Play back for them how you're interpreting. You still get to maintain your lack of a viewpoint. You're just saying what's obvious to everyone watching the interview. And it puts the burden on the person being interviewed. He could smile through it, and that would become the clip you use to summarize the interview. Or you might actually get a response to the question you asked.
Senator Leahy Brings Back Bill That Would Require Warrants When Gov't Snoops Through Servers For Your Info | Techdirt
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  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:14
  from the ecpa-reform deptThe Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) is ridiculously outdated. It was passed in 1986, and to this day provides the (incredibly inconsistent and difficult to apply) rules for what sort of privacy electronic communications have, even though the technology has changed drastically. This has created some wacky consequences, including that (for example) emails have different privacy protections when an email is being written compared to when it's being sent compared to when it's been received compared to when it's been read compared to when it's been archived. As an example, since most messages did not stay on servers for very long (they were downloaded and deleted), the law decided that messages stored on a server for more than 180 days were considered "abandoned" and subject to even lower standards of privacy protections. Think about that the next time you open your Gmail account... ECPA has lots of problems, but the basics are this: it certainly didn't anticipate an era where most of the things we do were in the so-called "cloud," and it takes almost no account of the expectation of privacy.
  Last year, Senator Pat Leahy introduced an ECPA reform bill that was mostly good. It basically said that if the government wants to get access to your data on a server, it first needs to obtain a warrant -- something that is sorely missing today. There were some loopholes that concerned us, but for the most part, it was a very big improvement. And it went nowhere. Now, many folks around here will remember Senator Leahy for being the driving force in the Senate behind PIPA -- and you may be quick to want to dismiss his actions here. But just because he's (strongly) supported that bad bill, it doesn't mean that everything he introduces has been similarly problematic.
  Leahy is trying again to move forward with his ECPA reform plan, this time attaching it to an update of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA). We've discussed the VPPA before. The short version is that it was a special law that bars the release of video rental info, passed in response to Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork having his video rental history leaked. But, of course, in this modern age where people automatically stream their music playlists or book purchases to Facebook... Netflix is left out in the cold, because the VPPA doesn't allow them to do the very same thing. So, there's an update to the VPPA making the rounds that basically changes the law to let you tell the world what you streamed from Netflix last night (if you so choose to share that kind of info).
  That bill has a chance to actually go somewhere, and it looks like Leahy sees it as another chance to see if he can get his ECPA reform package through the Senate. While it's no secret that I've had my differences with various Leahy proposals in the past, this is a reform that is badly needed to protect our privacy from government intrusion. Requiring a warrant to access your info in the cloud is a common sense move that's long overdue.
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Ayn Rand and Al Qaeda >> Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
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  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 14:57
  As an embarrassed former advocate of ''Objectivism'' (the hate rhetoric disguised as philosophy by the late Ayn Rand) and as a former US army intelligence analyst, I was struck by an almost unconscious image of the firebrand Russian Capitalist author that has been growing in the back of my mind for quite some time. Let me preface this by saying that the vast majority of people who agree with Ayn Rand on particular issues (e.g. atheism) have problems with her world-view taken as a whole, and those who do take Rand at face value are usually emotionally-susceptible young adults who don't know the hypocrisy of her views: for example, that Rand relied on Medicare in her later years despite her hatred of public health programs. It bears noting that by and large, Randians are harmless anti-social oddities, until, like Alan Greenspan or Paul Ryan, they are given a public platform from which to hurl righteous moral thunderbolts and play havoc with other peoples' money. I have yet to meet (face-to-face at least) a ''Rand-roid'' who seemed capable of any type of physical violence. Rand herself, however, is in another entire category: morally- and legally- dangerous.
  In her 1100-page shelf-busting Atlas Shrugged (1957), as well as in her 900-page doorstopper The Fountainhead (1943), Rand commits a series of federal crimes. In Atlas, the protagonist South-American mine-owning billionaire logically and methodically kills striking American workers with sniper fire from a rooftop while Rand praises his 20-20 vision and steady hand. In Rand's ''magnum opus'' (which many of her followers have compared to the Bible,) a squad of executive-class terrorists carries out armed attacks with the stated goal of ''stopping the engine of the world'' and destroying ''parasites,'' ''lice,'' ''dolts,'' and ''collectivists.'' The terrorist-businessmen have a fleet of marauding pirate ships which they use to seize only humanitarian aid shipments; they laugh while the victims of their infrastructure attacks starve or freeze to death, presumably because ''the dolts'' didn't have the good sense to invent something from scratch to sell for millions of dollars. Perhaps most striking is Rand's depiction of her railroad baroness heroine's cold-blooded execution of a fresh-faced, young United States soldier after what can only be described as an ideological rant that runs almost a hundred pages. In this scene, Rand makes it clear that the murder is being committed for what amounts to a violent political disagreement, and she praises her character's calm, remorseless, methodical execution of a uniformed member of the US military. And this is just a sampling of the terrorist acts extolled in Rand's novels.
  In The Fountainhead (1943) , the protagonist, a jilted and sociopathic architect with undiagnosed personality disorder, blows up a public building for a diversity of purely selfish and convoluted aesthetic reasons. Rand's fondness for terrorism is mostly openly political violence, which amounts to an endorsement of terrorism, which she justifies through a series of emotive attacks on altruism, religion, Cartesian rationalism and Kantian epistemology, among other targets. She is also fond of rape. Reference the scene in Fountainhead in which her ''perfectly selfish'' architect-hero rapes his debutant heroine counterpart. Sadly, Rand seriously intended this depiction of sexual violence as her ideal male-female partnership; Rand honestly saw this kind of rape as both passionate and loving. For more of these bizarre cases of insane rhetoric, try Rand's Romantic Manifesto (1969).
  Rand's rhetoric is little more than hate speech targeting environmentalists, union workers, immigrants, the poor, churches, government employees, newspaper publishers, modern artists and 18th-century philosophers. Her vitriol ran the gamut of Christians, socialists, Platonists, anti-abortion protestors, prose poets, NGO workers'... the list continues. If any of this type of agonizing fundamentalism is starting to sound familiar, now I would like to direct your attention to another monomaniacal millionaire who fantasized about killing US soldiers. The man I am thinking of had the stated mission of bringing the world to its knees using both terrorist physical violence as well as crippling economic violence. That's right, Osama Bin Laden.
  If comparing Ayn Rand to Osama Bin Laden sounds extreme, you don't know Ayn Rand sufficiently. Unfortunately, those of us who are aware of her extremism were mostly indoctrinated into it at an early age. Social critic John Rogers said of Atlas Shrugged: '''...it is a childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood in which large parts of the day are spent inventing ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel.'' Renowned thinker Raj Patel agrees. If you would rather save yourself from the high blood pressure associated with reading Rand, John W. Robbins does an excellent take-down of Rand's mis-titled, self-styled philosophy (''objectivism'') in Without a Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of her System (1997). Rand considered herself the arch-nemesis of the centuries-dead Immanuel Kant, presumably after once hearing his 1785 work on ethics referenced in her semester-long academic career in Petrograd University. Robbins barely has to exhale for the charade of ''objectivism'' to fall apart. Robbins thoroughly exposes Rand's willful misunderstandings of the metaphysics and epistemology which she was so found of. After reading Robbins, I was left wondering if Rand might not have benefited from some well-timed Cliffsnotes or a copy of Aristotle for Dummies. To witness Rand's disturbing personality and its effects on her followers, The Ayn Rand Cult by Jeff Walker is highly recommended. Walker details the arbitrary psychological abuse Rand doled out to her young followers on a regular basis, including the decades-long extra-marital affair she had with a man half her age, who was ''excommunicated'' when he finally left her. Walker does a good job of explaining the intense hatred between various sects of ''objectivism'' after Rand's death, which are still at each others' throats a generation removed.
  As to the damage done by Rand's followers, I wont even touch Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage, who was banned from the UK for hate speech. I could also point to Alan Greenspan who, after the economy collapsed in 2008, publicly admitted to doubts about the ''rational free-market'' idea which he took from Rand. I could also point to vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan, who is admittedly not a good Randian because of his professed Christian faith, but still cites Rand as his inspiration to cut veterans' benefits, the medicare programs that Rand relied upon, and almost every last thread of the social safety net. Perhaps I could also offer myself as an example of Rand's mischief: my life has been a spotty process of embarrassing violence and rehabilitation in the aftermath of reading Rand. I personally blame Rand for my temper, which I learned to justify from an early age with the outrageous rhetoric of a ''John Galt'' terrorist or ''Howard Roark'' rapist. But it is only after my involvement in anti-terrorist operations as an intelligence analyst in the Middle East that I dare to venture the (tasteless?) comparison of Rand to Bin Laden.
  Behind the provocative light in which I am portraying Ayn Rand, there is another more troubling and critical issue at stake in this comparison. By evoking it, I hope to eviscerate the Obama administration and the federal court system, as well as the moral stench that is the Patriot Act. Knowing the danger of openly mocking both Rand and the xenophobic ''we-got-'im'' armchair patriots, I would hope to turn the attention of both camps to the hypocrisy of the Global War on Terror, and how even someone as patriotic as Ayn Rand easily fits into the category of terrorist. My hope is that the libertarian fringe will at least try the shoe on to see if it fits, and then to consider some truly moral alternatives to their beliefs. First, I call into evidence the recent case of Tarek Mahenna.
  Unlike Rand, Tarek Mahenna was born in the US, a natural American citizen. As a follower of Islam, Mahenna was upset about the treatment of civilians in lands occupied by US troops. In April 2012, Mahenna was convicted of the new and ambiguous federal felony called ''material support of terrorism.'' Mahenna's sole offense was that he admittedly watched and re-posted al Qaeda internet videos on his personal computer. Mahenna's conviction was upheld on the basis of his motivation for watching violent videos: according to federal prosecutors, Mahenna was watching said videos in order to radicalize himself to support terrorism. This talking-yourself-into-something it turns out, is a federal crime that is punishable by 20 years in federal Supermax. It also begs the question: aren't the libertarian ''terrorists-in-intentive-pre-radicalization'' doing the same thing with the writings of Ayn Rand that Mahenna did with the al Qaeda propaganda? The offenses depicted in Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead are at least as odious as anything Osama Bin Laden ever said in his infamous tapes, or for that matter anything that Agent Jack Bauer is depicted doing in the television show 24. Ayn Rand explicitly considered herself an intellectual propagandist, even going so far as saying in public that she was ''aiming for'' young, left-leaning intelligent types, presumably to radicalize, much the same as Mahenna allegedly was.
  The real-life Orwellian twist to the story is the fact that at no point was Tarek Mahenna ever criminally violent in his direct actions or speech, even though, according to the Christian Science Monitor, he was repeatedly provoked by undercover FBI agents who failed at eliciting even verbal agreement for violence. This is more than some of Rand's followers, myself included, can say.
  This trend of faux-terror is becoming disturbingly common in not just large Muslim enclaves, but in modest communities of color and dissent. This, and the blurring of lines in cases like Mahenna's, raises some serious questions: what is terrorism, essentially? What is radicalization, and where is there culpability? What is hate speech? What is violence? Who decides what is an acceptable depiction of violence in any context?
  It is obvious from even a basic philosophical standpoint that the current spoken and legislated conceptualization of Terrorism as such is supplemented by a non-verbal, unwritten and ideological legal code that adjudicates not on the basis of criminal action or even intention. Instead the unspoken paradigm that determines who is patriotic and who is a dirty terrorist is ideological. How else can you explain the imprisonment of someone like Tarek Mahenna and the simultaneous freedom of the Yaron Brook, a fundamentalist Randian leader who has, undoubtedly read and promoted the emotive, political violence ''the terrorism'' that make up a large part of the writings of Ayn Rand? Certainly Christians and democratic socialists must cringe everywhere whenever the term ''radical'' is thrown around. But the question stands: why isn't the FBI infiltrating the Ayn Rand Institute with agents trained in the art of provocation? Why isn't anyone concerned with the explicit calls to political terrorism in Rand's writing? Why is representative Bachmann focused on the imagined terrorist sympathies of Huma Abedin and not those of Leonard Peikoff? The answer is simple: ideology.
  At its best, Rand's ideology is merely raunchy and outdated. At its worst, we could cite the policies of Greenspan which brought us economic disaster, or the political career of someone like Paul Ryan. There is, to my knowledge, at least one internet-based group trying to build a Rand-inspired armed separatist group in this country. So is Rand's ideological embrace of violence any better in than the ideology of the self-aggrandizing Saudi millionaire whose obscure rantings culminated in bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, New York and Washington? Is Rand's ideology any more or less rational, and by what standard? As we move forward toward a post-9/11 pluralist democracy, what place do either Rand or Bin Laden have in our public discourse? This is a serious question that requires a serious answer, and not in the form of a work of fiction.
  Evan Knappenberger is an Iraq war veteran, former teenaged ''objectivist,'' and philosophy and theology student at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Asia's TAPI pipeline project closer to reality: Voice of Russia
  Link to Article
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 05:27
  So, as far as I understand, the presentation is aimed at potential investors. But on the other hand, as far as I understand, this project is not exactly new, is it?
  I should say that this project exists for approximately two years because the agreement of building such a pipeline was signed in December of 2010. And as I know this pipeline TAPI is called a new silk way. It should go from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. And it is rather important for Turkmenistan because the Turkmen Government and Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is going to cell their gas, because we know that Turkmenistan has a lot of gas, to Russia, to Iran, to China and also he wants to join this project. And as I know in May it was made another step in moving this project because there was signed an agreement between Turkmenistan Gas, Intrastate Gas System of Pakistan and Indian gas authorities.
  And what else can I say about this project TAPI is that the main problem is the security of the pipeline, especially through the territory of Afghanistan, because the Afghan pipe of this project is 750 kilometers. And this pipeline will go through very dangerous provinces of Afghanistan with Talib movement. And people who want to build this TAPI want to run this pipeline underground Afghanistan. And also the Afghan authorities hope that NATO and the US will protect this pipeline. I must add that the organizers of this TAPI project hope that it will come into power approximately in 2013-2014.
  And one more thing '' this project is very profitable for example for Pakistan and Afghanistan. Why? Pakistan supports TAPI because it should prevent the energy crisis in this country. And also Pakistan hopes to get money for the transit. Also India is interested in TAPI because the Indian oil and chemical industry circles also want to get profits from this project. And also there is one more important thing that one branch of this pipeline can be build to Gwadar Port in Pakistan. And if it will be done, gas from this TAPI pipeline could go to the Western countries also by sea, by special ships. And that's the main idea, I would say, about this pipeline TAPI.
  Sir, but if we go back into history, wasn't there another pipeline project back in the early 1990'es which was also discussed with the Taliban leadership?
  What can I say about the other projects, we know that the Western countries, mostly, wanted to build the so called Nabucco project.
  Did it have to be build on the territory of Afghanistan?
  No, I mean why they want to build TAPI is because they wanted to build Nabucco but for the last ten years nothing was done for making this pipeline project Nabucco. And Nabucco should have also connected Turkmenistan with the Central Europe. And after ten years Nabucco was cut by half and maybe it won't be built at all.
  It is interesting! But why? Because the Nabucco project seems to have less risks, and less security risks in particular compared to the TAPI.
  Yes, of course it is secure. But Iran should have also been involved into this project. But after Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005 the situation in Iran changed and now this country is confronting with the West. And another thing '' Nabucco should have been built through the Caspian Sea. And it is also a very difficult situation because the firms wanted to build the pipeline under water, and it is rather difficult. And another important thing for Nabucco is that there were a lot of transit countries and a lot of actors, and that's why this project technically was not done. And that's why two years ago they decided to make another project and this project is TAPI. But I also should say that there is a very dangerous situation in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Belujistan and also it is very a difficult situation.
  I remember that these projects of delivering gas from Central Asia to India have been existing for approximately ten or eight years. When I was in India at one conference, it was in 2006 in New Delhi, there was a conference about cooperation between the Central Asian and South Asian countries in delivering gas and oil from Central Asia to India. And why I'm telling about this, is because these projects have been existing for many years and TAPI is one of them. Of course this project is very profitable for NATO and the US because they may be asked to stay in Afghanistan. For example if the Afghan Government wants to secure this project, it can ask NATO and the US to protect this project.
  Yes. And by the way, as far as I remember Robert Blake was saying that American companies are very interested in participating in this project. But on the other hand, as far as I know China is also extremely interested in buying gas from Turkmenistan. Do you think that perhaps this is a kind of rivalry between the US and China for the Turkmen gas?
  I don't think so because Turkmenistan is a country which has a lot of gas and, as I said at the beginning of my speech, that Turkmenistan is selling gas to different countries and partners. And we know that the so called Central Asian pipeline was build three years ago in 2009, it was build from Turkmenistan via Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan to China. And this pipeline was built with the help of CNPC '' the Chinese oil and gas company. And this of course is needed because energy is needed very much for China despite the crisis and everything, because we know that this country is the so called factory of the world. And that's why this factory of the world needs a lot of oil and gas.
  And another thing, as I also said, is the policy of Turkmenistan which is a multi-vector policy, especially in the energy strategy. And that's why Turkmenistan is selling gas to different partners '' to Iran, to Russia, to China. And it also wants to sell to Pakistan and India and if another branch of TAPI will be build in Gwadar Port, then this gas will be sent to the Western countries by special ships.
  And what is your forecast? Do you think that this project is going to be successful?
  At this very moment it is rather difficult to say. All will depend on many things. The first is the situation in Afghanistan. We know that the Talib movement again began its attacks in almost all Afghan provinces. Also we should have a look at the situation in Pakistan, especially in Belujistan, it is a very difficult province of Pakistan. And also many things will depend on the economic crisis of the world because we know that this project demands a lot of money. At the beginning this project costed $7.5 billion but now approximately $12 billion. And all the companies should put their money into this project. And if the world crisis will continue, maybe it will be rather difficult to do it because we know the situation in Europe with the euro and the situation in some Asian countries. I think if this situation with the security in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the crisis will not be very hot, I think this project will be built. But anything can happen.
  Do you think that Russian companies might have a share in this project?
  At this very moment I don't know about it, but maybe. Maybe GazProm, because it is the main gas company, or the branches of GazProm, ITERA for example, it can take part. But many things will depend on the will of these gas companies of Turkmenistan, Indian gas companies, Pakistan companies and other players who are interested in building such a pipeline.
''@Gizmodo: Drone, last seen flying over Washington, D.C., had gone missing! http://t.co/lDWbMd2x #missingdrone'' @adamcurry thoughts?
  Link to Article
  Source: @adamcurry - Twitter Search
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 03:55
  A drone went missing last Friday in Washington D.C., and it has not been seen since.
  Its owner, a one Adam Eidinger, told Salon that he uses the device to take aerial videos of Washington, D.C.
  Last Friday, Eidinger informed me that he wanted to take a short video of a festival in Adams Morgan, and was flying his quadcopter from a rooftop on 18th Street NW. A huge gust of wind blew it too far south and Eidinger quickly lost orientation. The copter was almost 5,000 feet away from him, and he couldn't tell which way was forward and which way was backward. When his remote loses contact with the drone, says Eidinger, the copter is programmed to slowly descend on its own-a "safe landing mode," which prevents it from simply falling out of the sky and crashing. So it's possible that the quadcopter is sitting on a rooftop somewhere in the area-maybe even on your rooftop (have you checked?). Eidinger doesn't think it has fallen in a public place, because he says he canvassed the whole area and had no luck.
  Not a large Predator, Eidinger's quadcopter is 2 ft x 2 ft and made in China. Eidinger, who customized the drone himself, estimates its worth at about $700.
  Anyone with any information as to the drone's whereabouts should contact Eidinger directly. [Salon]
  Images via @bon_zai, Getty
Generation Change: The Next Generation of American Muslim Leaders | U.S. Department of State Blog
  Link to Article
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 03:54
  Posted by Farah Pandith / September 08, 2010
  About the Author: Farah Pandith is the Special Representative to Muslim Communities.
  Last night, the Secretary hosted the State Department's annual Iftar to commemorate the breaking of the day's fast. The Holy Month of Ramadan is a time when Muslims fast from sun up to sun down, and it is period of deep reflection and prayer but also a time to do more than usual for your community.
