What Adam Curry is reading

New Twitter for iPad ''Marco.org
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Wed, 19 Sep 2012 03:17
  Expand your experience: New Twitter for iPad ''Marco.org
  September 18, 2012 ' 'ž
  That's really the title of Twitter's blog post.Expand your experience.
  We've rebuilt the app from the ground up to make it fast,beautiful and easy to use.
  Before today, the Twitter iPad app was still LorenBrichter's Tweetie for iPad, with an innovative sliding-panesdesign. It was one of the first iPad apps to explore new interfaceparadigms rather than just blow up an iPhone app.
  After about a year of neglect and many unfixed and embarrassingbugs (introduced after Twitter's acquisition), Twitter hasreplaced it with'... a blown-up version of their iPhone app. Andnot evena good one.
  This is how a web-product company addresses the demand for aniPad app if they don't respect the iPad.
  The saddest part, though, is that they had a trulyiPad-native app until today, and they killed it to make room forthis. It's hard not to see this as a microcosm ofTwitter's entire product direction.
  '—†
  Follow the Marco.org RSS feed or Twitter feed.
  (C) 2006''2012 Marco Arment.
  Expand your experience: New Twitter for iPad ''Marco.org
  September 18, 2012 ' 'ž
  That's really the title of Twitter's blog post.Expand your experience.
  We've rebuilt the app from the ground up to make it fast,beautiful and easy to use.
  Before today, the Twitter iPad app was still LorenBrichter's Tweetie for iPad, with an innovative sliding-panesdesign. It was one of the first iPad apps to explore new interfaceparadigms rather than just blow up an iPhone app.
  After about a year of neglect and many unfixed and embarrassingbugs (introduced after Twitter's acquisition), Twitter hasreplaced it with'... a blown-up version of their iPhone app. Andnot evena good one.
  This is how a web-product company addresses the demand for aniPad app if they don't respect the iPad.
  The saddest part, though, is that they had a trulyiPad-native app until today, and they killed it to make room forthis. It's hard not to see this as a microcosm ofTwitter's entire product direction.
  '—†
  Follow the Marco.org RSS feed or Twitter feed.
  (C) 2006''2012 Marco Arment.
Twitter's iPad App Update Provokes a Backlash |Xconomy
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Wed, 19 Sep 2012 02:59
  Wade Roush9/18/12Twitter CEODick Costolo appeared on NBC's Today Show this morning tounveil a new look for profile pages on Twitter's websiteand, much more interesting to this reporter, the new''5.0'" version of Twitter's iPad app. Notearthshaking news, in the grand scheme of things; the previousversion of the iPad app was designed by Tweetie founder LorenBrichter, who left Twitter nearly a year ago, so it was onlya matter of time before the app went througha major refresh.
  As the app went live in the iTunes App Store today, Twitter boasted that it had ''rebuilt the app from theground up to make it fast, beautiful and easy to use.'' Andthe news provoked the usual rush of media enthusiasm. Today'swebsite called it a ''fresh take'' and TechCrunch called the new iPad app ''totally gorgeous.'' SoI was eager to see what Twitter had come up with.
  But having played with the new app a bit, I have toconfess that I am aghast. Nearly everything that was coolabout Brichter's design has been ripped out, and replaced bya generic timeline that looks as though it were designed foran Android smartphone. The sliding panels that made navigating totweeted content such a pleasure are gone, replaced by anawkward system in which tweets first ''expand'' (on thefirst tap) and then disappear (if you tap again to examine tweetedcontent in a full-screen in-app browser).
  I'd been a chronic, even addicted user of the oldTwitter iPad app. And don't get me wrong'--I like theidea of being able to ''expand Tweets witha single touch to see beautiful photos, rich videos and webpage summaries right in your timeline,'' to quote from Twitterproduct manager Sung Hu Kim's description of the new app. Unfortunately, the new appdoes all this in a way that has absolutely none of the flairof Brichter's design.
  What made the old Twitter iPad app great was that you could seeboth your timeline and the content in tweeted links on the samescreen. As Brichter explained today in his own series of tweets, his design goals had been to''1. be able to browse your timeline while waiting ona webpage'...2. be able to refer to other content whilecomposing a tweet'...3. navigate without having to moveyour whole arm to the top left of the screen.''
  Now that's all gone. ''New Twitter for iPad is AWFUL.A huge step backward. I wish I couldun-update,'' Iquickly tweeted.
  I've been looking around to see whether I'm alone inmy despair, and the answer is no. The new iPad app already has 151one-star reviews inthe iTunes App Store, compared to 116 four-star reviews.''A complete downgrade,'' says one reviewer. ''Youruined it,'' says another. And many of the digerati whoseopinions I value are saying roughly the same thing. Ofcourse, none of this criticism is likely to undo Twitter'schanges'--there's an underlying commercial logic here, asTwitter works to unify the look and feel of its mobile apps andclears the way for more branded messaging as part of users'timelines. But it seems clear that Twitter underestimated itsusers' affection for the previous design, or itwouldn't have undertaken such a thorough erasure.
  Below, for your reading pleasure, I've collecteda few of the most critical blog quotes, followed bya short Storify collection of tweets.
  ''They threw away Loren Brichter's groundbreaking UIand replaced it with a timeline where you can't tapanything '-- URLs, usernames, hash tags, images. Instead, youhave to tap to 'open' the tweet first.I can't remember the last time I saw a Twitterclient in which you couldn't tap URLs from thetimeline.'''--JohnGruber, Daring Fireball
  ''Well, it finally happened. Twitter has updatedits iPad app to make it look like its iPhone app. It wasinevitable this was going to happen, but I'd been holding outhope that somehow the iPad app would slip through thecracks. Alas, it didn't happen.'''--JayYarow, Business Insider
  ''When you load up Twitter's iPadupdate for the first time, chances are you're goingto think there's something wrong. The updated version ofthe iPad app abandons Twitter's card-style layout '--where tapping on a tweet would make it swipe in from the rightside of the screen '-- for a much more space-filleddesign. Your navigation is limited to tapping on the four tabs onthe side of the screen. The space on the side of the tweetsfor your profile is uncomfortable, and the overall impression isthat the app isn't resizing properly to fit yourtablet's screen.'''--EmilyPrice, Mashable
  ''This has to be one of the most regressive updatesI have seen to an app in a long time. We went froma UI that made masterful use of the iPad's larger screenreal estate to this'...Twitter had one of the BEST apps in theApp Store, and its innovative panel UI (as I unofficially callit) was an example of great tablet UI design, which many appsadopted (see Spotify on iPad). That design enabled a certaindegree of multitasking within the Twitter app, making ita much more seamless user experience. You could browse tweetswhile reading a link or watching a video, within the app.This functionality is no longer there.'''--PavanRajam, Rajam Report
  [View the story "Twitter Users Trash the New TwitteriPad App" on Storify]
  Wade Roush is Xconomy's chiefcorrespondent and editor of Xconomy San Francisco. You can subscribe to his Google Group or e-mail him at wroush@xconomy.com.
Afghan survivors of Ganjgal battle dispute official account of Medal of Honor feats - KansasCity.com
  Link to Article
  Wed, 19 Sep 2012 02:56
  ASMAR, Afghanistan -- Nine Afghansoldiers who survived a 2009 battle that brought the first Medal ofHonor to a living Marine since the Vietnam War have disputed theofficial accounts of how Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer won thecountry's highest military decoration.
  The Afghans, whom U.S. military officials never interviewed, contradict key details of thenarratives cited by President Barack Obama and the Marine Corps inawarding the decoration to Meyer for his actions during a battlethat took place in the Ganjgal Valley in Afghanistan three yearsago this past weekend.The Afghans said that Meyer, who received theMedal of Honor in a White House ceremony on Sept. 15, 2011,couldn't have killed up to eight insurgents as they chargedhis Humvee and that he didn't twice vault from the vehicle toload up two dozen Afghan soldiers and drive them to safety. Theyalso insisted that it was the belated arrival of U.S. helicopters'' not Meyer's intervention '' that ended theTaliban ambush, allowing the withdrawal of U.S. and Afghan troopswho'd been trapped in the valley.The Afghans didn'tdispute that Meyer, of Greensburg, Ky., who's now a24-year-old sergeant in the Marine reserves, risked his life bybraving enemy fire in helping U.S. and Afghan personnel recover thebodies of four American servicemen.Questions about what Meyer didduring the battle touch on the rigor and integrity of a militaryawards process that's supposed to leave no margin of doubt orpossibility of error in granting the nation's highestmilitary honor. A McClatchy investigation published last Decembershowed that many of the feats attributed to Meyer by the MarineCorps and the White House were embellished or invented andweren't substantiated by sworn statements from Meyer himselfand others who participated in the battle.McClatchy raised morequestions about the process in August, when it revealed thatanother Medal of Honor nomination from the same battle, for formerArmy Capt. William Swenson, conflicted with parts of the officialnarratives of Meyer's achievements. Swenson'snomination mysteriously disappeared from military computers, thoughit was reinstated eventually and is awaiting Obama'sapproval. Under normal circumstances, according to Pentagonregulations, that approval had to come by last Saturday, the thirdanniversary of the battle, but Pentagon officials say that becausethe original nomination went awry the president has two more yearsto make a decision. Questions about whether the Marines embellishedMeyer's feats came against a backdrop of pressure on thePentagon over how Medals of Honor have been handled during the warsin Iraq and Afghanistan, with many in Congress, veterans groups andthe military complaining that too few had been granted. The MarineCorps reportedly also was frustrated by what it saw as insufficientacknowledgement of its sacrifices in both conflicts.The Afghansurvivors of the battle, however, have no stake in the outcome ofdiscussions of Meyer's feats, making their recollectionsvaluable in sorting through conflicting information.More is atstake than the military awards process. Meyer's forthcomingbook, for which he shared a six-figure advance, according to apublishing industry executive who requested anonymity because hewasn't authorized to discuss it, contains new details abouthis actions, according to a report Aug. 20 in the Marine CorpsTimes, which obtained an advance copy of the book. They include aclaim that Meyer killed an insurgent with a rock in hand-to-handcombat, something that isn't mentioned in any officialaccount or military document.Meyer, responding Tuesday in atelephone interview to the Afghan survivors' recollections,said, ''I don't care what Afghans say. They don'tspeak the same language.''He said that he'd killedinsurgents during his runs into the ambush zone but didn'tcount how many. ''Where did you ever have me sayingnumbers?'' he asked. When he was told that an accountattributed to him published on the Marine Corps' website saidhe'd ''killed at least eight Taliban insurgents,''he replied, ''You should talk to the Marine Corps.''TheMarine Corps remained adamant in the defense of its account ofMeyer's actions.''Two comprehensive investigations,eyewitness statements, a command inquiry and other supportingdocuments present clear, compelling and well-documentedjustification that Sergeant Meyer deserves our nation'shighest military honor,'' a Marine Corps statement said.''Any attempt to denigrate Meyer's bravery or the meritof his Medal of Honor is regrettable.''The Ganjgal battleproduced a raft of other decorations for bravery after as many as60 Taliban insurgents ambushed some 90 Afghan troops and borderpolice, their American military trainers and a McClatchycorrespondent who were on a patrol to meet village elders. TenAfghans, three Marines and a U.S. Navy medic were killed, and awounded U.S. Army sergeant died a month later.The battle alsoresulted in reprimands for dereliction of duty for two Armyofficers, for failing to call in timely air, artillery and groundsupport.Meyer wasn't among those caught in the ambush; hearrived as the recovery operation began. He was nominated for theMedal of Honor for helping to recover casualties at the risk of hislife.The McClatchy correspondent who was embedded withMeyer's unit of Marine trainers at the time of the ambushinterviewed the nine survivors from the Afghan NationalArmy's 1st Kandak, 2nd Infantry Brigade, 201st Corps, inKabul, in the eastern city of Jalalabad and at a small U.S.-Afghanbase in Asmar, a mountain backwater in insurgency-wracked Kunarprovince, about 30 miles north of Ganjgal.The men, none of whom hadheard of Meyer's Medal of Honor, spoke with permission fromthe Afghan Ministry of Defense. They were aided in theirrecollections by overhead photographs of the U-shaped valley ofdescending terraced fields divided by waist-high stone walls, and aGoogle Earth topographical model of the battlefield constructed bya military professional using date, time and location data obtainedfrom digital pictures shot during the ambush.The Afghans differedon some details, such as the timing of some developments. Severalexplained that they were illiterate and couldn't read awatch.All nine, however, were consistent in saying that the belatedarrival of U.S. helicopters forced the insurgents to withdraw,allowing the pinned-down Afghan and American troops to pullback.''The arrival of the helicopters had a 100 percent impacton the enemy,'' said Maj. Talib Khan, 54, of Kabul, who wasthe senior Afghan officer caught in the ambush. ''It wasbecause of the firing by the helicopters that we were able toevacuate our wounded.''His version was backed by Nematullah, a30-year-old private from Fakhar, in northern Takhar province, whosuffered three gunshot wounds to his abdomen. Nematullah uses justone name, like many Afghans. ''When the air support arrived,everyone who'd taken cover behind the rocks or terraces wasable to leave the valley,'' he recalled. ''Thehelicopters saved us.'' Several of the Afghans disputed theofficial accounts that Meyer had jammed two dozen Afghans into hisvehicle during two runs, saying there weren't that many wherethe Humvee had stopped.One, Afghan Army Sgt. Ataullah, 29, said heclearly recalled what had taken place. He was gravely wounded inthe ambush, with a cheek slashed open by a Taliban bullet and ascarf knotted around a thigh to stanch bleeding from another, whena Humvee roared up.As gunfire sparked around them, a Marine jumpedfrom the vehicle, ''picked me up and drove me tosafety,'' he said. But Ataullah contradicted the officialversion, saying his rescuer was Marine Gunnery Sgt. JuanRodriguez-Chavez, not Meyer.''He worked with me in HQ(headquarters) Company. He got off the Humvee and put me init,'' Ataullah said. ''The driver got out. The other guy(Meyer) was in the turret, firing . . . a .50-caliber machinegun.''Five days later, Ataullah said, Rodriguez-Chavez visitedhim as he recuperated from his wounds in a U.S. clinic, and''he asked me how I was doing and how I wasfeeling.''McClatchy asked Marine Corps Public Affairs to makeRodriguez-Chavez available for questions, but it said he declinedto be interviewed.All nine Afghans said Meyer couldn't havekilled up to eight Taliban as they charged his vehicle on a thirdrun.Afghan troops advancing into the valley with the U.S.helicopters' belated arrival recovered only two enemy bodies,they explained, and several said that both had died before Meyerand Rodriguez-Chavez drove in. One was found next to therock-strewn wash that provides the only drivable track between thewalled terraces, and the other was recovered from a terrace nearerto the village.Nematullah, a rocket-propelled grenade gunnerwho'd exhausted his ammunition, related how the pair ofinsurgents '' he said he saw the bodies at his base later thatday '' confronted him after they'd made their way downthe southern valley slope as the ambush raged.''They saw me .. . and I pointed the empty rocket launcher at them. They were morecowardly than me. When I pointed the empty rocket launcher at them,they dropped to the ground,'' he recalled. ''I ran fromthere. I was wounded, but I could still run.'' ''Ididn't see any Taliban on the track,'' asserted Sgt.Mohammad Gul, 26, of Sayed Karam, in Paktia province, who helpedretrieve casualties after spending most of the ambush guardingvehicles with Meyer and Rodriguez-Chavez about a mile from thevillage.Gul said he drove an unarmored light Ford truck ahead ofMeyer and Rodriguez-Chavez on the first run into the ambush zone,and he returned numerous times. ''The Taliban did not fightclose to the track,'' he said.Capt. Mohammad Sharif, anintelligence officer who wasn't involved in the battle, saidthe two dead insurgents were from Ganjgal and that he'ddelivered their corpses to local officials, who returned them totheir families.U.S. special forces and Afghan troops found no otherbodies during a house-to-house search of the village after thebattle, said Sharif, who added that the Afghan force remained inthe hamlet until the following morning.All nine Afghan survivorssaid there weren't any Taliban fighting close to the trackwho could have charged Meyer's vehicle during the casualtyrecovery operation. To begin with, they recounted, there were U.S.helicopters overhead, firing at any insurgents theyspotted.''There were no Taliban down in the valley,''said Arab Khan, a 29-year-old private from eastern Panjshirprovince who was on the southern slope in an''overwatch'' position, exchanging fire with insurgentson hilltops. ''I didn't see any Taliban down on thetrack. At that point, the helicopters were above the valley. TheTaliban wouldn't have dared move.''Many Afghan andAmerican troops escaped down the rocky wash on which Meyer andRodriguez-Chavez drove in, and they would have been shot by anyTaliban fighting there, the survivors said. ''There was noenemy to our rear,'' Ataullah said. ''There were onlyfriendly forces behind us.''McClatchy special correspondent Ali Safi in Kabulcontributed to this report.The ambush at Ganjgal,Sept. 8, 2009McClatchy'sJonathan S. Landay talks about the ambush of U.S. and Afghan troopshe was embedded with on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009. For reporter, no doubt: 'I'd use the rifle if I hadto'
Reports Say Passenger Prevented from Boarding Flight in Retaliation for Her Attitude? There's More to the Story'...
  Link to Article
  Source: The TSA Blog
  Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:14
  TSA officers screenmillions of passengers every day to protect the traveling publicand are held to the highest levels of professional and ethicalstandards.You may have heard abouta passenger in Houston last week who claimed that TSA officersprevented her from boarding her flight in ''retaliation''for her ''attitude.''But what you may nothave heard is that the passenger refused a random screeningprocedure. The passenger initially ignored officers and then becameverbally abusive. When a traveler does not allow a TSA officer tocomplete screening, it's standard procedure for a lawenforcement officer to be called to the area. When the officerarrived and observed the behavior firsthand, he asked if TSA wantedto press charges. We declined.To be clear -- airlineemployees, not TSA, made the call about whether to allow thispassenger to board their flight.We take these mattersseriously, so we thoroughly reviewed the incident and haveconcluded that this passenger was screened in accordance withstandard procedures. We also viewed the video circulating onthe internet (although only part of the video is actuallyavailable) and watched as the TSA officer began to explain thatscreening is designed to make passengers safer. The video abruptlyends before the officer is able to answer the questionsfully.Let's set therecord straight. Our goal is to get passengers on theirflights and safely to their destinations. If you have a travelrelated issue or question that needs an immediate answer, you cancontact us by clicking here.
Monday Final Ratings: 'The Voice' Adjusted Up; 'CMA Music Festival' Adjusted Down
  Link to Article
  Source: TVbytheNumbers
  Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:14
  The Voice was adjusted up atenth, while the CMA Music Festival which was pre-empted for football in local markets, was adjusteddown two tenths among adults 18-49 versus Monday's preliminary ratings.
  Final Monday broadcast primetime ratings for Monday,September 17, 2012
  TimeNetShow18-49 Rtg/ShrViewers (millions)8:00NBCThe Voice (8-10PM)4.7/1213.57FOXBones (Premiere)2.3/77.98ABCCMA Music Festival: Country's Night to Rock (8-11PM)1.5/45.66CBSHow I Met YourMother - R1.4/44.18CWThe L.A. Complex0.4/10.749:00CBS2 Broke Girls - R1.6/44.89FOXThe Mob Doctor (Premiere)1.5/45.11CWThe L.A. Complex0.2/10.5210:00NBCRevolution (Premiere)4.1/1111.65CBSHawaii Five-0 - R0.9/24.44Nielsen TV Ratings Data: (C)2012 The Nielsen Company. AllRights Reserved.
drbaerischlos: Expecting the violent storming of embassies over this one? #noagenda http://t.co/mMQ1HrOU
  Link to Article
  Source: Twitter / drbaerischlos
  Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:13
  A discovery by a Harvard researcher may shed light on acontroversial aspect of the life of Jesus Christ.
  Harvard Divinity School professor Karen L. King says she hasfound an ancient papyrus fragment from the fourth century that,when translated, appears to indicate that Jesus was married.
  The text is being dubbed "The Gospel of Jesus' Wife." The part of itthat's drawing attention says, "Jesus said to them, 'my wife'" inthe Coptic language. The text, which is printed on papyrus the sizeof a business card, has not been scientifically tested to verifyits dating, but King and other scholars have said they areconfident it is a genuine artifact.
  "Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was not married,even though no reliable historical evidence exists to support thatclaim," King said at a conference in Rome on Tuesday. "This newgospel doesn't prove that Jesus was married, but it tells usthat the whole question only came up as part of vociferous debatesabout sexuality and marriage. From the very beginning, Christiansdisagreed about whether it was better not to marry, but it was overa century after Jesus's death before they began appealing toJesus' marital status to support their positions."
  King, who focuses on Coptic literature, Gnosticism and women inthe Bible, has published on the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel ofMary of Magdala. She presented her research Tuesday evening inRome, where scholars are gathered for the International Congress ofCoptic Studies.
  The idea that Jesus was unmarried and chaste is largely acceptedby Christian denominations and a reason for the practice ofcelibacy among Roman Catholic priests.
  "Beyond internal Catholic Church politics, a married Jesusinvites a reconsideration of orthodox teachings about gender andsex," said journalist and author Michael D'Antonio, who writesabout the Catholic Church, in a blog on The Huffington Post. "If Jesushad a wife, then there is nothing extra Christian about maleprivilege, nothing spiritually dangerous about the sexuality ofwomen, and no reason for anyone to deny himself or herself a sexualidentity."
  The quote about Jesus' wife is part of a description of aconversation between Jesus and his disciples. In the conversation,Jesus talks about his mother twice and speaks once about his wife.One of them is identified as "Mary." His disciples discuss whetherMary is worthy of being part of their community, to which Jesusreplies, ''she will able to be my disciple.''
  The fragment has eight incomplete lines of writing on one sideand is badly damaged on the other side, with only three faded wordsand a few letters of ink that are visible, even with the use ofinfrared photography and computer-aided enhancement.
  The private owner of the papyrus first approached King in 2010.King said she didn't believe the document was authentic, but theowner persisted. She then asked the owner to bring the papyrus toHarvard, where she became convinced it was a genuine earlyChristian text fragment. Along with Princeton University professorAnne Marie Luijendijk and Roger Bagnall, director of the Institutefor the Study of the Ancient World, King claims to have confirmedthe document is real. The document's owner has not been named andKing said he does not want to be identified.
  It's unclear when the text was initially discovered. The ownerwho showed it to King found it in 1997 in a collection of papyrithat he acquired from the previous owner, who was German. Thepapyri included a handwritten German description that had the nameof a now-deceased professor of Egyptology in Berlin who called thefragment a "sole example" of a document that claims Jesus wasmarried.
  The scholars believe the text is from Egyptian Christians beforethe year 400, as it is written in the language used at that time.Since writing appears on both sides of the fragment, scholarsbelieve it came from a codex, a kind of book, and not a scroll. Thescholars also believe the document is a translation of an earlierone that was likely written in Greek.
  King notes in her research that the idea of Jesus' celibacyhasn't always existed, and that early Christians debated whetherthey should marry or practice celibacy. It was not until around theyear 200 that Christian followers began to say Jesus was unmarried,according to a record King cites from Clement of Alexandria. In hiswriting, Clement -- an early theologian -- said that marriage was afornication put in place by the devil, and that people shouldemulate Jesus by not marrying.
  One or two decades later, Tertullian of Carthage in North Africadeclared that Jesus was "entirely unmarried" and told Christians toremain single. But Tertullian did not come out against sexaltogether and allowed couples to get married one time, denouncingdivorce and remarriage as overindulgent. A century earlier, theFirst Epistle of Paul to Timothy said in the New Testament thatpeople who forbid marriage are going by the "doctrines of demons,"but did not include anything about Jesus being married in order tomake the point.
  The point of view that ultimately became dominant was thatcelibacy is preferred as a high sexual virtue among Christians, butthat marriage is needed for the sake of reproduction.
  "The discovery of this new gospel," King said, "offers anoccasion to rethink what we thought we knew by asking what roleclaims about Jesus' marital status played historically in earlyChristian controversies over marriage, celibacy, and family.Christian tradition preserved only those voices that claimed Jesusnever married. The Gospel of Jesus's Wife now shows that someChristians thought otherwise."
  The life of historical Jesus is often a matter of controversy,and this is not the first time it's been proposed that Jesus wasmarried. Most recently, Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code"depicted Jesus as being married to Mary Magdalene. The book waspublished as fiction, but nonetheless attracted loud criticism from Vatican officials.
  UPDATE: 4:28 p.m. -- Speaking on a conferencecall Tuesday from Rome, King said that some people who have readabout the discovery have asked if the papyrus fragment wasdescribing Jesus as being married to the Christian faith, not to awoman.
  "One cannot overrule that it might be him saying 'my wife as achurch,' but in the context where he's talking about 'my mother'and 'my wife' and talking about 'my disciple,' the one thing youwould not say is that the church would be 'my disciple.'"
  Even before King's discovery, there has been speculation thatJesus was married to Mary Magdalene. "I do not think Jesus wasmarried to Mary Magdalene," King clarified Tuesday, adding,"whether he was or was not married ... I really think the traditionis silent and we don't know."
  King also said that a professor who saw her report asked her ifthe text on the papyrus could have been a homily and not a gospel,an idea she said she had not considered.
  King added that she hopes the discovery will diminish the viewoutside of academic circles that the debate over marriage andsexuality in the early church is "fixed and over." In currentchurch debates over issues such as same-sex marriage and marriageamong Catholic priests, "having more voices from the early churchand a better, more accurate version of early Christianity is morehelpful," she said.
  Click Through This Slideshow Of Other BiblicalDiscoveries
  Jesus DiscoveryOn the morning of Tuesday, June 29, 2010, outside the Old Cityof Jerusalem, we made an unprecedented archaeological discoveryrelated to Jesus and early Christianity. <ahref="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/28/jesus-discovery-jerusalem_n_1305355.html#s732483&title=Jonah_and_the"target="_hplink">Read more..</a>
  The Date Of Jesus' Crucifixion?A new study suggests that the Biblical date of Jesus'crucifixion is, in fact, possible to confirm. <ahref="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/25/jesus-crucifixion-date-possible_n_1546351.html"target="_hplink">Read more.. </a>
  Ancient Bethlehem Seal Unearthed In JerusalemIsraeli archaeologists have discovered a 2,700-year-old sealthat bears the inscription "Bethlehem," the Israel AntiquitiesAuthority announced Wednesday, in what experts believe to be theoldest artifact with the name of Jesus' traditional birthplace.<ahref="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/23/ancient-bethlehem-seal_n_1538605.html"target="_hplink">Ancient Bethlehem Seal Unearthed InJerusalem</a> <ahref="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/23/dig-proves-bethlehem_n_1538665.html"target="_hplink">Archaeologists Discover Evidence That BethlehemExisted Centuries Before Jesus </a>
  Khirbet Qeiyafa Excavations Find Evidence Of Solomon's Temple,Archaeologists SayJERUSALEM (RNS) Archaeologists have unearthed a trove ofartifacts dating back to the time of the biblical King David thatthey say closely correspond to the description of Solomon's Templefound in the Book of Kings. <ahref="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/10/khirbet-qeiyafa-archaeology_n_1504722.html"target="_hplink">Khirbet Qeiyafa Excavations Find Evidence ofSoloman's Temple, Archaeologists Say</a>
  Jerusalem Markings From Ancient Past Stump ArcheologistsJERUSALEM -- Mysterious stone carvings made thousands of yearsago and recently uncovered in an excavation underneath Jerusalemhave archaeologists stumped. <ahref="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/07/jerusalem-markings_n_1133613.html"target="_hplink">Jerusalem Markings From Ancient Past StumpArcheologists</a>
  A colorful <ahref="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/05/samson-mosaic-discovered-huqoq-israel_n_1652525.html"target="_hplink">mosaic depicting the biblical figure Samson hasbeen discovered</a> in the Galilee region of Israel,according to the Israeli Antiquities Authority. The artwork wasfound in a synagogue in Huqoq and is well preserved even though itdates back to the late Roman period, or around the fourth or fifthcentury.
  Shroud of TurinA series of experiments conducted by Italian researchersindicate the <ahref="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/20/shroud-of-turin-jesus-burial-cloth-authentic_n_1161363.html"target="_hplink">Shroud of Turin</a> is likely authentic,but the team has not yet reached a definite conclusion.
  Early Christian Text Indicates That Jesus May Have BeenMarriedMore information <ahref="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/18/the-gospel-of-jesus-wife_n_1891325.html?utm_hp_ref=religion">here</a>.
Romney backs secret video remarks
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Home
  Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:06
  18 September 2012Lastupdated at20:02 ETPlease turn on JavaScript. Media requiresJavaScript to play.
  President Obama: "My expectations is if you wantto be president, you've got to work for everybody, not just forsome" (Video courtesy of Worldwide Pants)
  US President BarackObama has rebuked Republican rival Mitt Romney, saying that anyoneseeking to be president needs to work for all Americans.
  Mr Obama told chat show host David Letterman said Mr Romney waswrong to describe 47% of Americans as "victims".
  Earlier, Mr Romney defended his remarks after secretly filmedvideo of a speech to donors became public.
  He told Fox News he knew those "dependent on government" wouldnot vote for him in November's election.
  Mr Romney also decried the notion of government"redistribution", calling it an "entirely foreign concept".
  More leaked video emerged on Tuesday, showing Mr Romney sayingPalestinians do not want peace in the Middle East.
  The full video was published on Tuesday by liberalinvestigative magazine Mother Jones.
  In Tuesday's interview, Mr Romney stood by his comments that thenearly half of Americans who do not pay income tax supportPresident Barack Obama and would never vote for him, saying hisstatement was "about the campaign".
  "I'm talking about a perspective of individuals who are notlikely to support me," he said. "Those that are dependent ongovernment and those that think government's job is toredistribute, I'm not going to get them," Mr Romney said.
  Continue reading the main storyWho pays US income tax?The US federal government runs off two kinds of taxes: payrolltaxes, which fund benefits such as Social Security, and incometaxes, which largely fund the rest of the federal budget.
  In 2011, the Tax Policy Center studied the tax liability of UShouseholds:
  53.6% paid income taxes, 46.4% did not28.3% paid payroll taxes but not income taxes10.3% were elderly and retired and were not taxed on SocialSecurity benefits6.9% did not pay any tax with household incomes of less than$20,000 (£12,300)The majority of those who pay payroll but not income tax do sobecause of tax benefits for the elderly, families with childrenand low-income earners.
  Mr Romney says he expects Mr Obama toreceive about half of the vote in the November election because ofthese voters.
  The real problem, he added, was that so many people were noteligible to pay income tax because they had fallen intopoverty.
  A NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Tuesday suggeststhat Mr Obama's approval rate has hit 50% for the first time sinceMarch and that the president leads Mr Romney by 5% among likelyvoters nationally.
  'Israel's destruction'On Mr Letterman's show, Mr Obama said he told the US on electionnight in 2008 he would work for everyone, including those who didnot vote for them.
  "One thing I've learnt as president is you represent the entirecountry," he said.
  "There are not a lot of people out there who think they arevictims" or simply entitled, Mr Obama said.
  A second clip emerged on Tuesday from the private dinner inwhich Mr Romney said the Palestinians are "committed to Israel'sdestruction".
  Continue reading the main story''Start QuoteAt the very time when the opinion pollssuggests that he needs to be aggressively fighting for every inchof ground, he has lost the microphone''
  End Quote"The Palestinians have no interestwhatsoever in establishing peace," he says, adding that "thepathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish".
  But chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters newsagency that Mr Romney was wrong to accuse the Palestinians of notseeking peace.
  "Only those who want to maintain the Israeli occupation willclaim the Palestinians are not interested in peace," he said.
  In another clip, the former Massachusetts governor is showndiscussing Iran's nuclear programme, and warning that Americaitself could come under attack.
  $50,000-a-head fundraiserThe first clips released on Monday showed the Republicancandidate saying those who did not pay income tax would never votefor him.
  Please turn on JavaScript. Media requiresJavaScript to play.
  Extract of Mitt Romney secret recording:"They'll vote for this president no matter what"
  "There are 47% who are with him [Mr Obama], who are dependentupon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe thegovernment has a responsibility to care for them, who believe thatthey are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, toyou-name-it," he said.
  Mr Romney said in the video that his role "is not to worry aboutthose people. I'll never convince them they should take personalresponsibility and care for their lives."
  The video clips provided to Mother Jones are said to have beenfilmed at a $50,000 (£31,000) per head fundraiser at somepoint after Mr Romney became the presumptive Republicannominee.
  They were made public as the Romney campaign announced a newshift in strategy after several difficult days for thecandidate.
  Campaign advisers told the US media on Monday that Mr Romneywould speak more specifically about his budget plans and taxpolicy.
Simple Blog Writing Framework
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:02
  If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to myRSS feed. Thanksfor visiting!
  I loveoutlines. Most of my writing starts with an outline, which becomesthe functional framework for all my contentcreation.
  HeadlineI like having a simple keyword in the headline. It makes iteasy to attract the eye of folks scanning my website, their RSSfeed, or their social streams.Here are a few of the sample mini-frameworks I useKeyword: [A facet of defining this keyword]Some version of numbered listOtherwise short and descriptive with at least one keywordOpening LineNo more than 2 sentencesUsually a quip, but always a luring statement.I often think about what would make you click if seen in thespace of a Google SERP, a Tweet, or a RSS readerOpening ParagraphAsk a question,Make a statement, orChallenge an assumptionConvince Me PleaseI rarely exceed three paragraphs in this mid-sectionI use sub-headlines or numbered sub-headingsI generally use one of three frameworks:3 numbered sub-headings + respective paragraph3 headlines + respective paragraph1 list introducing paragraph + bulleted list + 1 expoundingparagraph on the listClosing ParagraphSummarize my main pointI have learned to try avoiding a conclusion statement. It seemsto shut down discussion.Finish with open-ended question, finish the sentence, orcliff-hanger statementLook there'...an outline. Flush out each on and you have alonger post, an ebook, or even a legit book.
  What does your blogging framework look like? Pleaseshare.
Limit calendar history
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's development work
  Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:00
  In Sept 2011 we added the ability to limit the river history in River2, so thatthe database wouldn't grow indefinitely. Even so, you do eventuallyhit the 2 gigabyte limit on database size and will have to do asave-copy.
  Inbrowsing my river2data.root file I noticed there were calendarstructures we weren't limiting:
  1. Each feed has a calendar structure. Theitems are just strings, but there are huge numbers ofthem.
  2. The enclosures table has two sub-tables,pictures and podcasts, each of which is a calendar.
  Plan
  I don't want to screw withriver2Suite.utilities.limitRiverHistory, so I created a new utilityscript calledriver2Suite.utilities.limitCalendarHistory.
  Parts
  river2Suite.utilities.limitCalendarHistory
  river2Suite.background.everyNight
Daily Press Briefing - September 18, 2012
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:46
  1:04 p.m. EDT
  MS. NULAND: ãAllright, everybody.ã I don't have anything at thetop.ã It's obviously a very, very busy day here as wecontinue working with posts around the world on securityissues.ã As you know, we've had Aung San Suu Kyi heretoday.ã We have the Mexican high-level dialogue.ã TheSecretary will be out with Foreign Minister Espinosa latertoday.ã So it is busy.ã
  What's on your minds?
  QUESTION:ã Well,just on '' logistically, schedule-wise --
  MS. NULAND:ãYes.
  QUESTION:ã -- whatis this signing ceremony?ã What are they signing, and whyisn't that open?
  MS. NULAND:ã Idon't know the answer to that, Matt.ã I thinkit's an update on Merida, but I will get that foryou.ã
  QUESTION:ã Is'' I know that this is not some --
  MS. NULAND:ã I knowyou did ask us --
  QUESTION:ã Yes,exactly.ã This isn't some secret thing --
  MS. NULAND:ãYeah.ã No, it's --
  QUESTION:ã -- toinvade Canada or something like that? (Laughter)
  MS. NULAND:ã No,no, no.ã It's not anything classified.
  QUESTION:ã Allright.
  MS. NULAND:ã Ithink it may just have been logistic.ã We'll get thatfor you.
  QUESTION:ãOkay.ã Can I '' I want to start with something thatjust came out from you '' not on the Middle East, but onRussia and the USAID decision.ã Can youexplain to us when the Russians communicated this to youconsidering we were just there '' the Secretary was justthere?ã Did they tell her then that this was going tohappen?ã What kinds of programs are affected?ã Howmuch was being spent?ã I presume most of it was human rightsand democracy training.ã And what '' how does this bodefor the reset?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,what Matt is referring to, in case you didn't see what wejust put out, we have recently received a decision of the RussianGovernment to end USAID activities there.ã Let me justreiterate what we said on paper, which is that the United States isextremely proud of what USAID has accomplished in Russia over thelast 20 years, and we will work with our partners and staff toresponsibly end or transition those programs.ã And while ourUSAID physical presence in Russia is going to end, we remaincommitted to supporting democracy, human rights, and thedevelopment of a more robust civil society in Russia, and we lookforward to continuing our close cooperation with Russiannon-governmental organizations.ã
  With regard to your specific questions,Matt, over the last 20 years that we've had an AID program inRussia since the end of the Soviet Union, we've spent about$2.7 billion overall.ã The AID budget for fiscal year 2012is about 50 million.ã In addition to the civil societyprograms, which, as we have said, we will look for ways to continuewith those members of Russian civil society who want to continue towork with us, we also work or have worked over the years with theRussian Government on programs that fight AIDS there, fighttuberculosis, help orphans, help the disabled, combat trafficking,support Russian programs in the environmental area, wildlifeprotection.ã So it is our hope that Russia will now, itself,assume full responsibility and take forward all of this work thatwe were proud to do together so that the Russian people continue tohave the benefit.
  We got an official diplomatic note on thison September 12th, which was '' what, lastweek.
  QUESTION:ã And howmuch of that 2.7 billion had gone to democracy promotion and civilsociety?
  MS. NULAND:ã Idon't have a breakdown, Matt.ã We can look at it--
  QUESTION:ã Well, isit fair to say that most of it?
  MS. NULAND:ãNo.ã I think it's not.ã I think it'sabout a third.ã I think the rest of it is going into thesehealth programs, or a very heavy chunk of it '' trafficking,environment, et cetera.
  QUESTION:ã Allright.ã And then you say that you're extremely proudof your '' are you extremely disappointed or disappointed atall in the Russians' decision?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,obviously this is a sovereign decision that any country makes,whether they want to have U.S. assistance through AID.ã As Isaid, we think the work we've done together has helped theRussian people with all of these kinds of things, and we hope theRussian Government now takes forward that work itself, particularlyin environment and health.ã But we will continue to work oncivil society issues and democracy issues.
  QUESTION:ã Soyou're agnostic about this issue?
  MS. NULAND:ãIt's their sovereign decision to make.ã And as youknow, there are many countries around the world who would like tohave more AID funding and health, et cetera, so --
  QUESTION:ãRight.ã Are you '' do you know of any other countrythat said no?
  MS. NULAND:ã Tohaving an AID mission?
  QUESTION:ã Otherthan Eritrea?
  MS. NULAND:ã Idon't know that I can speak to that directly, but what I cantell you is that there are more than 20 countries around the worldwhere we work with civil society but we don't have a formalAID mission.ã
  QUESTION:ã Right,and then just the last thing is --
  MS. NULAND:ã Wework on democracy, human rights, et cetera.
  QUESTION:ã Do younot '' you don't see this as in any way affecting thereset, or is emblematic of failure of the reset?
  MS. NULAND:ã Wellagain, this is always a sovereign nation's decision, whetherthey want to have our assistance.ã That said, as you know,when we talk about the reset, we talk primarily about global andregional foreign policy issues on which we work together.ãAnd in those categories, we've been very clear about what wesee as the benefits of the reset '' the New START Treaty,obviously; the work we're doing together in the P-5+1 onIran; the work we've done on the DPRK; the workwe've done to be able to support Afghan security forces;peace and stability in Afghanistan.ã Those things obviouslycontinue.ã
  But we've also always said that thereset would give us an opportunity not only to cooperate whereverwe could but also to be clear when we have concerns and when wedisagree.ã We've been very upfront about our concernsabout the human rights situation and some of these new legal movesin Russia, and we will continue to do so.
  QUESTION:ã Toria,sorry, did the Russians in their communication with you on thisexpress any specific points of dissatisfaction with USAID'swork there, or did they just say, "We're rich enough, wedon't need it?"
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,I'm going to leave it to the Russians to characterize theirmotivations behind this, but I would say it tends to trend towardsthe latter, their sense that they don't need thisanymore.
  QUESTION:ãOkay.ã And does the '' this order mean that the USAIDoffices are being closed sort of today and that people are beingwithdrawn now, or is there a wind-down period?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,we would like to see an orderly transition.ã That'swhat we've said publicly, and we're working with theRussians on how that can go.ã Obviously we're notgoing to be doing any new contracting as of the new fiscal year,but we have to wind these programs down responsibly.ã A lotof Russians are dependent on them.
  QUESTION:ã Couldyou clarify ''
  QUESTION:ã Wasthere some foreshadowing of '' that this decision was coming,or did it come out of the blue?ã And how many people does itactually affect who are working with the USAID program at themoment?
  MS. NULAND:ã Idon't have the numbers in terms of American AID personnel,but it goes beyond that, of course, because AID programs around theworld also hire folks in the community.ã So I can see if Ican sort of size that generally for you.ã
  We had had some indications that this wascoming over the last couple of weeks.
  QUESTION:ã Toria,is there like a waiting list of countries that are waiting forUSAID help that maybe this money can be shifted to now?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,I'm not going to predict how we're going to be able torebalance, but --
  QUESTION:ã Is thathow it works, you have countries that are saying, "We want someaid," and you put them '' like there's a priority listor anything?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,obviously we look at the entire USAID program against U.S. nationalpriorities and against the interests and needs ofcountries.ã But for example, when we were on our trip toAsia, the Secretary's most recent trip about two weeks ago,we heard from a lot of the Pacific Island countries that they wouldlike more help and support.ã There are a lot of countriesout there that would like more of the kinds of support that we weredoing in Russia, whether it's on environment, whetherit's on health, whether it's on trafficking, thosekinds of things.
  So obviously, we have to look carefully atthis.ãBut as I said, we are committed to continuing to workwith the nongovernmental sector, with the civil society sector inRussia.ãSo we're going to look at other ways to dothat as we do in other countries.
  QUESTION:ã And do youthink that Russia's action is one of not-such-great relationswith the United States, or perhaps they have the money tosupplement --
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,this was the question that Andy asked.ã I'm not goingto account for their motives.ã I think they should probablyspeak to that.
  Goyal.
  QUESTION:ã Madam,basically, USAID helps the people on people-to-peoplecontact.ã Is it going to factor in any way U.S.-Russianrelations or hurting the people in Russia which USAID might be ableto help them in any way?ã Or how are you going to factorit?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,as I said, we've been proud of this collaboration thatwe've had which has touched the lives of a lot of Russians,particularly in the health area and protecting their environmentand wildlife.ã So it is our hope that the Russian Governmentwill be able to now fully fund all these programs and take themforward.
  QUESTION:ã What--
  QUESTION:ã Toria,do you know why it is that we're just hearing about this nowif you were notified on the 12th?
  MS. NULAND:ã Why wedidn't get to you?ã I think probably the intention wasto be '' see, what day was the 12th?ã The12th --
  QUESTION:ãWednesday.
  MS. NULAND:ã -- wasWednesday.ã Well, you remember what the events of Wednesdaywere.
  QUESTION:ãRight.ã Well, I understand that.
  MS. NULAND:ã Yeah,I think '' yeah.
  QUESTION:ã But Imean, that didn't stop you from putting out the Iransanctions --
  MS. NULAND:ãYeah.ã I mean, I don't have specifics but I guess thatafter --
  QUESTION:ãRight.ã And then --
  MS. NULAND:ã -- wereceived the formal notice, which could well have been late in theday, we had to do some processing and thinking through how we would--
  QUESTION:ãOkay.ã And then the last one onthis:ã You said that you had some indications this washappening.ã Is this something that was '' that theSecretary talked about while she was seeing Lavrov and Putin inVladivostok?ã Because I remember that you all made a bigpoint about this wildlife cooperation and the tigers and all thatstuff, and if they were sitting there extolling the virtues ofsaving the big cats, and yet at the same time we're about toslice off the '' kind of cut the '' cut the programs out,that it might have come up.ã It might have been mentionedto, I don't know, the --
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,first --
  QUESTION:ã -- 10 or12 people who were '' who would be interested in this kind ofthing and were on the trip.
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,first, in the context of the APEC visit, as you know, it was apriority of the APEC nations this time for all of the APECcountries to look at what they're doing nationally and totake more steps.ã So that doesn't go to the questionof whether the U.S. was helping Russia with its ownprogram.ã There's clearly a commitment on behalf ofthe Russian Federation to try to protect its wildlife.ã Thatseems to go to the very top, and that was an APEC priority.
  We did have some preliminary indicationswhen we were out there, but we didn't have final word untilwe got this diplomatic note.
  Please.ã In the back.
  QUESTION:ã TheEmbassy and missions in Pakistan havestopped publicly (inaudible) in their reports that staff has beenshifted elsewhere from Karachi and other places.ã So is itjust a precaution because of the protests that are going on there,or you had some other information or terrorist activity orsomething?ã And for how long this activity will remainsuspended?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,first of all, let me just say that with regard to the situationwith our missions, today our Consulates General in Lahore, Karachi,and Peshawar are closed for public services, but the Embassy inIslamabad is open, although we suspended visa servicestoday.ã Again, we do that to keep crowds down around themission.ã We did see protests throughout the country today,and despite violence in some cities, they have now beendispersed.ã All of our official American personnel inPakistan are safe and accounted for.ã And we are continuingto work with the Government of Pakistan on thesecurity.ã
  My understanding is that the securityresponse has been quite good, and again, our understanding is thatthis was primarily a response to this internet video.
  QUESTION:ã Just tofollow, I understand that Pakistan's Foreign Minister will behere in Washington and meeting here with the Secretary.ã Isall these issues will be discussed with her and '' or is she'' they have indicated about before she came here '' Ibelieve she's arriving today.ã Are these issues goingto be on top of the agenda as far as security in Pakistan and alsoall these demonstrations against the U.S. despite Pakistanreceiving billions of dollar '' aid?ã How much Pakistanis doing to disperse these demonstrations, (inaudible)?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,as I said, our security cooperation in response to thedemonstrations with the Government of Pakistan has been good, andwe're continuing to talk about it.ã Yes, ForeignMinister Khar is coming to see the Secretary on Friday.ãThat is a long-expected visit.ã She's then obviouslygoing to go up to the UN General Assembly in New York.ãI'm expecting that the full range of issues we have withPakistan '' bilateral, regional, et cetera '' will becovered, including our continuing effort to get ourcounterterrorism activities back up and running fully.
  QUESTION:ã Thiswill be her first visit to Washington after she took over as theForeign Minister of Pakistan, so do you see anything new this timebecause she's more liberal and she's the one who tookaction about opening the route to Afghanistan for the U.S.?ãI mean, she's more likable other than in the past.ãAnd what I'm asking you, really, two ladies will be gettingtogether on Friday '' (laughter) '' and mostfamous.ã So do we see anything new among '' between thetwo ladies as far as the U.S.-Pakistan relations?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,let me just remind that the Secretary and Foreign Minister Kharhave had a very strong relationship ever since Foreign MinisterKhar took office.ã I think this is going to be at leasttheir fourth meeting, if not more.ã They '' Idon't have a full count in my head, but they've met inPakistan, they met in Tokyo, I think we've met one other timebefore, certainly at the UNGA last year.ã So they have aworking relationship together.ã They have both rolled uptheir sleeves to try to stabilize and strengthen the relationship,and I think this is a good opportunity, obviously, for them to takestock of where we are and continue to try to move forward.
  Please.
  QUESTION:ã Thisvisit comes on the heels of a U.S. delegation in Pakistan that wasthere a week or so ago.ã So in this visit, will they bebuilding upon the discussions in Islamabad?ã And what werethey'--if you put in list'-- some of the critical issuesthat were discussed and decided then?
  MS. NULAND:ã Ithink you're talking about the visit of Marc Grossman, who--
  QUESTION:ãYeah.
  MS. NULAND:ã -- wasin Islamabad on the 15th.ã He put out a pressnotice after his visit concluded.ã As you know, he was thereSeptember 14th, 15th.ã He met withPresident Zardari, Prime Minister Ashraf.ã He did seeForeign Minister Khar, Foreign Secretary Jilani, Chief of the ArmyStaff Kayani, members of the parliament, et cetera.ã And hecovered as well the full range of issues, and obviously, hereported to the Secretary, and we'll try to build on thatconversation going forward.
  QUESTION:ã Wheredoes the issue of Haqqani Network feature in these full range ofissues in terms of priority?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,I'm not going to rack and stack the issues.ãThey're all important, but you know that we've beenvery intensively focused on our concerns about the HaqqaniNetwork.ã We've been continuing to encourage furthersqueezing by the Government of Pakistan on the Haqqani Network, andwe have now made a full designation, as the Secretary announced aweek ago.
  QUESTION:ã Just tofollow up, there are reports in Pakistan that during this visit andmaybe on the sidelines of GA '' UNGA '' a strategicdialogue between U.S. and Pakistan is going to be revived.ãCan you tell us something about that?
  MS. NULAND:ã I knowthat the Secretary and Foreign Minister Khar are going to bespeaking.ã I don't have anything else for you withregard to that.
  Said.
  QUESTION:ã Just onthe Haqqanis ''
  MS. NULAND:ãYeah.
  QUESTION:ã -- hasthat designation actually been made?
  MS. NULAND:ãYou're talking about the announcement.
  QUESTION:ã Formalnotification of when --
  MS. NULAND:ãYeah.ã Well, the Secretary made the announcement of herintention '' right.
  QUESTION:ã Iknow.ã Has it been published anywhere?
  MS. NULAND:ã Ithink there was '' there's a hold period of some kind,so we'll '' I'll look into that, but I don'tthink we have the '' I think you're right, Matt.
  QUESTION:ã Can westay in the region and just move next door to Afghanistan?
  MS. NULAND:ãMm-hmm.
  QUESTION:ã Today,there was a suicide bombing in Afghanistan, which '' the groupthat claims to have carried it out also linked to thevideo.ã This time, there were, I believe, eight SouthAfricans who were killed when the suicide bomber blew herself upnext to their bus because she saw it was filled with foreignworkers, I guess.ã I wonder, in the light of the fact thatperhaps these protests are now going to spread beyond justAmericans and perhaps foreigners in general, what yourconsultations are with other governments who might be struggling towarn their workers and come up with the appropriate response tothis.
  MS. NULAND:ãYeah.ã Well, as you can imagine, Jo, we're consultingwith a very broad range of countries about the response to thisvideo '' not just ones where our embassies and consulates andmissions have been affected, but around the world and encouragingleaders '' whether they're government leaders, religiousleaders '' to speak out strongly along the lines that theSecretary and the President have, that we can all condemn thisreprehensible video, but it should never be an excuse forviolence.ã
  Let me just take this opportunity to repeatwhat we said from Embassy Kabul earlier today with regard to thesuicide attack, that we condemn the attack that took place inKabul, we offer our deepest condolences to the families and theloved ones, and we wish for the speedy recovery of the injury'' of the injured.ã We can confirm that there were noU.S. citizens involved.ã
  What I can't confirm, Jo, was themotivation for this.ã And we are seeing, whether it is therecent calls by Hezbollah for people to go out into the streets,some of the things we've seen on al-Qaida sites, we'reseeing a lot of piling on. ãWe're seeing a lot ofextremist activity trying to exploit the sentiments from this videoto gin up folks to violence and try to use that as an excuse forthings that might otherwise have been planned, for their otherwiserejectionist agendas.ã So that's very concerning, thissort of spoiler, pile-on agenda that's happening now.
  QUESTION:ã So howdo you and your allies, I suppose, or other foreign countries dealwith that concretely?
  MS. NULAND:ã Ithink there are two planks to this, obviously, as the Secretary hasbeen talking about.ã First of all, strengthening security,strengthening of vigilance, sharing information, but also leadingpublics, speaking out strongly that this must never be an excusefor violence, that outrage, concern, hurt, should be expressedthrough legitimate, democratic channels, should be expressedpeacefully, and it's never an excuse to take the lives ofothers.ã
  Please.
  QUESTION:ã Changetopics?
  MS. NULAND:ãYeah.ã Are you going to stay, sorry, Margaret, on thisone?ã Sorry. ãYeah.
  QUESTION:ãSorry.
  QUESTION:ã Noproblem.
  QUESTION:ã Has theSecretary spoken to President Karzai in the past few days in regardto this attack today or the three insider attacks over the pastthree days?ã And what is she prepared to tell Congress aboutthis when she speaks with them this week?
  MS. NULAND:ã Shehas not '' she spoke to President Karzai last on Wednesday,September 12th.ã So she did speak to him afterthe Cairo and Benghazi incidents.ã Among other things, Ithink we were concerned about just this kind of contagion, if youwill.ã There have been '' certainly, ISAF and othershave been in direct contact with him in recent days.
  The other half of your question,Margaret?
  QUESTION:ã How'' is she prepared to talk about how this changes the strategyin Afghanistan when she speaks to Congress this week?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,she's going to be talking, obviously, as I said yesterday,extensively about the security measures that we've taken, butalso about the larger strategy that we are seeing extremists, weare seeing rejectionists, we are seeing those who aren'tsucceeding in these newly democratic processes taking violentaction.ã And what conclusion does that bring us to?ãThat does not bring us to the conclusion that we ought to withdrawor roll back.ã On the contrary, it brings us to theconclusion that we have to redouble our efforts to support thosewho are trying to build democratic, pluralistic, open societieswith universal rights, where grievances can be expressed throughthe ballot box, they can be expressed peacefully, and whereviolence is not the answer to the problems that people see.
  QUESTION:ã As afollow-up to that --
  MS. NULAND:ãYeah.
  QUESTION:ã -- canyou talk a little bit about how these insider attacks and decisionsthat the DOD are making in terms of engagement, militarily, areaffecting the diplomatic relations in terms of the handover inAfghanistan?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,I'm going to let the Defense Department talk to some of thetactical decisions that they've made on the ground.ãWe are obviously working hand-in-glove with our colleagues at thePentagon to work with the Afghans to make the necessary adjustmentsin the context of the green-on-blue.ã So we are theirpartners, but the military has the lead on this one.
  QUESTION:ã But howdoes that affect '' I know the military has the lead, but howdo the decisions that they're making affect the decisionsthat the State Department makes in terms of your own diplomacy, interms of USAID, in terms of various negotiations?
  MS. NULAND:ãI'm not sure I'm seeing the connection that you areseeing.ã This is a question of how we deploy together withthe Afghans on the battlefield, what missions they do, whatmissions we do together.ã Obviously, our diplomatic efforts,our efforts to support the civilian reform processes, continueapace.ã
  QUESTION:ã So thetwo aren't connected at all, is what you're saying.
  MS. NULAND:ã Wellas I said, in the context of the military working with the Afghansto address some of these green-on-blues, we're theirsupporting player on the diplomatic side.
  QUESTION:ã Just aquick follow-up.ã
  MS. NULAND:ãYeah.
  QUESTION:ã As faras the designation of the Haqqani Network, is it going to help toend the violence or terrorism in Afghanistan, or do you have totake more measures in order to be ready in the next '' like,2014 and beyond?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,when we complete this, the step will have an impact in the sensethat it will allow us to better go after Haqqani money in theUnited States, to support the efforts of others who are looking tosqueeze their funding.ã But fundamentally, this has to bedealt with where the Haqqanis plot and plan, right.
  QUESTION:ã Libya?
  MS. NULAND:ãYep.
  QUESTION:ã TheIndependent reports that there was a Bureau of Diplomatic Securityalert in the region two days before the Benghazi attack.ãCan you confirm that?
  MS. NULAND:ã Idon't have anything on that.ã I haven't heardthat or seen that one.
  QUESTION:ã Notnecessarily Libya-specific, but in the region.
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,first of all, I don't think I would speak about specificsecurity warnings one way or the other.ã But I have to sayto you, that I haven't heard that.ã Obviously, as wehave been saying for several days, all of these things are going tobe looked at in the context of the FBI investigation.
  QUESTION:ã You alsosaid there was no contract with a private security firm in Libya,and yet apparently some British security guards were hired.ãIs that your way of saying you didn't contract with a firmbut you did hire individual security guards?
  MS. NULAND:ã Thankyou for that, because there was an error in what I said.ãThe external security, external armed security, as we have beensaying, outside of the perimeter, was fully handled by the Libyanside.ã There was no contract '' contracting out ofthat.ã There was a group called Blue Mountain Group, whichis a private security company with permits to operate inLibya.ã They were hired to provide local Libyan guards whooperated inside the gate doing things like operating the securityaccess equipment, screening the cars, that kind ofthing.ã
  Please.ã
  QUESTION:ã Just toclarify, they were contracted by the U.S. State Department oranother agency '' Blue Mountain?
  MS. NULAND:ã Theywere contracted by the Department.ã
  QUESTION:ã And BlueMountain is a British company?
  MS. NULAND:ãI'm going to let them self-identify on that front.ãBut the people who were hired were Libyans.
  QUESTION:ãYes.ã Changing topic --
  QUESTION:ã No,no.ã So that's the first thing that has been wrong'' I don't know if there are others '' from what wewere told initially.ã Is there anything else thatyou've discovered that was incorrect?
  MS. NULAND:ãThere's nothing else that I have that needs correcting at themoment, Matt.ã I'll let you know.ã
  Please.
  QUESTION:ã Any moreinformation on the investigation, on the timeline?ã Therecontinues to be some question about whether the protests had allbut dissipated before the attack in Benghazi began, or whether ornot the protest was robust and ongoing and this attack at leastused it for cover.ã And there also continue to be, frankly,some apparent differences between the characterization here that itwas a coordinated attack and Ambassador Rice's assertion thatit basically kind of grew out of the protest.
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,on your last point, I spoke to this extensively yesterday, makingclear that Ambassador Rice was speaking on behalf of the governmentwith regard to our initial assessments.ã I don't haveany more details beyond those that we've already shared, andI don't expect to because I think all of the information isgoing to go to the FBI for their investigation, and whenthey're completed, then we'll have moreinformation.ã
  QUESTION:ã The ideathat it grew '' that the protest may have been used as cover,can you say whether or not the protest had basically dissipatedwhen the attacks began?
  MS. NULAND:ã Ipersonally have no more information than what I've given you,and I don't think that we as a government will be talkingabout these details until the FBI has completed its investigationso that we don't prejudice it.
  QUESTION:ã Do youknow if any of these Blue Mountain Group guards were killed orinjured?
  MS. NULAND:ã I donot.ã I don't have any information one way or theother on that.
  QUESTION:ã Do youknow how many there were?
  MS. NULAND:ã Idon't.ã I don't think we would probably talkabout the number.ã But again, you're talking about theguys who run things like the metal detectors and that kind ofthing, not the external security with the weapons.
  QUESTION:ãRight.ã No, I understand.ã I'm concernedbecause we were told not once, not twice, numerous times over, thatthere were no security contractors involved in --
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,that was the information I had, and it turned out not to becorrect.
  QUESTION:ã No, Iunderstand.ã But I '' but now my concern is that thereis '' that there may be other information that we were givenbefore that is incorrect and that you are just '' or that theAdministration is just going to let stand out there incorrectbecause of this '' the guise of the FBI investigation.ãAnd I think it's inappropriate and irresponsible if there'' if you are aware of information that was given to us thatis incorrect to let it stand out there as being incorrect.ãAnd so I just want to make sure that when you say that you'renot aware, are you absolutely sure that right now, to the best ofyour knowledge, nothing else that was told to us on Wednesday orwhenever that background call was, there's nothing else inthat call that was incorrect?ã Or are you '' or isthere stuff that's incorrect and you're just not goingto tell us what it is because of the investigation?
  MS. NULAND:ãHere's what I'm going to say to you:ã We spokein those initial days to our initial assessment, as did AmbassadorRice.ã Any further information that we are, as a government,unearthing now is going to go into the FBI investigation, and theywill make a complete report when they are finished.ã Theyare not going to be giving it to me and therefore I am not going tobe privy to it to give it to you.ã I'm not even surethey're going to give it to this Department untilthey're completed.
  So I know that is frustrating, but I havemade a personal pledge to you, Matt, that if I find errors in whatI have said that I can share with you and fix, I will, as I didtoday.
  QUESTION:ãOkay.ã So that '' this was one.
  MS. NULAND:ã Thiswas one.
  QUESTION:ãOkay.
  QUESTION:ã Can yougive us some context on why that happened?ã I mean, is itvery unusual?ã Is this the only instance where a firm likethis is contracted who then subcontract to local securityguards?
  MS. NULAND:ã Myunderstanding is that this particular function, the hiring of localguards to do things like operate the access equipment, screen cars,et cetera, is not uncommon to use a contractor to find the bestlocal people for that function.
  QUESTION:ã And isthis a company that you have worked with in the past or are stillcurrently working with, or was this the first time that you workedwith them?
  MS. NULAND:ã Theyare still under contract pending a full assessment of the securitysituation is what I have here.ã Whether we've worked withthem elsewhere, I think the issue in this particular case was thatthey had Libyan permits to do this kind of hiring.ã
  So '' Said.
  QUESTION:ã And youhave said that Libyans lost their lives in this attack.ãWere members of the security firm '' were victims members ofthe security firm?
  MS. NULAND:ã I donot know the answer.ã I think that will also come forward inthe investigation.
  QUESTION:ã Can Ijust ask --
  MS. NULAND:ãYeah.
  QUESTION:ãI'm not begrudging the fact that you gave '' that youtold us this, but why '' what's different about this bit ofinformation than something about the timeline?ã How is thisokay to correct --
  MS. NULAND:ãBecause I had --
  QUESTION:ã -- andother things might not be.
  MS. NULAND:ã I hadinaccurate information, which I gave to you, which has since beencorrected.ã So there were people who saw the transcript whowere not involved in the original assembling of information for mewho came forward and said, no, we need to fix this.ã And sowe have.
  QUESTION:ã Allright.ã And just to the best of your knowledge at thismoment, there is nothing else that needs to be corrected?
  MS. NULAND:ã Thereis not to my knowledge.ã But again, my knowledge is notgoing to be complete until there's an investigation.
  QUESTION:ãYesterday, you said the investigation would be joint between boththe Libyans and the United States.ã Is it --
  MS. NULAND:ã Ithink I didn't quite say that, Dana.ã What I said--
  QUESTION:ã You said--
  MS. NULAND:ã What Isaid was that the Libyans have an investigation.ã We alsohave an open FBI investigation, and they are going to collaboratewith each other.ã And we now have FBI in Libya starting thatprocess.
  QUESTION:ã And so,as the Libyans are '' they've been saying a lot ofthings and giving, sort of, frequent updates on what they view astheir investigation.ã Are we going to hear anything fromhere about that or --
  MS. NULAND:ã You'renot going to hear anything from here unless my guidancechanges.ã Whether you're going to hear anything fromthe FBI, I think that's their decision.ã We ''when we open a criminal investigation in the United States,generally, we don't brief out in pieces until theinvestigation is complete so we don't prejudice theoutcome.ã I have to respect their process, obviously.
  QUESTION:ã Just afollow-up on that.ã In instances like this where you havethe FBI investigating in a foreign country, does the FBI operate asa completely independent entity?ã Or do they operate sort ofunder State Department rules and regulations?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,obviously, they come like any visiting interagency team operatingwith the support of the embassy platform.ã They will workthemselves with the Libyans, but they'll obviously seek theEmbassy's political support, guidance, et cetera, to the extentthat they need it, and we'll hear back here in Washington if theyneed any further support from us.
  QUESTION:ã And sothey don't '' for instance, they don't sort ofbecome temporary embassy personnel or anything like that?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,they are what we call TDY-ers in-country -- temporary dutypersonnel in-county of the U.S. Government if that makessense.ã Generally, they're expected to obviously abide bythe same rules of the nation and respect for our protocols as otheragencies.ã
  QUESTION:ã And youmentioned that they do have staff now in Libya --
  MS. NULAND:ã That'smy --
  QUESTION:ã --(inaudible) that's in Benghazi.ã Do you know when theyarrived there?
  MS. NULAND:ã I'mgoing to send you to them for more details.ã Myunderstanding is that they have now -- they are now there.
  QUESTION:ã Can you--
  QUESTION:ã Just thelast one on this, had the question not been asked, how were yougoing to relate this correction to us?
  MS. NULAND:ã I wasgoing to talk to you about it afterwards on background.
  QUESTION:ã Thankyou.
  QUESTION:ã Is therea commitment from the U.S. Administration that this '' thefindings of this investigation will be made public?
  MS. NULAND:ã Idon't know the answer to that.ã I think we need to dothe investigation first.ã Clearly, there's going to be a lotof interest, but I think we're '' it's premature to talk aboutwhether any, all, or most will be able to be made public.ãWe have to see what we find, I would guess.ã But I'll talkto the '' I would send you to the FBI for their protocols onthese things.
  QUESTION:ããCan we move on?
  MS. NULAND:ãYeah.ã Let's move on, please.
  QUESTION:ã Today,the UN representative to the West Bank, Mr. Robert Serry, gave avery dismal picture of the situation in the West Bank and prospectsfor peace.ã He talks about an increased set oftransgressions.ã He talked about deficits that the Authorityhas, that they have no hope of, let's say, rectifying anytimesoon.ã Has there been any discussion, one, with the UnitedNations directly on this issue, or, two, with the PalestinianAuthority on this?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,as you know, Robert Serry is the opposite number of our envoy,David Hale.ã They have a very close relationship.ãThey work together in the Quartet at their level, so obviously weshare perspective on what we are seeing, and we certainly share theconcerns about the assistance situation in the Palestinianterritories.ã We've been pretty clear about that.