  The 8th floor of the Department of State was buzzing when I arrived. Many folks were out on the balcony enjoying the view and waiting to break their fast. This year's Iftar included a special emphasis on the young generation of American Muslims. Why the generation under the age of 30? Over half of the nearly 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet are under the age of 35, and we want to do more to build stronger long terms partnerships with these young people. Our embassies around the world are focusing on engagement with this young generation of Muslims as well; whether in Muslim-majority countries, or nations where Muslims are a minority, we are finding ways to build partnerships and share ideas.
  Prior to the Secretary's Iftar, I hosted a special event for 75 young American Muslim change makers -- a slice of America that I call "Generation Change" -- young, vibrant, idea-filled "doers". These Americans are poets, entrepreneurs, technology gurus, comedians, musicians, grassroots leaders, activists, and designers, to name a few. They are out-of-the box thinkers and agents of change both domestically and internationally. After several guest speakers charged with setting the mood -- Naif Al Mutawa, the creator of The 99 comic books; Herro Mustafa, subject of a film called American Herro; the co-producers of New Muslim Cool, Hana Siddiqi and Kauthar Umar; and comedian Ahmed Ahmed -- the group broke into three separate "think tanks" to discuss issues of religion, culture, identity, and global affairs. Hearing their insightful discussions, I was once again struck by the passion and potential of these young leaders.
  Someone asked me where the idea came from to do this "Generation Change" event, and I told them about the Secretary's commitment to reaching out to young people all over the world. In a video message created specifically for these young people and played at the "Generation Change'' event, the Secretary encouraged them to become their generation's leaders and stated her belief in their potential to change and shape the world in a positive way.
  Notably, many of these youths are using technology to move ideas forward. Their ability to amplify the power of traditional community organizing with new media will allow them to lift their voices beyond their own geographic or cultural boundaries, and their ripple effect will make waves. I hear from young people in America and young people around the world that these networks of change makers can be a launching pad for action.
  As we went upstairs to the Iftar, many of these young agents of change were talking to each other about how to keep the momentum going, and I was thrilled to see how excited they were about connecting with each other. Some of them were seated at the Secretary's table and talked to her about their work and passions.
  After the call to prayer and the breaking of the fast, the Secretary spoke to these young leaders and other Iftar guests about America's commitment to values going back to the very beginning of our nation, recalling a quote from George Washington. Looking around the room, she said the "real story of Islam in American can be found in this room and rooms across America."
  It was a great day, and I feel honored to have met such a tremendous group of amazing young people. I can't wait to see what they will do going forward.
  Enjoy this post? Share it with others.
Remarks at Reception Marking Eid ul-Fitr
  Link to Article
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 03:52
  SECRETARY CLINTON: Good evening, and although I am many weeks overdue in saying it: Eid Mubarak. No matter how belated we are honoring Eid and the end of Ramadan, this is a cherished tradition here at the State Department. And I would like to thank all of you for being here, including the many members of the Diplomatic Corps.
  Tonight, our gathering is more somber than any of us would like. This comes during sad and difficult days for the State Department family. We lost four Americans. They were good and brave men. They were committed to the cause of building a brighter future for the people of Libya. And we condemn the violence in the strongest terms, the violence against our posts in Benghazi, in Egypt, and now in Yemen.
  The Libyan ambassador is with us tonight, and I want to take a moment to thank him for the support that his government and the Libyan people have shown to the United States in this tragedy, particularly the outpouring of feelings of grief and loss because of the killing of our ambassador.
  Ambassador Aujali, would you mind saying a few words?
  AMBASSADOR AUJALI: Thank you very much, Secretary Clinton. Standing beside you here in the Department of State, it shows the world how much the Americans are standing by the Libyans and the Libya revolution. You do support us during the war, but you have to support us during the peace. We are going through a very difficult time, and we need the help of friends.
  It is a very sad day for me, since I learned of the death of my dear friend and colleague, Ambassador Chris Stevens. I knew Chris for the last six years. We play tennis together, we drive in one car, and we had some traditional Libyan food in my house. I must tell you, Madam Secretary, and tell the American people, that Chris is a hero. He is a real hero. He's the man who believes in the Libyans and the Libyan ability that they will achieve democracy after 42 years of the dictatorship.
  Now we are facing a serious problem, and we have to maintain and we have to '' we need security and stability in our country. The government, unfortunately, faces a serious problem, personnel and equipment. And the support of you and the friends who support us during the war is very important.
  I want to show you and to show the American people how much it was '' we were shocked by the death of four American diplomats. It is a very sad story to tell. But I am sure that it is our responsibility, and the responsibility of the Libyan people, that we have to protect our people, we have to protect the Americans in the first place and have to protect all the diplomatic missions who are serving in our country. I am sure that without the help, we will not be able to do it.
  I hope that this sad incident which happened, this terrorist attack which took place against the American consulate in Libya, it will tell us how much we have to work closely. Our religion, our culture, never tells us that this is the way to express your view. It is '' in fact (inaudible) a terrorist act. This is condemned by all the world and by all the Libyans at the top level of the Libyan authority.
  Please, Madam Secretary, accept our apology and accept our condolence for the loss of the four Americans, innocent people. They lost their lives in the Libyan territory. Chris, he loves Benghazi, he loves the people, he talks to them, he eats with them, and he committed -- and unfortunately lost his life because of this commitment.
  Madam Secretary, thank you very much indeed. (Applause.)
  SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Ambassador. I know that that was a very personal loss for you, as it was for me. I'm the one who sent Chris to Benghazi during the revolution to show support and be able to advise our government about what we could do to bring freedom and democracy and opportunity to the people of Libya.
  Religious freedom and religious tolerance are essential to the stability of any nation, any people. Hatred and violence in the name of religion only poison the well. All people of faith and good will know that the actions of a small and savage group in Benghazi do not honor religion or God in any way. Nor do they speak for the more than one billion Muslims around the world, many of whom have shown an outpouring of support during this time.
  Unfortunately, however, over the last 24 hours, we have also seen violence spread elsewhere. Some seek to justify this behavior as a response to inflammatory, despicable material posted on the internet. As I said earlier today, the United States rejects both the content and the message of that video. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. At our meeting earlier today, my colleague, the foreign minister of Morocco, said that all prophets should be respected because they are all symbols of our humanity, for all humanity.
  But both of us were crystal clear in this paramount message: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind. And we look to leaders around the world to stand up and speak out against violence, and to take steps to protect diplomatic missions from attack.
  Think about it. When Christians are subject to insults to their faith, and that certainly happens, we expect them not to resort to violence. When Hindus or Buddhists are subjected to insults to their faiths, and that also certainly happens, we expect them not to resort to violence. The same goes for all faiths, including Islam.
  When all of us who are people of faith '' and I am one '' feel the pain of insults, of misunderstanding, of denigration to what we cherish, we must expect ourselves and others not to resort to violence. That is a universal standard and expectation, and it is everyone's obligation to meet that, so that we make no differences, we expect no less of ourselves than we expect of others. You cannot respond to offensive speech with violence without begetting more violence.
  And I so strongly believe that the great religions of the world are stronger than any insults. They have withstood offense for centuries. Refraining from violence, then, is not a sign of weakness in one's faith; it is absolutely the opposite, a sign that one's faith is unshakable.
  So tonight, we must come together and recommit ourselves to working toward a future marked by understanding and acceptance rather than distrust, hatred, and fear. We can pledge that whenever one person speaks out in ignorance and bigotry, ten voices will answer. They will answer resoundingly against the offense and the insult, answering ignorance with enlightenment, answering hatred with understanding, answering darkness with light; that if one person commits a violent act in the name of religion, millions will stand up and condemn it out of strength.
  In times like these, it can be easy to despair that some differences are irreconcilable, some mountains too steep to climb; we will therefore never reach the level of understanding and peacefulness that we seek, and which I believe the great religions of the world call us to pursue. But that's not what I believe, and I don't think it's what you believe either here tonight. Part of what makes our country so special is we keep trying. We keep working. We keep investing in our future. We keep supporting the next generation, believing that young people can keep us moving forward in a positive direction.
  So tonight I think it's important that we talk not just about that better tomorrow that we all seek, but also about some of the things '' the real, practical, tangible things '' that young people are doing to help shape that better future.
  Two years ago in this room, at our Eid reception, we launched a program called Generation Change to lead a grassroots agenda of positive engagement with Muslim communities. And I asked the young Muslim leaders in the audience that night to be our unofficial ambassadors, to help build personal connections, seek out partners in other countries. And I can report to you tonight they did not disappoint. In a few minutes, you're going to meet some of these young leaders, each with a powerful story to tell.
  The Generation Change network that started in this room now circles the globe. We are building an international alliance of young people who want to drive change in their own communities. They act as mentors, spark respectful debates, simply offer words of encouragement when needed. But most importantly, they inspire others to keep expanding the circle of mutual understanding and respect, one person at a time.
  Even as we work to spread tolerance more broadly, we also are working to deepen our appreciation for the experiences of others. Our 2012 Hours Against Hate initiative encourages young people to put themselves in another person's shoes through service projects. So far, young people from all over the world have pledged thousands of volunteer hours to help people from a different background, to see them as a fellow human being, not a stereotype, not a caricature, but another real live person '' people who don't look like you, live like you, pray like you, but with whom we will share this planet. And therefore, we have work to do.
  People of faith and conscience are called to be the leaders of tolerance. In my tradition, like all traditions, we are expected to love one another. And together, we have to translate that into better understanding and cooperation. I'm particularly pleased that the young people you will hear from tonight are really setting an example, not only for young people elsewhere in the world but, frankly, for us who are older as well.
  Let me now call to the stage someone who has been a tremendous assistance to me in these efforts. Farah Pandith is the Department's first Special Representative to Muslim Communities. And from the beginning, she has made reaching out to young people and civil society her top priority. Farah will introduce you to three young leaders who I am very proud of.
Bernanke: 'The Only Reason That The Unemployment Rate Dropped Last Month Was That Workers Are Giving Up'
  Link to Article
  Source: The Daily Bail
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 03:46
  Reporter:
  "Are you concerned about the shrinking labor force and what does that tell us about the labor market and the economy?"
  The Bernank:
  "The unemployment decline last month was more than 100% accounted for by declines in participation."
  ---
  Captain Obvious on jobs at today's presser.
  "The unemployment rate came down last month because participation fell, and that's not necessarily a sign of improvement."
In Central Park, an Uneasy Coexistence Grows Uneasier
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 03:44
  The Ramble in Central Park has long been known as a place where people prowl for anonymous sexual encounters. They are drawn by the cloak of dense vegetation, serpentine paths, giant boulders and meandering streams created by the park's designer, Frederick Law Olmsted.
  The same elements have made the Ramble, which is just north of the Lake in the heart of the park, a magnet for bird-watchers, who know it as one of the best spots around to see migrating warblers and other songbirds on the Atlantic flyway. From the sky, the birds spy the verdant rectangle of the park amid the gray cityscape and gravitate toward the Ramble, with its ample sources of food and water.
  On Wednesday, the divergent worlds collided, in an attack on a 73-year-old woman who was raped and beaten near Strawberry Fields, a few blocks south and west of the Ramble. The victim, a bird-watcher who visits the park daily, had recently encountered her attacker in an area of the Ramble.
  A week and a half ago, the police said, she had seen him masturbating and then snapped a photograph of him. He demanded that she delete the photo; she refused, and the two struggled over the camera. Before the Wednesday assault, the police said, the suspect asked the woman, ''Do you remember me?''
  Some bird-watchers say that the amount of cruising and sexual activity in the Ramble, most of it involving men, had declined, especially compared with the 1980s and '90s, but that the seedy side of an otherwise Edenic part of the park persists. Condoms are often strewed about the rustic bridges that cross the Ramble's streams, and some female bird-watchers report that they have sporadically glimpsed flashers, along with the flycatchers, grosbeaks and warblers that they have come to observe.
  Pat Pollock, a retired teacher who lives on the Upper West Side, was in the Ramble on Thursday, equipped with a sensible sun hat and her high-powered Swarovski binoculars. She had had a successful outing, having seen a Wilson's warbler, a delicate little yellow bird with a black cap.
  But the attack on the woman the day before made her recall the flasher she had encountered two weeks ago. Ms. Pollock and a friend were birding in the Ramble when they noticed a man 20 feet ahead of them on the path. He unzipped his pants.
  ''He apparently wanted us to see him, but we quickly left,'' she said. ''I wasn't putting my binoculars on him, believe me.''
  With the fall migration in full swing, this is an especially popular time for birders in the park; a diligent one could see 50 to 60 species in one day.
  In designing the Ramble, Olmsted said he had arranged the paths and bridges, outcrops and thickets to ''create a degree of obscurity not absolutely impenetrable, but sufficient to affect the imagination with a sense of mystery.'' Little did he know why future generations might find that landscape alluring.
  Bird-watchers and hikers recalled a time when they would happen upon men engaging in furtive sex, in broad daylight, behind boulders and off the wooded paths, especially at the Point, a small peninsula that juts into the Lake.
  ''That was a well-known hangout, and probably still is,'' said Marie Winn, a Central Park regular for the past 50 years who has written extensively about the park and the bird-watching community. ''Most bird-watchers, especially the female ones, used to feel safe there because these guys had no interest in us. I never had a looking-over-my-shoulder feeling there, even at night.''
  Herbert Rosenblum, 76, a resident of the Upper West Side, has been birding in the Ramble for the past 20 years. In the past he has noticed sexual activity during the day, but now he sees only the results of what he suspects are nighttime trysts. Up until several years ago, there was even a shelter fashioned from branches, surrounding an old mattress, in a part of the Ramble known as the Oven. It has since been dismantled.
  ''You would see men come in and go out,'' he recalled. ''You didn't know what they were doing but you could guess. Now I just see condoms.''
  Web sites still list the Ramble as a hookup location, with one giving it a rating of two and a half stars, though it also cautioned that the area had become less hospitable. ''Warning!'' a post about the Ramble read. ''I was there last night and the plainclothes cops had a couple of guys in handcuffs who were out on the peninsula.''
  Crime in the park has fallen steeply in recent decades, as it has throughout New York City. In 2011, according to the police, there were 18 robberies reported in the park, down from 731 in 1981.
  In a news conference on Thursday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that the attack was ''a terrible thing.''
  ''But,'' he continued, ''I think the overall history of safety in the park says it's one of the safest places you can be.''
  But a man who was in the Ramble on Thursday said that some things about the area had not changed, and that there were still couples, both gay and straight, who have sex on the shelves of the giant granite boulders that nestle in the foliage. ''It's always been a place where you could come and find people like you,'' said the man, 64, who declined to give his full name. ''It is what it is and it has always been. It's a community.''
  Michael M. Grynbaum, Emily S. Rueb and Nate Schweber contributed reporting.
Quantitative Easing Explained
  Link to Article
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 02:19
Barak Denies Opposing Iran War
  Link to Article
  Source: News From Antiwar.com
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 01:19
  Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak today rejected reports that he is no longer in favor of attacking Iran, saying that the recent media reports to that effect are untrue and that he ''always sees eye to eye'' with hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
  Barak also sought to end the speculation about a policy split with the US, saying that the US always respects Israel's right to ''decide for itself'' on questions of war and reiterating that ''all options are on the table'' against Iran.
  He also lashed the Israeli press for in-depth reporting on the possibility of the war, saying that it is ''far beyond what is desirable'' and that the claims of US opposition are ''exaggerated.''
  Barak made it clear what his formal position of the war is, which is that it will happen unless Iran abandons every aspect of its civilian nuclear program, and that Israel will decide unilaterally when to attack.
  Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz
No One Murdered Because Of This Image.
  Link to Article
  Source: DaDenMan news feed
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 01:17
  WASHINGTON'--Following the publication of the image above, in which the most cherished figures from multiple religious faiths were depicted engaging in a lascivious sex act of considerable depravity, no one was murdered, beaten, or had their lives threatened, sources reported Thursday. The image of the Hebrew prophet Moses high-fiving Jesus Christ as both are having their erect penises vigorously masturbated by Ganesha, all while the Hindu deity anally penetrates Buddha with his fist, reportedly went online at 6:45 p.m. EDT, after which not a single bomb threat was made against the organization responsible, nor did the person who created the cartoon go home fearing for his life in any way. Though some members of the Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist faiths were reportedly offended by the image, sources confirmed that upon seeing it, they simply shook their heads, rolled their eyes, and continued on with their day.
Revealed: inside story of US envoy's assassination - World Politics - World - The Independent
  Link to Article
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 01:15
  American officials believe the attack was planned, but Chris Stevens had been back in the country only a short while and the details of his visit to Benghazi, where he and his staff died, were meant to be confidential.
  The US administration is now facing a crisis in Libya. Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the "safe house" in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed "safe".
  Some of the missing papers from the consulate are said to list names of Libyans who are working with Americans, putting them potentially at risk from extremist groups, while some of the other documents are said to relate to oil contracts.
  According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and "lockdown", under which movement is severely restricted.
  Mr Stevens had been on a visit to Germany, Austria and Sweden and had just returned to Libya when the Benghazi trip took place with the US embassy's security staff deciding that the trip could be undertaken safely.
  Eight Americans, some from the military, were wounded in the attack which claimed the lives of Mr Stevens, Sean Smith, an information officer, and two US Marines. All staff from Benghazi have now been moved to the capital, Tripoli, and those whose work is deemed to be non-essential may be flown out of Libya.
  In the meantime a Marine Corps FAST Anti-Terrorism Reaction Team has already arrived in the country from a base in Spain and other personnel are believed to be on the way. Additional units have been put on standby to move to other states where their presence may be needed in the outbreak of anti-American fury triggered by publicity about a film which demeaned the Prophet Mohamed.
  A mob of several hundred stormed the US embassy in the Yemeni capital Sanaa yesterday. Other missions which have been put on special alert include almost all those in the Middle East, as well as in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Armenia, Burundi and Zambia.
  Senior officials are increasingly convinced, however, that the ferocious nature of the Benghazi attack, in which rocket-propelled grenades were used, indicated it was not the result of spontaneous anger due to the video, called Innocence of Muslims. Patrick Kennedy, Under-Secretary at the State Department, said he was convinced the assault was planned due to its extensive nature and the proliferation of weapons.
  There is growing belief that the attack was in revenge for the killing in a drone strike in Pakistan of Mohammed Hassan Qaed, an al-Qa'ida operative who was, as his nom-de-guerre Abu Yahya al-Libi suggests, from Libya, and timed for the anniversary of the 11 September attacks.
  Senator Bill Nelson, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: "I am asking my colleagues on the committee to immediately investigate what role al-Qa'ida or its affiliates may have played in the attack and to take appropriate action."
  According to security sources the consulate had been given a "health check" in preparation for any violence connected to the 9/11 anniversary. In the event, the perimeter was breached within 15 minutes of an angry crowd starting to attack it at around 10pm on Tuesday night. There was, according to witnesses, little defence put up by the 30 or more local guards meant to protect the staff. Ali Fetori, a 59-year-old accountant who lives near by, said: "The security people just all ran away and the people in charge were the young men with guns and bombs."
  Wissam Buhmeid, the commander of the Tripoli government-sanctioned Libya's Shield Brigade, effectively a police force for Benghazi, maintained that it was anger over the Mohamed video which made the guards abandon their post. "There were definitely people from the security forces who let the attack happen because they were themselves offended by the film; they would absolutely put their loyalty to the Prophet over the consulate. The deaths are all nothing compared to insulting the Prophet."
  Mr Stevens, it is believed, was left in the building by the rest of the staff after they failed to find him in dense smoke caused by a blaze which had engulfed the building. He was discovered lying unconscious by local people and taken to a hospital, the Benghazi Medical Centre, where, according to a doctor, Ziad Abu Ziad, he died from smoke inhalation.
  An eight-strong American rescue team was sent from Tripoli and taken by troops under Captain Fathi al- Obeidi, of the February 17 Brigade, to the secret safe house to extract around 40 US staff. The building then came under fire from heavy weapons. "I don't know how they found the place to carry out the attack. It was planned, the accuracy with which the mortars hit us was too good for any ordinary revolutionaries," said Captain Obeidi. "It began to rain down on us, about six mortars fell directly on the path to the villa."
  Libyan reinforcements eventually arrived, and the attack ended. News had arrived of Mr Stevens, and his body was picked up from the hospital and taken back to Tripoli with the other dead and the survivors.
  Mr Stevens' mother, Mary Commanday, spoke of her son yesterday. "He did love what he did, and he did a very good job with it. He could have done a lot of other things, but this was his passion. I have a hole in my heart," she said.