  QUESTION:ã So asthe Palestinians gear up to participate in the 67thUNGA, is there any kind of ongoing discussions to remedy thatsituation?
  MS. NULAND:ã To'' well, obviously, our conversation is primarily with theCongress, where we still have $200 million that we would like to beable to get to the Palestinian Authority.ã But we will also,as we do every year, the Secretary will talk to regional states whohave traditionally been contributors to the Palestinian Authorityto encourage them to do as much as they can, as we do withEuropeans as well.
  QUESTION:ãOkay.ã I was talking to the Palestinian '' the PLOrepresentative in town.ã And he was saying that thecommitments made by the Arab countries have not been forthcoming,but they're also puzzled at the fact that the $200 ''I'm sorry '' the $200 million that had been alreadyapproved, it's still held up somehow for whateverreason.ã Do you have any more information on that?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,we've talked about this before.ã We have some ''we have Congressional concerns that we're trying to workthrough.
  QUESTION:ã Althoughit is approved, there are still some Congressional concern?
  MS. NULAND:ãCorrect.ã
  QUESTION:ãOkay.ã And finally, is the Secretary planning any meetingswith the Palestinian Authority President Abbas next week(inaudible)?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,we're still working on her full schedule.ã When I havethings to announce, I will, but I don't have anything toannounce at the moment.
  Please, in the back.
  QUESTION:ã Yes,please, Egypt?
  MS. NULAND:ã Egypt,yeah.
  QUESTION:ã It wasreported today that negotiations or the talks about the stimulus orthe economic program package is '' are on hold.ã Is ita right characterization this, or what's going on?
  MS. NULAND:ã I haveto say that we found that particular piece of reporting prettypuzzling, given the fact that I'm quoted in the story fromyesterday making clear how absolutely committed we are to movingforward to support reform and economic restoration inEgypt.ã So we are continuing to work with the Congress onthese issues.ã As you know, we had the delegation led byUnder Secretary Hormats about two weeks ago to talk to the Egyptianside about the needs that they see.ã Then we had DeputySecretary Nides in Egypt with the business delegation.ã Andwe're also looking at how we support prosperity and growththere.
  So as I said yesterday, particularly in thelight of this kind of extremist and spoiler activity that wants tosort of turn back the clock now, we think it is absolutelyessential that we support those forces in Egypt who want to build apeaceful, stable, democratic country with prosperity restored, jobsfor people, et cetera.ã And that's what the assistancethat the President has pledged and that we are working with theHill on is for.
  QUESTION:ã So whenyou say puzzling, I mean is this a diplomatic --
  MS. NULAND:ãSorry?
  QUESTION:ã When yousay puzzling, is this --
  MS. NULAND:ã As inwrong.ã (Laughter.)ã As in wrong.ã
  QUESTION:ã(Inaudible) the talks on '' have not been delayed then(inaudible)?
  MS. NULAND:ã Theyhave not.
  QUESTION:ã So the'' my next question is regarding '' so you talk aboutnegotiations or talks are going to be done within the comingdays.ã Still these talks are on?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,we are working with the Congress now on how we will move forward onthis.ã We've talked to '' we've made aninitial budget request.ã As you know, we have worked withthe Egyptians on precisely how we see breaking down thissupport.ã And now we have to work with the Congress onensuring we can move forward.
  QUESTION:ã One, isit not correct that members of Congress have expressed concernabout this money?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,obviously you've seen the press reporting that we'veseen, which is why the Secretary is looking forward to having anopportunity to talk through these issues with members ofCongress.
  QUESTION:ã Allright.ã And then secondly, there is still a certificationrequirement on this '' on some of the '' not the ''perhaps not the debt relief, but on the aid.ã Is that'' that is correct, right?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,she made her waiver earlier.ã
  QUESTION:ãRight.
  MS. NULAND:ã Thereare notification requirements, but those go up --
  QUESTION:ã Butthere's '' okay.ã So all the certifications thatare needed for this money have already been done?
  MS. NULAND:ã To myknowledge, yes.ã But if I didn't get that right,we'll get back to you.
  QUESTION:ã Because'' I don't know for sure, but can you check to see if itwasn't for the last fiscal year and not --
  MS. NULAND:ã Ithink it was for FY12 is my understanding.ã The ones that wemade in March or April were for FY12.
  QUESTION:ãRight.ã Which includes this?
  MS. NULAND:ãCorrect.
  QUESTION:ãWhat's the difference between certification andnotification?
  MS. NULAND:ã TheSecretary had certain requirements that the Congress put on lastyear, where she had to make certifications to them with regard todemocracy progress, with regard to their commitment to theirinternational obligations, including vis- -vis Israel.ãThose were the certifications that were made earlier in thespring.ã Notification is when you tell the Congress how youintend to spend money that they've already agreed to.
  QUESTION:ã Couldyou quickly tell us what is the situation of the U.S. Embassy inCairo today?
  MS. NULAND:ãYeah.ã The U.S. Embassy in Cairo is open today.ã Ithink we are '' we even have '' had visa servicestoday.ã Our consulate general in Alexandria is stillclosed.
  Okay.ã In the back.
  QUESTION:ã OnMexico, can I ask you something?
  MS. NULAND:ã Youmay, but the Secretary's going to speak to it this afternoon,so I doubt I'm going to say anything very interesting.
  QUESTION:ã Iknow.ã I just want to ask you, this meeting of thehigh-level group is in the context of some incidents that occuragainst U.S. personnel, linked to the consulate in Ciudad Juarez,the mother of agent Jaime Zapata, as well as the attack to anotherU.S. officials recently. Do you think the Mexico-U.S. relationshipis mature enough to set aside these issues and handle those in adifferent way that doesn't affect the rest of the complexagenda between both countries?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,as you know, this is the third session of the High-Level Group, andprecisely one of the reasons to establish this group was to be ableto talk through our strategic approach to security, border issues,counternarcotics, et cetera, together, but also to be able to dealwith these difficult incidents when they arise.ã
  QUESTION:ãVictoria?
  MS. NULAND:ãYeah.
  QUESTION:ã Sorry,it got passed (inaudible).
  MS. NULAND:ãYeah.ã Sorry.
  QUESTION:ã Can youoffer anything on reports that Morsi has requested the release ofthe blind sheikh either officially, or are there talks regardingthat going on?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,as you know, early on '' I think he was still a candidate'' he made a public statement about it, which '' weobviously made our own public statements about how we feel aboutthat.ã But to my knowledge, it hasn't come upsince.ã
  QUESTION:ã A quickone:ã I can sort of imagine what your answer might be, but Ihave to ask it anyway.ã Mitt Romney's comments todayon the Israel-Palestine question '' he says that it's animpossible thing to resolve and that Palestinians don't wantpeace.ã Could you lay out just where you guys might differon that score?
  MS. NULAND:ã Youknow that I don't respond to campaign issues here.ãI'm going to send you to the campaign for a direct responseon the campaign.ã Good try, though, Andy.ã
  Jo.
  QUESTION:ã Can youcharacterize, though, given that we're going to go next weekto UNGA, a year ago there was a very public demand by Mahmoud Abbasto have a Palestinian state.ã There was a timetable that wasset up for talks agreed to by the UN Quartet.ã A year on and'' well, nothing has happened.ã Could you characterizehow you see the state of the peace talks right now?ã
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,as you know, we did work through a Quartet roadmap lastyear.ã We had some initial success getting some direct talksgoing under the auspices of the Jordanians.ã We then had anexchange of letters during the course of the winter.ãWe've spoken very clearly about the fact that we consideredthose positive steps and hoped that they would lead to directtalks, which is really the only way to solve that.ã And wehave been continuing to try to work towards that ever since, so wewill continue to do so.ã
  QUESTION:ã Do yousee a commitment from both sides, from the Palestinians and fromIsrael, that they are serious about reaching a peaceagreement?ã
  MS. NULAND:ã Again,I'm not going to qualify this here.ã We're'' you know what we're continuing to do.ãWe're continuing to support them and try to get them to talkto each other, and those efforts continue.ã
  QUESTION:ã Well,haven't both sides told you that they are committed toreaching a two--
  MS. NULAND:ã Theyhave said that publicly.
  QUESTION:ã Soisn't that the answer to the question?ã I mean, theytell you they are.
  MS. NULAND:ã Imean, they've obviously made public commitments, but onlythey can actually make the decisions.
  Goyal.
  QUESTION:ã Burma?
  MS. NULAND:ãYeah.
  QUESTION:ã Sofinally she's here '' Aung San Suu Kyi '' and shewas waiting for the last 20 years to visit the U.S. and I'msure she wants her job back which she is supposed to be primeminister of Burma in 20 years ago.ã My question is here thatas she discussed with the Secretary and also she spoke today withthe Secretary at the U.S. Institute of Peace across the street,what I'm asking you is that how U.S. is going to help her tohave a free and fair election that she had won 20 years ago andthat she can get back her life as the prime minister of Burma?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,Goyal, you know that we had free, fair, parliamentary electionswhich gave her her seat back in parliament, and she is now verymuch an active parliamentarian of her government, and that is the'' those are the auspices under which she is here as well asto receive the many, many awards that she has gotten over the yearsthat she hasn't been able to get.ã She spoke herselfabout her work at the U.S. Institute of Peace this morning, so ifyou didn't get a chance to see those remarks, I wouldencourage you to see them.
  You know that the United States has beenvery supportive of the reform track in Burma.ã We'vebeen working hand-in-glove both with the Burmese Government,President Thein Sein, but also with Aung San Suu Kyi, on how we canencourage in a step-by-step way more progress and lifting our ownrestrictions as they make progress.ã So she had a chance totalk through the progress that Burma has made this morning when shewas with the Secretary and the role that she is playing in that.ãThey also talked about the work that still needs to be done'' finishing the release of all political prisoners, the workwith the ethnic minority groups to address their grievances andhave lasting peace.ã The meeting was, as it was the lasttime they met in Burma, very, very warm.ã And we willcontinue to support the progress that Burma is making in astep-by-step way.
  QUESTION:ã One morejust quick follow.ã People of Burma still feels that theyare not free under the current government.ã And second,finally, what she's asking the Secretary or what she askedthe Secretary this morning really what she want or what her countryneeds, what kind of help from the U.S.?ã
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,I just gave you a little bit of a read on that meeting.ã Ithink she wants to ensure '' and she's talked about this'' that our continued work together is done in a step-by-stepfashion; that we are evaluating progress and responding to it,because she sees more work to be done, as do we.
  QUESTION:ã If Icould follow on that, the Secretary in her opening remarks for AungSan Suu Kyi did lay out, as you said, some of the progressthey've made, but she also was very specific about areaswhere they need to make further progress, including militarycontacts with North Korea --
  MS. NULAND:ãRight.ã Yes, I left that off my list.ã Thank you,Andy.
  QUESTION:ã -- theRakhine state question.ã Is it unreasonable to expect thatno further steps would be taken on sanctions until some of thesevery specific issues are addressed to U.S. satisfaction?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,as you know, we've made quite a bit of progress already ineasing the sanctions that we have, allowing the U.S. investment togo in.ã So again, we are going to do this in a measured wayas we see progress.ã And the Secretary did lay out the listwhich '' thank you, Andy '' does, of course, includeconcerns about continuing contact with North Korea.ã So wewill continue to watch that and make our decisions as we see moreprogress.
  Please.ã
  QUESTION:ã AboutChina and Japan, the anti-Japan protest in China is getting biggerand getting worse, and many Japanese people and the shops and thefactories are attacked, and there are many lootings and settingfire, a lot of violence in China against Japan.ã Do you haveany comment about that?
  MS. NULAND:ã Well,I spoke to this yesterday.ã I spoke to our concern.ãI spoke to our desire to see these two countries work this outdirectly.ã Secretary Panetta is in Beijing now.ã Hewill have some meetings tomorrow, and I'm sure he'll bemaking the same points as well.
  QUESTION:ã Yeah,but this is not a territorial issue.ã This is the issue ofthe violence, just like U.S. is facing in the Middle East and allaround the world.
  MS.NULAND:ãã I understand.ã AndI've said we have concerns.
  Thanks very much.
  QUESTION:ãVictoria, last one?
  MS.NULAND:ãã Oh.ã Jo, one more?
  QUESTION:ã Sorry,last one very quickly.ã There was reports that the BokoHaram spokesman in Nigeria has been killed.ã Do you have anyinformation on that?ã
  MS. NULAND:ã Ithink I do.ã Let me see what I have.ã It looks likewe are not able to confirm those reports at this time.
  QUESTION:ãOkay.
  MS. NULAND:ã Okay,thanks.
  (The briefing wasconcluded at 1:54 p.m.)
  DPB # 164
James Carter IV, Jimmy Carter's Grandson, Arranged MittRomney Video Release
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:45
  WASHINGTON -- Midway through a routine Internet search, JamesCarter IV stumbled upon a video that just didn't seem right.
  The grandson of former President Jimmy Carter and aself-fashioned Democratic opposition researcher, the younger Carterhad watched countless hours of footage of Republican Mitt Romneyand made it a habit to search YouTube every few days for keywordslike "Romney" and "Republicans."
  But on this day in August, one clip jumped out. There wasRomney, in an undisclosed location, bluntly discussing a visit to aChinese factory with substandard conditions.
  "The hidden camera video '' it was all blurred out at thebeginning, and it was mysterious," Carter said. "It piqued myinterest."
  Something told him there might be more there than the brief clipposted on the YouTube channel "Anne Onymous." Although notaffiliated with any campaign or super PAC, Carter had made it apersonal mission to help get Democrats elected in 2012 '' andto do his part to push back against Romney's relentlesscampaign-trail mockery of his grandfather.
  So Carter, 35, of Atlanta, set out track down the source of thevideo. He sent a message to the YouTube user seeking details. Noluck. But then, after sharing links to the video on Twitter, Carterrealized he had a new follower with the same name as the YouTubeaccount. He quickly shot off a direct message.
  "They were wary at first," Carter said in an interview with TheAssociated Press. "But they did respond."
  What followed was a delicate, concerted effort to convince thesource '' still unknown to the public '' that Cartercould be trusted, and that the world had to see the rest of whatwas surreptitiously recorded as Romney spoke in May to donors whohad paid $50,000 a person to attend the private fundraiser.
  In a string of Internet conversations, Carter showed the sourceevidence that he had helped David Corn, a journalist with themagazine Mother Jones, report a story about Global-Tech AppliancesInc., a Chinese firm that Romney's Bain Capital briefly investedin. Both Carter and the source suspected it was that firm's factorythat Romney was speaking about in the video.
  "That gave me credibility," Carter said. "They opened up to me alittle bit."
  Soon after, Carter persuaded the source to trust Corn with thefull video '' on the condition that he keep the source'sidentity a secret. Corn ran with it, using clues in the video totriangulate when and where it had been recorded.
  Then on Monday and Tuesday, Corn posted the clips to hismagazine's website, sparking a firestorm for the Romney campaignover remarks claiming that nearly half of Americans "believe theyare victims" deserving government help and that the Palestinianshave no interest in peace with Israel.
  "James: This is extraordinary. Congratulations! Papa," theformer president told his grandson Tuesday morning in an emailobtained by the AP.
  For Carter, whose Twitter profile notes he's looking for work,his success in unearthing the video was followed by a string of joboffers Tuesday, from the Ohio Democratic Party to online news siteslike The Huffington Post and ThinkProgress.
  But the coup de grace for Carter is the irony that Romney hasspent many months assailing the elder Carter's record on everythingfrom foreign affairs to small business policy, hoping to saddle theincumbent president with the less popular vestiges of hisDemocratic predecessor.
  "I've gotten a lot of Twitter messages from people supporting meand saying that it's poetic justice that it was a Carter thatuncovered this, considering the way that the Romney campaign hasbeen talking about my grandfather," Carter said. "I agree with thatsentiment wholeheartedly."
  ___
  Also on HuffPost:
Zombie Apocalypse Training: HALO Corp. To Train Military, Law Enforcement On Virus Outbreak
  Link to Article
  Source: BlackListedNews.com
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:53
  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention isready for a zombie apocalypse. Gun owners got prepared for a zombieapocalypse. Now, the military and law enforcement are gettingready.
  And next month, they'll begin training.
  Security firm HALO Corp. announced yesterday that about 1,000military personnel, police officials, medical experts and federalworkers will learn the ins and outs of a zombie apocalypse, aspart of an annual counter-terrorism summit ,according to the Military Times.
  Sure, the lesson is tongue-in-cheek -- and only a small part ofthe summit's more serious course load -- but a zombie-like virusoutbreak is a good training scenario. Visitors will learn to dealwith a worldwide pandemic, where people become crazy, violent andfearful. Zombies will roam the summit grounds in San Diego, Calif.harassing troops and first-aid teams that will beparticipating.
  Further details are unclear, but the Military Timesmade sure to note that zombies are not real.
  The training comes at a time when the term "zombie apocalypse"is so viral that several branches of government have releasedstatements on the matter. Earlier this month, the Department ofHomeland Security reported that "the zombies are coming" as part of ahilarious bid to get citizens to prepare for a real disaster.
  The CDC has released similar statements using zombies as aplayful guise to get the public prepared for actual disasters. Toassure that no one's confused by these announcements, CDC told TheHuffington Post that zombies are not real.
  >>ReadMore...Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered byDisqus.
French magazine Charlie Hebdo to publish Mohammed cartoons |News.com.au
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:28
  Charlie Hebdo's latest move was greeted with immediatecalls from political and religious leaders for the media to actresponsibly and avoid inflaming the current situation.
  Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault issued a statement expressinghis "disapproval of all excesses."
  The magazine's editor, originally a cartoonist who uses the nameCharb, denied he was being deliberately provocative at a delicatetime.
  "The freedom of the press, is that a provocation?" he said. "I'mnot asking strict Muslims to read Charlie Hebdo, just likeI wouldn't go to a mosque to listen to speeches that go againsteverything I believe."
  Dalil Boubakeur, the senior cleric at Paris's biggest mosque,appealed for France's Muslims to remain calm.
  "It is with astonishment, sadness and concern that I havelearned that this publication is risking increasing the currentoutrage across the Muslim world," he said.
  "I would appeal to them not to pour oil on the fire."
  Even before news of Charlie Hebdo's plans emerged,France's large Muslim community was being urged to take to thestreets in defiance of an official ban on demonstrations over thecontroversial film.
  Messages on Twitter and social networking sites called fordemonstrations to be held Saturday in Paris, Marseille and othermajor cities, a week after police in the capital arrested 150people for taking part in a rowdy protest near the US embassy.
  Most messages read "Don't touch my Prophet", a variation of theFrench anti-racism slogan "Don't Touch my Mate" popular in the1980s.
  Interior Minister Manuel Valls said Sunday the authorities wouldnot permit any more demonstrations against the film, sayingSaturday's protest had been orchestrated by groups that "advocateradical Islam".
  France is home to Western Europe's largest Islamic community,with at least four million Muslims in the country.
Frans weekblad publiceert Mohammed-prenten
  Link to Article
  Source: Untitled Feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:26
  18/09/12, 19:49 '' bron:ANP
  (C) AFP. De redactie van Charlie Hebdo, inParijs, was vorig jaar in november het doelwit van een aanslag nade publicatie van een karikatuur van de profeet.
  UPDATEMidden in de crisis rond de anti-islamfilm Onschuld vanmoslims gooit Charlie Hebdo olie op het vuur. Het Franse satirischeweekblad publiceert woensdag karikaturen van de profeet Mohammed.'De beelden zullen degenen choqueren die gechoqueerd willenworden', aldus hoofdredacteur Charb. Volgens berichten in de Fransepers tonen de tekeningen de islamitische profeet 'in gedurfdehouding'.
  (C) afp.
  Jean-Marc Ayrault.
  Premier Jean-Marc Ayrault heeft de inwoners van Frankrijkdinsdag opgeroepen op een 'verantwoordelijke' manier te reageren opde publicatie. De politie heeft de veiligheidsmaatregelen rond deredactie van Charlie Hebdo opgevoerd. Daar werd vorig jaar brandgesticht, nadat het blad een afbeelding van Mohammed op devoorpagina had gezet.
  Charb hamert op de persvrijheid en wil niet inbinden, omdat de'extremisten' anders hebben gewonnen.
  De Franse moslimraad zegt 'verbijsterd' te zijn door het besluitvan het weekblad om de 'beledigende' cartoons te plaatsen. De raadroept de Franse moslims op zich niet te laten provoceren.
  Op de dag dat Charlie Hebdo met zijn aankondiging kwam, opendepresident Fran§ois Hollande de afdeling Kunsten van de Islamin het Louvremuseum in Parijs. Hij prees het verfijnde karakter, depracht en de vitaliteit van de islamitische cultuur. In de afdelingzijn 3000 kunstvoorwerpen uit de 7e tot en met de 19e eeuw tezien.
THe UGLY AMeRiKaN...
  Link to Article
  Source: Untitled Feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:25
  NWO Puppet A or NWO Puppet B
  its like choosing whether you want strawberry or vanillaflavored dog crap for dinner
  which form of tyranny fo you prefer?
  communist donkey or nazi elephant
  the real threat? mainline DNC RNC sheeple apathy that allows thepolitical rape room to exist
I hate my job (24 Photos)
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  Source: Untitled Feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:23
  September 18, 2012 | In: FAIL,Funny,WorkShenanigans
  FollowMac on Tapiture
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  Do you hate your job? Send your photos to macthechive [at] gmail[dot] com.
U.S. Warns Judge's Ruling Impe
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:22
  WASHINGTON - The Obama administration warned Mondaythat a judge's ruling last week blocking a statute authorizing theindefinite detention of terrorism suspects has jeopardized itsability to continue detaining certain prisoners captured during thewar in Afghanistan.
  In an emergency appeal of the ruling, the governmentasserted that United States District Court Judge Katherine B.Forrest went beyond enjoining the statute - enacted last year aspart of the National Defense Authorization Act - and potentiallycurtailed detention powers it has been exercising for years underits interpretation of the authorization to use military forceagainst the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
  Judge Forrest's order "threatens irreparable harm tonational security and the public interest by injecting addedburdens and dangerous confusion into the conduct of militaryoperations abroad during an active armed conflict," the governmentwrote in a 38-page filing with the federal appeals court in NewYork.
  The motion focused on language used by Judge Forrestthat rejected interpreting the original use-of-force authorizationas including the ability to detain "substantial supporters" of AlQaeda and the Taliban, as opposed to people who are actually partof those groups. The judge also called into question the idea thatthe United States could detain members or supporters of "associatedforces" that had no involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.
  "If, following issuance of this permanent injunctiverelief, the government detains individuals under theories of'substantially or directly supporting' associated forces, as setforth in" the National Defense Authorization Act, "and a contemptaction is brought before this court, the government will bear aheavy burden indeed," she wrote.
Unitary patent brings back the software patents debate |EDRI
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:21
  This article is also available in:Deutsch: Einheitspatent heizt Debatte um Software-Patente neuerlichan
  The Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) of the European Parliamentis preparing these days in view of the discussion on unitary patenton 17 and 18 September 2012. The issue of interest is whether thesediscussions will bring back the return of software patents as itseems to be the case, having in view the recent patent wars in theUS (like that of Apple against Samsung). There is also the threatof letting companies monopolise the market thus preventinginnovation and the introduction of new products.
  Several groups, like April and FSFE, call for a generalmobilisation to contact all MEPs, so that the European Parliamentfinally tackles the issue of the software patentability.
  "Software patents are a real scourge for companies and softwaredevelopers. They do not contribute to innovation whatsoever, butprevent us from developing new products while exposing us to everincreasing legal uncertainty," stated G(C)raldS(C)drati-Dinet, April's patent advisor.
  Although European laws prohibit software patents, the EuropeanPatent Office (EPO) has been trying for years to legalize softwarepatents and, under the new proposal to be discussed, the power andcontrol on the law on patentability would be left to anorganisation, without any democratic control or the opinion to gobefore an independent court.
  Under the current proposal, the EPO has the right to award apatent, but also takes the final decision on whether it remainsvalid when someone complains, while the final court to decide onpatent complaints should be the European Court of Justice which hasalready warned that the current proposal is incompatible with EUlaws. The patent system should be politically controlled by theEuropean Parliament and should benefit of proper checks andbalances.
  Ideally, the European Parliament must ensure that computerprograms are excluded from patentability, making clear that theycannot be patented just because they run on generic data processinghardware.
  I call!http://call.unitary-patent.eu/campaign/call2/unitary-patent-juri-2012
  General mobilisation against the return of software patents inEurope (3.09.2012)http://www.april.org/en/general-mobilisation-against-return-software-p...
  No patents on software: Unitary patent threatens innovation inEurope (7.09.2012)http://fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20120907-01.en.html
  EU: the unitary patent (5.09.2012)http://fsfe.org/campaigns/swpat/current/unitary-patent.html
Jay Carney's editorial past haunts Jay Carney's current W.H. gig http://t.co/fnPvb96e #noagenda #spokesHole @adamcurry @THErealDVORAK
  Link to Article
  Source: @adamcurry - Twitter Search
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:19
  Jay Carney's previous existence as Washington bureau chieffor Time magazine hasn't been much of a problemfor him as White House press secretary, but he did get tripped uptoday by an April2008 column he wrote about "Barack Obama'spoorly-chosen words about small-town Americans." That column,referring to the infamous "bitter-gate" remark candidate Obama madeat a San Francisco fundraiser, has been revived as the closestparallel to Mitt Romney's latest hidden-camera fundraisercomment about the 47 percent of Americans on thegovernment dole. Naturally, as Politico'sByron Tau notes, reporters couldn't help but pepper him onhis comments made back in the day:
  A reporter quoted back a 2008 column to him '-- while he wasa journalist at Time magazine '-- where Carney wrote thatObama's words were "poorly chosen."
  "I don't remember that column," Carney said to laughter. "Ihonestly don't."
  "I think the president, then candidate, addressed this at thetime. This was four years ago. I think the broader point was thathis message there and everyone in 2008, and going back to 2004 andevery day since has been consistent," Carney said.
  Amnesia, always a great way to smooth over differences you oncehad with your current boss. Notably,that Time article wasn't the only time hereferred to bitter-gate. As the WashingtonExaminer's CharlieSpiering notes, here's Carney in 2008 talking on an NBC panelabout the "huge weakness" that was exposed by the incident:
  Want to add to this story? Let us knowincomments or send an email to the author at jhudson attheatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on theOpenWire.
Nate Silver Solves the Swing State Puzzle -NYTimes.com
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:16
  When I first considered BarackObama's re-election chances in this magazine, lastNovember, he was about a 50-50 contender against the Republicanfield. As I noted then, this was an unusual spot for a sittingpresident. A year before their own re-election races, Roosevelt,Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and both Bushes were allfavored. One year out, it seemed as if things could break eitherway for the president in 2012.
  Six weeks before the election, thepicture is much clearer. While Obama's postconvention bouncegave him a lead of four to five points over MittRomney, most of the polls before the conventions had the votesplit by two or three percentage points. If Obama's bouncefades and the two-to-three-point trend holds till Nov. 6,it's conceivable that either candidate could pull a GeorgeW. Bush and win the Electoral College despite losing thepopular vote. This puts the emphasis on what I call ''tippingpoint'' states. Obama and Romney can hope for good jobsnumbers or terrible ones, and for calm in the Middle East or aneruption that hurts the administration. But one thing they candefinitely control is how to allocate their resources­ for thebest chance at 270 electoral votes.
  Using my FiveThirtyEight model,I've determined '-- through about 25,000 simulations thatI run each day '-- which states could put either candidate overthe top. Crucially, the model takes into account not only howstates poll relative to national trends but also to one another.Demographically similar states can rise and fall together. IfRomney makes gains in Wisconsin, for example, he will probably alsodo so in neighboring Minnesota.
  Perhaps more important, the programevaluates the order in which the states might line up. Obama couldwin North Carolina, where the polls show a competitive race, buthe's unlikely to do so without already having won Ohio,Florida and Virginia, where the demographics are slightly morefavorable to him. Some combination of those states would probablyget him to 270 electoral votes anyway. By that point, NorthCarolina would be redundant.
  Which states, then, are the moststrategically important? The answer exists along a spectrum ratherthan in absolutes. Ten states could play an important role in theelectoral calculus. I have listed them below, in four groups, alongwith the chance that each state will be the one that determines thenext president.
  The Big Two: Ohio (32percent chance of determining the Electoral College winner) andFlorida (20 percent).
  This year, Obama's polling has beenstronger than many observers (myself included) expected in eachstate, both of which typically lean slightly Republican. In Ohio,which Obama won by 5 points in 2008, the president has held thelead in 16 polls conducted since June (Romney led in only 4). InFlorida, which Obama won by 3 points in the last election, thenumbers have been more even but still slightly favor the president(14 leads for Obama, 9 for Romney).
  The reasons behind Obama's strongpolling performance differ in each state. The auto industry'srecovery has helped drop Ohio's unemployment rate from 8.6percent when he took office to 7.2 percent now, making it one statewhere voters really are better off than they were four years ago.While studies show that national economic conditions figure moreheavily into voters' decisions, a state's economicclimate can matter in cases like this.
  Florida's economic recovery has notbeen as robust, but Obama may be buoyed by long-term demographicfactors there. Florida has one of the nation's largestHispanic populations, a bloc that in most states swings Democratic.The G.O.P. has long been buffered by Cuban-Americans, ahistorically right-leaning group, who made up a majority of thestate's Hispanic electorate. Now not only are non-CubanHispanics growing in the electorate, but the Cuban population isincreasingly divided along generational lines, with younger votersleaning heavily left. If Democrats get 60 percent or more of theHispanic vote in Florida, this year could mark a significantturning point.
  The New Breed: Virginia(9 percent), Colorado (9 percent) and Nevada (5 percent).
  In these states, which Obama carried in2008 but Kerry and Gore lost, swift demographic changes have becomemanifest. Obama won Nevada '-- which now resembles a West Coaststate to some degree '-- by an unexpectedly large margin, 12percentage points, in 2008. And despite a wretched economy there,he has led in every state poll conducted this year.
  The polling has been more inconsistent inColorado and Virginia. If demographic changes favor the presidentin Colorado, the state's anti-incumbent spirit '-- itvoted for Bill Clinton as the challenger in 1992 but not as theincumbent in 1996 '-- does not. (George W. Bush, however, didwin Colorado in 2004.)
  Virginia's economy is pretty good,but the state has also been a headache for pollsters. Surveys sinceJuly have shown everything from an eight-point Obama lead to afive-point advantage for Romney. In the end, Obama might simplyconclude that Florida or Ohio '-- and not Colorado and Virginia'-- represents his path of least resistance. If the presidentcan win either Florida's 29 electoral votes, or Ohio's18 plus Nevada's 6, then Romney's shot at 270 willbecome vanishingly thin, and it won't matter how Virginia andColorado turn out.
  Primary Purple: Iowa (6percent) and New Hampshire (3 percent).
  The voters in Iowa and New Hampshire arealmost entirely white and mostly rural '-- factors thatordinarily favor Republicans. But they are also highly educated,which gives Democrats a chance. Though they don't pack a lotof electoral muscle (Iowa holds just six electoral votes and NewHampshire just four), it's worth remembering that if Al Gorehad won New Hampshire in 2000, he wouldn't have even neededFlorida.
  Obama's polling has been fairlyrobust in New Hampshire, a state in which Romney may have hurthimself by disavowing the moderate positions that he took asgovernor of Massachusetts. The few polls conducted in Iowa show atossup.
  The Blue Wall: Wisconsin(9 percent), Pennsylvania (5 percent), and Michigan (1percent).
  Judging by where the campaigns areallocating their money and time, both are concentrating on slightlyRepublican-leaning states (Florida) or true bellwethers (Iowa).It's clear that Romney is playing defense while Obama is onoffense '-- a notion reinforced by the fact that Romney andcompany have taken an on-again, off-again approach toward slightlyDemocratic-leaning states like Pennsylvania and Michigan
  In Michigan, Romney's opposition tothe auto bailout may be too much of an albatross. In Pennsylvania,though, the issue may be that while the polls are close, they arealso hard to move; each party has its respective constituencies,and there may be few true undecided voters left. Obama's leadin Pennsylvania has often been narrow, but he has nevertheless ledby some margin in the state's last 22 polls.
  My calculations suggest that, despiteRomney's deficit, the upside of his winning Pennsylvania isso great that he might want to take a chance. It'sObama's closest equivalent to a must-win state, and thecombination of losing Pennsylvania and Ohio would essentiallyensure his defeat. Unfortunately for Romney, it may be too late toadopt that strategy, as Obama has come close to clinching amajority of the state's electorate in recent surveys.