  Global anger: The protests spread
  Yemen
  The furore across the Middle East over the controversial film about the Prophet Mohamed is now threatening to get out of control. In Sana'a, the Yemeni capital, yesterday around 5,000 demonstrators attacked the US embassy, leaving at least 15 people injured. Young protesters, shouted: "We sacrifice ourselves for you, Messenger of God," smashed windows of the security offices and burned at least five cars, witnesses said.
  Egypt
  Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi yesterday condemned the attack in Benghazi that killed the US ambassador. In a speech in Brussels, Mr Morsi said he had spoken to President Obama and condemned "in the clearest terms" the Tuesday attacks. Despite this, and possibly playing to a domestic audience, President Obama said yesterday that "I don't think we would consider them an ally, but we don't consider them an enemy".
  Demonstrators in Cairo attacked the mission on Tuesday evening and protests have continued since.
  Iraq
  Militants said the anti-Islamic film "will put all the American interests Iraq in danger" and called on Muslims everywhere to "face our joint enemy", as protesters in Baghdad burned American flags yesterday. The warning from the Iranian-backed group Asaib Ahl al-Haq came as demonstrators demanded the closure of the US embassy in the capital.
  Bangladesh
  Islamists warned they may "besiege" the US embassy in Dhaka after security forces stopped around 1,000 protesters marching to the building. The Khelafat Andolon group called for bigger protests as demonstrators threw their fists in the air, burned the flag and chanted anti-US slogans.
  Others
  There was a Hamas-organised protest in Gaza City, and as many as 100 Arab Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv. In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai postponed a trip to Norway, fearing violence. Officials in Pakistan said they "expected protests". Protesters in Tunis burnt US flags.
Told ya Obama was behind the Embassy Attacks
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 01:11
  Yes my children, from Islamocommunist for Obama who can not speak English, can not read Arabic and have no internet access, they somehow just show up outraged about a movie which has been around awhile.......and who hits the talking points but B. Hussein Obama to smear Christians in saying it was that "insane Pastor Terry Jones of Florida" when it was not his movie at all.Then this:
  State Dept 'had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged consulate in Benghazi'...Revealed: Inside story of ambassador's assassination...Sensitive documents go missing...Exposed: Names of Libyans who are working with Americans...'There were 400 attackers'...
  PAPER: U.S. WARNED OF EMBASSY ATTACK BUT DID NOTHING
  Yes the conclusive proof that Obama has been like Trayvon Martin staged event in prodding for this, all so his campaign could suppress some voting block.You do recall Obama took out God and Jews from the DNC platform, was forced to put it back in, and who was outraged but Muslims?
  Can we say PAYOFF from Obama to appease his Marxist Muslims.
  Hey when no sheep are around, how about an Obama ambassador in ole Muhammed style.
  I told you Obama staged this in an exclusive for the result of his 2012 campaign and this time you 15 second attention span children it only took a day to expose this so you know one thing......
  All credit goes to God for the Inspiration.The reality is this is beyond impeachment. This is a conspiracy of election fraud which has involved destruction of property, Hillary Clinton on treason charges, Barack Obama being a foreign asset plotting against the Government of these United States as Barry Chin, and the premier charge of multiple counts of homicide.I would ask the Grand Jury to toss in an indictment of Obama for violating bin Laden's corpse in buying it and Obama charged for the rape of Lara Logan.You got it kiddies. Lived in the future yesterday in my posting the blog and you read it before all this broke proving another matter anti matter exclusive was right.B. Hussein Obama allowed these embassy attacks to incorporate it into his 2012 campaign to attack Christians to suppress their voting for Mitt Romney.Obama was running around non stop acting like none of this mattered, in napping and joking, BECAUSE HE HAD THE OUTCOME ALREADY DIRECTED.
More Than Just a Movie: Experts Say They Know the REAL Reason for U.S. Embassy Attacks in Egypt & Libya
  Link to Article
  Source: Een andere kijk op nieuws @infomagnl » Nieuws items
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 01:07
  The bloody attacks on U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya that left four American public servants, including a U.S. ambassador dead, have sparked international outrage and controversy. Islamists claim that the catalyst for the riots was the release of an American movie critical to Islam, but according to Middle East and foreign policy experts interviewed by TheBlaze, there is a more sinister motivation at play for these bloody acts of aggression than meets the eye.The film, to experts, only served as a ''convenient excuse'' for Islamists '-- particularly Salafists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood '-- to escalate tensions to a fever pitch in the hopes of achieving their ultimate goal: To make ''slandering'' Islam unlawful on an international level.
  If it sounds too far-fetched to come to fruition, those whose life work has been to study, analyze, and in many instances prosecute Islamic terrorists, provide some compelling food for thought. First it is important to understand the current complexity of the relationship between the U.S., Libya and Egypt following the Arab Spring uprising.
  Bekijk orgineel item op theblaze.com
  Meer Nieuws items
Kate Middleton Embroiled In Topless Photos Scandal!
  Link to Article
  Source: Radar Online
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 01:05
  Splash News
  By Alexis Tereszcuk - Radar Entertainment Editor
  Just weeks after Prince Harry was illicitly photographed naked in Las Vegas his sister-in-law Kate Middleton finds herself in the middle of her very own topless photo scandal!
  The 31-year-old Duchess of Cambridge and her husband Prince William escaped on a romantic vacation to France recently where she was photographed by the swimming pool at a private chateau baring her very royal assets - and the resulting pics have been splashed over the front cover of a magazine, which is set to hit newsstands on Friday.
  PHOTOS: Royal Bombshell! Kate Middleton's Sexiest Looks Ever
  ''Discover the very sensual shots of Kate Middleton,'' the magazine's website brags about the topless photos of the Duchess.
  Kate and William were staying at the Chteau d'Autet, the private home of the Queen's nephew Viscount Linley, in the Luberon region of France before their Diamond Jubilee tour together.
  PHOTOS: 10 Stars Involved In Nude Photo Scandals
  The couple, who obviously did not suspect a lurking paparazzo, was sunning themselves on the balcony and swimming in the pool of the estate when the intrusive photos were taken and French magazine Closer has snapped them up.
  Kate is rarely photographed in a bikini and the photos of her without her top on are sure to cause a major scandal for the Palace following Prince Harry's Vegas nude shots.
  PHOTOS: The 10 Most Shocking Sin City Celebrity Scandals Of All Times
  For the future Queen of England, who never has a hair out of place, a hemline that isn't perfectly straight and shoes that don't match every outfit, the publication of topless photos that were taken during a romantic skinny dip with her husband will probably prove to be incredibly embarrassing, despite her being an innocent party in the brewing scandal.
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  Kate Middleton Gives Hopeful Speech In Malaysia: 'Lives Can Be Transformed'Singapore Surprise: Kate Middleton Toasts With Water, Prince William Says He'd Like 2 KidsPretty In Pink! Kate Middleton Shines In SingaporeKatie Couric Labels Dream Guest Kate Middleton 'Too Thin'
FBI Warns of Violence in America Over Anti-Islamic Movie - Page 1
  Link to Article
  Fri, 14 Sep 2012 00:14
  By PIERRE THOMAS, RICHARD ESPOSITO, DANA HUGHES and KEVIN DOLAKToday, 5:32 PM EDT
  A U.S. intelligence bulletin warned today that the violent outrage aimed at U.S. embassies spawned by a movie mocking the Prophet Mohammed could be spread to America by extremist groups eager to "exploit anger." The Joint Intelligence Bulletin issued by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security said "the risk of violence could increase both at home and abroad as the film continues to gain attention."
  "First responders should remain aware of the potential for spontaneous large crowds and protests that could overwhelm resources and should be vigilant for possible efforts to encourage peaceful protesters to commit acts of violence," the warning said.
  It urged "faith-based organizations to promptly report suspicious activities that could indicate pre-operational plotting against Jewish, Coptic, Islamic, or any other faith-based communities."
  It added, however, that there was no information regarding any specific threats.
  The bulletin warned that "violent extremist groups in the United States could exploit anger over the film to advance their recruitment efforts."
  It goes on to note that angry protests in Benghazi, where four Americans were killed, and Cairo "mirror past incidents prompted by events perceived as anti-Islamic, which spurred sudden violence against U.S. interests overseas."
  The bulletin was issued as fresh violence erupted at U.S. embassies in Yemen and Egypt, and the State Department said that 50 overseas missions have been given additional security and warned U.S. citizens in their area to be "extra vigilant." Some embassies warned of protests on Friday, the Muslim sabbath.
  President Obama called the presidents of Egypt and Libya where he thanked them for their help but reminded them of the importance of protecting American embassies and consulates. And in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai canceled an overseas trip because of brewing anger over the film, "Innocence of Muslims," which ridicules Islam's founder the Prophet Mohammed.
  Two U.S. Navy missile destroyers, the USS Laboon and USS McFaul, were moved near the coast of Libya as an extra precaution.
  Libyan officials said several people have been arrested for the attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, but U.S. officials have not confirmed that.
  Wanis el-Sharef, eastern Libya's deputy interior minister, told the Associated Press the attacks were suspected to have been timed to mark the 9/11 anniversary and that the militants used civilians protesting the movie as cover for their action.
  Western intelligence sources told ABC News that it appears the movie was the "catalyst," but it would not be surprising if a militant group "would seek to take advantage for an opportunity to strike."
  FBI agents from New York were being dispatched to Libya to assist in the investigation.
  The worst violence today erupted in Sana'a, Yemen, where thousands of angry protesters circled the U.S. embassy and breached its outer wall, but were prevented from entering the embassy compound.
  "Smoke is rising, they just flooded the security barriers. [There are] no casualties. [There is] shooting. It's crazy," a senior Yemeni official told ABC News.
  Yemeni forces threw tear gas as protesters were seen scrambling over fences and the main gate, firing gunshots as they tried to stop the demonstrators.
  Protesters in Sana'a removed the embassy's sign on the outer wall and set tires ablaze, The Associated Press reported. Once inside the compound, they took down and burned the U.S. flag. Security guards at the embassy fired warning shots to stop them.
  Yemen Protesters Attack U.S. EmbassyAccording to a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Yemen, all personnel are safe. A senior official in the Obama administration said that the Yemeni government had aided the U.S. in maintaining order.
  Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi, president of the Republic of Yemen, apologized to the U.S. for the attacks, the Yemeni embassy in Washington, D.C. said in a statement released early Thursday.
  Protests outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo turned violent again Wednesday night and early this morning. Security forces used tear gas and warning shots to fight off the protesters, who managed to break through a barbed wire barrier. The efforts of security forces managed to push demonstrators back more than 600 feet to Tahrir Square.
  Mahmoud Hussein, the secretary general of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, has called for peaceful protests after Friday prayers in front of Mosques in all cities across Egypt "in response to the insults to the religious beliefs and the Prophet."
  In Berlin, the U.S. Embassy said early Thursday that its consulate in Berlin has been evacuated as a precaution after an employee reported a strange smell from an envelope, but German police said later it was a false alarm.
  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried today to deflect some of the anger away from the U.S.
  "Let me state very clearly -- and I hope that is obvious -- that the United States government had absolutely nothing to do with this video," she said. "We certainly hope and expect that there will be steps taken to avoid violence and prevent the escalation of protests into violence."
  She said the State Department is monitoring protests in Yemen and elsewhere. Clinton said that she believes the film is "disgusting and reprehensible," but that there is no justification for responding to it with violence.
  Just who made the movie is a mystery. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, told The Associated Press in an interview near Los Angeles that he was a manager of the company that produced "Innocence of Muslims." Nakoula denied that he'd directed the film, and said he knew the self-described filmmaker, using a pseudonym name identified only as "Sam Bacile." But the cell phone number The AP used Tuesday to contact the filmmaker was traced to the same Los Angeles area address where The AP found Nakoula.
Daily Press Briefing - September 13, 2012
  Link to Article
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 23:52
  1:29 p.m. EDT
  MS. NULAND: All right, everybody. I apologize for being late. We had a lot of material to go through this morning before coming to see you.
  Before we start, let me just take this opportunity to thank all of you in the press and everyone out there in the international community for their condolences, for their solidarity with us, in the face of the tragic events in Benghazi. And with that, let's go to what's on your minds.
  QUESTION: Can you '' just to begin, yesterday on the conference call, an official suggested that a lot of the information was preliminary and it could change. So the first thing I would like to know if there is anything in the timeline that was offered to us yesterday '' if there's anything to add to that or if there's anything significantly different about what we were told yesterday.
  MS. NULAND: I don't have anything significantly different from what you heard in the backgrounding call. I think the degree to which we're able to update this information or deepen it, it's going to be in the context of beginning to interview our employees who are coming out and beginning to participate in the investigation that the Libyans are doing. So frankly, I don't have anything that's particularly helpful.
  QUESTION: So as far '' okay. But as far as you know right now, everything that was in that timeline, including the specifics about there only being three people inside when the '' and getting separated and all of that, and you don't have any more clarity on exactly when Ambassador Stevens died, i.e., at the compound or then later at the hospital '' it was unclear yesterday '' there's no new information (inaudible)?
  MS. NULAND: Matt's referring to the fact that we gave a background briefing yesterday, where we outlined what we knew. But in the context of that, we made absolutely clear that we were operating on early reporting; we were operating on reporting before we had a chance to interview any of our people or any of the Libyans who might be involved.
  And in that context, we said that the circumstances surrounding the death of Ambassador Stevens included the fact that he and two other people '' Sean Smith and a regional security officer '' were in the main building in Benghazi when it was hit and caught on fire, but in '' that the regional security officer attempted to lead the other two out, that he got separated from Ambassador Stevens, that he then got '' but when he got to Sean Smith, he was already dead. He pulled him from the building. He went back into the building with additional security forces, but was unable to locate Ambassador Stevens before the fire overcame the building.
  We were then not able to locate Ambassador Stevens for many, many hours. We were later informed by some of our Libyan contacts that they understood he had been taken to a hospital in Benghazi. We were not able to confirm that, although there is a huge amount of reporting on it. And his body was later returned to us at the airport in Benghazi in the context of our evacuation of the rest of our people.
  So in response to Matt's question, we don't have any definitive information of our own as to exactly when he passed or what the precise causes of death were. I would guess that this is among the things that'll become clearer as the Libyans work on their investigation with our support.
  QUESTION: Can you talk a little bit more about the security that was at the Embassy? It seems that for an area such as Benghazi, where there was a lot of instability, there were very few guards there. And can you talk about whether the U.S. asked Libya, the Libyan Government, earlier in the week for extra security precaution and whether that '' extra security precautions or security personnel and whether that request was fulfilled?
  MS. NULAND: Well, let me start by reminding you that we are extremely cautious in any circumstances about talking publicly about our security arrangements. You can understand that the more you talk about these things, the more difficult it is to maintain security at your facilities. So --
  QUESTION: It does seem though that there were very few security personnel at this location.
  MS. NULAND: I'm going to reject that, Elise. Let me tell you what I can about the security at our mission in Benghazi. It did include a local Libyan guard force around the outer perimeter. This is the way we work in all of our missions all around the world, that the outer perimeter is the responsibility of the host government. There was obviously a physical perimeter barrier, a wall. And then there was a robust American security presence inside the compound. This is absolutely consistent with what we have done at a number of missions similar to Benghazi around the world.
  QUESTION: Could you talk about whether a request was made to the Libyan Government as early as Sunday or Monday and whether that '' for additional security precautions, given the fact that there was some trouble in the area, and whether that request was fulfilled?
  MS. NULAND: I'm not prepared to talk about specific diplomatic engagements between us and the Libyans on security, either before or after.
  QUESTION: Well, I mean, I have to take issue with that, because there have been several incidents, including you from the podium, throughout the Arab Spring where you've said ''
  MS. NULAND: Right.
  QUESTION: -- that you've talked about discussions with the various governments ''
  MS. NULAND: Right.
  QUESTION: -- about needing additional security precautions '' the Syrians, for instance ''
  MS. NULAND: Right.
  QUESTION: -- which was one of the reasons that you closed your Embassy, because those precautions were not taken. So why would this be any different?
  MS. NULAND: Elise, I'm happy to see whether there's more that we can share on this, but I don't have it today.
  QUESTION: (Inaudible) is it your understanding that you were satisfied with the security at the Embassy '' at the consulate at the time of --
  MS. NULAND: What I can say is that, as we did with all of our missions overseas in advance of the September 11th anniversary, and as we do every year, we did evaluate the threat stream and we determined that the security at Benghazi was appropriate for what we knew. But I can't speak to any other diplomatic conversations that might have gone on with the Libyans. But I'm happy to see if I can get any more information.
  QUESTION: I just have one more question.
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: On this movie that seems to be the kind of genesis, at least in some of these other areas of protest in the country, did you know about this movie before these protests erupted? Did anybody notify you that this movie was coming out and to be on the lookout for potential protests?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I don't want to get too much into this particular video, because it just gives it more credit than any of us want to. I think you heard the Secretary speak to this issue this morning and to make it clear that we absolutely reject both its message and its content, which we consider disgusting and reprehensible. She said it far better than I can here.
  The interesting thing about this, as I understand it, is that this had actually been circulating at a relatively low level for some months out there in cyberspace and that it only caught fire in the region on the day or just before the day that we began to see these various protests.
  QUESTION: Victoria --
  MS. NULAND: And I can't, obviously, speak to why that might have been.
  Let me go to Margaret, and then we'll come back to you, Said.
  QUESTION: And can you give us an update on some of the staffers who were evacuated who are in Germany or elsewhere? There were some reports of a third one regaining consciousness in a hospital in Germany. And if you could also give us a sense of the two other fatalities. All of us have seen different names and different details. Can you give us some definitive information?
  MS. NULAND: I don't have much to add on our three wounded in '' who are now in Germany receiving treatment. That's for reasons of their privacy. If we understand that they're interested in sharing more of their condition with you all, I will get that for you.
  With regard to the other two, as you recall, the Secretary spoke of four fallen comrades at the beginning of this. I have to say that one of the reasons we were late today was we were trying to see whether we were in a position to talk publicly about them. I regret that we are not yet ready to do that. You know that we have very sensitive and careful protocols that we do with the families, with the arrangements, before we go public with these things. So we will get that information to you as soon as we can, but I don't have it today.
  QUESTION: So that means the family of one of these individuals has not been informed yet?
  MS. NULAND: Again, I'm not going to go into the specifics, but we want to do this in a way that is completely respectful of both families and doesn't surprise anybody, and we're just not there yet.
  Okay.
  QUESTION: So the reports that have been out there and some of the names '' is there any reason not to believe some of these people who have self-identified?
  MS. NULAND: I'm just not in a position to speak to it. If people are interested in speaking to the press, that's their business.
  Please, Said.
  QUESTION: Yeah. Are major Libyan cities like Tripoli and Benghazi safe for diplomatic operations in the sense that there is a central authority that controls these cities? Or are there pockets or areas or sections of these cities that are under the control of rogue militant elements?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I don't think it's possible to generalize, Said, which is why our security posture is varied in every place that we are. So we are constantly evaluating both the ability of the host government to provide the external security that is their undertaking under the Vienna Convention and our own security arrangements inside the perimeter. And we did that in the Benghazi context. We are doing it in Tripoli, obviously.
  QUESTION: Was there any kind of special precautions, considering that 9/11 '' the 11th anniversary of 9/11 was occurring? Were there any kind of special precautions that were taken to counter such a possibility?
  MS. NULAND: Well, as I said, we reviewed our security posture at every mission we have around the world in the lead-up to September 11th. Every mission then makes whatever recommendations it thinks are necessary with regard to hardening and strengthening. But I'm not prepared to talk about the details, not there or not anywhere, today.
  Please.
  QUESTION: Within those limitations, I just wanted to be clear. When the President yesterday made his order to increase security, does that then require a new review or does that set forth a new set of actions by missions around the world, or has that already been undertaken in the September 11th context?
  MS. NULAND: Well, there are two different things here. The first, as we talked about on background yesterday, the night of the incident we sent a message to every diplomatic mission in the world asking them to again review security and take the necessary measures. Some of you will have seen that there were increased emergency warnings or security warnings that were also issued to Americans in some 50-plus missions around the world since that went out. That's part and parcel of the reviews that embassies and consulates and other missions around the world do.