  Wisconsin, however, is the state thatRomney must contest. The initial excitement over theRepublican victory in the gubernatorial recall election seemed, inthe view of the polls, unfounded. (The same polls that indicatedsupport for Scott Walker also suggested that a majority of voterswant four more years of Obama.) Local polls have narrowed sinceRomney named Paul Ryan as his running mate, but they still haveObama ahead by around a percentage point. If Romney can'tovertake him in Wisconsin, considering his problems in Ohio andFlorida, he'll leave Obama with too many paths to 270, andhimself with too few.
  If you don't follow the polls everyday, just follow the money. For example, as of Sept. 6, accordingto National Journal, the campaigns and outside groups spent acombined $330 million on advertising in states carried by George W.Bush in 2000 and 2004. In states that were carried by Democrats inthose elections, like Michigan, they've spent one-tenth asmuch. This implies that Obama will get a better result than hisparty did in those years. On the other hand, the lack ofappreciable expenditures in Arizona, Missouri or Georgia, whichJohn McCain carried in 2008, indicates that Obama is not activelytrying to expand his map, either.
  The most plausible range of outcomes runsfrom Obama losing the election by about two percentage points,slightly better than John Kerry did, to his winning it by perhapssix or seven, slightly worse than his margin from four years ago.Given where the election is being contested, however, the mostlikely outcome is that Obama wins enough tipping-point states toeke out a victory.
Thread: Dear Green Button People
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:13
  I want to show you something about where we'regoing.
  Here's a screenshot. That's how I edit the posts on this site.
  Does that look familiar to you? If you'vealready written a few comments, this is what your CommentsWorkspace lookslike.
  Obviously it's a pretty straight line betweentaking what's in one window and treating it as if it were in theother window.
  PS: Go here to learn about the green buttons.
Obama campaign's response to Mitt Romney's 47-percentremark
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  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:13
  US President Barack Obama speaksduring a campaign event at Schiller Park September 17, 2012 inColumbus, Ohio. Obama is traveling to Ohio to attend campaignevents in the Cincinnati and Columbus areas. AFP PHOTO/BrendanSMIALOWSKI (Photo credit should read BRENDANSMIALOWSKI/AFP/GettyImages)Photo by BRENDANSMIALOWSKI/AFP/GettyImages
Full Secret Video of Private Romney Fundraiser |Mother Jones
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:09
  On Monday and Tuesday Mother Jonespublished exclusive video that captured Mitt Romney speaking todonors at a May 17 fundraiser, which was held at the home ofprivate equity mogul Mark Leder. Responding to a question about the"Palestinian problem," Romney said peace in the Middle East is not possible and a Palestinianstate is not feasible, telling donors that Palestinians have "nointerest whatsoever in establishing peace and that the pathway topeace is almost unthinkable to accomplish." At another point,the GOP presidential nominee told attendees of this $50,000-a-platedinner that 47 percent of Americans'--those who back PresidentObama'--are "victims" who are "dependent upon government" and"pay no income tax." He noted: "My job is not to worry about thosepeople. I'll never convince them they should take personalresponsibility and care for their lives." Thesecomments set off a media firestorm andgenerated headlines around the world.
  Romney's remarks, denigrating nearly half of the electorate,sent the Romney campaign'--already roiled by infighting'--into panic mode. Thecampaign hastily convened a late-night press conference to address his controversial statements, andRomney stood by his "off the cuff" comments, while conceding thatthey were "not elegantly stated." He claimed his comments wheremerely a "snippet" and not the "full response." That was not true;his comments were shown in full. He added, "I hope the person whohas the video would put out the full material."
  Romney is not the only one who has called for the release of thefull 49-minute video. And we're more than happy to oblige. Thecomplete video demonstrates that Romney was not snippetized andthat he was captured raw and uncut. Here it is, in twoparts:
  And here's the full audio of Romney's remarks. To clarify, thisis the same audio available in the videos above. We'll also publisha full transcript soon.
French court tells 'Closer' to hand over Kate topless photos
  Link to Article
  Source: euronews
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:10
  Kurdish militants killed ten soldiers and woundedmore than 60 others in an attack on a Turkish army convoyon Tuesday. Security sources quoted by the Reuters newsagency attributed the attack to the Kurdistan Workers Party, orPKK. The convoy was travelling on a motorway'...
Why A Centrally-Planned Heroin Addiction Never Has A Hollywood Ending
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  Source: Untitled Feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:08
  The market rally has assuredly been more powerful thanMorgan Stanley had anticipated, defying the weakfundamentals. Many have said they don't thinkfundamentals will matter for the rest of this year. We have seenearnings estimates for the S&P500 decline recently, withnotable pre-releases from Intel, FedEx, and Burberry among others,a rash of weak recent economic data including ISM and theunderlying inventory build, jobs, PPI, industrial production, andthe beginning of softer consumption on the consumer side after astrong August. Yet, the S&P total return index is at anall-time high. People can't envision a catalyst to makefundamentals matter, they can't envision a catalyst forearnings to come down, and they still think the ''tradablerally'' from positioning and policy will last. It wellmay last for a while more, but the disconnect from fundamentalscan't last forever.
  Via Morgan Stanley's Adam Parker:Behavioral Economics 101
  Why were sales traders cheering a bad job reportFriday before last? Because they were ready foranother Pavlovian risk-on trade higher, and from all accounts theyare getting what they wanted. We understand that, and we get thatthere can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, or ''tradable''rally. We admit we were too dismissive of this mindset the past fewweeks. We hope we learned the lesson for the future, butwe're not sure we're that smart, so we will see. Thequestion we try to ask ourselves when we walk in the office is,''Do we like stocks more today than we did a few weeksago?'' Every ounce of our experience says that weshouldn't. Why? Because our view of earnings is not better,the consensus view of earnings is too high, and the market ismaterially higher than it was only a few weeks ago. Disciplinesays, no matter what the starting point, you should like thingsless now than you did then. We all know that the current''bad is good, good is good'' mentality can'tpersist. We all know that at some point, whether it is ina few days, weeks, or even months, the market will shift to a''bad is bad, and good is bad'' psychology. It'sbehavioral sciences 101. It always happens that way.
  When will fundamentals matter again?We don't know. Our guess is sometime between October earningsseason and right after the US Presidential election. If not, ourview that the market's next double-digit move is down, notup, will be wrong by year-end, and we will have to moderate ourstance or push out the timing of our expectations. We use aframework to establish our market view. The framework saysearnings will be $99 for the S&P500, not the consensus view of$116. The framework also says that low and volatileearnings growth (S&P500 earnings grew roughly 0% quarter overquarter in the July quarter and are forecasted to decline bothyear-over-year and sequentially in the October quarter) and extremeinterest rates are bad for multiples. Our conviction on our EPSoutlook remains reasonably high today. Our conviction on therelevancy of the framework for market multiples over the next threemonths is clearly the issue at hand.
  We don't do heroin.We are sure the period of being high on heroin is''enjoyable.'' Even one light beer is a moodenhancer for us. However, we try to see through to the other sideof it and make a judgment that injecting heroin into our arms isnot a good idea. What's our point? We think the probabilitythat we can end up in a benign interest rate environment goes downevery time the Fed does more unconventional policy. That'swhy it is called unconventional. We had thought that mostinvestors would decide this ''heroin'' wasn't worthit. We forgot about what it means to be an addict. We werewrong and clearly mis-calibrated the strike price of the Fed''put''. Maybe not ultimately wrong, and maybe not evenby year-end, but for sure over the past few months we were wrongabout the demand for this kind of artificial stimulus. We shouldhave known when the economic data were clearly weaker and corporateprofits plummeted during pre-release season in June and July thatthe market rally was about the promise of more unconventionalpolicy. The central debate remains the same, though. Willequities continue to go higher simply because the specter ofunlimited liquidity is there or will investors see through to theother side of the ''high'' and worry that we aregoing to be in an extreme interest rate environment for a while andthat earnings growth will remain tepid? Often addicts know whatthey're doing is wrong, but they do it anyway.
  Manhattan is crowded. In our judgment,sentiment is decidedly bullish.Decidedly '' both on the earnings outlook and the equitymarket. We know everyone likes to romanticize that they are acontrarian bull on an island by themselves, but trust us, thatisland is not vacant. It's crowded. Like Manhattan crowded.(Actually, we just looked it up, and Manhattan, by density, is onlythe 13th most dense city on earth. Chennai, India is #1. This worldwideweb thing is cool.) We have received several emails in the lastweek from investors with messages of the ilk that ''weall know this will end in tears'', but for now,people are not at the rehab center.
  People can't envision a catalyst to make fundamentalsmatter, they can't envision a catalyst for earnings to comedown, and they still think the ''tradable rally'' frompositioning and policy will last. It well may last for a whilemore, but the disconnect from fundamentals can't lastforever.
  Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 5(7 votes)
Minister De Jager: 'We zijn er nog niet en we gaan het allemaal voelen'
  Link to Article
  Source: Een andere kijk op nieuws @infomagnl » Nieuws items
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:06
  18 september 2012
  Demissionair ministervan Financin Jan Kees de Jager heeft vandaag de miljoenennataaangeboden aan scheidend Kamervoorzitter Gerdi Verbeet. Hij sprakdaarbij de Tweede Kamer toe over de storm van 'gure economischetegenwind' waar Nederland mee te kampen heeft. Het Lenteakkoord vanVVD, CDA, D66, ChristenUnie en GroenLinks vormt de basis voor demiljoenennota, zei De Jager.De Jager begon met een terugblik opde financile crisis: 'Het is deze maand precies vier jaar geledendat in de Verenigde Staten de financile wereld onderuit ging. Erwaren jaren die rustiger leken en de hoop gloorde dat het voorbijwas, maar de crisis wil maar niet wijken. Steeds stuurde de gureeconomische tegenwind het water hoog tegen de dijkenop.'
  De verwachting van de groei is voorde komende jaren gematigd, zei De Jager. De minister benadrukte hetbelang van Europa. 'Europa is en blijft belangrijk voor ons.Nederland is de toegangspoort voor Europa, zelfs nu profiteren wevan de export.'
  Bekijk orgineel item op www.volkskrant.nl
  Meer Nieuwsitems
GEAB N°67 is available! Global systemic crisis/October2012 -The global economy sucked into a black hole and world The seven key factors of anunprecedented double shock
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:05
  GEAB N°67 is available! Global systemiccrisis/October 2012 -The global economy sucked into a black holeand world geopolitics heated to white-hot: The seven key factors ofan unprecedented double shock
  LEAP/E2020 | Dimanche 16 Septembre 2012
  - Public announcement GEAB N°67 (September16, 2012) -
  As LEAP/E2020 anticipated since the end of 2011,the end of summer 2012 marks the beginning of the revival forEuroland with the emergence of a positive dynamic fed by twolasting phenomena: first, the progressive operational installationof the instruments bitterly discussed and decided upon during thelast 18 months and, secondly, the visionary spark brought by thepolitical changes of the last six months which have putEuroland's medium to long term future back in the middle ofthe decision-making process. The Euro's progress these pastweeks offers a perfect illustration of the phenomenon (1). Thatbeing said, Europe will be in recession for the next six to twelvemonths. It just goes to show that the only good news that weannounced in the June 2012 GEAB issue is far from being miraculous.In a certain sense, it's even the contrary, sincehenceforth it's no longer possible to hide the globaleconomy's tragic state behind the pretext of the ''Euroor Greek crisis''. The more Euroland advances constructively,the more the ''Potemkinien'' (2) character of the US,Chinese, Japanese and Brazilian... economies' health>> will show itself. The tree will no longer hide the forest,namely that all the major global economies are entering recessionor slowing growth simultaneously, leading the socio-economic andfinancial world into a black hole.
  At the same time summer 2012 will have marked a majoracceleration in world geopolitical dislocation with a Syrianconflict which becomes more dangerous for the Middle East and theworld day by day (3), Israeli-Iranian tension which is ready toexplode at any time, and widespread testing of declining US power'' from the China Sea to Latin America via the whole Muslimworld. The strategic-military world is heated white-hot as themassive resumption of arms sales worldwide illustrates for thatmatter, with the United States supplying 85% of the total (4).
  For these reasons, LEAP/E2020 maintains its June2012 Red Alert and estimates that, by the end of October 2012, theglobal economy will be sucked into a black hole against a backdropof world geopolitics heated white-hot. Suffice it to say that thecoming weeks will, according to our team, carry the planet away ina hurricane of unprecedented crises and conflicts.So, in this GEAB issue, LEAP/E2020 sets out the list of theseven key factors of this double shock without modern historicalequivalent:
  In addition, this GEAB issue contains an anticipation of thecumulative impact of the crisis and the Internet on European retailtrade, predicting a loss of 2.5 million jobs by 2015.
  This issue also contains the first of a series of threeanticipations on the risks of a social explosion in Europe, theUnited States (GEAB N°68) and China (GEAB N°69). We decidedbegin with Europe which, according to our researchers, shouldexperience ''times of riots in the first half of 2013'',with of course big differences between European countries.
  Also, you will find two GEAB Indices in this issue, the GEAB $Index and the brand new GEAB '‚¬ Index, which will henceforthappear three times a year.
  And, of course, there is the GlobalEurometre which takes thepulse of Europeans' views on key subjects.
  This month our recommendations concern currencies ($, '‚¬,£, Yen, Yuan), gold, energy and basic foodstuffs, stockexchanges and life assurance.
  Finally, you will find information on the programme for thethird Euro-BRICS seminar organized in Cannes by LEAP, inpartnership with the MGIMO on September 27th/29th, 2012and a GEAB subscriber special offer for the online training inpolitical anticipation organized by our partner FEFAP.
  The very painful end of the US anaestheticis at the crossroads of the seven key factors of a double shock ofthe coming weeks
  Because it is indeed that. As we have underlinedon many occasions in the GEAB, the United States has, since thebeginning of this crisis, refused to face reality (5) by havingincreasing recourse to financial, monetary,'... (and military)subterfuge to try and mitigate the consequences of the crisis. Allthis however is proving to be ineffective at the end of summer2012, in spite of the trillions of Dollars thrown down what isproving to be a bottomless hole.The best proof is the Fed's September 13th decision tomaintain its Operation Twist programme of Treasury repurchases byadding to it an unlimited programme (in time and amount) ofmortgage backed securities repurchases (40 Billion USD/per month)to try and revive the US property market and, through the latter,employment and consumption. The Fed is aware that this decisionwill cause a backlash and damaging consequences internationally. Infact it has been hesitating for months ahead of a new QE3 (6). But,in trying to avoid a socio-economic implosion and a stock exchangecollapse on Wall Street ahead of the November 2012 elections (7)whilst trying to save its own credibility under heavy attack fromthe Republican camp, it chose ''Psychological Easing''rather than ''Quantitative Easing''.
  The Fed is increasingly becoming the key player in the USproperty market, thus persisting in confusing the problems ofliquidity and solvency. US households don't have any moremoney to buy or build houses (8). Mortgage interest rateswon't change anything here. Only Wall Street, for a certaintime, will be able to continue surfing on record levels until one''beautiful morning'' everything collapses due to asudden awareness that the real economy is sinking intodepression.
  Indeed all the signals are already on red: employmentisn't moving up, the jobs created are paid very much lessthan those lost (9), poverty is exploding throughout the country(10), '... and the US multinationals (11) have increasedannouncements of falling profits for the second half of 2012 and2013, returning to the levels of 2008/009, typical of a recessionperiod (12).
  The US political system's current andfuture impotence (13) in facing its deficit problems (14) combinedwith sequestration >> (15) of the Federal budget (16)the effects of which are already making themselves felt throughoutthe US economy (as we had anticipated from spring 2012) (17), willturn the coming weeks into an endless succession of bad economicnews (18) '... against a backdrop of increasingly lesswell-managed geopolitical challenges. Because the anaesthetic isfinished on this front as well!It only took just a year for all the perverse effects of the2011 Western attack on Libya to appear: from the assassination ofthe United States ambassador to Libya to the anti-US riotsthroughout the Moslem world, frankly one can't deduce asuccessful policy of ''accompaniment'' of the Arabrevolutions.
  The fierce Russian and Chinese will to support the Syrian regimeagainst Western and Gulf monarchies' attempts to overthrow it(19) has not only wrecked any positive dynamics at the UN SecurityCouncil but has turned itself into a test of US power in the MiddleEast.
  Finally, it's the whole of East and South-East Asia(Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, South Korea,'...) which, throughthe conflicts over numerous small islands, is in the process oftesting the American capacity to stay put, face to face with China(20), an Asiatic power. And they are evaluating in real time whatremains of US power in the region. By the beginning of 2013, theirconclusions will recombine the alliances and allegiances inheritedfrom the Second World War.
  And even the ''back-yard'' of the United States(according to the Monroe doctrine), namely Latin America, hasundertaken to collectively face multi-decade US geopoliticalpositions: the exclusion of Cuba from trans-American fori andquestioning of the war on drugs, the pillar of US interventionismin Latin America for more than forty years (21).
  Let's quote Europe also as an anecdote, sinceEuroland's accelerated integration de facto constitutes anousting of US influence at the heart of European construction.Beginning in 2013, the IMF (i.e. Washington) will certainly benever invited again to deal with intra-Euroland problems as it isthe case today with Greece. Even as regards defence, the surpriseannouncement of a possible BAE Systems '' EADS merger, withEADS as the major shareholder (22), illustrates the end of an erawhen defence had to be transatlantic with the United Kingdom incharge. Whereas, from now on, BAE Systems is fighting for its life(23).
  ---------Notes:(1) See previous GEAB issues.
  (2) See Wikipedia.
  (3) Source: Yahoo/Reuters, 15/09/2012
  (4) Especially in the Persian Gulf. Source: New York Times, 26/08/2012
  (5) Sources: New York Times;, 14/08/2012; Financial Sense, 24/08/2012
  (6) Sources: CNBC, 14/09/2012; Market Watch, 29/08/2012
  (7) The Fed has therefore decided to support Barack Obamaultimately much closer to it than the new Republican wave. Not verysurprising since Mitt Romney announced that he wouldn't giveBen Bernanke a further term in office if he were elected. Source:Market Watch, 23/08/2012
  (8) Source: USAToday, 14/09/2012
  (9) Sources: USAToday, 21/08/2012; al-Jazeera, 20/08/2012; New York Times, 31/08/2012
  (10) Sources: USAToday, 23/08/2012; Bloomberg, 10/09/2012; Bloomberg, 05/09/2012
  (11) And they aren't the only ones. Even the luxury goodsindustry, primarily European, is starting to panic. Source:Yahoo/Reuters, 14/09/2012
  (12) Source: Money News, 10/09/2012
  (13) Source: Der Spiegel, 17/08/2012; USAToday, 20/08/2012
  (14) The budget deficit is soaring towards new records. Source:ZeroHedge, 10/09/2012
  (15) Automatic cuts in the defence and welfare budgets.
  (16) An agreement doesn't seem possible either onautomatic cuts, or on the end of tax reductions. Source: CNBC,11/09/2012
  (17) Source: Reuters, 07/09/2012
  (18) Of which growing damage to its commercial competitiveness,a priority of president Obama's however. And, of course, thenumerous US credit downgrades of degradations '... but frankly,everyone knows that already, except the blind who amass US TreasuryBonds. Sources: Les Affaires, 11/09/2012; Market Watch, 14/09/2012; Market Watch, 14/09/2012
  (19) The United States is increasingly dependent on Saudi oil.Source: New York Times, 16/08/2012
  (20) Sources: Der Spiegel, 14/09/2012
  (21) Source: CIP AmericasProgram, 14/08/2012
  (22) Let's not be mistaken here: BAE Systems is fightingfor its life in this operation, not EADS. As we pointed out in theGEAB N°66, BAE Systems is one of the companies which will bestrongly impacted by the Pentagon's budgetary reductions; notonly because 20% of its turnover is with the US government butalso, because it's a non-American company, its US competitorswould, without any doubt, put it completely on the sidelines inthese lean years. The USA-UK ''special relationship'' isa mild delirium which David Cameron and George Osborne must stilltalk about at the pub in the evening; but it no longer has any morereality on the American side. However the other large customer ofBAE Systems is the British government which has massively cut itsmilitary expenditure. From where a question of survival for one ortwo years maximum for BAE Systems'... and the only possibleoption: Europe, or rather Euroland with EADS.
  (23) Source: The Telegraph, 14/09/2012
  Tags :
Europese denktank: Wereldeconomie eind oktober in zwart gat gezogen
  Link to Article
  Source: Een andere kijk op nieuws @infomagnl » Nieuws items
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:04
  18 september 2012De Europese denktank LEAP/E2020, deenige onafhankelijke club experts die de toekomst van de eurozonenog altijd zonnig inziet, schrijft in de septemberuitgave van hetGlobal Europe Anticipation Bulletin dat de wereldeconomie eindoktober in een zwart gat zal worden gezogen en onze planeet 'eenwervelstorm van ongekende crises en conflicten' te wachtenstaat.LEAP/E2020 constateert dat'Euroland', zoals de eurozone bijna liefkozend wordt genoemd, deafgelopen maanden veel vooruitgang heeft geboekt bij het te lijfgaan van de crisis, maar dat ook Europa niet kan voorkomen dat hetde komende 6 tot 12 maanden in een recessie zal belanden. Hetzelfdegeldt voor de Amerikaanse, Chinese, Japanse en Braziliaanseeconomien.
  De 'dubbele schok' van zowel eeneconomische als geopolitieke crisis veroorzaakt in Europa hetrisico op een 'sociale explosie', vooral omdat er tot 2015 nog eens2,5 miljoen banen verloren zullen gaan. In de eerste helft van 2013verwacht de denktank dan ook rellen in diverse EU landen. Allesignalen in Amerika op rood In het centrum van de komende crisisstaan echter de Verenigde Staten. De biljoenen dollars die uit degeldpompen van het land zijn gestroomd om de economie op gang tehouden zijn 'in een bodemloze put' verdwenen. De FED gaat met $ 40miljard per maand door met het aankopen van hypotheekfondsen om dehuizenmarkt overeind te houden en heeft uiteindelijk tot de derderonde Quantitative Easing -massaal geld bij'drukken'- besloten omte voorkomen dat de sociaal-economische implosie en de instortingvan de aandelenmarkt op Wall Street al v""r depresidentsverkiezingen op 6 november plaatsvindt. DeAmerikaanse huishoudens hebben echter geen geld meer om huizen tekopen en te bouwen. Het kunstmatig laag of zelfs op nul houden vande rente heeft daarom geen enkele zin om de huizenmarkt enconsumptie weer aan te jagen. Op Wall Street zullen nog wel evenrecords na records worden gebroken, totdat 'op een prachtige morgenalles instort omdat men plotseling beseft dat de echte economie ineen depressie wegzinkt.' Alle signalen staan dan ook op rood:de werkloosheid wil maar niet omlaag -en bedraagt volgens dewerkelijke statistieken ongeveer 22%-, de nieuwe banen die nogw(C)l worden geschapen betalen veel minder dan degenen dieverloren gingen, in heel het land explodeert de armoede enAmerikaanse multinationals kampen opnieuw met snel dalende winsten.Het vastgelopen, onmachtige politieke systeem kan hetbegrotingstekort niet substantieel terugdringen en ziet zich dekomende weken geconfronteerd met een eindeloze reeks slechteeconomische berichten. Geopolitieke crises Ook op geopolitiekgebied is de VS in een crisis terecht gekomen. De steun voor deArabische Lente en de aanval op Libi blijken 'perversegevolgen' te hebben, zoals de barbaarse moord op (en volgenssommige Arabische nieuwsbronnen ook verkrachting van) deambassadeur in Libi en de anti-Amerikaanse rellen in heel demoslimwereld. Daarnaast wordt de ernstige crisis in Syri doorRusland en China aangegrepen om de Amerikaanse militaire hegemoniein het Midden Oosten uit te dagen.
  Hetzelfde geldt voor het VerreOosten, waar de ruzies over een aantal kleine eilandjes eveneenseen serieuze test zijn van de Amerikaanse macht en wil om zijnbondgenoten Japan, Zuid Korea, Taiwan en de Filippijnen tebeschermen tegen het almaar sterker en brutaler wordende China.LEAP/E2020 verwacht dat er ook in deze regio in 2013 groteveranderingen op het programma staan. Zelfs in Amerika's'achtertuin', Latijns Amerika, wordt de traditionele invloed van deVS, die onder andere het uitsluiten van Cuba en de 'war on drugs'heeft veroorzaakt, aangevochten. Tel daarbij op de dreigende oorlogtussen Iran en Isral, en de conclusie van de denktank dat demensheid op de rand staat van een serie ongekende en historischesociale, politieke en militaire schokken lijkt meer dangerechtvaardigd.
  Bekijk orgineel item op xandernieuws.punt.nl
  Meer Nieuwsitems
Robin Roberts: 'My Body Is So Weak But Not My Mind'
  Link to Article
  Source: Radar Online
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:58
  By RadarStaff
  Good Morning America's RobinRoberts -- who remains off the air as she prepares fora bone marrow transplant later this week -- posted a moving newblog entry Tuesday in which she says her ''body is soweak.''
  In her latestblog posted on abcnews.com, Roberts, 51, writes of herstruggles and the impact of daily chemo treatments on her body.
  PHOTOS: Celebs Stand Up To Cancer
  ''Last Sunday to lift my spirits I threw a little party atmy apartment for my ''GMA'' family. The next morning Iwalked through the hospital doors, with my guardian angels -- mom& dad -- back together and blazing a trail ahead of me.
  ''The start of last week went well but the dailychemo/treatment caught up to me by the weekend. My body is so weakbut not my mind. YOU give me the courage to keep going.
  ''So today is my last day of chemo...Wednesday is called aday of rest, yay, right! The transplant is scheduled for Thursdaymorning.
  ''Bless you & Onward!''
  As RadarOnline.com has previously reported, Roberts will underthe transplant to treat a rare blood disorder, myelodysplasticsyndrome or MDS, that had damaged her marrow. (Her sister Sally isthe donor.)
  PHOTOS: Hollywood's Most Charitable Stars
  Although the disease, once known as pre-leukemia, often ariseson its own, the disease also can occur as a result of chemotherapy,"as it did as a result of Robin's successful breast cancertreatment" in 2007, according to Richard Besser,GMA's chief health and medical editor.
  Roberts isn't expected to return to GMA forseveral months as she recovers. Her leave comes at a critical timefor the morning program, which recently has surpassed theTODAY show in the ratings following the ouster of Ann Curry as co-host and a series ofbad press, including TODAY's decision to skip the 9/11 moment of silence in order to interviewKris Jenner about her breast implants.
  PHOTOS: College Football Star Escorts Teenage Cancer Patient To HerProm
  RELATED STORIES:
  Robin Roberts Checks Into Hospital To Prepare For Bone MarrowTransplant
  Robin Roberts Reveals Tearful & Touching Farewell ToMom
  TODAY Braces For Budget Cuts, Will Matt Lauer Give Up Some Of His$25 Million Salary To Help Save Jobs?
  Katie Couric Blasts NBC For Handling Of Ann Curry's Firing FromTODAY
Naaktscenes 'Verliefd op Ibiza' gestolen
  Link to Article
  Source: Telegraaf.nl - prive
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:55
  di 18 sep 2012,16:22
  Van onze redactieAMSTERDAM - De montagecomputer vanJohan Nijenhuis is tijdens de opnames van 'Verliefd opIbiza' gestolen. Op het ruwe materiaal zijn een aantal acteursnaakt te zien.
  Regisseur Johan Nijenhuis was samen met deacteurs op Ibiza om de laatste scenes op te nemen voor de film'Verliefd op Ibiza.'
  Tijdens het in- en uitladen van de auto bleef de montagecomputerenkele minuten onbeheerd achter en is deze gestolen. "We hebbengelukkig een back-up van het ruwe materiaal. Het grote probleem isechter dat Jim Bakkum, JanKooijman en Marly van der Velden helemaalnaakt in beeld te zien zijn."
  Het gaat om een aantal komische sc¨nes waarbij de acteursvan kleren wisselen. "In een sc¨ne wisselt Jim van kleren enis hij even naakt te zien. Dat is niet in de film te zien zijn wantin de montage snij ik dat er natuurlijk uit."
  De regisseur is als de dood dat het beeldmateriaal ergensopduikt. "Als het over twee weken nog niet naar buiten is gebracht,kan ik pas weer opgelucht ademhalen."
  Nijenhuis staat er om bekend dat hij altijd de vreemdste dingenmeemaakt tijdens het draaien van films, waardoor er nu alweer wordtgeroepen dat het om een publiciteitsstunt gaat.
  Proefabonnement,10 weken '‚¬ 30,-!(C) 1996-2012 Telegraaf Media Nederland |Landelijke Media B.V., Amsterdam.Alle rechten voorbehouden.e-mail: redactie-i@telegraaf.nlPrivacy | Cookies | Disclaimer
@adamcurry http://t.co/pFQbqs5x
  Link to Article
  Source: @adamcurry - Twitter Search
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:36
  18.09.2012. 16:00h 01
  Kako javlja britanski New Musical Express, za nedavnootkriven jedan od najstarijih video snimaka grupe SexPistols, na kojem na nastupu u mestu Penzance izvode pesmu"Holidays In The Sun" koja Ä‡e tek kasnijepostati Ä�etvrti singl sa njihovog albuma "Never MindThe Bollocks" objavljenog 1977, pronaÄ‘eno jeinteresantno reÅenje; reditelj JulienTemple je u kombinaciji sa ranijim snimcima benda u posetiBerlinu napravio "novi" video za pesmu. O tome, TemplekaÅ¾e:
  "PonaÄ‘eni snimci su raÄ‘eni sa samo jednom kamerom, alipokazuju koliko je tada bend bio izuzetan i neobiÄ�an - svi usali deluju kao da su Åokirani, hipnotisani, a amosfera dase ispred vas deÅava neÅto veoma vaÅ¾no je prostozarazna. Nastup je snimljen u mestu Penzance 1977. godine - SexPistols su se pojavili nenajavljeni, a publika prosto nije verovalaÄ�emu prisustvuje."
  Spot za pesmu "Holidays InThe Sun" moÅ¾ete da pogledate ovde, a video Ä‡e bitiobjavljen na deluxe reizdanju povodom 35-ogodiÅnjice objavljivanja albuma"Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's the SexPistols", koje Ä‡e sadrÅ¾ati 3CD-a, knjigu utvrdom povezu i DVD sa video materijalima, i biÄ‡e objavljeno24. septembra.
  Izvor: NME.com
@adamcurry @therealdvorak Did you know they were counting? MT @Heritage: 52nd Thwarted Terror Plot Targets Chicago Bar http://t.co/vQIYvdlW
  Link to Article
  Source: @adamcurry - Twitter Search
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:36
  For patrons at an unnamed Chicago bar this past Friday, happyhour could have had a less than happy ending, as the FBI arrested18-year-old in an attempt to detonate a car bomb right outside. Thankfully, theFBI had been tracking Daoud for months and had disabled the bomb,ensuring the public was never in danger. However, Daoud'sarrest still serves as an important reminder of the continuedthreat of terrorism against the United States and the growth ofhomegrown extremism.
  With Daoud's arrest this weekend, there have now been52 publicly known, Islamist-inspired terrorist plots since9/11. Of these, at least 43 could be considered homegrownplots. In other words, the plot was to be carried out by anAmerican citizen, legal permanent resident, or visitor radicalizedwithin the U.S.
  The fact that the U.S. hasn't seen a successfullarge-scale attack since 9/11 truly points to the success of our intelligence and law enforcement. In the case ofthis most recent plot, the FBI had been tracking Daoud'semails and communications on Jihadi Internet forums, where heexpressed a desire to engage in violent jihad and sought advice onhow to kill Americans in ''accordance with the Quran.''In May, undercover FBI agents reached out to Daoud and ensured thathis plot was foiled.
  The threat of terrorism remains real, and the U.S. must remainvigilant. Ensuring that the terrorists aren't successful thenext time around requires that the U.S. take a proactive approachto halting terrorism and promote a true strategy for counteringviolent extremism.
  This week's most recent foiled plot should serve as areminder that there is no room for complacency.
Jury duty, voting and Romney
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:21
  1.Jury duty is amazing. Especially if you go all the way to averdict. You learn how the architecture of our democracy places itsfaith in the people. You might think, if you listened to some ofour political leaders, that this would be a bad idea. Because mostof us are takers not makers. But it works, because people are a lotsmarter, honest and hard-working than we give ourselves credit for.And when you trust people, when you really make that point, and thelegal process does that, over and over, everyone comesthrough. Some people accept trust faster than others, but in theend, all twelve jurors accept their responsibility. When we passedjudgement I was sure we had arrived at the correctdecision.
  As a juror this is impressive. Everyone standswhen the jury comes in. But then everyone, including the jury,stands when the judge enters. Speech is formal, polite, even whenthey're saying horrible things. May it please the court. Yourhonor. Mr. Jones. It's all about respect.