  With regard to Mission Libya, I think you've seen the Pentagon talk to the issue of evacuating Benghazi while we assess the security situation, which we've now done, to bringing in the fast team, which we very much appreciate, for Embassy Tripoli. And we are continuing to look at our posture.
  Please.
  QUESTION: Toria, can you tell us whether there's been any progress towards determining whether the Benghazi attack was purely spontaneous or was premeditated by militants, and also whether there's been any further determination about the extent to which the Cairo, Benghazi, and now Yemen attacks were related in some way other than just by theme?
  MS. NULAND: Well, as we said yesterday when we were on background, we are very cautious about drawing any conclusions with regard to who the perpetrators were, what their motivations were, whether it was premeditated, whether they had any external contacts, whether there was any link, until we have a chance to investigate along with the Libyans. So I know that's going to be frustrating for you, but we really want to make sure that we do this right and we don't jump to conclusions.
  That said, obviously, there are plenty of people around the region citing this disgusting video as something that has been motivating. As the Secretary said this morning, while we as Americans, of course, respect free speech, respect free expression, there's never an excuse for it to become violent.
  QUESTION: Toria --
  QUESTION: Just to follow up on that, though, this '' these incidents all boiled out of the anniversary of 9/11 as well. There seems to be a detail that's kind of missed in all of this. Is there any indication in that that there's possibly al-Qaida sympathizers involved?
  MS. NULAND: Again, I can't draw any conclusions as to the who and how they were affiliated. We just can't do that right now, and we won't until we have more information. What I would say is that, as you have probably seen, what we're seeing on social media, what we're seeing in some of the local commentary, is largely related to this reprehensible video.
  QUESTION: Toria, can you give us a basic update on the investigation itself? Who is in charge? Why was the FBI called in when it's primarily a domestic law enforcement agency? Are you looking at possible '' possibly holding any one here in the United States responsible for what happened in Benghazi two days ago?
  MS. NULAND: First, on the question of the Libyan-led investigation, I'm going to let the Libyans speak to that. I think that they probably will in coming days. With regard to why the FBI is involved, the FBI always becomes involved when Americans '' official Americans are killed. I'm also going to let the FBI speak in detail to its involvement, precisely what it's doing, but I can say that it has opened its own investigation into the death of these four U.S. citizens and the attack on the consulate, on the mission.
  QUESTION: Now, is there also an investigation being conducted in house by diplomatic security? Is anyone being asked to come in to review the official security protocols for embassies and consulates?
  MS. NULAND: Well, first of all, with regard to the larger review, I think I said in response to Andy's question that that was absolutely the first thing that we did, that we sent out a message worldwide to all of our missions to review security. And security protocols are constantly being reviewed, and they will continue to be. We are constantly also learning lessons, particularly in the wake of a tragedy, as we have in the wake of past tragedies like the bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, so that, obviously, we can pledge to the American people and to our own work force, but I'm not in a position to give you any conclusions from any of that at this moment.
  QUESTION: Now, when you say that those employees who are now in Germany are in the process of being interviewed, are they being interviewed by the FBI? Are they being interviewed by State? Are Libyan officials flying in to talk with them? What's the scope of what kind of evidence they're providing right now?
  MS. NULAND: Well, first of all, you connected dots that I didn't connect. I simply said that we needed a chance to talk to our personnel. That will obviously be part of what we do internally. It'll be part of what we make available to the Libyans in an appropriate way. I'm not going to speak to the details. But as you can imagine, Ros, today, those people who arrived in Germany late last night are an extremely stressed and traumatized bunch, and they need some time to rest and recover. They were a very tight and close-knit group, and they were very close to Chris Stevens as well.
  QUESTION: Sorry '' they didn't arrive late last night.
  MS. NULAND: I don't remember when they arrived.
  QUESTION: It was the afternoon.
  MS. NULAND: Afternoon.
  Nadia.
  QUESTION: And just one more, Toria.
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: Do you have any information about the repatriation of the remains of the Ambassador, of Mr. Smith, of the others? And how is the State Department going to recognize, beyond yesterday's gathering with the President and the Secretary?
  MS. NULAND: Well, first of all, we thank the President for coming and standing with our employees yesterday. That was something that meant a huge amount to all of us. We are working on the appropriate formalities and ceremony for the repatriation. I'm not in a position to announce the details yet. Here again, this is a circumstance where it needs to be done properly, with the families involved, so we have a lot of moving pieces. But we will get that information to you as soon as we can.
  Nadia.
  QUESTION: I have two questions. President Morsi of Egypt has asked the Egyptian Government in Washington to open a lawsuit against the maker of this video. So far, we don't know who made this video, and is the State Department or anybody at the American Government level '' are they likely to open an investigation to find out who's behind it, especially if it led to the direct death of U.S. officials?
  And second, are you satisfied with the explanation that you're giving to the Arab world in terms of that it's not the U.S. Government who's making this video, that's actually individuals who did it, and under the Constitution everybody has the right to do whatever they want under the freedom of expression? Because this message doesn't seem to coming across in the Middle East. They seem to believe that it's the U.S. Government who's behind it.
  MS. NULAND: Well, first on the issue of whether anything will result from these investigations that leads to criminal charges in the U.S. or any other charges, I just can't speak to that at this point. It's very much premature. Frankly, I hadn't seen this assertion that you gave of '' with regard to President Morsi's position.
  We have what '' and the second half of your question, I'm sorry, I lost it.
  QUESTION: Is your message getting across to the Arab world that it's not the U.S. Government who was behind this video?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I think one of the reasons that the Secretary wanted to speak so strongly and so directly today when she was with her Moroccan counterpart was we are concerned about this, that people in the region don't understand our culture and society, that this was in fact a private effort, that it has nothing to do with the U.S. Government, that we don't do these kinds of videos, and that in fact, as a government, we found it disgusting and reprehensible, as the Secretary said. So I would commend to all of you, and I hope all of you will disseminate and broadcast as broadly as you can, the message that she gave today. It was extremely intentional, because we are concerned that we '' that this is not understood well.
  QUESTION: Can I follow up on that?
  QUESTION: How much of a threat do you --
  QUESTION: Can I follow --
  MS. NULAND: Hold on, one at a time. Right here.
  QUESTION: (Inaudible) on the video. How much of a threat did you think that '' did the State Department think the video would be prior to September 11th?
  MS. NULAND: Again, I think I spoke to that in response to Margaret that this had been out there in the ether for many months, and it caught fire quite suddenly and quite rabidly just on the day of the Benghazi and Cairo incidents.
  QUESTION: And as a follow-up to that, do you think that the message put out, the statement put out by the U.S. Embassy in '' I mean, I'm sorry '' Cairo actually brought attention to the video, if it had been at low levels prior to that?
  MS. NULAND: I can't speak to that. What I can say is what we said on background yesterday, that that message was not authorized by Washington, and we asked them to take it down.
  QUESTION: Did that '' that message didn't mention anything about the film, though, did it?
  MS. NULAND: It didn't.
  QUESTION: It did not?
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: And neither did the Warden Message that went out earlier that morning. But that '' in fact, that was one of the numerous or number of reasons '' the Warden Message didn't say anything specifically about what the protests would be about. It said there were a couple of reasons why. But in fact, the film '' it had been noticed by the Embassy that this video was getting traction and that conservative Muslim leaders were calling for protests against it, correct? So it is not really an assumption to make that '' the Embassy was aware that a protest over the film specifically was possible in the morning?
  MS. NULAND: My understanding of the sequence of events '' and I'm going to send you to Embassy Cairo for more detail '' was that in the day --
  QUESTION: At this point, referring us to Embassy Cairo is like referring us to the North Koreans, so please don't do that. (Laughter.)
  MS. NULAND: My understanding of the sequence of events was that in the day or days prior to the protests that became violent at our Embassy in Cairo, the film had been shown on Egyptian television and was being quite heavily watched, and our social media tracking indicated that. And it was on that basis and the basis of a few other things that the Embassy put out the Warden Message and was concerned about protests. At that point, we expected it to be localized to Egypt.
  QUESTION: Okay. And then just one other thing. After the briefing '' and I don't expect you to read off this list now, but you mentioned that 50-plus embassies have put out messages. Is it possible to find out which embassies those were? Don't read the names now, but --
  MS. NULAND: You don't want me to read the names? (Laughter.)
  QUESTION: Well, if everyone else wants to hear them, but it just seems like --
  MS. NULAND: What I'm going to do is refer you '' and I'm going to find it after the briefing '' there is a public website where you can find all of these Warden Messages.
  QUESTION: I was on that website and it doesn't have all of them. It doesn't '' certainly doesn't have 15 '' 50. It's got 15.
  MS. NULAND: Okay. Well, we'll make sure that it's updated and we'll get it to you. I looked over the list just before coming down.
  QUESTION: Can you --
  QUESTION: Well, can't you just send that '' can't you just send us that list? I mean, presumably it's --
  MS. NULAND: We'll get the website updated, which is the appropriate thing to do.
  QUESTION: Well --
  MS. NULAND: Because then it's available to everybody, Matt, and the public as well.
  QUESTION: Well, you could put it out as a Taken Question and then it's available to everyone as well.
  MS. NULAND: Okay. We'll work on this together.
  QUESTION: I'm just telling you because I don't '' I frankly don't think that in the time that '' you're not going to be able to get the website updated in time.
  MS. NULAND: Okay. We're going to work on this for you.
  QUESTION: Thank you.
  QUESTION: I may have missed this, but it sounded like you just said the film was shown on Egyptian television. Just a clarification '' you mean that this entire film was shown on ''
  QUESTION: Clips.
  QUESTION: -- or that the Egyptian media was doing news reports about YouTube clips that had been dubbed into Arabic?
  MS. NULAND: It sounds like Nadia has more information than I do; but certainly, some of the more offensive pieces were out on Egyptian television and were inciting.
  QUESTION: Yes, it was (inaudible).
  QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
  MS. NULAND: Can I '' I'm going to go to Michele and then we're going to --
  QUESTION: Thank you.
  MS. NULAND: -- finish in this region before I come back to you.
  QUESTION: I'd like to ask you about sort of a Twitter debate that's going on today between Embassy Cairo and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood --
  MS. NULAND: Oh, good.
  QUESTION: -- Twitter feed wrote that they're relieved that no U.S. Embassy staff had been hurt, and the response was, ''Thank you. Have you checked what's on your Arabic feeds? We read that too.'' What are you trying to do through social media to get this message '' the messages that you're talking about out?
  MS. NULAND: Michele, I frankly haven't seen the exchange between Embassy Cairo and the Muslim Brotherhood, so I'm not going to speak to it. I think I won't speak to anything of that kind until I check it myself.
  QUESTION: Is that the '' since this incident with the web posting, is U.S. Embassy Cairo in charge of its own social media and its own messaging and local embassies around the world doing that? Or has it been more centralized; the messaging is consistent from State?
  MS. NULAND: Well, first of all, the messages that we send out through the social media from all of our missions overseas, first and foremost, should be amplifying messages from senior leadership in Washington. So in the last 24 hours, with so many statements by the President and the Secretary and other senior principals, that is the primary focus '' is to make sure, as we said in response to Nadia's question, that we are understood, that our messages are getting out in multiple languages, et cetera.
  That said, embassies do, under the authority of ambassadors, tailor their messages and work individually with the folks who follow their sites. I will tell you that Ambassador Patterson is on her way back to Cairo today.
  QUESTION: Can I just ask you what about '' you said that all these messages are supposed to be amplifying the message given in Washington, correct? What about this statement that was put out didn't amplify the message from Washington? What '' you're going to great lengths '' you and the White House are going to great lengths to say this was not authorized in Washington. I'm sorry, I don't see the problem with what '' what is it '' what's the divergence between what that message said and what the message is coming from Washington?
  MS. NULAND: I don't --
  QUESTION: Because it seems to me it's exactly the same thing as what the President and what the Secretary said over the last couple days.
  MS. NULAND: I don't think so, but I'm not going to sit --
  QUESTION: Well, can you tell us what was wrong with it?
  MS. NULAND: I'm not going to sit here and parse the two texts. I think from our perspective, the message was unbalanced, the words were mischosen, and they were not clearly comprehensible to all audiences.
  Said.
  QUESTION: Toria, are you concerned on this message issue that there may be a flip side to that thing, that anyone with a smart phone can actually put anything placed on the YouTube and they will be caught in this thing endlessly and sending these messages? I mean, as far back as I can remember, the United States has been making sure that the message gets across that it is not anti-Islam, that it condemns these things and so on. I am concerned that there may be a can of worms opened here.
  MS. NULAND: I'm not sure quite --
  QUESTION: My question is: What is the flip side? I mean, you can say this message time and time again, but on the other hand, there are many people '' there are millions of people that can put anything together and place on YouTube and you'll be caught in this kind of ''
  MS. NULAND: Look, I think that the Secretary was very frank this morning in the comments that she made with the Moroccan, that even if we wanted to control the internet '' which we don't, because we believe in free speech '' it wouldn't be possible to do so. So the question and the shout out that she did today was that leaders, whether they are government leaders, NGO leaders, religious leaders, have a responsibility to draw a hard line at violence. There is never an excuse for expressing yourself violently.
  Wendell.
  QUESTION: What is your level of concern of the protest going on now in Sanaa?
  MS. NULAND: Are we ready to switch to Yemen, generally?
  QUESTION: I didn't consider that a switch, but ''
  MS. NULAND: Yeah, no, it's all ''
  QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
  MS. NULAND: Yep, yep. Go ahead.
  QUESTION: I was reading the background call yesterday.
  MS. NULAND: Yep.
  QUESTION: And it seems that for some hours you didn't know the fate of the situation that happened with the Ambassador. But in the press, very early that morning, we got two pictures from the Ambassador that were in all the media from international agencies. Do you know, or '' do the Department know when these pictures were taken, and which '' in what situation?
  MS. NULAND: Well, we've seen those pictures. And thank you for the opportunity to say that it was very painful for those of us in this Department to see some of the more horrific images broadcast. I would just say that on a personal note, not an institutional note.
  I'm not in a position to confirm one way or the other who those images were of. And frankly we don't confirm information we're not sure of.
  QUESTION: Could you clarify this one thing about Libya '' I know you were going to go on '' and that is, just based upon what you had said before about security at the Embassy, the Embassy that was attacked, it sounds like much of this ''
  MS. NULAND: The mission in Benghazi.
  QUESTION: The mission. Thank you for correcting me. The mission that was attacked '' it sounds like much of the security at that mission '' the security efforts there were ceded to Libyan security forces. Was that not the case?
  MS. NULAND: That was not the case. And first of all, what you have to understand about embassies around the world, not just ours but those of foreign governments here in Washington, is that the outer perimeter in any embassy is always the responsibility of local security. That's the way it is done in embassies around the world. So in this case, we had arrangements for Libyan security on the outer perimeter. We '' as we do around the world '' train them, work with them, obviously, and then we have additional American procedures inside the wall.
  So this was situation normal for any embassy around the world. That said '' I'm sorry, I've lost my train of thought in terms of what the rest of your question was. I'm having one of those days.
  QUESTION: You answered it. But just, again, to clarify, were there no marines at this mission? No U.S. marines at this particular mission?
  MS. NULAND: There were not marines at this mission.
  QUESTION: Why not?
  MS. NULAND: They '' we have a number of posts around the world. We have '' there are embassies without marines, there are other consulates of this type without marines. We make a decision based on the local conditions as to whether that makes sense, but this posture that we had, which was external security by the Libyans and then a strong U.S. security presence '' but it didn't include that particular contingent of Americans '' inside, in a number of other missions that look a lot like Benghazi.
  QUESTION: Sorry, just to ''
  QUESTION: Is that for marines coming generally from the mission itself, or does the State Department say, you know, the situation's really bad right now in this particular section of the world, perhaps we should have marines based here.
  MS. NULAND: It's not a matter of marines necessarily being a qualitatively different way of securing. There are many other ways to secure that are equivalent, too. It depends on the circumstances and it is different in every part of the world, and we evaluate it along with our friends at the Defense Department and other agencies individually, per mission.
  Yeah.
  QUESTION: Toria, do you have a rough estimate of how many missions do not have marine guards? Isn't it more than half?
  MS. NULAND: I don't think it's more than half. But it's certainly more than people expect. I don't have a number.
  QUESTION: Is it not the fact that there is actually a waiting list to get marine (inaudible)?
  MS. NULAND: I can't speak to that at all.
  QUESTION: Sorry, a quick follow-up to his question on the security. The Libyans are saying in press reports that they advised the U.S. Government that they wanted more security. Deputy Interior Minister Sharif told the New York Times that, ''What's weird is that the United States refrained from the procedure, depended instead on the simple forms of protection that they had.'' And, ''What happened later is beyond our control, they are responsible for part of what happened.''
  MS. NULAND: I haven't seen those quotes. I'm not going to respond to press reporting. As I said, we are in the process of an investigation with the Libyans, and we will see what that yields.
  Anything else on this set of subjects before we go to Yemen, which '' where Wendell's been very patient.
  Go ahead. Sorry, Catherine. Catherine, one more.
  QUESTION: Just yesterday, President Obama gave an interview to Telemundo where he described the relationship with Egypt as ''not an ally, not an enemy.'' I'm wondering at what point did the description of the U.S. relationship with Egypt change? And he said this yesterday. Was it in response to the protests at the Embassy, or was this a decision that the Administration and the State Department had made earlier?
  MS. NULAND: Well, obviously for parsing of the President's comments, I'm going to send you to the White House. But as a matter of fact and practice, the word ally generally is used with a treaty ally, which is a different matter than the fact that we have a very close and longstanding partnership with the government of Egypt, and we are working together to support their democratic transition.
  QUESTION: Well, wait a second. Egypt is an ally. It's a major non-NATO ally.
  MS. NULAND: Correct, yeah.
  QUESTION: And you neglected to mention that. And that major non-NATO ally status is something that you guys have celebrated ever since the '70s, when they were among the first batch of countries, along with Israel, to get that distinction. So is Egypt an ally, or is it not an ally? And if it is not an ally, in that sense of the '' in the sense of their being a major non-NATO ally, is Israel not an ally either? Is Japan not an ally?
  MS. NULAND: Well, Japan has a treaty ''
  QUESTION: Okay, because they have a treaty.
  MS. NULAND: '' alliance with the United States.
  QUESTION: So other countries '' so, Pakistan and India that don't have mutual defense treaties with the United States, they're major Non-NATO allies, but you guys don't really think they're allies. Is that the message you're trying to send? Because that's the message the President did last night, unless you've decided that Egypt no longer qualifies as a major non-NATO ally.
  MS. NULAND: Well, that was certainly, I don't think, the intention. I'm going to refer you to the White House for further parsing on this.
  QUESTION: So forget about the President's words. You're saying that the Administration, the State Department, still regards Egypt as a major non-NATO ally and it is still a recipient of all the '' of the privileges that that entails?
  MS. NULAND: Yes.
  Wendell.
  QUESTION: I have another question on Egypt, actually. Sorry, Wendell, if I may.
  MS. NULAND: Poor guy.
  QUESTION: Just briefly, did Secretary Clinton meet with the Libyan Ambassador to the U.S. yesterday?
  MS. NULAND: She did. Ambassador Aujali was scheduled to come in for a regularly scheduled call with Deputy Secretary Nides yesterday and, given the circumstances, that turned into a condolence call and a call about how we move forward together. And the Secretary decided that it was absolutely appropriate for her to take over the meeting, and she did. And I think we released a picture yesterday.
  QUESTION: This is just a quick follow-on on that.
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: We saw on her schedule today also she's due to meet '' and maybe meeting now '' Tunisian, Libyan, and Egyptian students. Was that a '' can you tell us anything more about that meeting and was that arranged prior to the events in Benghazi?
  MS. NULAND: I think it was. I don't think it was put on the schedule just recently.
  Now, we're going to go to Wendell.
  QUESTION: Could I just --
  MS. NULAND: Oh, goodness. Maybe we're not.
  QUESTION: No. One more thing on that '' on the ally thing. Do you know if the Egyptians inquired with the Embassy about their status?
  MS. NULAND: I don't know the answer to that. I doubt it.
  QUESTION: Do you know if anyone from this building has gotten in touch with the White House to say that the President misspoke?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I'm not going to speak to our internal discussions, obviously.
  QUESTION: Well, did '' I mean, do you '' if you believe that '' if as it is '' as you just said, that Egypt is still a major non-NATO ally, the President misspoke when he said that Egypt is not an ally, correct?