  And the jurors must remain silent, for days onend. But the irony is that everyone in the room is waiting for usto speak. You are left with your thoughts and your senses. Youlook, you listen. Think. What does that mean. What are they reallysaying. Look at the body language. It's deliberative, almost ameditation. Because the question they're asking is serious. Didthis person do something horrible. Something they must be punishedfor. In the US we don't take this lightly.
  2. Voting is the same idea. You have to lookand look at the people who are asking for your vote. Sure they'relying. So was the defendent in the trial. Everyone lies, even ifthey took the oath saying they wouldn't. Dirty little secret isthat if you're on trial, everyone understands that you can lie todefend yourself. And so do politicians. But if you really thinkabout it, you know who they are and what they're really saying,behind the lies.
  3. So nothing was actually revealed about MittRomney in yesterday's tapes. If you had been watching this guy,like a juror watches every actor in the courtroom, you recognizedthe pattern. He might have been the guy who runs a company you onceworked for. The principal of your school. Your friend'sgrandfather. To me, he was a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. Hewas the kind of guy who doesn't know what it means to speak thetruth. His existence has nothing to do with the truth. He's agoal-oriented person. He's trying to get something from you. Hedoesn't care what he has to say to get it. Since he's running forPresident, a lot of the times that means he's out of his elementand you can tell. He's not comfortable with teachers, with workingpeople. But speaking to the rich donors in that dining room, thatwas his element. He was comfortable. The same way thedefendent in our DUI case would have been comfortable in a barslamming down a few whiskies before going for a drive. No jurorwould have been fooled by Mitt Romney before the tape, but what wesaw confirmed what we already knew.
  I believe in the American system, and totallyreject the idea that your vote doesn't matter. You think it doesn'tmatter because you haven't discovered what it means. If you had alittle faith in it, if 25 percent more people had more faith, itwould work a lot better than you have imagined. Because givenenough time, no matter how much they lie, we figure it out. Changewill come slowly but it will come. But don't tell me it can'tchange if you haven't even tried.
defence.professionals | defpro.com
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:42
  U.S. Navy MQ-8B Fire Scouts to be equipped with BAESystems' APKWS
  08:24 GMT, September 18, 2012 NASHUA,N.H. | For the first time, the Advanced Precision Kill WeaponSystem (APKWS) will be integrated onto an unmanned aerial vehicle,BAE Systems announced Sept. 17. The company, which designed andmanufactures the guidance section of the laser-guided rocket, wasrecently awarded a U.S. Navy contract to add the APKWS onto theMQ-8B Fire Scout UAV.
  ''APKWS' precision firepower will soon be availableon a UAV platform,'' said Roy Rumbaugh, APKWS program managerat BAE Systems. ''With BAE Systems' innovativetechnologies, the Fire Scout will engage targets on land or at seawith laser-guided accuracy while keeping our warfighters out ofharm's way.''
  The system is being integrated onto the Fire Scout in responseto an urgent operational need and is being prepared for rapiddeployment. BAE Systems will support this rapid APKWS integrationby performing system analyses and modeling based on its highfidelity, integrated flight simulator.
  "This expansion onto unmanned aircraft is the next exciting stepafter demonstrating performance on both rotary and fixed-wingmanned aircraft," Rumbaugh said.
  Unmanned aircraft can operate in regimes that are considered toohazardous for manned aircraft and dramatically expand the types ofmissions that can be conducted from surface ships.
  The APKWS is the U.S. government's only program of record forthe semi- active laser-guided 2.75-inch rocket. U.S. Marineaviators recently completed the initial operational test andevaluation phase of the APKWS program, firing successfully againststationary and moving targets from AH-1W and UH-1Y helicopters. TheAPKWS system has since been deployed in Afghanistan and the companycontinues to ship units to theater for use against insurgentforces.
  BAE Systems has been the APKWS prime contractor since 2006. Thecompany is partnered with the Direct and Time Sensitive StrikeProgram Office at the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command for thedevelopment, integration, and delivery of the APKWS.
  (Photo: BAE Systems)
Nightly backup prefs
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's development work
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:34
  A new OPML Server level prefs page for settingnightly backup prefs.
  Every night at 1AM your server will do abackup of all open databases. You can turn this feature off or haveit save the result in a different folder.
  I have it save my backups in a Dropbox folder,so the backups are stored off-server. If you have more than oneserver, as I do, create a separate folder for each. However do notsave backups in the Public sub-folder of your dropbox folderbecause these files can contain passwords.
  Here's a screenshot of the new prefs page.
  You can access the page on the server atthisaddress.
  Parts
  opmlEditor.data.outlines.prefs
Here's Why Mitt's 100% Wrong on the 47% Beast
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:28
  US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks to thepress in Costa Mesa, California, on September 17, 2012. (NICHOLASKAMM/AFP/GettyImages)
  Mitt Romney has just committed the worst presidential-candidategaffe since Gerald Ford announced in 1976 that "there is no Sovietdomination of Eastern Europe."
  Irreparable? To Romney's image, yes; to his election chances ...we'll see. But you know who's determined that Romney never recover?His deluded supporters in the conservative media world.
  Here's National Review news editor Daniel Foster. Afterconceding that Romney's remarks about the 47% were maladroit,Foster wrote:
  In other words, the more fully Romney owns thesecomments the less the press can report them as a''gaffe.'' Romney is now in a position that he has tobring the fight to Obama on the entitlement state.
  Likewise, former National Review editor JohnO'Sullivan:
  If Romney responds to the Mother Jones storyby backing off from his basic argument that far too many Americansare dependent upon the government and that this dependency skewstheir votes, he will weaken his campaign enormously.
  My Twitter feed has a lot more in this vein, and expect it tobecome the definitive conservative point of view after RushLimbaugh weighs in at noon.
  Romney was expressing views that are widely held among a certaingroup of conservatives, and they are determined to make it asawkward as possible for him to retreat from those views.
  You might wonder: why?
  As David Brooks asked this morning:
  Who are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteranwho goes to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go tocollege? Is it the retiree on Social Security orMedicare?
  More than one-fifth of Romney's moocher 47% are elderly: peoplewho pay no income taxes because their income takes the form ofSocial Security - many of those people are Republican voters (evenif they don't understand "dependency" to apply to them).
  Among today's elderly, the great majority will receive more inMedicare benefits than they ever paid in taxes - dependency again.You can do the math for yourself and your parents right here:
  (Those who retired prior to 1967 received full Medicare benefitswithout ever paying into Medicare at all.)
  And as Ezra Klein pointed out yesterday, more than 60% of the 47% pay payrolltaxes. At 15.3%, the payroll tax rate represents a higher rate oftax than that paid by Mitt Romney himself.
  Only about one-fifth of taxpayers are non-elderly people who payno tax at all, and they are paying no tax mostly because they areunemployed in the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, a crisisthat candidate Romney blames on the president and promises tocorrect. It seems a hard saying to call these promisedbeneficiaries of a Romney recovery people who don't takeresponsibility for their lives.
  So again: why?
  Start with this data point:
  When you ask white Americans to estimate the black population ofthe United States, the answer averages out at nearly 30%. Ask themto estimate the Hispanic population, and the answer averages out at22%.
  So when a politician or a broadcaster talks about 47% in"dependency," the image that swims into many white voters' minds isnot their mother in Florida, her Social Security untaxed, receivingMedicare benefits vastly greater than her lifetime taxcontributions; it is not their uncle, laid off after 30 years andnow too old to start over. No, the image that comes into mind isminorities on welfare. Like this, for example:
CCS NJMP Thunderbolt 1 September 2012 GTL wreck on Lap 1 in Turn 3
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:23
'Cruise Ship Virus' Vaccine Shows Promise - Healthy Living Center - EverydayHealth.com
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 13:08
  Medically Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MDand Dorothy Caputo MA
  SAN FRANCISCO '-- FRIDAY, Sept. 14, 2012 (MedPageToday) '-- An investigational vaccine targeting thevirus that spoils cruise ship vacations and sends college kids tothe hospital was safe and prompted large and rapid immune responsesin a phase I clinical study, a researcher reported here.
  Within a week of receiving the first of two doses of theproduct, participants showed 10- to 100-fold mean increases inantibodies against two norovirus subtypes, said John Treanor, MD,of the University of Rochester in Rochester, N.Y. The increaseslasted for the full 56 days of subsequent blood samplecollection,
  No severe or serious adverse events considered to be related tothe vaccine were seen, he told attendees here at the InterscienceConference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. The mostcommon adverse effects were mild to moderate injection-site painand mild headache, Treanor said.
  He said the antibody responses were very good '-- enough sothat it might be possible that a single dose would be sufficient,although he emphasized that it was also possible that the seconddose would make the response more durable.
  The company developing the vaccine, Ligocyte Pharmaceuticals ofBozeman, Mont., is now conducting additional trials with theproduct. A Ligocyte official said that the first viral challengetests in vaccinated individuals had just been conducted thisweek.
  Noroviruses are a group of foodborne pathogens that cause acutevomiting and diarrhea as well as some flu-like symptoms such asfever and myalgia. Sometimes called the "cruise ship virus" becauseof several heavily publicized outbreaks among passengers on thesevessels, it is also a growing problem for schoolchildren, collegedorm residents, prisoners, military personnel, and others ininstitutional settings.
  In a separate presentation at ICAAC, Hoonmo Koo, MD, of BaylorCollege of Medicine in Houston, noted that norovirus also appearsto be responsible for many cases of so-called traveler's diarrhea,as well as episodes of vomiting and diarrhea in toddlers.
  With the increasing use of effective vaccines against rotavirus,Koo said, it was likely that norovirus will "soon eclipserotavirus" as the leading cause of viral gastrointestinal illnessin young children.
  Late last year, clinical trial results with a first-generationnorovirus vaccine were published in the New England Journal ofMedicine showing that the intranasally delivered productoffered significant protection against challenge withNorwalk virus, the first member of the norovirus family to beidentified.
  However, Treanor explained, that product '-- based onvirus-like particles derived from Norwalk virus '-- would notbe expected to be effective against other subtypes.
  Five main serotype groups of norovirus are known, with Norwalkvirus belonging to Group I. There are a greater number of Group IIviruses known, with one serotype called GII.4 now the most commonamong clinical isolates.
  The vaccine tested in the current study includes virus-likeparticles carrying antigens from GII.4 and Norwalk virus, and wasdesigned to be given intramuscularly.
  Treanor and colleagues conducted the trial in two stages '--an initial dose-ranging phase in a total of 43 healthy volunteers,which established that antibody responses were maximized with dosesof 50 mcg, and a second, placebo-controlled trial in three cohortsof different age groups, each receiving two 50-mcg doses four weeksapart.
  The age groups were 18 to 49, 50 to 64, and 65 to 85.
  In his ICAAC presentation, Treanor reported results for the 69participants in both stages who received either placebo or the50-mcg dose. These included 35 receiving the active vaccine and 34given placebo.
  Antibody titers against both serotypes increased to means ofabout 100,000, from baseline levels ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 inthe different cohorts. There was no apparent difference in antibodyresponse by participant age.
  These increases were seen both for IgG and IgA antibody types,Treanor reported, and they were maximal in blood samples collectedone week after vaccination. Some decline over time was seen in IgAtiters during the 56-day follow-up, but not in IgG levels.
  With antibody titers already at their highest after the firstdose, no additional benefit was apparent from the second dose,although Treanor cautioned that this finding didn't mean a singledose would be adequate for clinical protection.
  There was little to no difference in local or systemic adverseeffects seen after the second versus the first dose. Local effects,mainly pain and tenderness at the injection site, were seen in morethan half of patients over the first few days after vaccination,but these tapered to near zero within a week.
  Systemic effects were less frequent, affecting 10 percent to 15percent of participants, and also largely disappeared within oneweek.
  Both Treanor and Koo noted that major hurdles remain to becleared before the vaccine could be considered ready for clinicaluse. Most importantly, they said, the degree to which the virusevolves with time to evade a vaccine remains unknown.
  What Koo called "antigenic drift" could mean that noroviruses"may require active surveillance similar to what we have now forinfluenza viruses," he said. The result could be that the vaccinewill need regular updates in composition so that it remains activeagainst circulating strains, he said.
  A possibly related issue, according to Koo, is that the immunityfollowing naturally acquired norovirus infections wanes fairlyquickly, in less than 2 years. Even if that is not the result ofantigenic drift, it could mean that vaccination would have to berepeated in order to maintain protection.
  Another roadblock, Treanor said, is that norovirus is difficultto work with in the laboratory. It doesn't grow in culture and itdoesn't infect animals, therefore depriving researchers of theirmost important tools for developing and testing new vaccines.
  That complicates efforts to develop new types of vaccines, suchas a polyvalent product to protect against additional norovirusserotype groups.
  Source: 'CruiseShip Virus' Vaccine Shows Promise
NY Times Spins New Video of Ambassador Stevens
  Link to Article
  Source: Dprogram.net
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:34
  September 18th, 2012
  Video shows Libyans celebrating Stevens' death, NY Timesclaims men are rescuing him
  (PaulWatson) '' A new video which shows Libyans apparentlycelebrating the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens as his bodyis recovered from a U.S. Consulate in Benghazi following lastweek's attack has been spun by the New York Times to portraythe men as rescuers who are trying to save the Ambassador'slife, when in fact they are reveling in his death.
  The clip shows a crowd of men attempting to removeStevens' body from a window of the American mission after itwas attacked with rocket propelled grenades by Islamic militantslast week.
  ''The witnesses said residents drawn to thescene had forced open the window and found Mr. Stevens behind alocked iron gate, pulled him out and taken him to the hospital. Inthe video, none say anything that shows ill will,'' reports the Times, claiming that the men are chanting''Alive, Alive! God is great.''
  However, according to an alternative translationprovided to us by a native Arabic speaker, there is no evidencewhatsoever that the men are pleased Stevens is still alive or aretrying to rescue him.
  Indeed, the video appears to show the mencelebrating the fact that he is dead. Stevens is hauled out of thewindow and dumped on the floor as the men stick cameras in hisface, fist pump the air and chant, ''Allauha Akbar'' (Godis great), which is routinely shouted by Islamic radicals followinga successful attack.
  There is no indication whatsoever that the men areattempting to save Stevens' life or get him to ahospital.
  Right at the start of the clip, the men are heardshouting ''sawer sawer,'' meaning ''film,film,'' hardly the actions of people concerned with saving adying man.
  ''At no point does someone say'he's alive' after the body is pulled out,''our Arabic speaker tells us, adding that the men seem very excitedto see Stevens' body, overwhelmingly suggesting they arereveling in his death, not trying to save his life.
  The video also contradicts reports that Stevensmanaged to escape the consulate but was killed either en route orinside a nearby safe house.
  The New York Times' translation of the video,which has basically allowed them to flip the truth behind thefootage on its head, appears to have originated from a Twitter user whosupported both the US-backed assault in Libya and the attempt totopple President Assad in Syria by supporting the same Islamicmilitants.
  The NY Times' brazen effort to spin thefootage is another apparent attempt to disguise the fact that thesame radical Muslims the Obama administration financed and armed inLibya are now killing U.S. Ambassadors '' a foreign policydisaster that many commentators are speculating could cost Obamathe election.
  Source: Infowars
  Related posts:
  Was U.S.Ambassador Lynched? Media Caught Lying Again?Reports:Murdered U.S. Ambassador To Libya Was Sexually RapedUS Ambassador Killed At Embassy By Terrorists He Helped Put InPowerDaysLater: US Newspapers Run Graphic Photos Of LibyaAmbassadorAl-QaedaMurders U.S. Ambassador and Staff in LibyaMedia Spins Wild Conspiracy Theories To Sell NATO Attack onSyriaJapan's Ambassador To China Dies As Chinese Police Use TearGas, Water Cannon On Anti-Japan ProtestersNY TimesScrubs Mention Of CIA Arming Syrian RebelsTags: ambassadorstevens, celebrating stevens death, libyans, ny times,propaganda, spinThis entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2012 at 2:49 amand is filed under Dictatorship, Education/Mind Control, Fascism,Film/Video,Libya, NWO, War/Draft,World WarIII. You can follow any responses to this entry through theRSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response.Pinging is currently not allowed.
Watch: Jon Stewart rips right-wingers over Middle East
  Link to Article
  Source: Liberal Conspiracy
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:31
  by Newswire 9:55 am - September 18th 2012Last night the Daily Show's Jon Stewart took a look at therecent anti-US protests in the Middle East, noting the reactionfrom right-wing pundits.
  Key quote: ''We could go all night bringing up examples ofpundits and bloviaters on the right who couldn't do enough topromote democracy in the Middle East, as long as it was done at theend of George Bush's gun.''
  About the author· Other posts by Newswire
  Story Filed Under: News
Engineers achieve first airplane to ground quantum key distribution exchange
  Link to Article
  Source: Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:25
  The Do228 aircraft equipped with theight terminal. One can see the optical dome underneath the fuselage(marker). a shows a closeup of this dome housing the coarsepointing assembly. b shows a schematic section view of the ightterminal. Credit: Sebastian Nauerth et al.
  (Phys.org)'--Ateam of German physicists has successfully demonstrated an abilityto perform quantum key distribution (QKD) exchange between anairplane in flight and a ground station, paving the way perhaps tothe same kinds of communications between satellites and groundstations which could lead to a global quantum based securecommunications network. The team presented their results at theQCrypt convention this past week.
  Scientists have over the years developed some very powerfulencryption schemes that are almost impossible to crack, yetvirtually all of them rely on one weak point, the key that is usedto unlock them. For this reason, cryptologists have been pinning their hopes on QKD.This is because of the nature of quantum bits; looking at or measuring them causesthem to be changed, which would alert the true owners of the keythat a breach has occurred.
  QKD is where encryption keys are generated basedon the polarization of photons to represent 1s and 0s. The photonsin such a system are converted to cubits on the receiving end wherethey can be read and interpreted. While the idea has been aroundfor quite some time, it's only recently that workable devices haveactually been built. Prior to this new development, another teamhad achieved a QKD exchange between two stationary buildings.
  Enlarge
  Optical ground station. a Telescope ofthe optical ground station located on the roof of the DLR institutebuilding next to the airport Oberpfaenhofen. b Closeup of theoptical breadboard attached to the back of the main telescopemirror indicating the signal path for the qubits (green) and thebeacon light (red). Credit: Sebastian Nauerth et al.
  Two make such a system work, the photons must be sent from onestation and received by another. In this case, they were sent froma moving airplane using a laser and mirrors to a ground stationthat also used mirrors, no easy feat due to the sensitivity ofattempting to read individual photons. Still the researchers managed to make ithappen and perhaps even more remarkably, were able to hold on tothe connection for ten minutes; long enough to transmit 10 kilobytes of data (at 145 cubits per second) with anerror rate of just 4.8%. That's enough to send a key, and that'sall that's really needed to build quantum based network.Based on these results alone, it's clear that a truly securenetwork could be put in place, in a battle zone for instance, withkeys being transmitted from drones hovering overhead. But ofcourse, that won't be enough, the real goal will be to see if thesame feat can be achieved between satellites and ground stationsgiving us a world where all communications can be made almostperfectly secure.
  More information: Paper PDF: www.qcrypt.net/docs/extended-abstracts/qcrypt2012_submission_12.pdf
  (C) 2012 Phys.org
Amsterdam onderzoekt 'boerkastemmer' PowNews
  Link to Article
  Source: VK: Home
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:23
  18/09/12, 12:54 '' bron:ANP
  (C) Thinkstock.
  De gemeente Amsterdam gaat op een rijtjezetten hoe het kon gebeuren dat een verslaggever van PowNews op eenAmsterdams stembureau geheel gekleed in een boerka en zonder juisteidentificatie een stem heeft kunnen uitbrengen. Dat heeft eengemeentewoordvoerder dinsdag laten weten.
  Op verkiezingsdag kon de verslaggever, gehuld in een oranjeboerka en dus onherkenbaar, wel stemmen. De man, die zichidentificeerde met het paspoort van een vrouw, heeft zijnstembiljet ook in de stembus gegooid. Omdat er met de stembureausgoede afspraken waren gemaakt over de identificatie van vrouwen ineen boerka, wil de gemeente uitzoeken wat er is misgegaan.
  De gemeentewoordvoerder verwacht dat het overleg over hetincident enkele weken kan duren. 'Eventueel kunnen we daarna noghet Openbaar Ministerie vragen ernaar te kijken. Maar zover is hetnog niet.'
The Science is IN: Vaccine maker admits DTaP causes autism and SIDS.
  Link to Article
  Source: Dr. Jones reports
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:19
  Some very disturbing news recently came across my desk from afellow activist.
  The Tripedia vaccine product insert was removed from the JohnsHopkins Institute for Vaccine Safety website. [1] I alsodiscovered that it is now missing from the Centers for DiseaseControl Vaccine Price List. The ''official'' reason islikely Sanofi Pasteur's discontinuing the production of thevaccine. [2]
  However, closer inspection of the Tripedia product insertreveals another smoking-gun relationship between vaccines andautism.
  TipClick on the photo to see the enlarged version of theillustration.
  Snapshots of the Johns Hopkins VaccineSafety Website both before and after the Tripedia vaccineinformation was changed.
  THE SECRET MEETING YOU WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO KNOWABOUTInformation can disappear for many reasons.
  For example, perhaps a webmaster accidentally removes thehyperlink to the Tripedia vaccine product insert. But if it wasremoved intentionally, we obviously have a situation where''The Authorities'' want to limit the exposure of verydamaging information. Before you can appreciate whatdisappeared, you need to know why this information is soimportant.
  Let's get right to it.
  Some vaccines contain a particularly nasty ingredient calledthimerosal. The purpose of this organic mercury preservative invaccines, as stated on the FDA's website, is to prevent thegrowth of harmful microorganisms. [3] However, there are majorconcerns from parents regarding the mercurial compound beingneurotoxic to children.
  Snapshot of the Verstraeten study dated 02/29/00 showing astatistically significant relationship between mercury exposure andautism. [4]
  In June of 2000, members from the Centers for Disease Control,the Food and Drug Administration, and pharmaceutical companies, metin a secret meeting held in Simpsonwood, GA. The topic ofdiscussion was the relationship between thimerosal and autism.
  We know what was said at the meeting because parents obtainedthe transcripts through the Freedom of Information Act. Theconversations are chilling. [5]
  Here are three important quotes from the SimpsonwoodDocument:
  '''...the number of dose relatedrelationships [between mercury and autism] are linear andstatistically significant. You can play with this all you want.They are linear. They are statisticallysignificant.'' '' Dr. William Weil, American Academy ofPediatrics. Simpsonwood, GA, June 7, 2000
  ''Forgive this personal comment, but I gotcalled out at eight o'clock for an emergency call and mydaughter-in-law delivered a son by c-section. Our first male in theline of the next generation and I do not want that grandson to geta Thimerosal containing vaccine until we know better what is goingon. It will probably take a long time. In the meantime, and I knowthere are probably implications for this internationally, butin the meanwhile I think I want that grandson to only begiven Thimerosal-free vaccines.'' '' Dr. RobertJohnson, Immunologist, University of Colorado, Simpsonwood, GA,June 7, 2000
  ''But there is now the point atwhich the research results have to be handled, and even if thiscommittee decides that there is no association and that informationgets out, the work has been done and through the freedom ofinformation that will be taken by others and will be used in otherways beyond the control of this group. And I am veryconcerned about that as I suspect that it is already too late to doanything regardless of any professional body and what theysay'...My mandate as I sit here in this group is to make sureat the end of the day that 100,000,000 are immunized with DTP,Hepatitis B and if possible Hib, this year, next year and for manyyears to come, and that will have to be with thimerosalcontaining vaccines unless a miracle occurs and an alternative isfound quickly and is tried and found to be safe.'''' Dr. John Clements, World Health Organization, Simpsonwood,GA, June 7, 2000
  The last quote by Dr. John Clements is important and revealing,because here is what happened next.
  Additional Information ForYouFor an excellent commentary on the harmful side effectsof thimerosal, read Patrick Jordan's two partseries:
  BIG PHARMA IS QUICK TO RESPONDRecall that the spotlight of this story is on the Tripediavaccine.
  Tripedia is an FDA approved diphtheria, tetanus, acellularpertussis (DTaP) vaccine and the Centers for Disease Controlrecommends that infants be injected at 2, 4, and 6 months of age.[6]
  It contains thimerosal.
  Nine short months AFTER the Simpsonwood meeting mentioned above,the Food and Drug Administration approved a ''thimerosalfree'' Tripedia vaccine. [7] Do you think the FDA might havebeen a bit concerned about the findings discussed at theSimpsonwood meeting?
  I personally think so.
  You can now see the importance of the following passage on theFDA's website:
  ''Much progress has been made to date inremoving or reducing thimerosal in vaccines'...In March2001 the FDA approved a second DTaP vaccine formulated withoutthimerosal as a preservative (Aventis Pasteur's Tripedia,trace thimerosal).'' [3] (emphasis mine)
  In my opinion, it couldn't be any clearer. Thepharmaceutical companies are being shielded from a landslide oflitigation. But here's the smoking gun I promised to showyou.
  EXTREME ADVERSE EVENTS (AUTISM & SIDS)REPORTEDThe smoking gun comes in the form of the Tripedia vaccineproduct insert dated December 2005. This places the insert fouryears on the timeline after being approved for a ''thimerosalfree'' alternative.
  Keep in mind, no massive recall was made for the vaccinesalready containing thimerosal. The vaccines stayed on the shelvesand were injected into your children. The reason you didn'thear about any major recalls of the vaccines is because doing sowould have jeopardized the public's confidence in the entirevaccine program.
  With that, I'm going to suggest that this information mayradically change the way you look at vaccines forever. Page11 of the Tripedia product insert states:
  ''Adverse events reported duringpost-approval use of Tripedia vaccine include idiopathicthrombocytopenic purpura, SIDS[Sudden Infant Death Syndrome],anaphylactic reaction, cellulitis,autism, convulsion/grand mal convulsion,encephalopathy, hypotonia, neuropathy, somnolence andapnea.'' [8] (emphasis mine)
  SIDS is most likely to occur between 2 and 4 months of age. [9]DTaP is given at 2,4, and 6 months. [6]
  Strange coincidence, is it not?
  The insert continues to say it is not possible to establish a''causal relationship'' between the reactions and thecomponents in the vaccine. In other words, the language is sayingyou can't blame the vaccine for these conditions, even thoughthey were reported.
  Snapshot of the FDA website and theTripedia Vaccine Product Insert.
  The FDA has a large problem on their hands, and they know it.They approved vaccines with thimerosal and are trying to keep thesituation quiet, especially when it comes to parents. Asshown in this article, this information is coming up missing. But,the missing information did shine a HUGE spotlight on theinformation in the vaccine product insert.
  With all the controversy surrounding vaccines and autism, whyeven mention it in a vaccine product insert for an FDA-approvedvaccine?!? We may never know the true answer, but consider thisquestion for a moment.
  How many times have you heard a doctor or health workerhysterically say there is ZERO chance that vaccines causeautism?
  My hope is for health professionals to take the time andindependently research vaccines. However, researching vaccines andputting the pieces together can be difficult, especially wheninformation disappears.
  CONCLUSIONThe secret Simpsonwood meeting points to a direct causalrelationship between vaccines and autism. This information promptedvaccine manufacturers to rapidly and very quietly manufacture athimerosal-free vaccine with the FDAs full cooperation. I thinkparents need to keep that in mind.
  Four years after a ''thimerosal free'' vaccine becameavailable, a cryptic paragraph referencing autism and SIDSappeared in a vaccine product insert. Now that information isbeing scrubbed from government and vaccine safety websites. Shameon them!
  And by the way, Mom and Dad, as of May 2, 2012, the JohnsHopkins Institute for Vaccine Safety knows Tripedia has traceamounts of thimerosal. [10]
  You need to know that if your child is injured by a vaccine,your doctor is not held responsible. Read the vaccine productinserts. Research the information for yourself. Don't takefor granted that your doctor has done it for you.
  Thank You toVaxTruth.org!A warm thank you goes to Marcella Piper-Terryfor bringing to my attention information regarding Johns HopkinsInstitute for Vaccine Safety website taking down informationregarding the Tripedia vaccine. You can find some of her excellentmaterial at the following URLs:
  1. Website: http://www.vaxtruth.org
  2. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/VaxTruth
  Jeffry John Aufderheide is the father of a child injured as aresult of vaccination. As editor of VacTruth.com, he promoteswell-educated health professionals, informed consent, and fulldisclosure and accountability of adverse reactions to vaccines.
Max Keiser: Ultimate QE3 Meltdown
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:10
@adamcurry Gotta love the pseudo name Hilary!! http://t.co/YNcXQssb
  Link to Article
  Source: @adamcurry - Twitter Search
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:07
  A few years ago, a messagecame in to this website on the FAQ line from a young actress fromGeorgia (the one from the former USSR, not the State with Atlantain it) called Anna Gurji. She sent a link to her webpage andto films she had made in Georgia, and told me she was a fan, and ifshe ever came to the US, she would want to be in something of mine.She made it to the US, and although she has never been insomething of mine, she read the female lead (with Wil Wheaton asthe male lead) in the first read-through of Michael Reaves' filmBLOOD KISS. I was not there as a writer. I was there because I willactually act in it, playing a Hollywood director with a darksecret. So I've acted with Anna and spent time with her. She's agood sort.
  She wrote to me the other day, worried.
  She said,
  Something very bad happened. Idesperately need everyone's help right now.
  I don't know how to start writing this letter.It's crazy, the world is.. life.. I'm so shattered right now, Idon't know.. I feel very dead inside.
  Last summer I auditioned for an indie low budgetfeature movie and I landed a supporting role. The movie was about acomet falling into a desert and ancient tribes fighting over it forthey thought that the comet had some magical powers.
  A year later, the movie was dubbed (without theactors' permission), the lines were changed drastically and themovie was morphed into an Anti-Islam film. Even the names of thecharacters were changed. And the character I had scenes with GEORGEbecame MUHAMMAD.
  I really need your advice right now? How can Ihave my voice shown to the world so that I can tell them the realstory.
  All these media people that keep calling me areusing my real story and then chopping or manipulating the interviewthe way they want to.
  I don't know what to do. It's very scary,Neil.
  I told her to write her story for me, to say what she wanted, and Iwould put it up here for her, as she wrote it, to get her messageto the world. The best weapon against lies is the truth, after all.So here's what Anna knows about the truth:
  Everyone who wishes to find out thetruth about the movie now known as the Innocence ofMuslims, please read the letter below. I, Anna Gurji, asone of the supporting actresses in the film will share with youwhat really happened.
  A year ago, in the summer of 2011, Isubmitted my materials to various projects on the Explore Talentweb-site. I received a call from the casting director of the movie''Desert Warrior'', and my audition date was scheduled. Iauditioned for the role of Hilary. Several days later, I wasinformed that I got a callback. I did the callback. Several dayslater, I was informed that I landed the role of Hilary in the moviecalled ''Desert Warrior''.
  The filming of the movie was done inAugust of 2011. We were filming the movie in a studio warehousewith a green screen in Duarte, CA. The project was a low budget,independent feature movie.
  The filming of the movie was beginningsoon after the day I was told I got a role. The script was not sentto me. When I got to the set, I was merely provided with the scenesmy character was in.
  I did not consider this to be an unusualthing, seeing as I have had an experience with something like thisbefore. I did a movie once where the script was written in aforeign language and only my parts were translated into English andaccordingly, I was provided with my scenes only. Having experiencedthat, I thought the same thing was happening with ''DesertWarrior''. Aware of the fact that the supposed producer andthe script-writer of the movie (known as Sam Bassil) was aforeigner (thanks to his accent), I thought that the originalscript was written in his native tongue and that not all sceneswere translated into English. Also, the filming dates of the moviehad to be rescheduled last minute to fit my schedule (I had otherfilms to do right after the ''Desert Warrior'' outsideCA). Because of this rushed rearrangements, I thought that theproduction first forgot and then did not consider it necessary tosend me the script, and again - I did not find this unusual, sinceI knew what role I had, I knew about my character and I knew aboutthe story of the film.
  My character Hilary was a young girl whois sold (against her own free will) by her parents to a tribeleader known as GEORGE. She is one of his (most likely, theyoungest) brides in the movie.
  The film was about a comet falling intoa desert and different tribes in ancient Egypt fighting to acquireit for they deemed that the comet possessed some supernaturalpowers.
  The movie that we were doing in Duartewas called ''Desert Warrior'' and it was a fictionaladventure drama. The character GEORGE was a leader of one of thosetribes fighting for the comet.
  There was no mention EVER by anyone ofMUHAMMAD and no mention of religion during the entire time I was onthe set. I am hundred percent certain nobody in the cast and nobodyin the US artistic side of the crew knew what was really plannedfor this ''Desert Warrior''.