  MS. NULAND: I am not going to speak to our internal discussions.
  Wendell.
  QUESTION: Well, wait --
  MS. NULAND: Matt --
  QUESTION: -- I don't want to know about the internal discussion. I don't '' frankly that '' leave that to you. But Egypt is still a major non-NATO ally, correct?
  MS. NULAND: I think I answered that question a minute ago.
  QUESTION: If that '' okay. But if that is correct, then it's also correct that the President misspoke, is it not?
  MS. NULAND: I am not going to parse the President's words.
  Go ahead, Wendell.
  QUESTION: Yemen protests.
  MS. NULAND: Yes.
  QUESTION: What's your level of concern? Do you see a tie with the '' what happened in Libya and Egypt?
  MS. NULAND: Well, again, I can't speak precisely to the motivation of some of these people. We have, as I said, also seen some of this '' some of these comments with regard to the film moving in social media there. We are, obviously, doing what we can now with the Yemenis to restore security there. All of our personnel are safe and are accounted for. There was a small breach of the compound perimeter earlier today, but there was no breach of the Embassy buildings. And as I was coming down here, my understanding was that we were in the process of '' or the Yemeni security was in the process of restoring order.
  QUESTION: Increased security there in light of the protest?
  MS. NULAND: In light of these protests? Well, again, Wendell, I'm not going to speak to the precise measures that we're taking, but obviously we're taking measures there today to make sure our folks are safe.
  Please.
  QUESTION: If I may, I want to ask a question about Asia.
  MS. NULAND: Amazing. Moving to Asia.
  QUESTION: (Laughter.) Well, Japan has concluded that '' concluded what it calls the purchase and nationalization three out of the five Diaoyu Islands. So it looks like Japan has already taken the first step towards a confrontation. But --
  MS. NULAND: I've spoken to this issue several times. I spoke to it last week. I spoke to it this week. I don't have anything new for you on this issue. I'm sorry.
  QUESTION: Okay. Just a quick question. So according to U.S., you said U.S. and as you said the U.S.-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty is applicable to the Diaoyu Islands. So does that mean if there's a conflict between Japan and China, the U.S. will join Japan in fighting China?
  MS. NULAND: We have spoken to this issue before. I don't have anything new on it. I'm sorry.
  Said.
  QUESTION: Yes. Very quickly, today marks the 19th anniversary of the Oslo Accord signing at the White House. And --
  MS. NULAND: I didn't remember that. Thank you, Said.
  QUESTION: -- which committed you to financing the Palestinian Authority. I wanted to ask you to clarify the status of the $200 million. Because I know it's not '' it's been approved, but somehow is caught up in whatever machinations and so on. Could you explain what is the status of the money?
  MS. NULAND: Well, you know that we feel strongly that this money needs to move. We are working with the Congress on that. There have been some holds on the money in the Congress.
  Please.
  QUESTION: I have a different question regarding Secretary Clinton's recent meeting with Japanese Prime Minister. Japanese government is going to announce within hours about the new energy policy, which include the goal to have no nuclear plant by 2030s. And according to the Japanese Government press briefing, the Secretary Clinton raised this issue and expressed to Japanese Prime Minister that United States is interested in ongoing debate regarding Japanese nuclear energy policy. So my question is, first of all, why United States is interested in Japanese nuclear energy policy? And the second of all is whether or not United States is not happy about or concerned about that Japan is trying to rely not on a nuclear plant in the future.
  MS. NULAND: Well, let me start by saying obviously it's a sovereign decision of any nation, the choices that they want to make with regard to meeting their national energy needs. I don't have any memory of the precise issue coming up in the Secretary's meeting with the Prime Minister. There were a number of subjects covered. If I didn't get that right, we'll get back to you.
  Anything else? Margaret.
  QUESTION: Can you just give us an assessment of some of the protests and '' that you've been seeing throughout the region yesterday? There were reports of related protests in Algeria and some of North Africa. What is it that you're seeing at some of the facilities in the Middle East right now?
  MS. NULAND: I know that we don't have anything in Algeria today. We've spoken to what we saw in Yemen earlier today. In Cairo, we have now peaceful, I believe, demonstrations of some 500 to 1,000 outside the walls. Let me see if I have anything else here. Yeah. In Tunis, we had small-scale peaceful protests yesterday that were about 40 to 150. The police dispersed when the crowd moved towards the Embassy wall. There are no protests today. No protests at all, I have, in Algiers.
  Consulate Casablanca had a small-scale peaceful protest yesterday. I don't have information about what's going on there today.
  QUESTION: Can you tell us about pro-American demonstrations in Libya? I've heard that there are.
  MS. NULAND: Thank you for that, Said. I should have reached for that earlier. First of all, around the world we've had an enormous outpouring of condolence messages, of messages of solidarity, which we very much appreciate, the American people very much appreciate. In Libya, it's been absolutely overwhelming. And I think you've seen some of these images that are moving on Flickr of school children holding up placards saying ''we're sorry'' in English and expressing support for the U.S.-Libyan relationship on social media in Libya. It's been unbelievably supportive. So that speaks to the progress that we're making in building bonds with the Libyan people, and we so appreciate it.
  QUESTION: Do you '' you're under the impression that these children holding up signs saying ''we're sorry'' in Libya are doing this on their own and haven't been told by their teachers or whatever to go out into the streets to wave U.S. flags and --
  MS. NULAND: Our '' I can't speak to that, but what it appears is that this issue has been discussed in classrooms and families and in homes and that whether they are being encouraged by parents, they're at least being encouraged to be supportive of this relationship, which is important for both of our futures.
  QUESTION: And you haven't noticed anything like this in Egypt. Obviously, the situations are a little bit '' are a lot different in terms of what actually happened at the mission. But are you similarly pleased or encouraged by any spontaneous pro-American '' not demonstrations, but any kind of popular surge in pro-American sentiment in Egypt?
  MS. NULAND: Well, let me start by saying that we have also seen in Egypt and in other parts of the region messages of condolence moving on social media, which means a lot to us. As you may know, President Morsi gave a speech today in Brussels in which he underscored that expressing opinions, the freedom to protest, and announcing positions ought to be guaranteed without assaulting private or public property or diplomatic missions. So he spoke against the kind of moves that we've seen at our mission in Cairo and also in Benghazi, and we very much appreciate that. But we have to see how this goes.
  QUESTION: There were also Libyans that died fighting back along with their American comrades, correct?
  MS. NULAND: Another very, very important point. Libyan security forces lost people in the battle at Benghazi. We also had, as I think we said in the backgrounding call yesterday, spontaneous volunteering by a local militia '' the 17th of February Brigade to come to our assistance. We also had, we believe, acts of mercy and generosity later at the hospital in Benghazi, et cetera, and we very, very much appreciate this.
  QUESTION: There are just no detail on the American '' robust American security presence within the perimeter? Were those mostly contractors? Are you able to say?
  MS. NULAND: Let me say that there was a robust State Department regional security officer presence, and beyond that I'm not going to get into details.
  QUESTION: Do you have any information on reports that some Libyans have arrested in regards to the attack?
  MS. NULAND: I saw those press reports before I came down. I was not able to confirm them. But obviously, it would be a good thing if we're starting to move forward on the justice piece.
  QUESTION: When you speak about robust, I just want to '' you're talking about more than one person, not just one enormous guy?
  MS. NULAND: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
  Samir.
  QUESTION: Did you say before what was the purpose of Ambassador Stevens to the consulate in Benghazi?
  MS. NULAND: Again, we talked about this a little in the backgrounding call yesterday. You know that Ambassador Stevens relationship with the people and the groups in Benghazi was very deep and very strong because he had been the Secretary and President's representative to the Transitional National Council. He had lived in Benghazi during the end of the Qadhafi period when '' during the liberation of Libya. He made it his business to travel all over the country, but he made regular trips back to Benghazi to check on how things were going in the east, and he was on one of those regularly scheduled trips when these events happened.
  Steve. Steve. Steve.
  QUESTION: Could I just follow up? You mentioned acts of mercy at the hospital, but I thought we didn't really know what had happened at the hospital. Could you clarify?
  MS. NULAND: We don't know what happened with Chris Stevens. We have other reports of generosity that I'm not prepared to get into here.
  Please.
  QUESTION: There is reporting that it is precisely because of the Ambassador's relationship to the people of Benghazi '' his comfort there, his ties to the region '' that he felt he didn't need the security that perhaps even some Libyan officials felt would have been more advisable. Would you care to address that?
  MS. NULAND: That is absolutely inaccurate. He made this trip with the normal security precautions that were assigned to him throughout Libya. I would note that he was inside the mission when this happened. Having been a protectee myself, once you're inside the mission, the actual circumstances change somewhat. So we don't have any information to indicate that Chris was anything less than completely appropriate in the way he handled himself.
  Please.
  QUESTION: Regardless of the connection during this attack in Benghazi and extremist al-Qaida, generally speaking, how do you evaluate that recent situation inside Libya of the affiliate of the al-Qaida? How do you view? Are they getting bigger or getting more active?
  MS. NULAND: Again, I think I said that we're not prepared to draw connections until we've had a chance to investigate.
  Thank you all.
  (The briefing was concluded at 2:19 p.m.)
  DPB # 161
Officieel. GeenStijl gaat in hoger beroep
  Link to Article
  Source: GeenStijl
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:50
  Yep. We gaan in hoger beroep tegen het vonnis in de Sanoma/Playboy-zaak. We pikken het niet. Want we hebben niks gepikt. We hebben gelinkt. We hebben nieuws gebracht. We pikken het ook niet dat rechters het internet niet snappen. Zonder hyperlinks geen internet. Zonder internet geen nieuws. Zonder nieuws... nou ja, dan dooft het licht. Als Sanoma zegt dat na het lekken van de Amanda-foto's de Playboy-systemen dusdanig zijn beveiligd dat het niet nog een keer gebeurt en het lekt vervolgens w(C)(C)r uit. Dan is dat bunkerhard nieuws. Een bedrijf dat niet op zijn kroonjuwelen past. Dat is nieuws. Weet u nog, Lektober? Website Webwereld berichtte een maand lang over bedrijven die hun veiligheid niet op orde hadden. Brenno de Winter werd er Journalist van het Jaar mee. Heel Villamedia klapte zich de shagvingers stuk. Folkert Jensma (NRC) en Jan Tromp (Volkskrant, de krant die de priv(C)mails van Mariko Peters publiceerde) stonden vooraan om Brenno schouderklopjes te geven. We gaan in hoger beroep, want het internet moet gered worden. GeenStijl-verslaggever Tom Staal ging vandaag langs bij diverse deskundologen om te vragen wat hunnie van dit "charmante" (dixit Jan Tromp) vonnis des internetdoods vonden. En dan komt nu een heuse hyperlink naar dat GSTV FILMPJE. Oh, en 1 meer dingetje. Er is niets geheims of versleutelds aan de website FileFactory. We quoten even de rechtert: "In het onderhavige geval was de fotoreportage echter niet op zodanige wijze voor het publiek beschikbaar gesteld, dat deze voor publiek toegankelijk en vindbaar was. Slechts de kring van personen die op de hoogte was van het URL-adres kon de fotoreportage via Filefactory (en later Imageshack.us) bekijken." (uit: vonnis). Uhm... Filefactory wordt gewoon door Google ge¯ndexeerd. En is daarmee gratis en vrijelijk doorzoekbaar. Ook voor totale noobs. Probeer het zelf: ZIP, 720p, HD, AVI, Ice Age. Ga eens een avondje pielen en er gaat een wereld open. Hyperlinks, allemaal. Speur ze!
  Pritt Stift | 13-09-12 | 20:28 | Link |
Ron Paul is right again! Predicts Al Qaeda Will Move Into Libya - YouTube
  Link to Article
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:48
How R&B is going indie
  Link to Article
  Source: Culture | guardian.co.uk
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:42
  Nina Sky, AKA Nicole and Natalie Albino, who have released two free albums since breaking with their former label.
  'Right now you hear all these David Guetta songs, and that's great; we love pop music," says Nicole Albino, who along with her twin sister Natalie makes up the New York duo Nina Sky. She's talking about the R&B you might hear on the radio '' the popped-up version the major labels are cranking out in an attempt to counter the genre's commercial decline. It's not, though, the kind of R&B she wants to make. Nor does the singer Miguel, whose gorgeously restrained Sure Thing was one of last year's finest R&B singles: "Everyone's trying to recreate that one big Europop sound. You expect to hear the same kinds of songs that have the same kind of language and music, and a lot of it is regurgitated bullshit that I personally hate."
  Miguel and Nina Sky '' best known for the 2004 summer jam Move Ya Body '' are among a wave of artists spearheading a reaction to the Guettafication of R&B, by turning it indie. Their indie version, though, isn't like the enervated melancholy of the Weeknd '' music that appeals to the Pitchfork demographic. It's indie in the original sense '' recorded and distributed independently, to allow the musicians to blossom artistically.
  It's not a system that R&B has traditionally taken to, without hip-hop's mixtape culture to draw on. But Nina Sky are veterans of this particular game, since a very public fall out with former label Polo Grounds in 2010 that culminated in the sisters posting the home address and phone number of label boss Bryan Leach online in a bid to be released from their contract. "It got a lil' ugly," smiles Natalie. But there are no regrets. "In the end, we got what we wanted," Nicole points out.
  The catalyst for this action was Polo Grounds' refusal to release Nina Sky's second album '' which had been completed for two years at that point. "Our fans were begging for music," remembers Nicole. "But when you're signed to a label, you can't just release it '' there are so many ties." Since being freed from those ties, Nina Sky have released two free eight-track albums '' 2010's breezy, freestyle-influenced The Other Side; and this summer's Nicole & Natalie, a darker, dancier work. Free music "creates the demand for us to perform all over the world," explains Natalie. "That's our living and we love it."
  A woman who knows a thing or two about major label timing is Dawn Richard, one-third of Diddy Dirty Money, the trio behind 2010's album Last Train to Paris. Richard has also made one of 2012's most essential releases, Armor On, released independently after Diddy told her that if she was to remain on his label, other artists' priorities would mean her solo work would only be released in 2014. "Puff said: 'You probably don't want to wait that long,'" says Richard. "And I said: 'You're right.'"
  Words tumble from Richard's mouth: she speaks about the "cyber-rainforest in my mind" where she "fights big-ass monsters every day" alongside the producer Druski, whom she met less than a year ago. A trained dancer, Richard indicates the rhythms she wants by choreographing them to Druski in the studio: the beats on her records are created from her dances rather than vice versa.
  Richard's backroom team now numbers just five '' but she doesn't see this as an obstacle. "I'm not just being an artist," she says. "I'm researching what social media is available to us, what marketing and financial plans we can do. I'm hands-on with everything." In 2011, she released a mixtape, titled A Tell Tale Heart after a beloved Edgar Allan Poe story ("The way he tells stories, there's always darkness behind them but always a moral to it"), and tracked fan reactions to its epic closer, Bulletproof. "I knew if I saw people talking about that song I could progress into something more," she says. "And sure enough it happened. So I knew I could take my fanbase someplace and they'd understand me completely."
  Using free giveaways to test the waters for a change in direction has also worked for Miguel this year. His Art Dealer Chic trilogy of three-track EPs upended fans' expectations: in place of the sweet nothings and crooning romance of his debut album, 2010's All I Want Is You, were songs sung with full-blooded yearning over faded production and guitars. Miguel presented himself as a man in the lineage of both Prince and Bruce Springsteen '' and, on songs such as Arch & Point and '... All, pulled off the sweeping grandeur he was aiming for. The sound is influenced by having spent two years on the road promoting All I Want Is You: "I performed every different kind of venue, from incredibly intimate 50-person ones to stadiums," he says. "So the dynamic is either really big, made for stadiums and crowds, or really introspective, where the vibe is very quiet '' for those moments where I can look you in the eye and you know that it's real."
  Miguel remains signed to RCA, the label through which he will release a new album in October. But he emphasises its lack of involvement in Art Dealer Chic: "I wrote and recorded the songs, shot the videos, paid the director on my own '' it was me doing it like an indie artist." He also took the opportunity to co-produce the bulk of the EPs. "Whether or not it was good, that's a whole other subject. The experience between 2007 [when All I Want Is You was written and recorded] and 2012 is incomparable."
  Reading on mobile? Watch here
  Another singer who has startled her fanbase with a radical change of direction this year is Wynter Gordon. Though Gordon scored only minor hits in her own right on the Atlantic subsidiary Big Beat, it was a good life '' and walking away was a risk. "Just to stop and place your bets where it really don't pay '..." Gordon breathes deeply. "It was like a whole destruction of the life I'd built up."
  In July, she left her label and self-released a free EP, Human Condition: Doleo, intended to be the first in a conceptual series of four, each based around a different emotion. Its lead single, the magnificent Stimela, is based around a Hugh Masekela song she remembers learning in high school; elsewhere, she experiments with synths, percussion and a grungier sound that harks back to 90s female singer-songwriters such as Alanis Morissette. She says Big Beat, by contrast, would only allow her to perform one genre.
  There is unanimous praise among these artists for the major labels that gave them their breaks, but at the same time, they believe that relying on the slow-moving, restrictive majors might not be the way forward. "Labels are not as important as they were back in the day," says Nicole Albino. "People are now making music on Midi keyboards in their bedrooms that sounds like the music on the radio. People are booking shows themselves through booking agencies. People are releasing their own music independently online." Her sister interrupts with a glint in her eye. "Maybe '... the artists got smarter."
Obama: MURDERER-IN-CHIEF
  Link to Article
  Source: Uploads by ARSONomics
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:41
ABC News Sued Over 'Pink Slime' Reports
  Link to Article
  Source: TVNewser
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 20:33
  ABC News, and anchor Diane Sawyer, have been named in a defamation lawsuit filed by Beef Products Inc. (BPI).
  The Dakota Dunes, S.D.-based meat processor is seeking $1.2 billion in damages for roughly 200 ''false and misleading and defamatory'' statements about the product officially known as lean, finely textured beef, but has been refered to as ''pink slime.''
  ABC's reporting ''caused consumers to believe that our lean beef is not beef at all '-- that it's an unhealthy pink slime, unsafe for public consumption, and that somehow it got hidden in the meat,'' said Dan Webb, an attorney for BPI.
  The 257-page lawsuit cites 11 TV reports and 14 online reports between March 7 and April 3, 2012. In addition to Sawyer, ABC correspondents Jim Avila and David Kerley are also named as defendants, as is a former Dept. of Agriculture microbiologist who coined the term ''pink slime'' in 2002. He was the ''whistleblower'' featured in ABC's reports.
  ''The lawsuit is without merit,'' says ABC News SVP Jeffrey Schneider, adding, ''We will contest it vigorously.''
  Watch Avila's report from March 7, after the jump'...
As Predicted, Bernanke Launches QE3 '... Which Will Destroy the Economy
  Link to Article
  Source: Washington's Blog
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:39
  Image via Max Keiser
  This Is Not Going to End Well '...We predicted last week that Bernanke would launch QE3 this week.
  Today, the Fed announced that will buy $40 billion dollars of mortgage-backed securities per month '... indefinitely. This is just another bailout for the big banks.
  This is in addition to numerous other easing programs. As CNBC notes:
  In addition, the Fed said it will continue its program of selling shorter-dated government debt and buying longer-term securities, a mechanism known as Operation Twist. It also will continue its policy of reinvesting principal payments from agency debt and mortgage-backed securities back into mortgages.
  ***
  ''These actions, which together will increase the Committee's holdings of longer-term securities by about $85 billion each month through the end of the year, should put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates, support mortgage markets, and help to make broader financial conditions more accommodative,'' the Fed statement said.
  And the Fed isn't stopping there:
  ''There's strong hints that they'll do Treasurys next,'' Joe LaVorgna, chief economist at Deutsche Bank Advisors, said in a phone interview from London. ''They're pulling out all the stops to try to get this economy to gain some traction and, most important, to get unemployment down.''
  This sounds nice '... except that the experts say that quantitative easing destroys the economy and '' despite the initial optics of it '' hurts the little guy.
  As we said in 2008: welcome to the Fed's Weekend at Bernie's.
  P.S. Yes '... if you're a homeowner, you will probably want to re-fi.
What Happened in Benghazi Was a Battle
  Link to Article
  Source: usfollowme
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:35
  http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/libya-fast-team/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WiredDangerRoom+%28Wired%3A+Blog+-+Danger+Room%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
US Drone still in Libya
  Link to Article
  Source: usfollowme
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:35
  http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/libya-drone-war/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WiredDangerRoom+%28Wired%3A+Blog+-+Danger+Room%29
Wednesday Cable Ratings: 'Here Comes Honey Boo Boo' Rules Again + 'Royal Pains', 'Sons of Guns', 'Restaurant Stakeout', 'Storage Wars Texas' & More
  Link to Article
  Source: TVbytheNumbers
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:34
  Here Comes Honey Boo Boo was the top original program on cable earning a 1.1 adults 18-49 rating, even with last week. Royal Pains was second with a 1.0 18-49 rating.
  We only receive the top 100 cable shows for adults 25-54 for the whole day from our primary source, if you don't see your show it was not in that top 100 list.
  The list below is long but you can use your browsers "find on page" feature (usually CTRL+F or CMD+F) to search for specific show.
  Selected Wednesday cable ratings: (all Live+Same Day ratings):
  ShowNetTimeViewership (million, Live+SD)Adults 18-49 rating (Live+SD)Big Bang Theory, THETBSC10:00 PM2.6211.3Family GuyADSM11:30 PM2.6781.2Big Bang Theory, THETBSC10:30 PM2.6231.2HERE COMES HONEY BOO BOOTLC10:00 PM2.1581.1Family GuyADSM11:00 PM2.5681.1Royal PainsUSA9:00 PM3.7421.0Big Bang Theory, THETBSC9:30 PM1.7630.9HERE COMES HONEY BOO BOOTLC10:31 PM1.6070.9Family GuyTBSC9:00 PM1.4740.8Robot ChickenADSM12:00 AM1.8860.8Sons of GunsDISC9:00 PM1.5470.7Robot ChickenADSM12:15 AM1.6160.7American DadADSM10:30 PM1.8860.7RESTAURANT STAKEOUTFOOD10:00 PM1.8690.7Family GuyTBSC8:00 PM1.3500.7Storage Wars TEXASAEN9:30 PM1.9140.7RESTAURANT IMPOSSIBLEFOOD9:00 PM1.9830.7AMERICAN HOGGERSAEN10:30 PM1.5910.7AQUA SOMETHING YOU KNOWADSM12:30 AM1.3960.6American RestorationHIST10:00 PM2.2010.6HERE COMES HONEY BOO BOOTLC11:01 PM1.2000.6American DadADSM10:00 PM1.6330.6REAL WORLD XXVIIMTV10:00 PM0.9860.6AMERICAN HOGGERSAEN10:00 PM1.4130.6SpongeBobNICK6:30 PM2.8670.6HERE COMES HONEY BOO BOOTLC9:30 PM1.2210.6NCISUSA8:00 PM3.2190.5SpongeBobNICK6:00 PM2.5730.5Ghost HuntersSYFY9:00 PM1.5360.5SEINFELDTBSC7:30 PM1.2160.5FX MOVIE PRIMEFX6:00 PM1.1520.5PARANORMAL WITNESSSYFY10:00 PM1.2690.5FX MOVIE PRIMEFX8:00 PM1.1780.5NCISUSA10:01 PM2.2100.5REAL WORLD XXVII REUNIONMTV11:01 PM0.7780.5CAJUN Pawn StarsHIST9:30 PM1.5340.5ConanTBSC11:00 PM0.9840.5Daily ShowCMDY11:00 PM0.9740.5Storage Wars TEXASAEN9:00 PM1.3660.5HOUSE HUNTERSHGTV10:00 PM1.5720.5Dirty JobsDISC10:00 PM1.1520.5FRIENDSNAN11:32 PM1.1140.5SpongeBobNICK5:30 PM2.4400.5SPORTSCENTER LATE LESPN10:59 PM0.8770.5Auction HuntersSPIKE10:00 PM1.3600.5FRIENDSNAN11:00 PM1.1070.5HERE COMES HONEY BOO BOOTLC11:31 PM0.9440.4NCIS: LOS ANGELESUSA11:01 PM1.8770.4NCISUSA7:00 PM2.0800.4Storage Wars TEXASAEN8:30 PM1.2910.4American RestorationHIST10:31 PM1.7160.4Chelsea LatelyENT11:00 PM0.8160.4CSI: NYTNT11:00 PM1.2830.4THE OREILLY FACTORFOXNC8:00 PM4.1210.4BUYING AND SELLINGHGTV9:00 PM1.4980.4SEINFELDTBSC7:00 PM0.9920.4HannityFOXNC9:00 PM3.3210.4MLB WED NIGHT - EARLY LESPN7:00 PM1.0970.4BREAKING AMISHTLC8:00 PM1.1570.4CSI: NYTNT12:00 AM1.2990.4FRIENDSNAN12:05 AM0.9530.4Colbert ReportCMDY11:32 PM0.7770.4RESTAURANT IMPOSSIBLEFOOD11:00 PM1.0270.4Ghost HuntersSYFY11:00 PM0.8600.4Storage Wars TEXASAEN8:00 PM1.1210.4TOP 20 MOST SHOCKINGTRU10:00 PM0.8970.4AMERICAN HOGGERSAEN11:01 PM0.8950.4Mentalist, THETNT6:00 PM1.1590.4SPORTSCENTER 12AM LESPN12:00 AM0.7250.4Mentalist, THETNT5:00 PM1.2390.4Top Chef MASTERSBRVO10:00 PM0.8830.4HOUSE HUNTERS INTLHGTV10:30 PM1.4310.4Mentalist, THETNT3:00 PM1.0020.4CAJUN Pawn StarsHIST8:00 PM1.1400.4Mentalist, THETNT4:00 PM1.0450.4RESTAURANT IMPOSSIBLEFOOD8:00 PM1.0210.4CAJUN Pawn StarsHIST8:30 PM1.3650.4Hardcore HistoryHIST11:32 PM1.1670.3SUPERNATURALTNT10:00 AM0.6600.3Hardcore HistoryHIST11:02 PM1.2400.3NCISUSA6:00 PM1.6580.3RESTAURANT IMPOSSIBLEFOOD12:00 AM0.9040.3Royal PainsUSA12:01 AM1.1130.3Mentalist, THETNT9:00 PM1.6410.3KING OF QUEENSTBSC6:30 PM0.7850.3Mentalist, THETNT7:00 PM1.3850.3Mentalist, THETNT8:00 PM1.5570.3CANT GET ENOUGH GREEN MILAMC7:00 PM0.8740.3ON THE RECORD W/GRETAFOXNC10:00 PM2.8750.3CSI: NYTNT1:00 AM1.1250.3PROPERTY BROTHERS (1 HR)HGTV11:00 PM1.0810.3Mentalist, THETNT10:00 PM1.4090.3Rachel Maddow ShowMSNBC9:00 PM1.5930.3Ghost HuntersSYFY8:00 PM0.9150.3Auction HuntersSPIKE10:31 PM0.9970.3CAJUN Pawn StarsHIST9:00 PM1.2890.3SPECIAL RPT W/BRET BAIERFOXNC6:00 PM2.3800.3THE OREILLY FACTORFOXNC11:00 PM1.7970.3FIVE, THEFOXNC5:00 PM2.2460.3The Fox Report W/S.SMITHFOXNC7:00 PM2.1850.3Nielsen TV Ratings: (C)2012 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
Photos: TSA Checkpoint At Mitt Romney Political Event
  Link to Article
  Source: Infowars » Featured Stories
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:33
  Image shows TSA screener checking inside baseball cap
  Paul Joseph WatsonInfowars.comThursday, September 13, 2012
  Photos sent to us via email show TSA screeners rifling through personal possessions at a Mitt Romney political event, including one ludicrous image of a TSA officer checking inside a baseball cap, illustrating again how the federal agency has expanded not only outside of the airport but outside of transportation entirely.
  ''I was at a Romney event to specifically see if TSA would be there. Here are the pictures,'' writes an Alex Jones Show listener.
  It's unclear whether the attendees to the event were forced to undergo a pat down or take off their shoes, but hats were certainly liable for inspection.
  The female TSA officer is presumably checking to see if any miniature Al-Qaeda terrorists are lurking inside this suspicious looking red baseball cap.
  The TSA has been very busy in recent weeks, placing its agents at events and functions that have nothing whatsoever to do with transportation, emphasizing how the federal agency has stepped way beyond its mandate and become a literal occupying army of uniformed goons.
  The TSA inspected personal items and conducted pat downs at both the Republican National Convention in Tampa and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.
  Following the conclusion of the RNC, Ron Paul and his family were detained and interrogated by TSA agents as TSA officials ludicrously insinuated that Paul, his family and his campaign staff could be a threat to Mitt Romney, who ''might be nearby.''
  TSA workers were also present at a recent Paul Ryan political event in The Villages, Florida, where the screeners conducted invasive bag searches as well as pat downs.
  Last year, the TSA was responsible for over 9,000 checkpoints across the United States, a number set to increase thanks to the agency's bloated budget and its expansion beyond anything vaguely related to transportation.
  Since its inception in the US after 9/11, the TSA has grown in size exponentially. The agency was slammed in a recent congressional report for wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on security theatre.
  The TSA also recently came under scrutiny for a bizarre new policy where screeners check travelers' drinks for explosives even though the drinks are purchased inside the airport after travelers have already passed through security.
  *********************
  Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
  Tags: police state, tsa
  Share this article:
Wednesday Final Ratings: 'The Voice' & 'Big Brother' Adjusted Up, No Adjustments for 'America's Got Talent' or 'Guys With Kids'
  Link to Article
  Source: TVbytheNumbers
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:32
  We already noted the upward adjustment toThe X Factor in the preliminary report, but now The Voice has been adjusted up as well, putting the two shows back at an adults 18-49 ratings tie. Big Brotherwas also adjusted up a tenth vs. thepreliminary Wednesday broadcast ratings.
  Final broadcast primetime ratings for Wednesday, September 12, 2012:
  -Nielsen TV Ratings: (C)2012 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
Secret body scanners with 50 times more radiation than airport x-ray scanners to be rolled out
  Link to Article
  Source: Set You Free News
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:30
  By J. D. Heyes | Natural News
  A growing number of Americans are already outraged over the government's use of high-powered, ultra-revealing and potentially dangerous backscatter x-ray machines at a growing number of the nation's airports, and as bad as that problem is, it's about to get a whole lot worse unless Congress intervenes to stop the madness.
  In the late 1990s, travel experts doubted the government would ever employ such machines in a security checkpoint role at airports or other locations. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 dramatically reversed that mentality to the point that now, no doubt afraid of being accused of doing ''too little'' to enhance security, lawmakers and select government agencies have done a complete reversal, permitting the use of high-powered x-ray machines to ''scan'' airline travelers (and perhaps, we near bus, train and other modes of travel in the future).
  The all-knowing Transportation Security Administration insists the machines it is currently using '' some 250 of them '' are safe, but the agency relies primarily on its own in-house and government experts to support their claims.
  The non-governmental experts speak
  But other private-sector experts, including a bevy of health and radiation scientists cited by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, disagree. They include Dr. Russell Blaylock, M.D., a board certified neurosurgeon, who wrote:
  The growing outrage over the Transportation Security Administration's new policy of backscatter scanning of airline passengers and enhanced pat-downs brings to mind these wise words from President Ronald Reagan: The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help you. So, what is all the concern really about '' will these radiation scanners increase your risk of cancer or other diseases? A group of scientists and professors from the University of California at San Francisco voiced their concern to Obama's science and technology adviser John Holdren in a well-stated letter back in April (2010). The letter he referred to was signed by doctors John Sedat Ph.D., David Agard, Ph.D., Marc Shuman, M.D., Robert Stroud, Ph.D., all of whom are faculty at the University of California, San Francisco. They wrote:
  We are writing to call your attention to serious concerns about the potential health risks of the recently adopted whole body backscatter X-ray airport security scanners. This is an urgent situation as these X-ray scanners are rapidly being implemented as a primary screening step for all air travel passengers. Our overriding concern is the extent to which the safety of this scanning device has been adequately demonstrated. This can only be determined by a meeting of an impartial panel of experts that would include medical physicists and radiation biologists at which all of the available relevant data is reviewed. These experts went on to say that even though the overall dose of radiation ''would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high.''
  Read Full Article
HowTo: What is rss.js?
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:18
  HowTo: What is rss.js?Last update: 9/10/2012; 7:34:01 PM.
  Background
  My name is Dave Winer.
  RSS is a popular syndication format, produced by a wide of publications, blogs and apps. It's used to distribute items of content, which can have a title, link and/or description. It supports categories, enclosures, comments and allows for namespaces to extend the format. It's the basis for podcasting.
  RSS is an XML-based format. XML is widely deployed and debugged, and will be with us for a very long time. For example all the HTML content on the web is in XML.
  JSON is gaining popularity as a parallel to XML.
  What is rss.js?
  Example
  Here's the Scripting News RSS 2.0 feed expressed in JSON.
  http://scripting.com/rss.js
  It's a simple mapping. If an element in the XML has attributes, we make each attribute a sub-element, and put the value of the element in a sub-element named #value.
  Discussion
  Can you put together a demo JavaScript app that runs off this data?
  What changes, if any, do you feel need to be made to this format?
  It's nice that the browsers don't mess with rss.js data as they do with the XML version. Can we hope that they leave this format alone? :-)
  What icon would we use? The same orange radio signal icon that Mozilla and Microsoft came up with?
  Update: I wrote a blog post about this.
Thread: Blogging in transition
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:17
  A little over a week ago I wrote a piece called scripting.com in transition. I was getting ready to show people OPML Comments, and wanted to give you all a heads up. Now you've seen the next step. I've opened up a little window into the CMS running behind the threads site, called the worldoutline, to show you a bit of what it can do.
  Over the last couple of years I did a transition of my blog. First, I rewrote my CMS which had evolved in a disorderly research-driven fashion over several years. That was called Scripting2. Then I started a new CMS called the worldoutline, which was actually begun with the seeds of a way of organizing web content that goes back to Clay Basket in the mid-90s. But this time I achieved the goal I had been trying to reach the previous iterations.
  My goal was to create a way of writing, designing and programming for networks that was unified. Where a new domain is just a matter of putting a label on a node saying "Start something new here, and this is its name." Its analogous to a page-break in a word processor. On the net the equiv of a page-break is a domain-break.
  Things that used to represent large conceptual changes, like the difference between content and its rendering, are shrunken so you just have to save a document to effect large change on the web. Why not? We already have tools like this for printing and page layout. We're 15 years into the web now. We all create lots of sites, so many that they're hard to manage. We live at the edge of our capacity to manage it. But our tools, the file system and IDEs have only made incremental improvements in the last couple of generations. We're not using the great new capacity of our machines very well.
  So I don't think most people have an expectation for what comes next. That's why this is going to be so much fun. I think you will be surprised at what you will be able to do. :-)
Secretary Sebelius Violates the Hatch Act - By Scott Coffina - The Corner - National Review Online
  Link to Article
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:15
  The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has concluded that Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius violated the Hatch Act by engaging in political activity during an official appearance at the Human Rights Campaign's gala in the battleground state of North Carolina this past February. While delivering the keynote address in her official capacity, Secretary Sebelius endorsed the lieutenant governor of North Carolina in his campaign for governor and strongly advocated the reelection of President Obama, stating:
  One of the imperatives is to make sure that we not only come together here in Charlotte to present the nomination to the president, but we make sure that in November he continues to be president for another four years . . . . It's hugely important to make sure that we reelect the president and elect a Democratic governor here in North Carolina.
  The Secretary's partisan political comments at an official event, at two different points in her speech, represent a clear violation of the Hatch Act. She certainly knew better. During the OSC investigation, Secretary Sebelius acknowledged that she had been trained several times on the restrictions on the Hatch Act, which training certainly covered the basic prohibition on political advocacy at an official event. Moreover, the secretary's briefing memo contemplated that she might be asked to give her personal opinion on something, and advised her to deflect by saying, ''I'm here to represent the president and the Obama administration, not in my personal capacity.'' Such a blatant violation, therefore, is inexplicable, unless she simply forgot where she was and why she was there and got caught up in the moment, as she had suggested in her interview with OSC.
  Once the inevitable media inquiries about her political remarks at the HRC gala started pouring in to HHS, the Secretary realized that she had gone far off the reservation and, to her credit, admitted her mistake and acted to have the taxpayers reimbursed by the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee for her travel expenses to Charlotte. Nevertheless, she cannot un-ring the bell, as she argued unpersuasively in her defense to OSC's proposed charges. Not to equate the two, but a bank robber is not exonerated merely because he returns the money to the bank. Similarly, Secretary Sebelius's corrective actions do not change the fact that her political advocacy in an official forum violated the law.
  The matter now has been referred to President Obama, who has the statutory responsibility to take ''appropriate action'' in light of the OSC's finding that Secretary Sebelius violated the Hatch Act. The presumptive penalty for a Hatch Act violation is termination from government employment, which, if challenged, can be reduced to a suspension of no less than 30 days without pay. Notably, a former U.S. attorney was suspended last year for 100 days for a violation that was considerably more nuanced than the violation by Secretary Sebelius.
  It will be interesting to see what, if any, disciplinary action President Obama will take against his Health and Human Services secretary. My guess is that he will be sympathetic to her transgression, if he even recognizes it as one, given his barnstorming around the country last fall under the guise of promoting his jobs bill and discussing student loans, and his undignified raffling off of dinners and lunches with the president (''and Joe!'') to campaign donors. The president has spoken constantly about accountability in his administration. Here is an opportunity to demonstrate that he means it.
  '-- Scott A. Coffina is a former associate counsel to President George W. Bush and former assistant U.S. attorney.
Does the Drone Program Really Exist? - National - The Atlantic Wire
  Link to Article
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:13
  Drones have become the go-to weapon of the U.S.'s counter-terrorism strategy, with strikes in Yemen in particular increasing steadily. U.S. drones reportedly killed twenty-nine people in Yemen recently, including perhaps ten civilians.
  Administration officials regularly celebrate the drone war's apparent successes'-- often avoiding details or staying anonymous, but claiming tacit credit for the U.S.
  In June, a day after Abu Yahya Al-Libi was killed in Pakistan, White House spokesman Jay Carney trumpeted the death of "Al Qaeda's Number-Two." Unnamed officials confirmed the strike in at least ten media outlets. Similarly, the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki by a CIA drone last September was confirmed in many news outlets by anonymous officials. President Obama called Awlaki's death "a tribute to our intelligence community."
  Just last week President Obama spoke about drone warfare on CNN, saying the decision to target individuals for killing rather than capture involves "an extensive process with a lot of checks."
  But when it comes to details of that process, the administration clams up.
  The government refuses to formally acknowledge that the CIA even has a drone program, let alone discuss its thornier elements, like how many civilians have been killed, or how the CIA chooses targets.
  Officials have given speeches on the legal rationale for targeted killing and the use of drones in broad terms. The administration has also acknowledged "military operations" outside the "hot" battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, but again, details have remained under wraps.
  The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Times have both filed multiple Freedom of Information Act requests for documents relating to the CIA's drones. The agency has responded by saying that it can "neither confirm nor deny the existence of records."
  As part of a lawsuit challenging the CIA's response, the ACLU collected nearly two hundred on- and off-the-record statements to the media by current and former U.S. officials about the CIA's use of drones for targeted killing. In a graphic accompanying this story, we've laid out many of the statements, alongside the CIA's legal stances refusing to confirm or deny the program. The statements cover most of Obama's first term in office. Taken together, they show the extent to which the government keeps disclosures about the CIA's drone war mostly on its own terms.
  In court briefs, Justice Department lawyers argue that widespread "unofficial" discussion notwithstanding, revealing the existence of any number of documents relating to the drone program or targeted killing would convey sensitive information about the nature and scope of such a program. They add that quotes from unnamed sources or former CIA officers don't constitute official acknowledgment. As for public remarks about drones by President Obama and other officials'--the government argues that they never explicitly mention the CIA and could be referring to military operations.
  A federal judge in D.C. already ruled in favor of the CIA in one suit last September, a decision the ACLU is appealing. A hearing is scheduled for next week.
  A White House spokesman declined to comment to ProPublica on the FOIA suit or on the CIA's drone program. The CIA did not respond to our requests for comment.