  The atmosphere at the set was asfriendly as possible. We all knew that we were doing an adventuredrama for a very low budget financing. The director Alan Robertseven had plans that with this low budget product he would be ableto get some more money to make a good quality version (by shootingit in the real desert and having better product in every category)of the ''Desert Warrior''.
  I had interactions with the man known asSam Bassil on the set. He was very amiable, respectful,soft-spoken, always making sure that the filming was runningsmoothly and everyone was satisfied. He even told me the premiereof the movie was going to happen sometime soon and I would get agood amount of tickets to invite my friends and family.
  I have never been informed about thepremiere after that (if it ever happened) and have not seen thefinal product (if there is any, except for the short one that isuploaded online).
  People ask what's my reactionafter seeing that.
  Shock.
  Two hours after I found out everythingthat had happened I gave Inside Edition an interview, the durationof which I could not stop crying.
  I feel shattered.
  People who were tricked into believingthat we were making an adventure drama about a comet falling into adesert did nothing but take part in a low budget indie feature filmcalled the ''Desert Warrior'' that WAS about a cometfalling into a desert and tribes in ancient Egypt fighting toacquire it.
  It's painful to see how our faceswere used to create something so atrocious without us knowinganything about it at all. It's painful to see people beingoffended with the movie that used our faces to deliver lines(it's obvious the movie was dubbed) that we were neverinformed of, it is painful to see people getting killed for thissame movie, it is painful to hear people blame us when we didnothing but perform our art in the fictional adventure movie thatwas about a comet falling into a desert and tribes in ancient Egyptfighting to acquire it, it's painful to be thought to besomeone else when you are a completely different person.
  Like I explained to Inside Edition, Ifeel awful.. I did not do anything but I feel awful.
  I feel awful that a human being iscapable of such evil. I feel awful about the lies, about theinjustice, about the cruelty, about the violence, about the deathof innocent people, about the pain of offended people, about thefalse accusations.
  I don't know what else to do butspeak the truth. I will not go into hiding (since I have nothing tohide), because if we don't speak the truth, there is no worldworth living for.
  I grew up in Georgia Republic (ex-SovietUnion), I have witnessed the strikes, protests, demonstrations,injustice, cruelty, violence in my life. I was there during the warbetween Russia and Georgia, sleeping in outdoor clothes and packedbackpacks waiting to be bombed. And I left my country, knowing thatthere was no future for a film actress there (seeing as the filmindustry is still in the process of recovery after the collapse ofthe Soviet Union).
  Why did I want to pursue acting? I had arole in a short film when I was thirteen. There was a scene in themovie, where my beggar character and my character's blindfather were thrown off the bridge by police officers. During thefilming of the scene, I was attacked by a huge lump in my throat,witnessing what the police were doing to my blind father. I wantedto cry, but knowing that my blind father would worry about me if heheard me cry, I swallowed the lump and stayed strong and did mybest to defend him against the injustice. Experiencing the magic ofacting (losing yourself into the character) was what had me fall inlove with the craft. After a long journey and fighting to somehowget to the States, I managed to come here with mymother.
  It's so difficult for an actor(especially the one from a foreign country) to begin a career.People think that once you are in the States, you have all thedoors opened before you. It's not so. It's verydifficult to join the union, to get an agent, to lose your accentand to land roles if you don't have connections. For fouryears I have been struggling to slowly move ahead and not give up.A year ago, when I got the supporting role in this indie featurefilm ''Desert Warrior'', I was so excited.
  I don't understand why was thishappened to me, when all I wanted to do was pursue my actingcareer.
  I have to admit I wanted to pursue myacting career because I loved the process of transformation into adifferent character '' a selfish reason.
  A few months ago, I just finishedwriting a script with my father about world peace, which helped meunderstand something '' forgive and care for your enemy. Then,I understood that there is a bigger reason for acting. When we act,we help people see all different characters that exist. When peoplesee about all these different characters, they start to understandthem. When they understand all these different characters, theycome close to accepting them. When they come close to acceptingthem, they come close to being united. And when they come close tobeing united, they come close to loving and helping eachother.
  I was thinking about something a weekago. We are like cells in the body of Earth. Why won't wework together and support each other instead of killing anddestroying each other. If cells kill each other, eventually thebody will die. By always speaking the truth and supporting theworld peace, I hope we will be able to save the Earth from dying..someday.
  Growing up in a family that wasextremely open-minded and respectful to all the differences in theworld (all the religions) and growing up peacefully with peoplewith so many different religions around me, it is devastating forme to have my face put into something that is completely oppositeof what I believe in.
  I want to send my condolences to thefamilies and friends of those who lost their lives. Everythinghappens for a reason, they say. I believe this is a trap of evil toseparate us from our humanity. We must stray strong and not forgetthat violence has not been able to get us anywhere spiritually andhas not been able to make the world a better place. Understandingand love will.
NPR Brings on CNN's Toobin to Say Obama's a Conservative, John Roberts Favors Radical Change
  Link to Article
  Source: Tim Graham's blog
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:06
  NPR's Terry Gross brought on CNN judicial analyst JeffreyToobin on Monday to discuss his new book on the Supreme Court(called The Oath) for 44 minutes of her program FreshAir. Toobin proclaimed that Barack Obama is the conservativewhen it comes to the Supreme Court, and John Roberts is the radicalrevolutionary. This is the same Toobin who complained overturningObamaCare would be "judicial activism."
  Toobin also claimed with a straight face (or at least anungiggly voice) that Roberts voted to uphold ObamaCare to pave theway for more conservative decisions, to insulate the court frombeing found as political in the future -- as if liberals won'tdenounce every conservative decision as political. Toobin alsocontinued his tradition of bashing Clarence Thomas as "way outthere" on the right-wing fringes.
  But first, this was the sales pitch Gross used to open the showabout Obama and Roberts:
  TOOBIN: Well, one of them believes in change. One ofthem believes that the Constitution has fundamentally beenmisinterpreted by the Supreme Court for the past 20 or 30 years,and the one who believes in change is John Roberts, not BarackObama.
  Barack Obama, oddly, and frankly somewhat surprisingly to me,Obama is a great believer in stability, in the absence of changewhen it comes to the work of the Supreme Court. He is the onetrying to hold on to the old - the older decisions, and Roberts isthe one who wants to move the court in a dramatically newdirection.
  GROSS: So I think what you're saying is that Obama is theconservative when it comes to the court, and Robert is the judicialactivist?
  TOOBIN: That is exactly right, and if you look on issue afterissue, whether it's abortion, whether it's civil rights andaffirmative action, campaign finance, death penalty, Roberts ispushing the law in a more conservative direction, usually, notalways, successfully. And all of those areas, Barack Obama'sphilosophy is basically better leave it alone, leave it the way itis.
  Toobin tried to break out the apologies when Gross begandiscussing how the conventional wisdom shifted dramatically afteroral arguments. Suddenly, ObamaCare looked like it was toast:
  GROSS: So it was the solicitor general, who -Donald Verrilli, who defended Obamacare in the Supreme Court. Hewas considered to have stumbled a lot. That led to the assumptionthat Obamacare was going to be overturned by the court. What wereconsidered his greatest stumbles?
  TOOBIN: Well, let me have a moment of candor here and confessthat I, when I was working for CNN in sort of my instant analysisrole was very critical of Don Verrilli's role. And, you know, myview of Supreme Court arguments is that what the justices say is alot more important than answer.
  Yes, Don Verrilli did not do a great job in answering thequestions, but what was so striking about the answers - about thequestions - was the degree of hostility he received from Kennedy,from Thomas - not from Thomas. Thomas, of course, didn't ask anyquestions - from Scalia, from Alito. The passion and the intensityof the hostility to the law was really what was so striking.
  And it has been my experience in covering the Supreme Court forquite a while that the justices don't play devil's advocate. Theyuse their questions to try to convince their colleagues of theirpositions. So it's not - so you can often tell how they're going tovote by how they ask questions. In this case, let me just say I wascompletely and utterly wrong about how John Roberts was going tovote in this case.
  Gross doesn't treat Toobin with any kind of factual scrutiny.(She has saved that for Bill O'Reilly and other very occasionalconservative guests.) She could have reminded Toobin that he beganby trash-talking that Roberts would vote for ObamaCare, that infact it might end up eight to one in Obama's favor. Toobin also told Gross thatRoberts was helping out the conservatives by voting againstthem:
  I think it's more beneficial to theconservative movement in a somewhat more indirect way. What JohnRoberts has done is by supporting Barack Obama on this criticalpiece of legislation and litigation, Roberts has insulated thecourt from political challenge for a long time. And Robert has abig conservative agenda still. And he is going to be able to pushthat agenda without risking criticism now for being a politicalactivist because of this vote.
  So look at the issues that are on the horizon for the SupremeCourt: the future of affirmative action; the future of the VotingRights Act; gay rights in many different forms. In all ofthose...
  GROSS: Should we put abortion in there, too?
  TOOBIN: Abortion, too. In all of those areas, you know, JohnRoberts has not suddenly discovered his inner moderate. He remainsdeeply conservative. He is going to be pushing his agenda, and henow is free from the risk of being accused of politicizing thecourt because of his vote in this case. And that's a great benefitto the conservative movement.
  GROSS: Are you saying you think that's one of the reasons why hevoted to uphold Obamacare?
  TOOBIN: I do. Again, I'm a little - you know, I'm always alittle wary about talking about people's motives, and I can't provethis, but given his conduct in this case, it is very clear to methat Roberts was worried about the institutional place of theSupreme Court in American political life.
  He was worried about making this case part of a trilogy, withBush v. Gore, Citizens United; two highly political cases wherefive Republican justices did what many people regard as deeplypolitical acts. If he had made the Obamacare case the third in thattrilogy, we would be talking about the Supreme Court a great dealmore in this campaign. The justices would be political targets in away that they're not now. And I think that was very much onRoberts' mind.
  Finally, Toobin, as he often does, trashed ClarenceThomas as theleading edge of conservative extremism, especially on the subjectof campaign finance reform:
  GROSS: I know you have a lot of connectionsto the court. I'm not sure if the justices spoke to you about thisdecision directly or not. But do you have any reason to believethat any of the justices who upheld Citizens United are dismayed bythe results it's actually having in politics today?
  TOOBIN: Quite the opposite. I think Citizens United is thebeginning of a major change in American politics, not the end. Whatyou see at the Supreme Court on this issue is a belief that moneyis speech. That's the core value. And the pioneer of this idea wasreally Clarence Thomas. Like so many areas of the law, ClarenceThomas has been sort of the leading edge of conservative thought.Whether it's on the Commerce Clause, whether it's on free speech,whether it's on affirmative action or gun control, Thomas has been- you know, began advocating, you know, positions that were out -you know, considered way out there, and they have become theconventional view at the Supreme Court.
  Citizens United is only the beginning of the near-completederegulation that the Supreme Court is going to order. Corporatecontributions now can only go to the so-called superPACs. Soonthey'll say, well, you corporations can give directly to campaigns.Limit - if you believe that...
  GROSS: Why do you think that?
  TOOBIN: Well, because the logic follows. I mean, these superPACsare essentially identical to campaign committees. I mean, they areessentially fraudulent contrivances to keep a phony distancebetween the actual campaign and the separate entities calledsuperPACs. They are part of campaigns, but not legally part ofcampaigns.
  I anticipate that the court, as it's - if it's currentlyconfigured - it continues, will say, well, corporations andindividuals can give directly to campaigns. And if you believe - asthis majority does - that money is speech, how can you have limitson how much you can give to campaigns? Those are, I think, verymuch endangered. So I think Citizens United is very much thebeginning or the middle of deregulations of campaigns, not theend.
Samsom valt in slaap tijdens Troonrede
  Link to Article
  Source: Een andere kijk op nieuws @infomagnl » Nieuws items
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:04
  Samsom valt in slaap tijdens Troonrede - Een andere kijk opnieuws @infomagnlgecureerd vanwww.dagelijksestandaard.nl op 18september 2012
  PvdA-leider DiederikSamsom vond de Troonrede van koningin Beatrix maar wat saai. Hijviel zelfs in slaap tijdens de Troonrede. En wij maar denken datvoormalig Greenpeace-activisten bomvol energie zoudenzitten.Bekijk orgineel item op www.dagelijksestandaard.nl
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Ogilvy Public Relations | Global Communications & PRAgency
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:04
  Social Marketing exChange
  Questioning the Value of a CollegeEducation
  In this week's Newsweek cover story,''The College Bubble,'' the author introduces aninteresting question, ''is college a lousy investment?''Immediately this headline caught my attention. In today'ssociety, how can'...
Taxpayers to Fund Hollywood ObamaCare Propaganda
  Link to Article
  Source: News 1 Stop
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:01
  Alex NewmanThe New AmericanSeptember 18, 2012
  Taxpayers are funding a ''public relations'' marketingcontract to promote ObamaCare worth almost $1 million so far thatwill include working with Hollywood to promote the controversialfederal healthcare takeover in popular TV shows. Critics blastedthe deal as an effort to use propaganda to drum up support forObama's deeply unpopular signature statute, which polls showa majority of Americans hope to repeal.
  According to the New York Times, which first reported on the scheme, Californiaofficials overseeing the implementation of the ObamaCare-mandated''healthcare exchange'' know that much of the battle willinvolve public opinion. So as other state governments work tonullify the federal power grab, authorities in the Golden Stateare pouring federal and state tax dollars into an expensive''marketing plan.''
  Already famous for slavish support of big government andPresident Obama, Hollywood and the entertainment industry willapparently be one of the main targets of the pro-ObamaCarepropaganda scheme. According to the marketing plan cited by theTimes, among the ideas being discussed is a so-called''reality TV show'' surrounding ''the trials andtribulations of families living without medicalcoverage.''
  On top of that, the taxpayer-funded ''marketing''scheme will aim to have prime-time television shows such asModern Family and Grey's Anatomy promotingObamaCare in their plots. Spanish-language''telenovelas'' run by Univision will also be targeted inthe public relations effort, the Times reported.
  ''I'd like to see 10 of the major TV shows, ortelenovelas, have people talking about 'that health insurancething,''' California health exchange Executive DirectorPeter V. Lee was quoted as saying. ''There are good storylines here.''
  The initial $900,000 contract for ''public relations''services '-- analysts largely consider the term a synonym forpropaganda '-- was awarded to Ogilvy Public RelationsWorldwide. The company, which has a long history of working withgovernment, touts a new ''global behavior changepractice'' on its website '-- a tool that apparently prods peopleinto doing what clients want.
  Other elements of the scheme include massive advertisingcampaigns in dozens of languages. Some of the examples cited bytheTimes: advertising on coffee cup sleeves at communitycolleges and buying ads at professional soccer matches to reachyoung Hispanic men.
  A d v e r t i s e m e n tIn addition to the taxpayer-financed propaganda blitz '--the exchange is funded with ''grants'' from the U.S.government and by already-strapped state taxpayers '-- a healthinsurance industry-linked foundation known as the CaliforniaEndowment has already spent around $15 million touting ObamaCare.The tax-funded ads will not start until next year.
  Critics of the propaganda scheme, however, are up in arms.''Remember that the liberal media was furious that the federalgovernment would promote the war in Iraq inside Iraq, and furiousthat the Department of Education would hire PR flacks likeArmstrong Williams to talk up Bush education programs on cablenews,'' noted Tim Graham, the director of media analysis at the MediaResearch Center. ''So where is their outrage at the idea thatfederal grants would promote ObamaCare advertising inside networkTV entertainment programs?''
  Recent polls show that a majority of Americans still want ObamaCare repealedeven as multiple states work to nullify the scheme entirely. Evenin California, barely 54 percent of the population supports thehealthcare takeover. And the GOP could still end the schemealtogether, either by cutting off funding in theRepublican-controlled House of Representatives or repealing atleast parts the law if Mitt Romney were elected.
  Aside from complaints about using taxpayer money to supportgovernment policies, popular or not, opponents argue that thebloated California state government as well as the U.S. governmentare already drowning in debt and seeking tax hikes '-- hardly agood time to squander resources on political propaganda. In fact,California's state government finances are in such poor shapethat the future of ObamaCare is in question even in the GoldenState.
  The California health exchange website has already costtaxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars '-- far more than theprice tag to build Google. Most of that was funded by a$237-million ''grant'' extracted from American taxpayers,printed by the Federal Reserve, or borrowed by Washington. The restcame directly from Californian taxpayers.
  But as the state government teeters on the edge of financialoblivion '-- the deficit is estimated at $16 billion '--Democrat Governor Gov. Jerry Brown is begging citizens to approve a''temporary'' tax increase. California Secretary ofHealth and Human Services Diana Dooley raised the stakes, indicating that even the implementation ofObamaCare may be at risk if state voters refuse to surrender moremoney.
  That will not stop the taxpayer-funded ObamaCare propaganda,however. Analysts widely expect Hollywood to go along with thescheme, promoting the unpopular healthcare takeover on popular TVshows to unsuspecting Americans seeking ''entertainment'''-- blissfully unaware of the government-sponsored politicalscheming.
  ''There are times it seems overwhelming how corruptedvarious aspects of society have become in the effort to imposeObamacare on the country,'' observed William Jacobson, associate clinicalprofessor at Cornell Law School. ''Instead of helping sellsoap, television will help sell a political platform. Is there anydoubt that Hollywood will play along?''
  Even with multiple TV shows spewing propaganda for ObamaCare,however, some commentators believe opposition will remain strong.Many conservatives barely watch television now due to the overtpolitical bias and the widespread immorality passed off asnormality '-- and those who do watch are largely aware ofHollywood's overt big government bias.
  ''If the Left really wants to convince people Obamacare isa great thing, their first step should be to stop giving Congress,unions and other leftist organizations an exemption from thelaw,'' wrote political commentator Charles Phipps.''If the law isn't good enough for them, no televisionshow would ever convince me it's good enough for me. If Iwatched it. Which I won't.''
  Another ObamaCare critic, Justin Higgins, echoed thosesentiments. ''They're talking about taxpayer fundedpropaganda, plain and simple,'' he said in a recent blog post about the scheme. ''This is anobscene waste of taxpayer dollars with a clear political purpose,yet there's apparently nothing we can do, except expose it,defeat Obama and repeal the damn thing.''
  Of course, this is hardly the first time the Obamaadministration and American officials have come under fire forspending taxpayer money on political propaganda. Earlier this year,for example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Serviceswas criticized for unconstitutionally spending $20 million on''PR'' to promote ObamaCare.
  In fact, despite federal law prohibiting government propagandaaimed at Americans, the use of taxpayer money to tout politicalschemes has been steadily rising in recent years. Just this month,lawmakers in Congress were investigating a scandal surrounding the use of''stimulus'' funds to purchase over 100 ads touting''green energy'' schemes on the far-left MSNBC cabletelevision outlet. That $2-million plot was also hatched under theguise of ''public relations.''
  ''We understand this contract used taxpayer dollars topurchase advertisements on MSNBC during 'Countdown with KeithOlbermann' and 'The Rachel Maddow Show,'''wrote House Committee on Education and the Workforce CommitteeChairman Rep. John Kline (R-Minn,) and other Republicans in aletter to Labor Department Secretary Hilda Solis. The secretary wasasked to promptly explain the controversial decision.
  ''Despite the fact that these funds were made available aspart of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act '--legislation President Obama said was critical for immediate jobcreation '-- an examination of public records show that thecontract that resulted in the advertisements on MSNBC created nojobs,'' the lawmakers concluded, requesting information aboutwhich law purportedly authorized spending taxpayer funds on publicrelations gimmicks by ''Job Corps.''
  Before the MSNBC scandal, The New Americanreported that many of the biggest establishment media companies'-- the Washington Post, NBC, Reuters, newspaper giantGannett, CBS, among others '-- were receiving billions of taxdollars from an ObamaCare slush fund as they peddled the healthcaretakeover to the American people. No disclosures were offered intheir reports explaining that the company was receiving ObamaCaremoney.
  Tags: entertainment, healthcare
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Ron Paul for Texas Governor?
  Link to Article
  Source: News 1 Stop
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:01
  Infowars.comSeptember 18, 2012
  Here is an idea '-- Let's draft Ron Paul for TexasGovernor. Texas is almost its own country anyway. David Ortiz hitsthe streets of Austin to find out what its citizens think ofGovernor Paul.
  Tags: domesticnews, ron paul
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Study looks at use of social media in public diplomacy
  Link to Article
  Source: Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:00
  (Phys.org)'--Theuse of social media for the purpose of public diplomacy hasincreasingly drawn the attention of U.S. diplomacy professionals,observers and political analysts especially after the recentattacks on the U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya that weretriggered by outrage over an anti-Islamic video released on Sept.11. As more riots are planned in neighboring countries, includingAlgeria and Yemen, U.S. embassies have used Twitter posts to saveface and play defense.
  Shahira Fahmy, an associate professor in the University ofArizona School of Journalism, and a colleague from the Universityof Texas examined foreign public diplomacy specialists' adoption ofsocial media such as Twitter for public diplomacy purposes. Using asurvey of foreign embassies and consulates, their study exploredwhether effort and performance expectancy, social influence and attitudes, facilitatingconditions and perceived credibility might have influenced theadoption of social media in public diplomacy practice.
  "The U.S. government and foreign policy analysts have showngreat interest and enthusiasm in exploring how to increase theefficiency of using social media for more effective publicdiplomacy. However, studies on the issue have been rare. By thetime my colleague and I initiated this research in 2009, a searchin the scholarly database ProQuest with key words 'diplomacy' and'social media' or any type of the social media such as 'blog,''YouTube,' 'Twitter,' or 'Wikipedia' generated no results," Fahmy said.
  The study that was presented at the Association for Education inJournalism and Mass Communication annual conventionrevealed social influence and attitudes and perceived credibilityranked top in predicting the use of social media, suggesting thatpublic diplomacy specialists attach great importance to thecredibility of social media when they decide to usethose tools.
  Also, pressure and expectation from society greatly affectedtheir decisions to use social media. Effort expectancy, however,weighed least in predicting use of social media, suggesting thatsocial media as a technology is not an intimidating factor topublic diplomacy specialists.
  In terms of types of social media used, Twitter ranked quitelow. Public diplomacy practitioners indicated they mostly usedsocial networks (i.e. Facebook), intranet, followed by videosharing sites, blogs, video conferencing, text messaging, Wiki,instant messaging and then Twitter. The least used were Second Life(or another virtual world) and social bookmarking.
  "The low-ranking of use of Twitter (ninth) is interesting giventhat we live in an era in which micro-blogs such as Twitter couldbe faster and more influential than any intelligence entity," Fahmysaid. "Just consider that Twitter in recent years hasreportedly played significant roles in the recent citizen upheavalsin the Middle East and North Africa including Iran, Tunisia andEgypt. One explanation could be that public diplomacy specialists might prefer the use ofother social media tools that can disseminate longer messages thatexceed 140 characters."
  Provided byUniversity of Arizona
William Valkenburg nieuwe hoofdredacteur Wereldomroep
  Link to Article
  Source: VK: Home
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:58
  Bewerkt door:redactie '' 18/09/12, 13:14 '' bron:ANP
  (C) ANP. Lege glazen na afloop van de laatsteradio-uitzending van de Wereldomroep in mei van dit jaar.
  William Valkenburg (47) begint op 1januari als hoofdredacteur van de afgeslankte Wereldomroep. Hijvolgt Rik Rensen op.
  De nieuwsorganisatie richt zich vanaf volgend jaar op landen metzeer beperkte persvrijheid. 'De nieuwe Wereldomroep staat voor deuitdaging om jongeren in de moeilijkste landen te bereiken', zeiValkenburg dinsdag. Hij was eerder onder meer eindredacteur vanKassa en oprichter van Uitzending Gemist. Tot begin dit jaar wasValkenburg directeur Internet en Innovatie bij de NederlandsePublieke Omroep (NPO).
  De Wereldomroep wordt in 2013 vooral actief in China, Cuba enVenezuela en in landen in Afrika en de Arabische wereld. RobertZaal, afkomstig van RTV Noord-Holland, treedt per 1 november aanals directeur.
VRIJ NEDERLAND OP DE BRES VOOR DEMMINK
  Link to Article
  Source: ZapLog - externe links
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:57
  BRONNEN VANUIT DE RAAMGRACHT BERICHTEN ONS DAT ENEHARRY LENSINK OP HET PUNT STAAT DEMMINK IN BESCHERMING TENEMEN DOOR ZIJN TEGENSTANDERS TE GAAN WEGZETTEN ALSRECHTS-EXTREMISTISCHE COMPLOTTDENKERS * LEES ER ALLES OVER OP NRC-OMBUDSMANMet onthutsende brief van deNederlandse ambassadeur in Washington als reactie op de commotierond Joris Demmink
CIA Mormon Mafia, Romney Neocons Using Islamophobic Film To Prop Up Saudi, Other Gulf Monarchies
  Link to Article
  Source: TARPLEY.net
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:53
  Archives
  Webster G. Tarpley on InfowarsInfowarsSeptember 17, 2012
Nuclear Fission Energy '' Best of the Above
  Link to Article
  Source: Atomic Insights
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:51
  While preparing to take the SAT (many moons ago) I learned atrick I would like share (again). When faced with list of possibleanswers that each seem correct on first glance, ''all of theabove'' is almost NEVER the right answer. It is as true withregard to choosing an energy path today as it was during my days asa student. The best choice of our available options is a system inwhich nuclear fission heat sources play an ever increasingrole.
  Creating a multiple choice test is no easy task; the authorswork very hard to compose the choices so that they can belegitimate measures of critical reading skills, prior knowledge andmathematics ability. For all of the criticism leveled against thegenre of standardized testing, well-constructed tests do areasonably good job of simulating real life decision making ''within the admitted constraints of limited time and the requirementof being easy to score quickly and consistently.
  Making choices from a menu of options is an everyday occurrencefor both individuals and groups. Even countries and collections ofcountries sometimes have to make such decisions. One of the mostimportant decisions facing all developed societies today involveschoosing between several possible energy supply paths. The laziestand possibly worst answer is ''all of the above'', butfor a variety of reasons, it seems to be one that has attracted alarge amount of popular support.Back in the days of enforced quiet in the SAT testing rooms, it waspossible to carefully study each choice and recognize how thechosen phrases separated the right answer from other answers thatmight have been correct had they included a slightly differentcombination of words. None of the answers on those tests were beingpromoted by vested interests who had access to the bestloudspeakers or most skilled marketers that money can buy.
  The stakes associated with selecting the right answers on theSAT were low in comparison to the trillions of dollars worth ofwealth and power associated with the world's energy markets.As just a tiny measure of the importance of the choices that willbe made during the energy discussion, I highly recommend readingFossil Fuel Industry Ads Dominate TV Campaign. (Thanksfor sharing that link, Gwyneth.)
  I suppose it is a little optimistic to think that our electedofficials will take the time required or ignore the goldenopportunities presented by keeping all of the well-promoted optionsopen. It is completely idealistic to think that theadvertiser-supported mainstream media will risk offending any ofits customers by helping people critically evaluate the menu ofenergy path options to select the best path.
  Aside: Just in case you need a reminder,mainstream media customers are thecompanies and groups that pay for advertising in order to reach themedia's product '' which isyou, the readers and viewers. (You can learn more about this truthby listening to the ''media assassins'' John C. Dvorak and Adam Curry onthe No Agenda podcast.) End Aside.
  The only way I can see to make correct choices for our energypath is to find a way to convince an ever growing number of peopleto turn off their televisions, ignore the purchased politicians,and do some deep critical thinking supported with some realnumbers. Once they have been through the exercise and discoveredthe truth about nuclear energy in comparison with its alternatives,they need to use all of the independent media tools at theirdisposal to promote the fact that an energy path with a strong andgrowing component of nuclear fission energy is the best of allpossible choices.
  An energy system built on a strong foundation of nuclear fissionheat sources is not the easiest path, it is not the most promotedpath, and it is not the path that will provide the quickest returnon investment. That is okay, the same things can be said aboutdeciding at age 6 to be the next Michael Phelps, or determining atage 14 that you are called to be a neurosurgeon, or determiningthat you are tired of leading a country where half of yourpopulation is starving because of an ill conceived ''CulturalRevolution.''
  Here are some objective measures of effectiveness in whichfission dominates the competition:
  Energy density '' 2 million times as much per unit mass asoilEmissions '' clean enough to operate inside a sealedsubmarineAbundance '' fission fuel sources are essentially inexhaustibleReliability '' average capacity factor for US fleet hasbeen near 90% for past ten years. The FitzPatrick nuclear powerstation just completed a 700 consecutive day operating run in between refuelingshutdowns.Operating cost '' Average total O&M for nuclear 47%less than ''cheap'' coal in US (2.19 cents/kw-hr versus3.23 cents/kw-hr for coal '' 2011 from table available atU.S. Electricity Production Costs and Components(1995-2011).Available choices '' light water, heavy water, liquidmetal, helium, nitrogen, supercritical CO2, Rankine cycle steam,Brayton cycle gas, oxide fuel, metal fuel liquid fuel, zircalloy,stainless steel, SiC, burners, converters, breeders, uranium,thorium, plutonium, above ground, under ground, underwater.''All of the above'' is a lazy, incorrect choice whenit comes to energy. It is impossible to overemphasize how importantthat choice is for the future prosperity and sustainability ofhuman technological society. Can we struggle forward withoutnuclear? Sure, but how long can we last and why would we want totry?
  One last, sort of related point here. Reuters recently publisheda story titled Nuclear power champions Japan and France turn awaythat deserves to be read by critical thinkers. I want you to go andread that article carefully, especially close attention to thefollowing section:
  But some analysts say that Japan and France are well placed todeal with the results of their decisions.
  ''Regulators (in Japan and France) are not beingirresponsible because with gas generation there is a crediblealternative,'' Luis Uriza, of consultancy Bain & Companysaid.
  ''Japan is already one of the world's biggest gasimporters and is experienced in the market, and France has manyoptions, including imports from the North Sea, Russia, Africa andthe Middle East or even to develop its own large shale gasreserves.''
  Uriza said export capacity improvements in the global gas sectormade the political moves in Japan, France and Germany possible.
  ''The gas industry made a lot of progress in terms of newexport capacities in the past years, so this is good news for newproducers in Australia, North America, the Middle East and EastAfrica,'' he said.
  In other words, that advisor from an investment firm thinks itis okay for France and Japan to turn away from their nuclear powerstations, which employ hundreds of thousands of well trainedcitizens and burn cheap, emission free fuel. He thinks that move isokay because both countries can replace the electricity produced bythose nuclear plants with electricity produced by burningexpensively imported natural gas '' probably produced bycompanies with a financial relationship with his employer. That isan argument that makes no sense at all for anyone other than theoil and gas companies and their friends in finance, politics andthe media.
  PS '' It might be worth pointing out thatI did reasonably well on multiple choice tests. Without everattending any practice sessions or taking the test more than once,I was a National Merit Scholar. I credit the love of reading passedon by my parents along with the advantage of having an engineer fora father and an English teacher for a mother.
Romney's theory of the ''taker class,'' andwhy it matters
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:49
  ''My job is not to worry about those people,'' MittRomney said of the 47 percent of Americans who are likely to vote forBarack Obama. ''I'll never convince them they shouldtake personal responsibility and care for their lives.''
  There will be plenty said about the politics of Romney'sremarks. But I want to take a moment and talk about the largerargument behind them, because this vision of a society dividedbetween ''makers'' and ''takers'' is core tothe Republican nominee's policy agenda.
  In his comments, Romney says that ''these are people whopay no income tax,'' but they are people ''who aredependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, whobelieve the government has a responsibility to care for them, whobelieve that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing,to you-name-it.''
  In other words, Romney is arguing that about 47 percent of thecountry is a ''taker class'' that pays little or nothinginto the federal government but wants to tax the productive classesfor free health care, food, housing, etc.
  Romney is not alone in this concern. ''We're dismayed at theinjustice that nearly half of all Americans don't even payany income tax,'' Texas Gov. Rick Perry said when he began hispresidential campaign. ''We're coming close to a tippingpoint in America where we might have a net majority of takersversus makers in society,'' Rep. Paul Ryan said at theHeritage Foundation. ''People who pay nothing can easilyforget the idea that there is no such thing as a free lunch,''warned Rep. Michelle Bachmann.
  Tax Policy Center
  For what it's worth, this division of ''makers''and ''takers'' isn't true. Among the Americans whopaid no federal income taxes in 2011, 61 percent paid payrolltaxes '-- which means they have jobs and, when you account forboth sides of the payroll tax, they paid 15.3 percent of theirincome in taxes, which is higher than the 13.9 percent that Romneypaid. Another 22 percent were elderly.
  So 83 percent of those not paying federal income taxes areeither working and paying payroll taxes or they're elderlyand Romney is promising to protect their benefits becausethey've earned them. The remainder, by and large,aren't paying federal income or payroll taxes becausethey're unemployed. But that's a small fraction of thecountry.