  Some top administration officials have become well-practiced at coy references to the classified program.
  In October 2011, Defense Secretary'--and former CIA director'--Leon Panetta said, "I have a hell of a lot more weapons available to me in this job than I had at the CIA, although the Predators aren't bad." In the ACLU suit, the government argues that Panetta's comments were too vague to constitute an acknowledgement that the CIA actually had drones, or whether it used them for targeted killing, "as opposed to surveillance and intelligence-gathering."
  A year earlier, Panetta said that Al Qaeda in Pakistan had been beaten back in part to due "the most aggressive operation the CIA has been involved in in our history." The government notes that he never said the word "drone."
  Semantics aside, details on the most controversial aspects of the program have been revealed through a patchwork of these unofficial comments. For example, in May the New York Times reported that the CIA counts any military-aged male killed in a drone strike as a "militant," even if his identity isn't known. Many outlets had previously reported that the CIA conducted "signature strikes" in Pakistan, and now in Yemen, which target men believed to be militants whose identities aren't known. But neither the Times story nor subsequent reporting by ProPublica garnered much detail on how the CIA actually assesses casualties after a strike. As usual, neither the White House nor the CIA would comment on the record.
  It has also been widely reported that mainly the CIA conducts strikes in Pakistan, because the U.S.'s tense diplomatic relationship with the country requires the patina of deniability provided by a covert program. When Obama referred to drone strikes in a public video chat this January, saying that that "obviously a lot of these strikes have been in the FATA," the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, many assumed he had to be talking about the CIA.
  The government insists the president's comments didn't count as disclosure of anything, saying he could have been talking not about CIA strikes but military (though, as a government brief in the ACLU suit points out, those haven't been acknowledged in Pakistan either). As the government argues, "It is precisely this sort of unbridled speculation that is insufficient to support a claim of official disclosure."
  The same brief framed it another way: "Even if there is speculation about a fact, unless an agency officially confirms that fact, the public does not know whether it is so."
  Originally published on ProPublica
  Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments.You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.
Health Board Approves Bloomberg's Soda Ban
  Link to Article
  Source: NYT > Home Page
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:42
  Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
  A woman drinking a large sweetened iced tea in Bryant Park this August.
  Seeking to combat rising obesity rates, the New York City Board of Health approved on Thursday a ban on the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks at restaurants, street carts and movie theaters, enacting the first restriction of its kind in the country.
  The measure, unless blocked by a judge, will take effect in six months. The health board vote was the only regulatory approval needed to become binding in the city, but the American soft-drink industry has strongly opposed the plan and vowed this week to try to fight the measure by other means, possibly in the courts.
  The plan is a marquee initiative of the Bloomberg administration, which is known for introducing ambitious '' and, some say, overreaching '' public health policies, including a ban on smoking in bars and the posting of calorie counts on chain restaurant menus.
  The soda measure would bar the sale of sweetened drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces, smaller than the size of a common soda bottle. It would affect a range of popular sweetened beverages, including energy drinks, presweetened iced teas and common brands of nondiet soda.
  The restrictions would not affect fruit juices, dairy-based drinks like milkshakes, or alcoholic beverages; no-calorie diet sodas would not be affected, but establishments with self-service drink fountains, like many fast-food restaurants, would not be allowed to stock cups larger than 16 ounces.
  Only establishments that receive inspection grades from the health department would have to obey the rules, a group that includes movie theaters and stadium concession stands. Convenience stores, including 7-Eleven and its king-size ''Big Gulp'' drinks, would be exempt, along with vending machines and some newsstands.
  Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has said the plan does not limit consumers' choices, since customers can still purchase as many 16-ounce drinks as they would like. The soft-drink industry, which has spent more $1 million on a public-relations campaign opposing the plan, argues that the policy restricts consumers' freedom to buy beverages as they see fit.
  Six in 10 residents said they thought the plan was a bad idea in a recent poll by The New York Times. But the measure easily earned the approval of the health board, whose members were appointed by the mayor. The board voted eight to zero, with one abstention, to approve the measure just after 11 a.m. Thursday.
  Mr. Bloomberg has made curbing obesity a top goal for his administration, citing higher rates of diabetes and fatalities among the city's more overweight neighborhoods. More than half of adult New Yorkers are obese or overweight, according to the city's health department.
  Opinion among other city lawmakers is mixed. Several City Council members, including many members of the council's minority caucus, said the plan would adversely affect small businesses, particularly in poorer neighborhoods. A resolution against the plan has been circulated in the City Council, but the speaker, Christine C. Quinn, has not put the measure to a vote.
  The plan has generated widespread interest in the topic of obesity and soft drinks. The mayor has been pilloried in some quarters as Nanny Bloomberg, with critics saying the soda plan is another example of social engineering by the government. Supporters, including many prominent academics and scientists who study nutrition, say the policy could help reduce the amount of calories consumed by city residents.
Was Photo of Dead Ambassador Acceptable?
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:40
  Where is the line between good taste and important journalism? And did The Times cross it when it used, in a Wednesday afternoon online photo gallery, an image of an unconscious J. Christopher Stevens, the ambassador, who was killed in an attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya?
  One reader, Catherine Ehr, was appalled, as she was a few weeks ago when The Times used a photograph of a bloodied man who died in the shooting at the Empire State Building. She expressed the views of many readers when she wrote to me:
  For the second time in a few weeks, in the wake of a horrific event, the NY Times has stepped beyond the boundaries of good taste in publishing photos. First, there was the photo of a man bleeding/dying on the sidewalk after his former co-worker shot him in NYC which precipitated a police shootout that injured 9. Now, there's the photo of a man identified as Christopher Stevens, unconscious and clearly shortly before his death.
  If either of those men were your friend, or your family member, how would seeing those images make you feel? The other images that accompany the articles or appear in slide shows are enough to give the reader/viewer a clear idea of what happened. Showing identifiable photos of people dead or dying, and identifying the people in them, is disgusting and unnecessary.
  I hope The Times steps back from this and does a more rigorous job of editing/choosing the photos it publishes. Where is the common decency?
  Ian Fisher, the associate managing editor who runs The Times's Web site during the day, said the decision was a carefully considered one by the paper's top editors who met in the morning to discuss it.
  They chose to use the Agence France-Presse photograph in question, he said, because of its journalistic significance.
  ''It's horrifying but there is a journalistic imperative,'' he said. ''It's news.''
  It's notable that the caption stopped short of saying it was a photo of Mr. Stevens's dead body. The caption reads, ''A man, reportedly unconscious, identified as Mr. Stevens.''
  Mr. Fisher added: ''We don't hesitate to run pictures of Iraqis, Syrians and Qaddafi dead. We've been at war for years. We've shown a lot of bodies.''
  But he realized why the reaction was so fast and harsh to this photograph.
  ''I can understand why people feel it's more disturbing to see a photo of an American, particularly an American diplomat,'' he said.
  For that reason, he said, editors chose a relatively distant image of Mr. Stevens, and placed it in the last position in the frequently updated gallery, where it would be less prominent. If only an extremely graphic photograph had been available, it might not have been used, Mr. Fisher said.
  Other major newspapers, including The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, were not using similar photographs by midafternoon. At this writing, The Times had not made a decision about whether to use the photograph of Mr. Stevens in its print edition on Thursday.
  Who's right '' the readers who are protesting, or the editors? It's a tough call, and it's an area in which sensibilities have changed over the years.
  But if you accept the idea that each human life has the same value and dignity, and there is no consistent objection to seeing images of the dead from other countries, it's hard to mount a reasonable argument against what editors here chose to do. To put it clearly: They made the right call.
  Having said that, I would not want to see a similar photograph on the front page of Thursday's print edition, where its prominence and permanence would give it a different weight.
Oops! 'Newsroom' Star Alison Pill Accidentally Tweets Topless Photo
  Link to Article
  Source: Radar Online
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:31
  Twitter
  By Radar Staff
  Alison Pill made somewhat of a boob of herself Wednesday.
  The perky actress of HBO's The Newsroom fame tweeted a topless self-shot lying in bed, but to her credit, quickly owned her digital D'oh! And deleted the photo with an apology.
  "Yep. That picture happened," the 26-year-old Canada native wrote. "Ugh. My tech issues have now reached new heights, apparently. How a deletion turned into a tweet... Apologies."
  PHOTOS: Celebs Who Have Done Nude Scenes
  Pill's fianc(C), actor Jay Baruchel, called his fianc(C)e a "hilarious dork" in the blunder, adding that "Smartphones will get ya."
  Last November, Dean McDermott accidentally tweeted a topless pic of wife Tori Spelling.
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US Ambassador was lynched by mob Gaddafi killing-style
  Link to Article
  Source: the tap
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:28
  Attack on U.S. Consulate illustrates disastrous outcome of Obama's ''humanitarian'' intervention in LibyaBy Paul Joseph WatsonInfowars.comWednesday, September 12, 2012Despite initial reports suggesting he died in a rocket attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, photos appear to indicate that U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed by a lynch mob, illustrating the disastrous consequences of the Obama administration's military intervention in Libya '' arming some of the very same men who carried out today's attack.''The US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, has been killed in a rocket attack in the eastern city of Benghazi along with three other embassy staff, the White House confirmed on Wednesday,'' reports France 24.However, images released in the hours after the attack show Stevens' body being paraded around by a mob. The body appears to show signs of torture.Subsequent reports speculated that Stevens' car was attacked as he and the three other personnel attempted to escape from the Consulate.The other embassy staff were shot while Stevens' died of ''suffocation,'' suggesting he was lynched and physically attacked by the mob.The incident is being portrayed by the establishment media as a reaction to a film produced in the United States that purportedly ridicules Islam's Prophet Mohammed.However, the wider issue of how the 2011 bombardment of Libya paved the way for gangs of militant Islamic extremists, once backed by NATO powers with heavy weapons, to fill the power vacuum left by Colonel Gaddafi, has been largely ignored.Indeed, it's a horrific irony that Hillary Clinton's infamous gloating about Gaddafi's execution - ''We came, we saw, he died'' - has now come full circle, with Stevens paying for such despicable arrogance with his life.A February 2012 report by Amnesty International found that Libya's militias are ''largely out of control'' and that ''Thousands of detainees are being held in various prisons across the country'' and are being ''tortured to death.''The country's NATO-installed rulers have proven themselves unwilling to prevent widespread abuse.The assault on Libya was carried out with absolutely zero constitutional authorization.In June last year, President Obama arrogantly expressed his hostility to the rule of law when he dismissed the need to get congressional authorization to commit the United States to a military intervention in Libya, churlishly dismissing criticism and remarking, ''I don't even have to get to the Constitutional question.''Obama tried to legitimize his failure to obtain Congressional approval for military involvement by sending a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner in which he said the military assault was ''authorized by the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council.''Today's attack on the U.S. Consulate serves as another reminder that the military-industrial complex's new paradigm of ''humanitarian intervention'' '' a scam they hope to repeat in Syria '' has nothing to do with humanitarianism in that it only results in more bloodshed and more instability.*********************Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
Verenice Gutierrez Claims PB&J Could Hold Racist Connotations | Portland
  Link to Article
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 12:42
  Photo Credit: FILE
  Are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches racist? A bizarre question, to say the least, but one that at least one school administrator is asking out in Portland, Oregon. Verenice Gutierrez, principal at Harvey Scott K-8 School, seems to believe that there are racial connotations associated with the common lunch-time meal.
  According to Gutierrez, using the example of a peanut butter sandwich in classroom lessons is technically a problematic and discriminatory move '-- one that was made by a teacher in her building last school year. While such a notion may bring out laughs among those who find it absurd, the principal explains her logic.
  ''What about Somali or Hispanic students, who might not eat sandwiches?,'' she said. ''Another way would be to say: 'Americans eat peanut butter and jelly, do you have anything like that?' Let them tell you. Maybe they eat torta. Or pita.''
  Somehow, by mentioning a food that the majority culture regularly eats without also discussing other meal options, the teacher was purportedly violating discrimination standards. So, to combat any additional PB&J-related offenses, the principal is treading carefully. And she's not alone.
  Photo Credit: AP
  Portland Public Schools is in the process of integrating ''Courageous Conversations,'' an equity training that has been coming in phases over the past few years. The Portland Tribune explains the district's intentions, in detail:
  Through intensive staff trainings, frequent staff meetings, classroom observations and other initiatives, the premise is that if educators can understand their own ''white privilege,'' then they can change their teaching practices to boost minority students' performance.
  Last Wednesday, the first day of the school year for staff, for example, the first item of business for teachers at Scott School was to have a Courageous Conversation '-- to examine a news article and discuss the ''white privilege'' it conveys.
  The demographics that are present in the district have apparently led leaders to tackle this purported ''white privilege'' issue head-on. Currently, 50 percent of students at Scott K-8 are Hispanic, 15 percent are black and nine percent are Asian.
  Naturally, there's some controversy, especially considering the subject at hand. One parent, in particular, as the Tribune notes, has railed against a lunch-time drum class for black and Hispanic boys at the school (the parent believes it discriminates against women, girls, Asians, whites and Native Americans).
  Gutierrez, though, claims children weren't turned away and denies that offering a minority-specific class amounts to discrimination.
  ''When white people do it, it is not a problem, but if it's for kids of color, then it's a problem?,'' she said. ''Break it down for me. That's your white privilege, and your whiteness.''
  Photo Credit: Getty
  The Tribune has more about the principal and the district's program that she's seeking to utilize in the school:
  Like many if not all of PPS' leaders, Gutierrez has gone through California-based consultant Glenn Singleton's ''Coaching for Educational Equity,'' a weeklong seminar on race and how it affects life; she's also become an ''affiliate,'' certified to teach the equity curriculum; and she serves on the district's administrative committee to address systematic racism, a group that meets every other week.
  ''Our focus school and our Superintendent's mandate that we improve education for students of color, particularly Black and Brown boys, will provide us with many opportunities to use the protocols of Courageous Conversations in data teams, team meetings, staff meetings, and conversations amongst one another,'' Guitierrez' letter to staff reads.
  Read more about this story over at The Portland Tribune.
Family Security Matters
  Link to Article
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 12:19
  Come and Get It, Hillaryby EDWARD CLINESeptember 13, 2012It's much like the alignment of the planets to produce some catastrophic force, or the convergence of two storm systems: The U.S. remembers 9/11. On 9/11/2012, Muslim mobs assault the U.S. embassy in Cairo, hauling down the U.S. flag and raising the black flag of jihad. In Benghazi, Libya, hours later, another mob launches a military-style attack on the U.S. consulate, killing the U.S. ambassador and staff members, including two Marines, and burning the place to the ground.
  Over what?
  A satiric movie about Mohammad and the poisonous fraud of Islam that few Americans even knew about? Or was it about the death by drone of a Libyan Al-Qada leader?
  Who knows? Who cares? This is Islam at its best. This is Islam and Muslims shining through. Muslims don't need an excuse. The Koran tells them so.
  Trying to sift through the multifaceted motives for the attacks in Cairo and Benghazi is as pointless as sorting through the ruins of the World Trade Center on 9/11, 2001 searching for the identities of the plane hijackers. Once it was known who supported, funded, recruited, and triggered the attacks, why waste any time trying to identify the expendable "martyrs"?
  It was the ideology that launched the attacks, in 2001 and in 2012. It was the ideology that has launched such attacks ever since the plane hijackings of the 1970's. It was behind the Munich massacre and every casualty-strewn bombing and murder spree committed in the name of Islam for the last five decades.
  Can anyone with a handful of scruples buy the phony piety and condolences of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton? The New York Times quotes them both:
  "These four Americans stood up for freedom and human dignity," Mr. Obama said in a televised statement from the White House Rose Garden, where he stood with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. "Make no mistake: we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people."
  The Washington Post reports:
  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the attack "in the strongest terms," adding that while the United States "deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others ... there is never any justification for violent acts of this kind." Wednesday morning, Obama released his own statement condemning "the outrageous attack."
  During the protest in Cairo but hours before the attacks in Libya, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo issued a statement saying that it condemns "the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims - as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions." An administration official later told ABC News that "no one in Washington approved that statement before it was released and it doesn't reflect the views of the U.S. government." The statement still appears on the embassy website, but not on the homepage. (Italics mine)
  Come again? What else has been the U.S. government's view since 2008 but to excoriate and threaten anyone with the courage to brand Islam as a murderous, looting, pedophilic, misogynist, slave-thirsty ideology?
  On the other hand, the New York Times mulls over this explanation:
  About 24 hours before the consulate attack, however, Al Qaeda posted to militant forums on the Web a video in which its leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, acknowledged the death in an American drone strike in June of his Libyan deputy, Abu Yahya al-Libi, and called on Libyans to avenge the death.
  Walid Shoebat, a former Muslim Brotherhood member who knows the Islamic supremacist mind intimately, dismisses the movie as the chief reason for the Cairo attack. He pins the motive to a consolidation of power by Egyptian Salafist activists. Citing communications between the Nour Party and other Party members, he concludes:
  It had no reference to the current movie, which means that they simply searched for anything to use as an excuse. They could find nothing major except a satirical video. Of course, you have daily satires in the United States about Muhammad that technically should be considered far worse.
  So, the cause was immaterial. This was just Islam doing what it does best: killing and destroying.
  The movie, "Innocence of Muslims," was shown once, the Associated Press reports, in Hollywood to a mostly empty theater. It was cited as the reason that Muslims attacked the embassy in Cairo and launched a military type assault on the consulate in Benghazi. Or it might have been about the Danish cartoons.
  Still, "Innocence of Muslims" is the kind of film that has not been produced by Hollywood ever since 9/11. Sam Bacile, an Israeli filmmaker, has shown more courage than any multi-millionaire director, producer, or actor. Hollywood has churned out many films judgmental of the U.S. and not of its enemies. Bacile remains undaunted by the outrages committed in Cairo and Benghazi. The Washington Post reported an Associated Press interview of Bacile. However, the Washington Post and the Associated Press took down that full-length article. Most of it can be found here:
  The California-based property developer said to be responsible for the film "Innocence of Muslims," Sam Bacile, insists that his 2-hour movie is an accurate portrayal of the life and values of the prophet Muhammad. "Islam is a cancer," Bacile was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.
  It is obvious to everyone but State Department wonks, The New York Times, and every other venue of the MSM that the twin attacks were intended as a middle finger shoved up the U.S.'s nose. There was nothing spontaneous about either attack. They were planned.
  Planned and known to the Islamic supremacist governments of Egypt and Libya, both of which the Obama administration had a direct hand in establishing, in the name of "democracy."
  So, who tipped off the savages about a movie no one had even heard of? Is it beyond credibility that members of the Nour Party and their counterparts in Libya were offered the movie as bait? By whom? We've seen the duplicity of the Obama administration at work before.
  More importantly than any of these ruminations about how and why the attacks occurred, is how the stress on Bacile's movie comports perfectly with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's hand-holding with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation's campaign to globalize the criminalization of any and all forms of criticism of Islam. Many observers, columnists and pundits have been wondering for months just what the Obama administration was planning as a reelection-salvaging event. Most hypothesized that it would a Syrian intervention.
  Surprise. It is a doubling down on the "necessity" of censorship to prevent more "violence." Pamela Geller reported in 2011 in American Thinker:
  Today the Islamized State Department will be meeting with the Islamic supremacist Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to discuss strategies and develop action plans in which to impose the restriction of free speech (or blasphemy, as truthful speech about Islam is considered in Islamic law) under the Sharia here in America.
  Geller quotes Clinton on the occasion of the State Department hosting an OIC conference on how to silence critics of Islam:
  "We also understand that, for 235 years, freedom of expression has been a universal right at the core of our democracy. So we are focused on promoting interfaith education and collaboration, enforcing antidiscrimination laws, protecting the rights of all people to worship as they choose, and to use some old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming, so that people don't feel that they have the support to do what we abhor."
  Geller notes:
  "Peer pressure and shaming." That is exactly what these useful idiots try to do with anyone and everyone who tells the truth about Islam and jihad: me, Robert Spencer, Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish, and more.
  The Cairo and Benghazi attacks, pegged to the excuse of the Danish Mohammad cartoons and the Bacile movie, comprise a part of that strategy and action plan. The Eurasia Review reports on a recent meeting of the OIC.