  Behind this argument, however, is a very clever policy two-stepthat's less about who pays taxes now and more about who isgoing to pay to reduce the deficit in the comingyears. Here's how it works.
  Part of the reason so manyAmericans don't pay federal income taxes is that Republicanshave passed a series of very large tax cuts that wiped out theincome-tax liability for many Americans. That's why, when youlook at graphs of the percent of Americans who don't payincome taxes, you see huge jumps after Ronald Reagan's 1986tax reform and George W. Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Sowhenever you hear that half of Americans don't pay federalincome taxes, remember: Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush helpedbuild that. (You also see a jump after the financial crisisbegins in 2008, but we can expect that to be mostly temporary.)
  Some of those tax cuts for the poor were there to make the taxcuts for the rich more politically palatable. ''Doyou think we wanted to include a welfare payment to people whodon't pay taxes and call it a tax cut?'' A top Bushadministration official once asked me. ''No. But that'swhat we needed to do to get it done.''
  But now that those tax cuts have passed and many fewer Americansare paying federal income taxes and the rich are paying a muchhigher percentage of federal income taxes, Republicans are arguingthat these Americans they have helped free from income taxes havebecome a dependent and destabilizing ''taker'' class whowant to hike taxes on the rich in order to purchase more socialservices for themselves. The antidote, as you can see in bothPaul Ryan and Mitt Romney's policy platforms, is to furthercut taxes on ''job creators'' while cutting the socialservices that these takers depend on. That way, you roll the takersout of what Ryan calls ''the hammock'' of government andyou unleash the makers to create jobs and opportunities.
  So notice what happened here: Republicans have become outragedover the predictable effect of tax cuts they passed and are usingthat outrage as the justification for an agenda that further cutstaxes on the rich and pays for it by cutting social services forthe non-rich.
  That's why Romney's theory here is more than merelyimpolitic. It's actually core to his economic agenda.
Testing Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800c
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:47
  Two companies lead the Android camera charge, and at Photokinain Germany both are going way out of their way to talk about it.Samsung held a press conference nominally to announce two lenses,but mostly to talk about the new Galaxy Camera; Nikon's event introduced no new productsbut spent a long time telling us about the Coolpix S800c, and why Android is the future for digitalcameras.
  The S800c piqued our interest perhaps even more than the GalaxyCamera, because it's a much bigger departure for Nikon. Samsungalready makes plenty of Android devices, so slapping a big lens ona 4.8-inch Galaxy Player doesn't seem like much of a stretch.Nikon, on the other hand, is a photography bohemoth, and we've seenit and its competitors mostly stay their technological course.Nikon's also one of the few companies that can bring a feature tothe photography mainstream by sheer force of will, so if it canmake a great Android camera others will undoubtedly follow suitquickly. Unfortunately, though, if our first impressions are anyindication then Nikon's first Android effort is pretty seriouslylacking.
  The S800c may be a nice-looking point-and-shoot witha big touchscreen and a slender body, but the end result is morereminiscent of a two-year-old phone than a modern digital camera.The S800c runs Android 2.3, and using the camera brought back thelag- and crash-filled memories of our phones from 2010. Theoperating system has hardly been customized, either, save forNikon's adding quick access to camera functions and removing mostother icons.
  Gingerbread just isn't built forspeed
  The biggest issue in my time with the S800c wassimple: it's slow. And slow is one thing on a phone, butit's far worse on a camera. Your camera needs to take a shot assoon as you want it to '-- every miilisecond of lag is aperfect shot you didn't get. So the fact that the S800c won't evenlaunch the camera app from anywhere but the home screen (pressingthe shutter release does nothing otherwise) is a huge problem. Sois the fact that it took two or three tries to turn the camera onevery time, and that it took five seconds or more each time beforeit was ready to take a shot.
  I assumed these problems were native to Android, thatit just wasn't a good OS for cameras. But the Galaxy Camera is fastand responsive, and feels as if its version of Android were tunedfor the use case, whereas the S800c's OS feels haphazardly applied.Samsung built a clever, intuitive camera interface that reminds meof Sony's NEX cameras '-- it's not as fast as a DSLR,certainly, but it's easy to change settings and move through menus.Plus, when you hit the shutter button it jumps straight to thecamera app no matter where you are.
  Speed and responsiveness arecritically important for a camera, and Nikon deliversneither
  The only time Android feels like a positive for theS800c is after you've taken a picture. Sharing shots is in factfantastically simple '-- just the fact that it only requires asingle device is wonderful. The S800c also seems to take prettygood pictures, though we haven't been able to review them carefullyyet.
  When talking about the S800c, Nikon talks constantlyabout sharing '-- Android provides fast, easy ways to getpictures off your camera and onto the web. But for an Androidcamera to work, it must provide more: it needs to be fast,intuitive, and optimized for photographers. Sharing is good, butonly if you've got great pictures to share. Samsung seems tounderstand that, but Nikon's lagging behind.
  Nikon Coolpix S800c hands-on picturesTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800cTesting Nikon's first Android camera, theCoolpix S800c
Taliban Raid on NATO Base Infl
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:38
  KABUL, Afghanistan - An audacious Taliban attack on aheavily fortified base in southern Afghanistan did far more damagethan initially reported, destroying or severely damaging eightattack jets in the most destructive single strike on Westernmat(C)riel in the 11-year war, military officials saidSunday.
  While other attacks have caused greater loss of life,the assault late Friday at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, one ofthe largest and best-defended posts in Afghanistan, was troublingto NATO because the attackers were able to penetrate the base,killing two Marines and causing more than $200 million in damage."We're saying it's a very sophisticated attack," said a militaryofficial here. "We've lost aircraft in battle, but nothing likethis."
  The complex attack, which NATO officials said wasconducted by three tightly choreographed teams of militants wearingAmerican Army uniforms, was a reminder that the Taliban remaincapable of serious assaults despite the "surge" offensive againstthem. Now the offensive is over, and nearly 10,000 American Marineshave left Helmand Province, a critical stronghold for the Taliban,over the past several months.
  Together with a rash of attacks by Afghan securityforces against NATO troops - including two over the weekend thatleft at least six coalition service members dead - the Taliban haveput new pressure on the American withdrawal plan, which calls foraccelerated troop pullouts through 2014 while training Afghanforces to take over.
  At the same time, tensions with the government flaredSunday as President Hamid Karzai condemned the deaths of Afghanwomen in airstrikes and criticized the continued American custodyof hundreds of Afghan prisoners.
American prison labor means longerunemployment lines
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:29
  myfoxdc Mobile: American prison labor means longerunemployment linesAmerican prison labor means longer unemploymentlines
  SinglePage
  Sep 17, 2012 7:42 a.m.
  Two southeast companies that make U.S. military uniforms areshedding hundreds of jobs, as the government looks to federalinmates for the fatigues.
  American Power Source makes military clothing in Fayette, Ala.,but its government contract expires in October. Federal PrisonIndustries - which also operates under the name UNICOR will snagthe work, and leave the task to inmates. FPI has the first right ofrefusal for U.S. Government contracts, under a 1930 federallaw.
  American Apparel, the Selma, Ala., based military clothingmanufacturer closed one of its plants and continues to downsizeothers due to the loss of some of its contracts to FPI. Accordingretired Air Force colonel and spokesman Kurt Wilson, the companylaid off 255 employees and cut the hours of 190 employees this yearalone. So private workers end up losing their jobs toprisoners.
  "The way the law is - Federal Prison Industries gets first dibsand contracts up to a certain percentage before they have tocompete against us," Wilson, the executive vice president ofbusiness development and government affairs, said. "The army combatuniform, for instance, is an item that they take off the top. As aresult American tax payers pay more for it - but the bottom line iseach soldier is paying more for their uniform."
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  myfoxdc Mobile: American prison labor means longerunemployment linesAmerican prison labor means longer unemploymentlines
  SinglePage
  Sep 17, 2012 7:42 a.m.
  Two southeast companies that make U.S. military uniforms areshedding hundreds of jobs, as the government looks to federalinmates for the fatigues.
  American Power Source makes military clothing in Fayette, Ala.,but its government contract expires in October. Federal PrisonIndustries - which also operates under the name UNICOR will snagthe work, and leave the task to inmates. FPI has the first right ofrefusal for U.S. Government contracts, under a 1930 federallaw.
  American Apparel, the Selma, Ala., based military clothingmanufacturer closed one of its plants and continues to downsizeothers due to the loss of some of its contracts to FPI. Accordingretired Air Force colonel and spokesman Kurt Wilson, the companylaid off 255 employees and cut the hours of 190 employees this yearalone. So private workers end up losing their jobs toprisoners.
  "The way the law is - Federal Prison Industries gets first dibsand contracts up to a certain percentage before they have tocompete against us," Wilson, the executive vice president ofbusiness development and government affairs, said. "The army combatuniform, for instance, is an item that they take off the top. As aresult American tax payers pay more for it - but the bottom line iseach soldier is paying more for their uniform."
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Prinsjesdag 2012: zinloze exercitie
  Link to Article
  Source: VK: Home
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 04:11
  Door: Redactie'' 18/09/12, 05:59
  (C) anp. Mannen zetten bloemen neer in deRidderzaal een dag voor Prinsjesdag.
  Alles is vandaag net als ieder jaar op dederde dinsdag in september. De ministers in jacquet, de hoeden inde Ridderzaal, de koningin in de Gouden Koets, het koffertje methet merkwaardige opschrift 'Derde dinsdag in september'. Om halftwee opent Beatrix de Troonrede met een welluidend 'Leden derStaten-Generaal'.
  Toch is Prinsjesdag in 2012 anders, en bepaald ongemakkelijk.Juist op het ceremonile hoogtepunt van het jaar, wanneer deconstitutionele monarchie al haar pracht en praal inzet om 's landsbegroting te presenteren, is er eigenlijk niets zinnigs aan tekondigen over volgend jaar. Prinsjesdag is dit jaar een exercitiezonder relevante inhoud.
  KoninginHet ongemak begint met de hoofdpersoon. De Troonrede wordtuitgesproken door een koningin die net een forse inperking van haarpolitieke rol heeft moeten accepteren. Normaliter waren de dagen nade verkiezingen gevuld met paleisgesprekken. Majesteit kon met haaradviseurs richting geven aan het formatieproces. Nu moet zeachteraf vernemen wat de politici op het Binnenhof in elkaartimmeren, net als haar onderdanen. Er wordt met de dag nieuwstaatsrecht geschreven, en zij komt er niet in voor.
  Ook het grootste publieke optreden van de koningin valt dit jaartussen wal en schip. Want de Troonrede die ze voorleest, is eenweeskind, net als de begroting die minister De Jager vanFinancin even later uit zijn gele koffertje haalt. Hetdocument is afgelopen lente door een haastig bijeengekomen coalitievan vijf partijen in elkaar onderhandeld. Het bevat aanzetten totwezenlijke hervormingen en heftige lastenverzwaringen.
  Diffuse groepMaar de politieke coalitie eronder is allang uiteengevallen. Deparlementarirs die vandaag mooi uitgedost in Ridderzaal enTweede Kamer zitten, vormen een uiterst diffuse groep. Er zijn deafvallers, die nog een keer een hoed opzetten om daarna uit deKamer te verdwijnen. Donderdag komt de nieuw gekozen Kamer bijeen.Dan zijn er de overlevers, van wie onduidelijk is welke rol zeprecies spelen. Hier zit de rompcoalitie Rutte I, daar deKunduz-coalitie, zonder meerderheid in de nieuwe Kamer. Dan is erde nieuwe coalitie, nog in een embryonaal stadium. Wie spreektvandaag met welke pet?
  Nu al is duidelijk: veel van wat Beatrix aankondigt, wordt niethet daadwerkelijke beleid van 2013. Want hoe trots deKunduz-partijen hun akkoord in april ook aankondigden, in decampagne hebben ze afstand genomen van de impopulaire maatregelen,de VVD voorop. De PvdA deed niet eens mee aan Kunduz. In deformatie zullen elementen sneuvelen, al zal het nog een hoopgeworstel opleveren om andere bezuinigingen te vinden.
  Andere routeEn na de presentatie van dit al bij voorbaat verouderde werkstukmoet Beatrix met haar Gouden Koets ook nog een andere route naarhet paleis rijden, omdat de straten rond het Binnenhof zijnopgebroken. Het wachten is op Prinsjesdag 2013. Met hopelijk deoude route en een echte begroting.
Where Are the 47% of Americans Who Pay No Income Taxes? -David A. Graham
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 04:07
  Mitt Romney says citizens who don't pay income tax willnever vote for him. But eight of the top 10 states with the highestnumber of nonpayers are red states.
  The political world is in a tizzy over hidden-camera footage ofMitt Romney at a fundraising event. Here's the money quote --literally -- from the Mother Jones scoop:
  There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for thepresident no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who arewith him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that theyare victims, who believe the government has a responsibility tocare for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care,to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement.And the government should give it to them. And they will vote forthis president no matter what ....These are people who pay noincome tax.
  The horserace implications of this statement are what thechattering class is chattering about. Unfortunately, they're alsounknowable at this point. On the one hand, it's always a bad ideato disparage voters (see: Obama, Barack and clinging to guns andreligion), and the soundbite helps to cement the idea that Romneyis out of touch with the average American -- clearly, he's nottrying to connect with nearly half of them! On the other hand,Romney is disparaging folks whose votes he's already written off.So let's set that speculation aside and look at who the peopleare who actually pay no income tax. Romney's statements are alittle unclear, but it appears that the 47 percent figurerepresents all of those who pay no income tax, rather than theDemocratic base. His problem is that those people are disproportionately in red states -- that is,states that tend to vote Republican:
  One important note about these numbers: This measures only thoseAmericans who filed for taxes with no liability. Millions moredidn't even file; it's those millions, added to the estimated 52million here, who combine to make that 47 percent.
  It's important to remember that just because people aren'tpaying income tax doesn't mean they're not paying taxes -- they payfederal payroll taxes and state and local sales taxes, for example.One those taxes are factored in, the tax regime is basically flat. And the reason that mostincome tax nonpayers don't pay is they simply don't make enoughincome to qualify to pay. As one might expect, the map of states with the highest poverty levels resembles thismap fairly closely. Many of them are also seniors, a highlycontested voting bloc. Just more than 10 percent of households pay no income taxbecause they're retired. They might also be voters in places likeFlorida who are already jumpy about the changes to Medicare andMedicaid that the Romney-Ryan ticket has proposed -- although theywould be mostly unaffected by those reforms.
  So Romney appears to be wrong about these voters. But if callingfor a less progressive taxation system was enough to alienate poorvoters in the Deep South, the Republican Party would have alreadylost its stronghold there.
  Hat tip: Matt O'Brien
Ok, ok, HERE is tonight'sTwitter Special Comment on Romney's Tape and his Fundraiser WhoStages Sex Parties
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 04:04
  1 hour ago
  media options
  comments
  KeithOlbermann We all miss the 'Special Comments' from KO / I feelyou summed up the day nicely.LOL Thatwas awesome!! Please give us more special comments!
  KeithOlbermann LOVE it!! You should do Twitter broadcasts moreoften. Thanks!DammitKeith, I missed this. I DEMAND MOAR!
  KeithOlbermann Hey, I've been laughing like that at this story allevening, and cold sober!posted by Karen 31 minutes agoKeithOlbermann ..Well, that's what happens when You are 3/4's theway through a 1540$ bottle of Dom. Romane Conti 1997! #HA!posted by Audrey 50 minutes agoposted by Bruce 58 minutes agoOMGawd,KeithOlbermann, you did a #talky. And in a sidebar,"hahahahahhahahhahahaha"KeithOlbermann OMG! Reminded me of when Steve Allen tried to reportthe news and fell out laughing! #steveallenchanneledleave a comment >>
Two Aircraft Grounded in New York after Terrorism Threat
  Link to Article
  Source: RIA Novosti
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 04:03
  Two passenger aircraft were grounded and searched at the JFKairport in New York after an anonymous telephone call aboutexplosives and hijackers on board of the jets, CNN reported onTuesday.
  The agency said citing a law enforcement source that the inboundaircraft were an American Airlines flight from San Francisco and aFinnAir flight from Helsinki.
  ''The jets were steered to an isolated area of the tarmacand met by authorities upon landing,'' CNN reported citingTransportation Security Administration spokeswoman Sterling Payneas saying.
  Officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)searched both aircraft and after finding nothing suspicious issuedan all-clear for the jets. Pilots also said they noticed nothingsuspicious during the flights.
EXCLUSIVE: Homeland Security Agents Forced to do Muslim Sensitivity Training on Eve of 9/11
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 03:40
  By Debbie Schlussel
  While Muslims around the world were planning coordinated attackson our U.S. Embassies around the world on the 11th anniversary of9/11, Homeland Security's top New England official, BruceFoucart, was busy forcing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)agents to attend Muslim sensitivity training. ICE agents wereoutraged that Foucart, Boston's ICE Special Agent in Charge,was forcing them not to remember 3,000 Americans targeted for deathby Muslims, but instead, to honor the religion that inspired themassacre. Last week, on September 10th, Foucart sent all ofICE's New England agents e-mails (see below) telling themthey are required to attend the course, ''Improving CulturalCompetence: Engaging and Building Relations with AmericanMuslims.'' (Note that American is merely an adjective. Theyare Muslims first, always, and only.) It's mandatory.
  Bruce Foucart, Homeland Security'sTop New England Cop, Helps Bin Laden Live On
  You'd think that Americans learned plenty about Islam fromthe events of 9/11, the Fort Hood massacre, the attempted shoebombing, underwear bombing, and Times Square bombing, the U.S.S.Cole, Khobar Towers, and Beirut Embassy and Marine barracksbombings, and the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Iran andhostage-taking for 444 days. And that's not to mention YasserArafat's brutal murder of Cleo Noel and George Curtis Moore,our two diplomats in Sudan (in which they were so badly beaten andtortured that authorities could not tell which of them wasBlack''at the time Moore was the highest ranking Black U.S.diplomat''and which was White). But not for Bruce Foucart, whothinks agents need to know the cuddly, tender, sensitive side ofIslam (you know, the one we saw in the four dead bodies coming outof the U.S. Embassy in Libya, last week!).
  CLICK ON THE IMAGE to read the whole thing . ..
  Here is what rightfully disgusted ICE agents who work forFoucart are telling me:
  On the eve of September 11th, an email was sent out to theemployees and agents of the Boston Office of the Department ofHomeland Security (DHS) '' Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), theinvestigative arm of Homeland Security, making attendance mandatoryfor all employees and agents to attend ''Improving CulturalCompetence: Engaging and Building Relations with Muslims''.The Special Agent in Charge of the Boston office, Bruce Foucart,made the training mandatory and ordered this email sent out to allpersonnel.
  The timing, tone and subject matter of this email couldn'tbe more inappropriate considering several employees of this officewere in New York City on 9/11 and intimately involved in thetragedy and recovery effort.
  Employees who have attended this training before have stated ithas nothing to do working together, but instead, consists ofMuslims instructing ICE agents and employees how to address themwith respect, telling them that law enforcement has created all ofthe negative persona and that we need to learn their culture andlanguage.
  This story needs to be told, morale has reached levels neverseen before in this office thanks to the local management.
  It's disgusting. Did we have German sensitivity trainingduring World War II, taught by the German-American Bund? Hell no!And, yet, the Nazis were pikers compared to the Muslims and themurderous savagery and instability they've wrought around theworld. We defeated the Nazis in only a few years, and the Muslimshave been after us for centuries, attacking America fordecades.
  Actual DHS Recruitment Ad
  No federal law enforcement agency ever had Italian sensitivitytraining for the La Cosa Nostra (though most Italian-Americansopposed the Mafia, and only a tiny, infinitesmal fraction ofItalian-Americans were involved in the Mob, unlike the majority ofMuslims who openly support Islamic terrorism and murder), Irishsensitivity training for bootlegging during the prohibition (and,again, unlike Muslims in America, only an invisible fraction of afraction of Irish in America were involved in this and most opposedit, whereas most Muslims openly support Islamic violence, includingHezbollah and HAMAS), or Jewish sensitivity training for the PurpleGang (which lasted only a few years and involved less than a couplehundred people, as opposed to several million hard-working,law-abiding Jews who opposed them and their activities). They justwent after them, and yet, none of these groups targeted innocentcivilians or murdered even a fraction of the Americans (and otherinnocent civilians around the world) that Muslims have.
  Partners in Islamo-Pandering: DHS Chief Janet Napolitano& Flamboyant ICE Chief John (Moron) Morton
  It's ridiculous. Whether we want to believe it or not,Islam''and Muslims''are at war against the West. Youdon't win a war by forcing your soldiers''which includefederal agents''to sit there and be demoralized by the enemyon American soil. You don't win a war by forcing federalagents to hear how bad they are and how they must treat the enemywith respect.
  Bruce Foucart might win some awards from the unindicted HAMASco-conspirator CAIR for trying to emasculate his employees anddemoralize them at the hands of Muslims and Islam. But he is doingAmerica no favors.
  Back in the 1940s, his behavior would be considered treason. Andthat's exactly what it is now.
  By the way, while this is easy to pawn off on Obama, this wenton for 7.5 years under Bush, and it will continue under Romney,too. Sadly, the only leaders in this country who have the cojonesto speak out against this crap are Allen West and MicheleBachmann.
  Shukran [Thank You in Arabic], Honorary BrotherBruce Foucart, for Doing allah's Will! . ..
  Sexy Palestinian Muslim on Ramallah StreetCheers 9/11 Attacks
@adamcurry @THErealDVORAK SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters http://t.co/k2nOj5Vb
  Link to Article
  Source: @adamcurry - Twitter Search
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 02:01
  When he doesn't know a camera's rolling, the GOPcandidate shows his disdain for half of America.
  By David Corn on Mon. September 17, 2012 1:00 PMPDT
  During a private fundraiser earlier this year, Republicanpresidential candidate Mitt Romney told a small group of wealthycontributors what he truly thinks of all the voters who supportPresident Barack Obama. He dismissed these Americans as freeloaderswho pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives,and who think government should take care of them. Fielding aquestion from a donor about how he could triumph in November,Romney replied:
  There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for thepresident no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who arewith him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that theyare victims, who believe the government has a responsibility tocare for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care,to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement.And the government should give it to them. And they will vote forthis president no matter what'...These are people who pay noincome tax.
  Romney went on: "[M]y job is is not to worry about those people.I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibilityand care for their lives."
  Mother Jones has obtained video of Romney at thisintimate fundraiser'--where he candidly discussed his campaignstrategy and foreign policy ideas in stark terms he does not use inpublic'--and has confirmed its authenticity. To protect theconfidential source who provided the video, we have blurred some ofthe image, and we will not identify the date or location of theevent, which occurred after Romney had clinched the Republicanpresidential nomination. Here is Romney expressing his disdain forAmericans who back the president:
  At the dinner, Romney often stuck to familiar talking points.But there were moments when he went beyond the familiar campaignlines. Describing his family background, he quipped about hisfather, "Had he been born of Mexican parents, I'd have a bettershot of winning this." Contending that he is a self-mademillionaire who earned his own fortune, Romney insisted, "I haveinherited nothing." He remarked, "There is a perception, 'Oh, wewere born with a silver spoon, he never had to earn anything and soforth.' Frankly, I was born with a silver spoon, which is thegreatest gift you can have: which is to get born in America."
  Romney told the contributors that "women are open to supportingme," but that "we are having a much harder time with Hispanicvoters, and if the Hispanic voting bloc becomes as committed to theDemocrats as the African American voting block has in the past,why, we're in trouble as a party and, I think, as a nation." Whenone attendee asked how this group could help Romney sell himself toothers, he answered, "Frankly, what I need you to do is to raisemillions of dollars." He added, "The fact that I'm either tied orclose to the president'...that's very interesting."
  Asked why he wouldn't go full-throttle and assail Obama ascorrupt, Romney explained the internal thinking of his campaign andrevealed that he and his aides, in response to focus-group studiesconducted by his consultants, were hesitant to hammer the presidenttoo hard out of fear of alienating independents who voted for Obamain 2008:
  We speak with voters across the country abouttheir perceptions. Those people I told you'--the 5 to 6 or 7percent that we have to bring onto our side'--they all votedfor Barack Obama four years ago. So, and by the way, when you sayto them, "Do you think Barack Obama is a failure?" theyoverwhelmingly say no. They like him. But when you say, "Are youdisappointed that his policies haven't worked?" they say yes. Andbecause they voted for him, they don't want to be told that theywere wrong, that he's a bad guy, that he did bad things, that he'scorrupt. Those people that we have to get, they want to believethey did the right thing, but he just wasn't up to the task. Theylove the phrase that he's "over his head." But if we're'--butwe, but you see, you and I, we spend our day with Republicans. Wespend our days with people who agree with us. And these people arepeople who voted for him and don't agree with us. And so the thingsthat animate us are not the things that animate them. And the bestsuccess I have at speaking with those people is saying, you know,the president has been a disappointment. He told you he'd keepunemployment below 8 percent. Hasn't been below eight percentsince. Fifty percent of kids coming out of school can't get a job.Fifty percent. Fifty percent of the kids in high school in our 50largest cities won't graduate from high school. What're they gonnado? These are the kinds of things that I can say to that audiencethat they nod their head and say, "Yeah, I think you're right."What he's going to do, by the way, is try and vilify me as someonewho's been successful, or who's, you know, closed businesses orlaid people off, and is an evil bad guy. And that may work.
  (Note: Obama did not promise his policies would keep unemployment under 8percent, and 50 percent of college graduates are not unemployed.)
  To assure the donors that he and his campaign knew what theywere doing, Romney boasted about the consultants he had retained,emphasizing that several had worked for Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu:
  I have a very good team of extraordinarily experienced, highlysuccessful consultants, a couple of people in particular who havedone races around the world. I didn't realize it. These guys in theUS'--the Karl Rove equivalents'--they do races all over theworld: in Armenia, in Africa, in Israel. I mean, they work for BibiNetanyahu in his race. So they do these races and they see whichads work, and which processes work best, and we have ideas aboutwhat we do over the course of the campaign. I'd tell them to you,but I'd have to shoot you.
  When one donor said he was disappointed that Romney wasn'tattacking Obama with sufficient intellectual firepower, Romneygroused that the campaign trail was no place for high-minded anddetail-oriented arguments:
  Well, I wrote a book that lays out my view for what has tohappen in the country, and people who are fascinated by policy willread the book. We have a website that lays out white papers on awhole series of issues that I care about. I have to tell you, Idon't think this will have a significant impact on my electability.I wish it did. I think our ads will have a much bigger impact. Ithink the debates will have a big impact'...My dad used to say,"Being right early is not good in politics." And in a setting likethis, a highly intellectual subject'--discussion on a wholeseries of important topics typically doesn't win elections. Andthere are, there are, there are'--for instance, this presidentwon because of "hope and change."
  Romney, who spoke confidently throughout the event and seemedquite at ease with the well-heeled group, insisted that hiselection in and of itself would lead to economic growth and thatthe markets would react favorably if his chances seemed good in thefall:
  They'll probably be looking at what the polls are saying. If itlooks like I'm going to win, the markets will be happy. If it lookslike the president's going to win, the markets should not beterribly happy. It depends of course which markets you're talkingabout, which types of commodities and so forth, but my own view isthat if we win on November 6th, there will be a great deal ofoptimism about the future of this country. We'll see capital comeback and we'll see'--without actually doinganything'--we'll actually get a boost in the economy. If thepresident gets reelected, I don't know what will happen. Ican'--I can never predict what the markets will do. Sometimesit does the exact opposite of what I would have expected. But myown view is that if we get a "Taxageddon," as they call it, January1st, with this president, and with a Congress that can't worktogether, it's'--it really is frightening.
  Advertise onMotherJones.com
  At the dinner, Romney also said that the campaign purposefullywas using Ann Romney "sparingly'...so that people don't gettired of her." And he noted that he had turned down an invitationfrom Saturday Night Live because such an appearance "hasthe potential of looking slapstick and not presidential."
  Here was Romney raw and unplugged'--sort of unscripted. Withthis crowd of fellow millionaires, he apparently felt free to utterwhat he really believes and would never dare say out in the open.He displayed a high degree of disgust for nearly half of his fellowcitizens, lumping all Obama voters into a mass of shiftlessmoochers who don't contribute much, if anything, to society, and heindicated that he viewed the election as a battle between strivers(such as himself and the donors before him) and parasiticfree-riders who lack character, fortitude, and initiative. YetRomney explained to his patrons that he could not speak such harshwords about Obama in public, lest he insult those independentvoters who sided with Obama in 2008 and whom he desperately needsin this election. These were sentiments not to be shared with thevoters; it was inside information, available only to the select fewwho had paid for the privilege of experiencing the real Romney.
  COMING SOON: More from the secret Romneyvideo.
  Video production: James West, Adam Serwer,DanaLiebelson,and Erika Eichelberger
  Research assistance: James Carter
Romney gifts the election to Obama, and unwittingly highlights the Western economic dilemma
  Link to Article
  Source: A diary of deception and distortion
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 01:57
  The stupefying videogaffe from Mitt Romney may nevertheless make some people thinkharder about employment
  The general feeling shared by those with a degree of discernment(and an eye to his previous behaviour) has been, for some time,that Mitt Romney is really nothing more than just another greedyneocon working to complete the privatisation of Americangovernment.
  In one of those potentially election changing moments, lastnight later on (BST) a video of Romney mouthing off about the idleunemployed ''the 47% of Americans who pay no tax'' cameto light and went viral in no time flat. Across the US media set,the general view as I write (it's been a long day involvingdifferent time zones) is that either the GOP dumps him and draftsanother candidate, or the election is now Obama's to lose.It's hard to disagree with that.
  Both the percentage used (and the ''no tax'' jibe) arebollocks '' another urban myth that the numbers deny frompretty much every angle. But like him or loathe him '' andpersonally I can't stand the bloke or his ideas '' hedoes have a point, and Conservative politicians have made exactlythe same point in the UK'...also with some justification.
  A left-of-centre Party in any major democracy enjoying a welfaresystem is always at a 'dependence' advantage, in twoways: first, they pay the salaries of around 1 in 6 of those inwork who are Government employees; and second, they pay outbenefits to those stubbornly economically inactive folks whorepresent a staggering 3 out of ten of all adults aged 16-64. Inthe UK, for example, that gives the Labour Party a much higherchance of allegiance from some 41% of all voters.
  Those tonight calling Romney every name under the sun areprobably right to, but not on this issue necessarily: Ben Bernankemade it clear in his QE3 address that he feared a growing number ofAmericans were joining the 'structurally unemployed''' what we in the UK call LTUs '' long-termunemployed.
  The sad reality is that it suits the Democratic and LabourParties to have lots of poor folks thinking it's damnedunfair they're not one of the rich folks. But even assumingeither of those Parties have the calculated desire to 'breedloyalty', Romney was a prize ass to have said what he said ata public gathering '' whether it was behind closed doors ornot.
  So that's enough being nice about Mitt: I've had mylong-held view that he's a tax-dodging, simplistic bigot sortof confirmed by this, and I cannot help enjoying a wry smile ofexpectation about how Dan Hannan will talk his way out of therevelation. However, I do think an interesting economic point hasbeen raised here.
  As I mentioned last week, on the two occasions the BritishCoalition government has introduced welfare rationalisations andcuts, around 175,000 previously inactive people suddenly becameactive again each time. And nobody '' but nobody '' candeny that a massive influx of Polish workers into the UK that beganeight years ago all found paid work'...despite the existence ofover 1.5 unemployed Brits even then.
  I think that what's being demonstrated is the fundamentalflaw in both the libero-socialist and neocon outlooks. Left ofcentre governments increase unproductive bureaucracy and make lifebetter on welfare than their Right wing opponents. Having 2 in 5people contributing nothing to the economy (and a further 1 in 10retired) means only half the population are engaged in keeping theshow on the road.
  However, what neocon claptrap has done is (a) make fewer peoplefar more wealthy, (b) increase the pool of unemployed, and (c)reduce the real wages of the 'squeezed middle' betweenthose taking the piss at the top, and those muddling along with aworkless existence at the bottom.
  Thus between them, the fluffies and the nasties have made itwell-nigh impossible to get an economic recovery kick-started.Hence Ben debanker pumping dollars out all over the place. AndMervyn King. And Mario Draghi. And all to little or no effect.
  I reached the stage late last year of realising that theunwillingness of the Establishment Parties and bureaucrats torecognise this obvious problem meant that sites like The Slog wouldbe whispering in a thunderstorm at 3am when nobody's aroundto listen anyway'....assuming they wanted to in the firstplace.
  I keep on churning out this stuff purely to get a larger andlarger number of opinion formers and leaders interested in the ideaof radical constitutional and economic reform before it's toolate, and the Barbarians sack the legislatures. But really, I stillbelieve the best way to effect lasting change is to make lifedifficult for those who hold the real power in both the US and theUK: the civil servants, the bankers, the multinationals, and themedia.