  They would also be deliberating on challenges faced by 1.5 billion Muslims; more importantly lack of unity among the Muslim States, Islam phobia campaign and linking terrorism with Islam, disturbances in some Muslim states and other unpalatable problems facing the Muslim ummah (nation) on political, social, economic, educational and development fronts. (Italics mine)
  The 57-member Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) headquarters in Jeddah has announced that it will hold the 4th "extraordinary" two-day session of the Islamic Summit Conference in Makkah from August 14 (26th Ramadan) called for by King Abdullah "to examine the situation in many countries of the Islamic world, intensify efforts to confront this situation, address the sources of discord and division therein, reunify the Islamic Ummah and promote Islamic solidarity."
  I would not call Clinton et al. "useful idiots." That is a generous assessment of her character and the willingly dhimmi behavior of the State Department and of the Obama administration. That estimate implies that Clinton especially is utterly clueless about the nature of Islam. She knows. Obama knows. Our greatest "Islamic" enemy is not any Muslim, but our own leaders.
  So, I say to Hillary, and Huma Abedin, and General Dempsey, and all the other compromisers and haters of freedom of speech: Bring it on. Come and get it. Just try to muzzle me. You'll have a fight you never counted on, and I won't be alone. I will mock, criticize, and condemn Islam to my heart's content. Just try shutting me up. I'm calling you out.
  Edward Cline is the author of the Sparrowhawk novels set in England and Virginia in the pre-Revolutionary period, of several detective and suspense novels, and three collections of his commentaries and columns, all available on Amazon Books. His essays, book reviews, and other articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Journal of Information Ethics and other publications. He is a frequent contributor to Rule of Reason, Family Security Matters, Capitalism Magazine and other Web publications.
PM vote to go ahead as planned
  Link to Article
  Thu, 13 Sep 2012 06:08
  By Umar Khan.
  Tripoli, 12 September:
  The vote to elect the next prime minister of Libya by the General National Congress is to go ahead as scheduled according to the head of the GNC, Mohamed Magarief. There were concerns that the vote will be postponed after it was reported that the American Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed along with three other staff members when the US mission was attacked by armed men last night.
  The GNC will now be holding the vote in a session that is scheduled to start later today. The GNC members will chose from the eight nominees, in a series of rounds, and the winner will be elected by clear majority. The main competition is said to be between Mahmoud Jibril, Awad Barassi and Mustafa Abushagur. All three have been part of the transitional government system set up after the formation of the NTC in one position or the other.
  The names will be put to vote and if no one wins a clear majority, a further round of voting will be done between the leading contestants. It is not clear who will make it to the second round just yet. However, after last night's attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, there is a chance of some last minute changes to the blocs and established positions of different candidates given the nature and sensitivity of the Benghazi incident.
VIDEO
  How STINKY Is Your Power Bill?
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  Pres Obama & Hillary Clinton Honor Ambassador Chris Stevens & The Libya Attack Victims
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  Protester VERY Physically Removed From Paul Ryan Speech (How Very Christian Of You)
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  Occupy Wall Street ONE Year Later
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  Protest Riots Spread Across 17 Countries
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  MSNBC: Protesters Breach US Embassy In Tunisia
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  Anti Muslim Filmmaker's Home Surrounded By Network News Cameras
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  Topless Photos Of Kate Middleton Taken With Drone Technology
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  Witnesses Say "There Was NO PROTEST At All" Outside US Embassy In Benghazi
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  "Protest In Egypt Libya Iraq And Lebanon And Morocco And Sudan And Tunisia And Iran And Bangladesh
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  "How Long Before The Dollar Collapses?"
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  Cornel West "Class Warfare That Leads Towards Kaos And Anarchy When You Have Hate And Revenge"
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  ABSOLUTE GENIUS! MAKE THIS GO VIRAL - Quantitative Easing Explained (Video)
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    Fri, 14 Sep 2012 02:14
    The truth about quantitative easing. Even if you've seen this before, you'll still laugh your a$$ off. Now with an incredible 5.2 million views on Youtube.
    "The Ben Bernank is working with the Goldman Sachs to engage in the printing money."
    "The printing money is the last refuge of failed economic empires and banana republics, and the Fed doesn't want to admit this is their only idea."
  Federal Judge Rules NDAA Cannot Be Used To Detained Journalist! Obama Govt Appeals Decision
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  "This Isn't Really About America!"
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  Thousands turn out for Madrid anti-austerity protests. (BBC video)
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  Russia Warns US on Consequences of Regime Change. (RT video)
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    Sat, 15 Sep 2012 22:17
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  al-Qaeda: US ambassador is vengeance for al-Libi. (Euronews video)
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    Source: WT news feed
    Sat, 15 Sep 2012 22:17
    Al-Qaeda has said the death of its second-in-command, Abu Yahya al-Libi has been avenged by the killing of the US ambassador to Libya earlier this week.
    Al-Libi was killed in June of this year in Pakistan.
    A communique by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula based in Yemen came as Libya's interim president Mohammed el-Megarif told a French news agency that foreign elements had been implicated in the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi on Tuesday.
    Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other embassy staff died in the initial violent reaction to a film made in America that many Muslims believe severely insults the prophet Mohammad.
    President Obama was there when the bodies arrived home.
    In a TV address afterwards he said: ''As we mourn their loss, we must also send a clear and resolute message to the world: those who attack our people will find no escape from justice. We will not waver in their pursuit. And we will never allow anyone to shake the resolve of the United States of America.''
    Obama said Stevens died a hero in a country that he helped to save.
    The president rejected any denigration of Islam, but said there was no excuse for attacking US embassies and consulates.
    More about:Al-Qaeda, Libya, Terrorism, USACopyright (C) 2012 euronews
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  Filmmaker linked to anti-Islam video meets with probation officer - CNN.com
    Link to Article
    Sat, 15 Sep 2012 22:14
    STORY HIGHLIGHTS
    Filmmaker was "very cooperative," authorities sayNakoula Basseley Nakoula leaves sheriff's office after interview with probation officerNakoula served a year in federal prison for bank fraudA review of his federal probation is ongoingLos Angeles (CNN) -- The California man believed to be the maker of an anti-Islam film that ignited a firestorm in the Muslim world was cooperative when authorities escorted him to a voluntary interview, officials said Saturday.
    "It was all choreographed," said Steve Whitmore of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. "He was ready and willing and very cooperative."
    The overnight meeting with a probation officer came a day after federal officials said they were reviewing the probation of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who was convicted of bank fraud in 2010 and placed on supervised probation for five years.
    Federal officials consider Nakoula to be the filmmaker behind the anti-Islam "Innocence of Muslims."
    Protesters storm U.S. Embassy buildings
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    Whitmore told CNN that Nakoula left the local sheriff's station after the federal officials were done interviewing him.
    "He is gone and he is free," he said of Nakoula, who was bundled up in a coat, hat and white scarf as he was escorted from his house. Nakoula decided to cover himself, Whitmore told CNN affiliate KCAL/KCBS.
    Whitmore earlier dismissed reports that Nakoula had been arrested, saying he was never in handcuffs or in custody.
    Karen Redmond, a spokeswoman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, said Friday that Nakoula's federal probation was under review.
    Redmond didn't provide details of why or when the probation review was initiated, or how long the process would take.
    While on probation, Nakoula can't access computers or any device that can access the Internet without approval from his probation officer.
    Nakoula served one year in federal prison at Lompoc, California, but officials couldn't immediately determine whether Nakoula paid any of the court-ordered restitution of $794,700, according to probation department officials and court records.
    Since notice of the film spread through YouTube, Nakoula has been out of public view and ensconced with his family in their home in Cerritos, California, where journalists have been gathered seeking information about his elusive background. Cerritos is about a 20-mile drive southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
    U.S. demands Mideast countries protect embassies, halt violence
    The movie, backed by hardcore anti-Islam groups in the United States, is a low-budget project that was ignored in the United States when trailers were posted on YouTube in July. But after Egyptian television aired certain segments, violent protests erupted in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories.
    Violent mobs attacked the U.S. Consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi, leaving the ambassador and three other American men dead.
    The amateurish film portrays the Prophet Mohammed as a womanizer, buffoon, ruthless killer and child molester. Islam categorically forbids any depictions of Mohammed, and blasphemy is an incendiary taboo in the Muslim world.
    Navy SEALs among dead
    The FBI contacted the filmmaker this week because of the potential for threats but he is not under investigation, a federal law enforcement official told CNN Thursday.
    One of the few public reports about Nakoula emerged this week when he called the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Wednesday night to report a disturbance, said Whitmore. Nakoula wanted local police to protect him.
    When news of his movie first broke, the filmmaker identified himself as Sam Bacile and told the Wall Street Journal that he was a 52-year-old Israeli-American real estate developer from California. He said Jewish donors had financed his film.
    But Israel's Foreign Ministry said there was no record of a Sam Bacile with Israeli citizenship.
    A production staff member who worked on the film in its initial stages told CNN that an entirely different name was filed on the paperwork for the Screen Actors Guild: Abenob Nakoula Bassely. A public records search showed an Abanob B. Nakoula residing at the same address as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.
    He believed the filmmaker was a Coptic Christian and when the two spoke on the phone during production, the filmmaker said he was in Alexandria, Egypt, raising money for the film.
    In Egypt, tension has emerged in recent decades between Muslims and the minority Copts.
    Another staffer who worked on the film said he knew the producer as Sam Bassil. That's how he signed a personal check to pay staff.
    When CNN inquired about Sam Bassil, the U.S. Attorney's Office sent a copy of a 2009 indictment. Those court documents showed the bank fraud conviction for Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.
    In his interview with the Wall Street Journal, the filmmaker characterized his movie as "a political effort to call attention to the hypocrisies of Islam."
    "Islam is a cancer," he said. "The movie is a political movie. It's not a religious movie."
    CNN's Amanda Watts, Michael Martinez and Miguel Marquez contributed to this report.
  Australia Police Clash With Anti-US demonstrators In Sydney (Video, Photos)
    Link to Article
    Source: Dprogram.net
    Sat, 15 Sep 2012 12:29
    (RussiaToday) '' Police in Sydney, Australia have fired tear gas at violent protesters staging a demonstration against the US.
    RT '' Police in Sydney, Australia, fired tear gas at protesters staging a anti-US demonstration following the anti-Islam film that has sparked mass public outrage across the Arab world.
    Hundreds of demonstrators threw projectiles at officers outside the US consulate in Sydney, shouting ''Down, down USA,'' AFP reported.
    Protesters waved banners calling for the beheading of those who insulted the Prophet Mohammed, news outlet the Australian reported.
    Police pushed the protesters back, and the crowd later marched to nearby Hyde Park.­
    One protester was reportedly hospitalized with a head injury, and is in stable condition.
    Seven ambulances arrived at the demonstration as tensions increased.
    Sydney's security forces were prepared for the rally, authorities said, which continued throughout the evening.
    Police arrested several demonstrators, local media reported.
    ''We are sick and tired of everyone mocking our beloved prophet,'' protester Houda Dib told the Australian. ''They were aggravating the situation by pushing our brothers. This is supposed to be a peaceful protest.''
    ''They call us the terrorists,'' demonstrator Sarah Jacob said in a separate interview. ''But everyone is terrorizing our people.''
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  VIDEO: Anti-Islam film protests widen
    Link to Article
    Source: BBC News - Home
    Sat, 15 Sep 2012 10:18
    Violent protests have continued across the Middle East in response to an American amateur film seen as insulting to Islam despite an appeal for calm by some Arab leaders.
    Crowds have attacked and attempted to storm the British, German and American embassies in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
    There have also been demonstrations in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, Gaza, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iraq, India and Indonesia.
    The BBC's Jeremy Bowen reports from Cairo.
  Czech's face booze ban after bootleg deaths
    Link to Article
    Source: euronews
    Sat, 15 Sep 2012 10:15
    Buying booze in the Czech Republic has been banned. The new law which applies to all liquor with more than 20 percent alcohol has been brought in after 19 people died from drinking bootleg vodka and rum containing poisonous methanol.
    Weeks of investigation by the authorities have failed to uncover the source of the worst outbreak of alcohol-related deaths in the country in decades.
    The Health Ministry had already banned sales by street vendors and market stalls to combat the spread of bootleg sales after the first cases appeared last weekend.
    The tainted drink has left around two dozen people in hospital after the outbreak in the Moravian-Silesian region 350 kilometres east of Prague. Some of them are reported to be in a critical condition.
    Health Minister Leos Heger, who announced the ban on national television said it would last indefinitely and that the government is ready to order an absolute, ''prohibition'' unless the source is found.
    Its reckoned illegal sales are on the rise in the Czech Republic and account for up to 20 percent of the market.
    More about:Alcohol, Czech Republic, HealthCopyright (C) 2012 euronews
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  One dead as Cairo protests enter fourth day
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    Source: euronews
    Sat, 15 Sep 2012 10:17
    One protestor has died and an estimated 27 injured sources say as anti-US protests raged on the streets of Cairo for a fourth day early on Saturday.
    The clashes moved to a main road after authorities closed the street leading to the American embassy in Egypt's capital. Police in riot gear fired rounds of tear gas at the protesters angry at the movie made in the U.S. that mocks the Prophet Mohammed.
    The street battles were not just confined to Cairo as violence flared in Alexandria. Calls from the Muslim Brotherhood for all demonstrations to remain peaceful went unheeded as the crowd threw stones and petrol bombs at police.
    In Khartoum its reported up to three people have died. One unnamed witness claims two members of their family were killed, crushed by a police vehicle as violence flared when demonstrators broke into the U.S. embassy.
    Earlier police fired tear gas to try and scatter a crowd of around 5,000 which had surrounded the German embassy and nearby British mission.
    European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso condemned the attacks as unacceptable and against ''the rules of the civilised world.''
    More about:Clashes and riots, Egypt, Religion, Sudan, USACopyright (C) 2012 euronews
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  More deaths as Muslim film protests go global
    Link to Article
    Source: euronews
    Sat, 15 Sep 2012 10:16
    The revulsion in the Muslim world for a controversial film about Mohammed has now gone global, with demonstrations that began in Egypt and Libya now spread through the Middle East and into Africa and Asia.
    Fanned by the internet the flames of indignation exploded after Friday prayers to engulf mainly American targets as tens of thousands took to the streets. In all six people died in clashes in Tunisia, Sudan, Lebanon, and Egypt.
    In Tunisia the outer walls of the US embassy were breached and Islamist black flags raised over the building. The nearby American school was destroyed by fire. Tunisia's president said the violence was ''totally unacceptable''. Two people died and forty were injured, twenty of them police officers.
    The American embassy in the Sudanese capital Khartoum was also penetrated by protesters. The US immediately dispatched a platoon of marines following similar deployments to their Yemen and Libyan embassies. The German embassy was set on fire.
    In Lebanon, where the Pope is currently on a visit, 25 people were injured and one killed in clashes in Tripoli, where reportedly islamists went on the rampage against American fast-food outlets.
    Elsewhere Bangladeshi police prevented a crowd of 10,000 from marching on the embassy in Dhaka, thousands protested in Iran, the West Bank and Gaza, and there were also rallies in Malasia, Nigeria, Jordan, Kenya, Bahrain, Qatar, Pakistan, and Iraq.
    More about:Egypt, Lebanon, Religion, Sudan, Tunisia, USACopyright (C) 2012 euronews
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  Libyan authorities claim arrests related to killing of US ambassador in Benghazi
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    Source: The Guardian World News
    Fri, 14 Sep 2012 01:10
    Libyan authorities say they have made arrests in the investigation into the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that left US ambassador Chris Stevens and three state department staff dead.
    The news followed a call by the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, for political and religious leaders to stand up against violence over what she called a "disgusting, reprehensible and cynical" anti-Muslim film as protests spread across the Middle East and beyond.
    "Some people have been arrested and are under investigation," deputy interior minister Wanis Sharif told Reuters on Thursday. "We are gathering evidence." He did not give further details
    Secretary of state Hillary Clinton denounced the violence and the video that sparked it. Video: Reuters Link to this videoDemonstrators stormed the US embassy compound in Yemen on Thursday but were unable to break into the main building as police used tear gas and rubber bullets.
    Fresh demonstrations took place at the American mission in Cairo, where the wave of protests first erupted on Tuesday, as Egypt's ruling Muslim Brotherhood called for a million people to turn out after prayers on Friday.
    More than 200 people were injured in clashes between the protesters and police in Tahrir square, according to the health ministry, and police vehicles were burned.
    Smaller demonstrations were staged in Iraq, Iran, Bangladesh, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia.
    On a campaign stop in Colorado, Barack Obama repeated his pledge that justice would be done for the killings in Benghazi.
    "To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished," he said. "It will not dim the light of the values that we proudly present to the rest of the world. No act of violence shakes the resolve of the United States of America."
    Obama also said the administration had been in contact with other governments "to underscore that they've got an obligation to cooperate with us to protect our citizens. That's part of their job."
    There were signs that Arab leaders were seeking to placate Washington while publicly condemning the film '' called Innocence of Muslims '' which is widely considered crudely Islamophobic and blasphemous to believers.
    Clinton said that although she believed the film, apparently made by a Coptic Christian living in California, was intended to "provoke rage", it was no justification for the assaults on US missions there to promote international understanding.
    "To us, to me, personally, this video is disgusting and reprehensible. It appears to have a deeply cynical purpose, to denigrate a great religion and to provoke rage," she said. "Let me state very clearly '' and I hope it is obvious '' that the United States government had absolutely nothing to do with this video."
    But Clinton said it was a mistake for protesters to express their anger with violence and against US diplomatic missions.
    "Violence, we believe, has no place in religion and is no way to honour religion. Islam, like other religions, respects the fundamental dignity of human beings, and it is a violation of that fundamental dignity to wage attacks on innocents," she said.
    "It is especially wrong for violence to be directed against diplomatic missions. These are places whose very purpose is peaceful to promote better understanding across countries and cultures."
    She added: "Any responsible leader should be standing up now and drawing that line."
    Clinton spoke following a conversation between Barack Obama and the Egyptian president, Mohammed Morsi. Morsi, who was slow to speak out after the attack on the US embassy in Cairo on Tuesday, pledged that Egypt will "honour its obligation to ensure the safety of American personnel", according to the White House.
    But he also demanded the US act against the makers of the controversial film. "We condemn strongly ... all those who launch such provocations and who stand behind that hatred," Morsi said.
    But growing US concern about the relationship was reflected in Obama's comments to the Spanish-language network Telemundo on Wednesday night in which he declined to describe the Egyptian government as an ally.
    "I don't think that we would consider them an ally, but we don't consider them an enemy. They're a new government that is trying to find its way. They were democratically elected. I think that we are going to have to see how they respond to this incident," he said.
    On Thursday, the White House moved to clarify the remarks. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor told Foreign Policy magazine's The Cable blog: "I think folks are reading way too much into this. 'Ally' is a legal term of art. We don't have a mutual defence treaty with Egypt like we do with our Nato allies.
    "But as the president has said, Egypt is longstanding and close partner of the United States, and we have built on that foundation by supporting Egypt's transition to democracy and working with the new government."
    Obama also called the Libyan president, Mohamed Magariaf, who promised to hunt down the culprits for the Benghazi attack and killing of Stevens and three other US officials.
    Yemen's president, Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi, apologised to the US for the embassy attack and vowed to track down the culprits, just as Libya's president did.
    Saudi Arabia condemned the film as "irresponsible", but it denounced violent anti-American protests and expressed condolences to the US over the killings in Benghazi.
    In Iraq, several hundred Shia Muslims protested in Baghdad's Sadr City, where the leader of an Iranian-backed militia threatened attacks on US interests. In Tehran, an estimated 500 people chanted "Death to America!" and death to the film's director.
    As US officials attempted to establish whether the assault on the Benghazi consulate was a well planned and premeditated attack, the Pentagon deployed two destroyers to the Libyan coast in what was described as a move to give the Obama administration flexibility for any future action against Islamic extremists in Libya. A Marine Corps anti-terrorist team has also been deployed to the country to boost security.
    State department officials were still trying to piece together precisely what happened in Benghazi when Stevens disappeared for several hours. American officials only discovered he was dead when his body was delivered to Benghazi airport.
    Shocked residents of Benghazi turned out to protest against the attack that killed Stevens, who was regarded by many in the city as a friend of Libya.
    Some Libyans are anxious that the US and west will back away from support for the country, and concerned that Libya will be thought of as a hotbed of Islamic extremism.