  For what it's worth, I've just put up a new page called AIMS thatenumerates the key things I'd like to change. Pay it a visitand see what you think.
  Related: Socialists and Neocons divideand rule
  Like this:Be the first to likethis.
It Lives and Dies with You
  Link to Article
  Source: Lame Cherry
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 01:27
  My children, you have noticed that a DONATE button has appearedon this site and while I thought about doing things in satire andwrote a piece of such about Rush Limbaugh owing 11 million dollarsfor plagiarism and how others have reposted, stolen or taken creditfor things here as "their ideas" while looking smart to others, Ihave considered being up front with you.
  I have done this blog for free and it has benefited those fromJohn McCain to Mitt Romney on the top, to those like Joseph Farahto Jeff Rense in the middle, due to the buzz factor created here astheir pages go dead in this year long lull, and each of you, forthe astute are figuring out the game in no longer being warped bythe talking points issued daily from both sides in this deathclutch.
  Unlike the days of the Temple when the Levites were supported bydonations, the modern America is one of no such system. Those whohave read this blog know of the attacks I have put up in bothphysical and electronic. It was interesting to look in the mirrorand see my eye covered in blood due to a radar sweep when I was inthe city and dealing with the reality that my life in doing thishas been in danger a number of times.
  As you need money to live, I need money to live and that is whythe DONATE button to Paypal has appeared. You can donate what youdesire or what you feel moved to by God in what you have gotten outof this blog. If it is a slaves wage like Zephaniah received in his30 pieces of silver, then I would be in good company likeChrist.In speaking with Paypal, they state that as long as donations areunder 10,000 dollars, no one has to become a certified charity. Ifpeople like Rush Limbaugh will to donate their 11 million dollars,then it would require 1100 donations at 10,000 dollars per click tokeep things according to Paypal regulations.
  They will be to Lame Cherry and an email will be provided. I donot have time to visit with people no more than you would with athousand people pestering you. You also know in this, that thereare going to be screeching skirts as on Facebook who want to makean issue of things in ruining that email soon enough.
  I will though be appreciative in knowing that you actually valuethis blog enough for what it stands for in one of the few venuesholding the door open to the gulag this world has become. I do notknow honestly how much longer I can do this blog unsupported as itrequires great amounts of energy to listen to God and get thingsthe Way He desires and then dealing with the onslaught of attacksthe cartel figures out to strike at me each day.
  I will try though as I always have in my best, and I will dobetter I would assume under less stress from finances. As the oldsaying goes if one millionaire would pay for the train, allot ofpeople could enjoy the ride.
  With that, God bless the Good and we will see how this goes, asin time I might add things on seminars or some type of asking methings or some sweatshirts with LC on them. That of course if theblog lasts as the brier patch is taking it's toll in the isolationI must endure to make this thing work. It works better that waythough in just focusing on the message to deliver from God toyou.
  agtG 307 yy
Populists! @adamcurry ''@washingtonpost: College students at Mormon-owned BYU push for caffeinated sodas: http://t.co/8BxtRrFX''
  Link to Article
  Source: @adamcurry - Twitter Search
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 01:24
  SALT LAKE CITY '-- Caffeine-craving students at BrighamYoung University are pushing the Mormon-owned school to change itsstance on cola drinks.
  The move was triggered by Aug. 30 statements from BYUspokeswoman Carri Jenkins in which she said that the schooldoesn't serve or sell caffeinated drinks because there hasnot ''been a demand for it.''
I feel a little like a kid
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 01:23
  When I was a kid, my friends and I used toride our bikes down to Shea Stadium and sneak in the back, throughthe bullpen and out on to the field. Only during the off-season.They didn't have much so security back then.
  We'd run around on the field, marvelling thatwe were running in the same place that the great players of the daywere playing. Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, Ron Swoboda, EdKranepool.
  Anyway, that's what I feel like now. Likesomeone left the gate open and I get to run around on the field andplay whatever game I want. :-)
Daily Press Briefing - September 17, 2012
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 01:22
  1:57 p.m. EDT
  MS. NULAND:All right,everybody. It is a new week. I hope you all received everythingthat we were sending out over the weekend as we continued tomonitor the situation around the Middle East and North Africa. Idon't have anything at the top, so let's go towhat's on your minds.
  QUESTION: Well, as you continue to monitor, canyou give us an update of Tunis and Khartoum, the situations theresince the ordered departures on Saturday? Saturday, whatever day itwas.
  MS. NULAND: Situation in Tunis is largely calm.There '' the mission is closed to the public today. In Cairo,our Embassy is open, but we are not doing any immigrant ornonimmigrant visa appointments. We made that decision just toreduce crowds around the mission. But we are providing Americancitizen services. Consulate General Alexandria is closed today andtomorrow. And as you know, the Egyptians have been very responsivein providing the additional security that we've been lookingfor.
  QUESTION: Sorry. I asked about Khartoum,though.
  MS. NULAND: And Khartoum. So as you know, onSaturday or '' yeah, Saturday, after carefully reviewing thedamage done to the outside of our building, we authorized ordereddeparture for all the family members, the nonemergency personnel.The Embassy is remaining open under our charg(C), and ''but it's going to be closed to the public, I guess, today andtomorrow.
  QUESTION: What about Lebanon? The TravelWarning went out, and then there were reports on Embassy staffallegedly destroying confidential documents out of an abundance ofcaution. Is that usual practice? Is that true?
  MS. NULAND: Well, with regard to the TravelWarning on Lebanon, that was one of our periodic updates, andfrankly, the timing of it wasn't related to thedemonstrations that we've seen around the region. It wasupdated to cover some of the changes we've made with regardto the Fulbright and the English language program, also to takeinto account some of the shelling that we've seen on theborder area coming from Syria, et cetera.
  I'm not going to speak to how we handle classified. Youcan imagine that wherever we think it's necessary, we takeappropriate security measures, and we will continue to do that.
  QUESTION: Could you clarify whether theConsulate in Alexandria was attacked?
  MS. NULAND: There have been some smalldemonstrations, I think, in the hundreds in Alexandria. But to myknowledge, the Consulate was already closed for the weekend whenthose had begun, and we agreed with the Egyptians to keep it closedfor a couple days and see.
  Okay.
  QUESTION:There werealso demonstrations in Pakistan. Do you have any updatewhat's going on now?
  MS. NULAND: I do have a little bit of asituation report there for our '' it was Pakistan you askedabout, Goyal?
  QUESTION: Yes, ma'am.
  MS. NULAND: Yeah. So all of our personnel inPakistan are safe and accounted for. We did have protests that wererelatively widespread around the country today. However, most ofthem have been dispersed peacefully. We are obviously continuing tomonitor the situation closely. My understanding is that ourmissions were open today.
  QUESTION: Can you be more specific? When yousaid on the Lebanon Travel Warning that the Fulbright and whateverthe other program was suspended, when was '' when were theysuspended? Today? Or was that something just done recently thathadn't been --
  MS. NULAND: No, I don't think it was inconnection with this round of demonstrations around the region--
  QUESTION: No, no. I'm just askingwhen.
  MS. NULAND: I think these were '' Idon't have a date, but I can get that for you, Matt. It wasas a result of the deteriorating security situation in general thatthe decision was made to suspend those programs. But I will get thetiming. I think it was more than a month ago.
  QUESTION: Okay. And when you're gettingthe date or the timing, how many people does that affect?
  MS. NULAND: Yeah. I had it. I think it'sabout 10, but it may be more than that.
  QUESTION: And that means that if the program iscanceled, they come home?
  MS. NULAND: Yeah. Usually. Usually. Yeah.
  Please.
  QUESTION:Toria, inFriday's briefing, Friday evening, you essentially statedthat all questions concerning any aspect of the Benghazi attack'' the circumstances surrounding it, the outcome of it, etcetera '' would henceforth be directed by you to the FBI sinceit's their investigation.
  And yet, on five Sunday shows yesterday, Ambassador Rice, whoworks for the same agency as you, was giving the latest U.S.assessment of how this event unfolded, specifically by saying wedon't believe it was premeditated or preplanned, and bysaying that those with heavy arms and so forth showed up, inessence, as she put it, to hijack an ongoing demonstration.
  So my first question for you is: Given that Ambassador Rice isout there talking publicly about it and not referring Bob Schiefferand Chris Wallace and the rest to the FBI, may we consider that wecan again begin asking you questions at this podium about thecircumstances of the attack? If it's fair for the Ambassadorto discuss it, it should be fair in this room, correct?
  MS. NULAND: Well, let me start by reminding youthat Ambassador Rice outranks me, as does my own boss, so she isoften at liberty to say more than I am. And I guess that'sgoing to continue to be the case.
  What I will say, though, is that Ambassador Rice, in hercomments on every network over the weekend, was very clear, veryprecise, about what our initial assessment of what happened is. Andthis was not just her assessment. It was also an assessment thatyou've heard in comments coming from the intelligencecommunity, in comments coming from the White House. I don'thave anything to give you beyond that.
  She also made clear, as I had on Friday, that there is anongoing FBI investigation. So frankly, I'm not sure thatit's useful to go beyond that. I'm not capable of goingbeyond that, and we'll have to just see what the FBIinvestigation brings us.
  QUESTION: You would acknowledge, however, thatthe account of the events, the preliminary account of the eventsthat Ambassador Rice offered, diverges starkly from the accountoffered by the Libyan President, correct?
  MS. NULAND: Well, we've heard a number ofdifferent things from Libya. I would simply say that what ''the comments that Ambassador Rice made accurately reflect ourgovernment's initial assessment.
  QUESTION: And one last question, if I might,because Ambassador Rice spoke to this. She suggested that there hadbeen an ongoing demonstration outside the Consulate or in theproximity of the Consulate in Benghazi that was, in essence,hijacked by more militant elements who came armed to the affair. Ijust want to nail this down with you. You are '' you stand bythis notion that there was, in fact, an ongoing demonstration?
  MS. NULAND: I'd simply say that Idon't have any information beyond what Ambassador Rice sharedwith you and that her assessment does reflect our initialassessment as a government.
  Please.
  QUESTION: The Libyan Interior Minister saidtoday that he dismissed two security officers in relation to theattack on the Consulate in Benghazi. Is this something that you areexpecting? Do you think this is a step in the right direction? Anddo you think that the Libyans should have taken more fully aresponsibility for protecting the Embassy in Benghazi? And howclose are you in terms of cooperation with the investigation? Imean, what level, I mean?
  MS. NULAND: Well, we talked about this a littlebit last week, and I'm going to stand by what I said, whichis obviously the Libyans are leading an investigation. We have ourown FBI investigation. We also have close FBI and Libyancooperation as we both pursue these. But I'm not going to getinto the back and forth of who's arrested, what we think,what we know about any of this. And the investigation is obviouslygoing to lead us to the appropriate conclusions about preciselywhat happened and how it happened.
  QUESTION: Can you confirm at least thatthere's two security officers have been dismissed because ofthat?
  MS. NULAND: I'm going to refer you to theLibyans, because this appears to be '' you're ''appear to be giving me backaction that they may have taken.
  QUESTION: Do you have confidence in theLibyans' ability to do a prompt and thoroughinvestigation?
  MS. NULAND: I would say that we are alreadyworking well with the Libyans, as we have throughout this verydifficult period. And '' but with regard to the preciseaspects of how we're cooperating on the investigation,I'm going to send you to the investigating agency.
  QUESTION: You've had ''there's been other investigations that the Libyans weresupposed to have done that they've struggled, I guess, tofinish, one being the circumstances of Qadhafi's death, Ithink, in October. And I think it's 11 months and you guyshave no information, if that's correct.
  MS. NULAND: I frankly don't know what thestatus of the Libyan investigation on that is. But with regard to--
  QUESTION: That was two weeks ago, so --
  MS. NULAND: With regard to this one, as youknow, they are doing an investigation, we are doing aninvestigation, and we are going to collaborate together. Sopresumably, information will be shared, and we'll help eachother.
  QUESTION: And have any of their investigationsinto various things since a year and a half ago '' there wasYunus, there was Qadhafi '' have any of them borne anyinformation that's been solid that you've received?
  MS. NULAND: I really can't speak to that,Brad. I haven't looked into all of these differentthings.
  Annie.
  QUESTION:On Egypt, yousaid the Egyptians have been cooperative in providing theadditional security you requested. Can you talk a little bit morebroadly about what the contact with the Egyptians has been likeover the last few days? And what is the status of the discussionsabout delivery of aid? Has that been affected at all?
  MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, the White Housereported that the President had a good conversation with PresidentMorsi. I think it was before the weekend. I can't actuallyremember. It might have been Friday. Right. And then the Secretarytalked to Foreign Minister Amr on Saturday. I think we reportedthat conversation out to you over the weekend. She, as you know,spoke to leaders around the region on Saturday. She also spoke toForeign Minister of Saudi Arabia, FM al-Faysal. She spoke to theLibyan Prime Minister Abushagur. She spoke to Foreign MinisterDavutoglu, spoke to Foreign Secretary Hague, and Foreign MinisterFabius of France.
  So the points that we are continuing to make are about theimportance of maintaining security, vigilance, working together.That is moving well. And as you know, we are continuing to workwith the Hill on the support that we think is important to supportthose very forces of moderation, change, democracy, openness inEgypt that are very important for defeating extremism of the kindthat we saw.
  Please.
  QUESTION: Is that a harder argument to makethis week than it was about two weeks ago when some of thatroadblock seemed to be moving out of the way?
  MS. NULAND: Well, it's a conversation weobviously have to continue to have, and the Secretary will behaving it with the Congress as well this week, we expect. I mean,from where we are sitting, if you look at what happened, not justin Egypt but in other parts of the region where we saw violence, itis those who have the more extreme views who were not successful insome of these electoral contests. And they're resorting tothe street. They're resorting to violence. And it underscoresthe message that we've been giving that we need to supportthose who are willing to see change that is truly democratic,that's truly representative of the will of the people, andthat isolates extremism.
  QUESTION: Victoria --
  MS. NULAND: Margaret, and then I'll comeback to you, Said.
  Please.
  QUESTION: On Friday, you went into some detailexplaining to us how the FASTteams are structured and function, also talked a bit about underthe Vienna Convention some of the stipulations for host countriesand security that they need to provide. You mentioned that at timesthe U.S., while they cede the protection to the host country, we doat times have conversations about increasing security, improvingsecurity, more along the lines of what the U.S. would like.
  That was sort of standard practice. Now that we've hadthis event on 9/11, can you talk to me about whether thoseconversations have continued, whether that has in any way changedthe relationship of the host country security practices and what weadvise them?
  MS. NULAND: Well, around the world '' andnot just for the United States but for every country'sdiplomatic mission, as we talked about on Friday '' we allhave to rely for the outer ring of security on any diplomaticmission on host country security. Usually, in normal, calm times,it can be done by regular static police posts. Sometimes it has tobe done by higher level police. And when situations get out ofhand, sometimes the military has to be brought in.
  So it is an ongoing conversation in every part of the world withthe host government as to what we are seeing, what the threats andrisks might be, how their forces are postured, training we might beable to provide, how we can work together. But it is always theresponsibility of host governments to deal with security outside ofan embassy perimeter wall. And then it is obviously ourresponsibility inside the perimeter.
  So I think what we saw last week was that in some cases we hadgovernments that had a lot of will to protect us but may haveoverestimated the capability of the forces that they had around andhad to augment, and it took them a little bit of time to catch up,so we had to have conversations '' very, in some cases,high-level conversations '' about what we were seeing. Thoseconversations continue. And as I said, the Secretary talked to alot of her colleagues in the affected areas to maintain '' toensure that we're maintaining vigilance going forward.
  QUESTION: But in some of those cases, therehave been fatalities. Lethal force has been used. Has the U.S.voiced any concern about the methods that the host countries areusing to protect these U.S. interests?
  MS. NULAND: Well, regrettably, there have beensome demonstrators who have lost their lives. This is, again, ahost country decision. What we generally see is an effort to quelldemonstrations that get out of hand that move beyond the peacefulrealm, first with less lethal means, whether it's watercannon, whether it's gas. But obviously, it's up to thehost country how it determines when it needs to and if it needs tomove to lethal force.
  QUESTION: Toria, going back to Friday'sbriefing --
  MS. NULAND: Yes.
  QUESTION: -- you said that you would endeavorto tell us if there was anything that had been in that initialtimeline that was fundamentally incorrect. Are you aware ofanything that was incorrect in that initial timeline?
  MS. NULAND: I am not at the moment, butI'm not privy to all the investigative information onthat.
  QUESTION: And you're sticking with'' you will try to tell --
  MS. NULAND: I will.
  QUESTION: -- and you will tell us if --
  MS. NULAND: I will.
  QUESTION: And then secondly, are you awarethere is apparently a video of Ambassador Stevens being taken outof the room in the consulate? Have '' I have not seen it, butapparently there are '' there's some chanting in thebackground. Are you aware if anyone has '' in this buildinghas seen this video?
  MS. NULAND: I've heard about thisvideo.
  QUESTION:Is it yourunderstanding that the people who were pulling him out were excitedthat he was alive or appeared to be alive, or is it yourunderstanding that they were celebrating his death?
  MS. NULAND: Matt, clearly, this video andwhether or not it's authentic and whether or not it has'' it's an accurate representation of what happened,whether or not it's Ambassador Stevens, is going to be partand parcel of this investigation. I would simply say that, speakingas a member of the corps of this Department, it's very, verydifficult to see that circulating on press organizations, and Iwould ask if that's appropriate in this circumstance. ButI'm not in a position to confirm what, who, where, andwhether it has any value in this.
  QUESTION: Okay. And then just one last thingfrom Friday '' excuse me '' from Friday's briefing.You again didn't want to get into the number of embassiesthat actually have Marine guards, so the Marine recruiting ''the center for '' or whoever it is that does recruiting forthe Marine guards, for the Marines themselves, say that they haveoutfits or units in about 125 embassies. This is on the publiclyaccessible websites.
  MS. NULAND: Okay.
  QUESTION: Does that sound about right toyou?
  MS. NULAND: It does. I'm happy to checkit against our data if that's helpful.
  QUESTION: And it's about '' thereare roughly 200 or so --
  MS. NULAND: About.
  QUESTION: -- missions?
  MS. NULAND: About. I will check both of thosefor you, Matt.
  QUESTION: Victoria --
  MS. NULAND: Said.
  QUESTION:Yes. You saidthat some countries were trying to protect us ratherenthusiastically or genuinely, suggesting that perhaps othercountries were not. Let me ask you this question in that light. Doyou attribute that the inaction or the slow action by the Presidentof Egypt '' do you attribute it to inexperience, or perhaps hewas trying to play to the animosity of a popular sentiment?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I'm obviously notstanding here in a position to parse anybody's motives. Iwould simply say that we have seen in the past that '' and theEgyptians themselves saw in the context of Tahrir Square ''that as some of these events get out of hand, the police in Egypthave not been the strongest reed and it's ultimately takenmilitary force to quell difficulties, whether they were Egyptianinternal difficulties or whether they involved their ViennaConvention obligations.
  So it was when we began to get military forces around theEmbassy that we began to get the situation under control, andthat's obviously a decision that is never an easy one for anygovernment to make for the reasons that we've talked abouthere, but they did ultimately make it and we are feeling muchbetter about the security now.
  QUESTION: So you think that basically theproblem is a result of the breakdown in the '' let's saythe security institution rather than just a political position?
  MS. NULAND: I can't really parse it here,Said, but there are a lot of factors that go into this. We talked alittle bit on Friday that governments across the region that usedto be autocracies had one kind of a relationship with theirmilitary, and now they have a different kind of relationship withtheir security structures, with their military, with their police,and there are some growing pains here, obviously.
  Please, Andy.
  QUESTION:To follow up onthat, sort of next door on Sudan over the weekend, there werereports on Sudan's state news agency that they had turneddown our request to send Marines to beef up security around ourEmbassy Khartoum, whereas the Yemenis apparently let them in. Canyou tell us what happened there? And is there ongoing discussionwith the Sudanese about improving security in Khartoum?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I'm obviously not goingto speak to our internal deliberations with the Sudanese. I think Idid release a little bit of a statement on Saturday, which franklyI don't have in front of me right now, Andy, about safety andsecurity at our mission in Khartoum. But as you know, Khartoum wasanother mission where we directed our family members and ournonemergency personnel to leave. We had ordered departure onSaturday. There was external damage to the building, and we arecontinuing to work with the Sudanese to ensure that the responsegoing forward is appropriate.
  QUESTION: So you're not able to confirmfrom the podium that the Sudanese turned down the request foradditional Marines?
  MS. NULAND: I'm not going to get into ourinternal security deliberations for the Sudanese.
  QUESTION: Well, are you comfortable with thelevel of security at the Embassy right now?
  MS. NULAND: Our personnel and our facility issafe at the moment, but we are continuing to evaluate the securityposture of Sudanese forces on a daily basis.
  QUESTION: Victoria, just two things, one onLibya and one on Egypt. First on Egypt, my understanding is thatAmbassador Patterson was out of Egypt at that time. I think she washere on September 10.
  MS. NULAND: Correct.
  QUESTION: Is it the case that on that day,September 10, staff at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo cabled FoggyBottom alerting officials here to the effect the video was havingand the likelihood for violent protests and was effectively ignoredby Foggy Bottom?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I'm first of all notgoing to speak about internal government telegrams, et cetera. WhatI will say to you is that we were well aware, both through Embassymonitoring of social media and other sources available to us, thatthis video was being used to whip up strong feelings in Egypt thatcould, in fact, lead to demonstrations. And it was on that basisthat the charge took the precaution on the morning of September11th, or even before they came into work, of having mostof the Embassy staff stay home that day well before the protestseven began. So when we had the difficulties, there was actuallyminimal staff in the building because we were already alerted andwe had alerted the Egyptians as well.
  QUESTION: Okay. And on Libya, again, mindfulthat you've already told me once today that you won'tbe in a position to say anything other than what Ambassador Ricedisclosed --
  MS. NULAND: You're going to try againanyway. Go ahead.
  QUESTION: Simply on the basis of whatAmbassador Rice has publicly disclosed, does the United StatesGovernment regard what happened in Benghazi as an act ofterror?
  MS. NULAND: Again, I'm not going to putlabels on this until we have a complete investigation, okay?
  QUESTION: You don't '' so youdon't regard it as an act of terrorism?
  MS. NULAND: I don't think we know enough.I don't think we know enough. And we're going tocontinue to assess. She gave our preliminary assessment.We're going to have a full investigation now, and thenwe'll be in a better position to put labels on things,okay?
  QUESTION:And what messagewill Secretary Clinton have? You mentioned that she's ''that the Department is working with the Hill in large measure'' I think it was in response to an earlier question aboutEgypt '' what message will Secretary Clinton have forlawmakers when she sees them imminently?
  MS. NULAND: Well, obviously, we'll lether speak herself to members of Congress, but you can understandthat they want to have a full assessment of what happened, what weknow, what measures we took at the time, what measures we'retaking going forward to continue to protect our personnel and ourfacilities. I think she, in general, has been heartened that somany members of Congress have reached out to say, ''What doyou need? How can we help?'' So I think she'll want totalk about all of those things, but she'll also want to, Iwould guess '' and we'll see where this goes andI'll speak to it after she does it '' but as we'vesaid here, to make clear, as Ambassador Rice also did over theweekend, that our assessment is that these people in all of thesetransitioning countries who have stood up for change and who havefought for change in their own countries, whether you'retalking about Libya or Tunisia or Yemen or Egypt, don't wantnow to let some '' a few mobs hijack their desire for a betterfuture.
  So America can't turn our back now on these countries. Wehave to continue and deepen and broaden our support so they have abetter, more peaceful, more democratic future '' a futurewhere people who have grievances express them peacefully, expressthem to the ballot box rather than having protests turn angry andviolent. So she will want to underscore that. She'll want totalk about it in terms of the programmatic support that we'reasking for from the Hill.
  QUESTION: Do you expect that she'll beable to answer any of their questions, or will she refer thelawmakers to the FBI's investigation and say thatthey're (inaudible)?
  MS. NULAND: I can't speak to that, butobviously, we're all focused on ensuring the integrity of theinvestigation.
  Goyal. Anything else on this part of the world?
  QUESTION: (Inaudible) what you're sayingabout the Secretary's prospective message, given the ''sort of the urgency of the situation as it's beendemonstrated by these incidents, is there any chance that the StateDepartment might up its request for aid for these countries?
  MS. NULAND: I'm not going to speculate,Andy, at this point. We're looking at everything, obviously,but first and foremost at security.
  Please.
  QUESTION: What's your assessment of thedegree of infiltration of al-Qaida in the Maghreb in Libyatoday?
  MS. NULAND: You're asking me to make anintelligence assessment from this podium. I'm not going to dothat. I'm sorry.
  Goyal and then Samir. Goyal first and then Samir.
  QUESTION: Nepal?
  MS. NULAND: Nepal, my goodness.
  QUESTION: Yes, ma'am. Since StateDepartment has already revoked the terror designation of the Maoistgovernment in Nepal, now what Nepalese are asking '' what kindof U.S. help '' asking to have a new government or continuingthe democracy, and of the violence against so many governmentsthere by the terrorists or Maoists in the past?
  MS. NULAND: Was there a question in there,Goyal?
  QUESTION: Yeah. The question is now ''that was the demand by the Maoists to remove '' the U.S.should remove the terror designation in order to support thedemocracy and the constitution and the future government there.
  MS. NULAND: Well, we've spoken about thisbefore, and we will continue to talk to all forces in Nepal withregard to this, but I don't have anything new to give youtoday, if that's what you're asking.
  Please, Guy.
  QUESTION: Regarding --
  MS. NULAND: Oh, Samir, I promised you. Iapologize, Guy. Samir.
  QUESTION: Go ahead.
  QUESTION: There were lots of press reports inthe weekend about Iran increasing its Revolutionary Guards andintelligence people in Turkey, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon. Do youhave anything on this?
  MS. NULAND: I don't have anythingspecific, but you know that we have been concerned about Iranianactivity not only with regard to Syria, with regard to itsaffiliations with Hezbollah, but the '' an increase, an uptempo in general, but I don't have anything specific for you,Samir.
  QUESTION:Speaking ofIran and Syria, can you offer any initial read on the meeting thisweekend between President Assad and Lakhdar Brahimi?
  MS. NULAND:I can't. Myunderstanding is that Envoy Brahimi is going to finish the roundsthat he is doing now before he begins consulting with theinternational community on his conclusions and his proposals goingforward. So we are going to respect his desire to have a full roundof consultations, and I'm expecting that we'll hearmore from him next week when we're all in New York.
  QUESTION:Apart from any securitymeasures going on in Beirut, do you have any comment in general onthe Hezbollah demonstrations?
  MS. NULAND:I don't haveanything new today. Hezbollah demonstrations over theweekend?
  QUESTION:No, today.
  QUESTION:Today.
  MS. NULAND:I don't have itcoming down. Let me see if I've got anything to give youlater in the day.
  QUESTION:On Iran and Syria, onemore: There were some comments over the weekend acknowledging orappearing to acknowledge some '' the presence of RevolutionaryGuards in Syria. How do you view that, and I guess, does thisvalidate some of the long suspicions that you've spoken abouthere about their role in the Syrian civil war?
  MS. NULAND: Yeah. I mean, it didn'tsurprise us in the least. We've been saying for months andmonths and months that we're concerned about the involvementof Iran in Syria, and that this wasn't simply a matter ofpolitical support and economic support; it was a matter offighters, it's a matter of materiel, and we are veryconcerned about it.
  QUESTION: I think that the commander who wasquoted, he said the Revolutionary Guard weren't involved indirect military operations, but only advising, I think, andfinancial assistance. Do you have '' do you think this has anycredibility, this limited role as he described it?
  MS. NULAND: Well, we are concerned, we continueto be concerned that it is about materiel, it is about training, itis about personnel in units. And I don't know where he drawsthe line, but clearly this is active and strong support for theAssad regime.
  Said?
  QUESTION: Toria, should the violence of thepast few days against the embassies give the United States pause asit considers aiding the rebels in Syria, and what kind of forcesthat might emerge and take part in that country?
  MS. NULAND: Well, Said, I think this speaks tothe work that we've been doing for many months now to try tounify the opposition, internal and external, behind a transitionstrategy that is democratic, that is based on universal humanrights, where there's a place for all Syrians, no matter whothey are. And our concern remains that the longer this goes on themore the delicate fabric of Syria, with its many ethnic groups andconfessions, tears and the more the institutions are destroyed. Andthis is why not only do we need to hasten the day that thebloodshed ends, but we need a strong, unified plan of theopposition so that we minimize the damage going forward.
  QUESTION: Okay. But the common slogan among allthese rebel groups or opposition groups in Syria seems to be'' and it really rhymes beautifully in Arabic '' it says,''Alawites to the grave, and Christians to Beirut.'' Imean, this seems to be the common thread between all these groups.Are you counting them against espousing such horrible and hatefulsectarian slogans?
  MS. NULAND: Well, you know we are and you knowwe have been. The code of conduct that the opposition groups putforward back in July has a very strong bill of rights to it, whichspeaks about the rights of all of the different groups of equal'' of appropriate representation, all of those kinds ofthings. Even some of the FSA websites have talked about theimportance of a Syria for all Syrians. And our message here fromthis podium, the Secretary's message, has been that anybodyfighting in the name of the Syrian people has to be prepared towork for and support a Syria for all Syrians, where no groupdominates another. We don't want to trade '' and nor dothe Syrian people '' one set of authoritarian thugs foranother set of authoritarian thugs. We need a Syria that representsall the Syrian groups, that protects all of their rights, thatincludes political participation for them and a place for them, andrule of law for all Syrians.
  Please.
  QUESTION:Can I askyou to just step back and take a 30,000 foot view for a momenthere? On Friday, the people who read what we write and who watch uson TV and who listen to us on the radio and who are not foreignpolicy experts but just ordinary American '' who, by the way,happen to be in the middle of a presidential election season'' see on their screens 33 different locales across the world,stretching from Western Europe to South Asia, where either U.S.embassies or American citizens, American diplomatic personnel orWestern fast food chains and the like are under attack.
  And this prompted two lines of thought that I would like you toaddress. Number one is that the United States '' its positionin the world is diminished from where it would have been, say, fouryears ago because we're under attack. Our standing isobviously diminished because our adversaries around the world feelfree to attack us. And the second point that I'd like you toaddress is the notion that President Obama, with his Cairo speechand his outreach to the Arab Muslim world, that that has failed, orthat it's been rejected in some core sense when the localesthat we're talking about are all Arab Muslim locales.
  MS. NULAND: Well, I'm going to start,since you are an infrequent visitor to our briefing room here, byreminding you that we don't do politics here. We representthis Department in its --
  QUESTION: I didn't ask you any politicalquestions.
  MS. NULAND: I understand. But you'retalking about calendar cycles in this country. So I'm justgoing to lay that marker down, just to remind you of what we dohere.
  Let me also remind you that, sadly, this is not the first time,as Ambassador Rice made clear, that we've seen acts ofviolence erupt in many parts of the world in response to insultsagainst Islam, insults against other religions. And they are oftendifficult to contain. But the larger point '' and this goes tothe vision that the President laid out in Cairo '' is that inevery one of these places that has had a democratic transition,that has had a change, we are seeing the governments standing upand rejecting this violence, rejecting the extremism that theserepresent, calling on people to respect rule of law, calling onpeople to express their grievances through the ballot box, throughthe newly available democratic principles, and that's goodfor America.
  It is good for America that so many of these people now have theright and the ability to express their concerns, express theirgrievances through real politics, through peaceful means. Thatdoesn't mean that we '' that those governments haveconvinced everybody to use those available methods, but at least wehave relationships with governments across North Africa and theMiddle East that are democratically elected, that represent people,that are accountable to people, that have to deliver peace,justice, security, prosperity. This is not going to be easy. Theyhave a long road to go. But it underscores the importance ofAmericans and this country standing with those who want to live aswe do. Because democratic countries make better allies and friendsof America.
  QUESTION: So, wait. There are just two ''there were two points, and I'm still waiting for you toaddress them. Number one is address the notion that this reflectsdiminished U.S. influence that we could come under attack likethis. And the second is that the President's outreach policy,starting with his great Cairo speech and so forth, has obviouslyfailed. I didn't say I'm agreeing with those points ofview, but I've asked '' they're out there, andyou're well aware of that, and I'm asking you toaddress them.
  MS. NULAND: I --
  QUESTION: Is our influence stronger? Is thisevidence of that? And number two, has President Obama'soutreach policy to the Arab Muslim world been a success?
  MS. NULAND: I addressed the second part of thatquestion in making clear that we are now standing with governmentsacross this region that are freely elected, that have to beaccountable to their people, and that is better for us than wherewe were before this Arab Spring. But we can't abandon thesepeople now, particularly because they are facing extremism in theirmidst; they are facing folks who want to roll back the clock insidetheir countries and between their countries. And that's allthe more reason why we have to continue to work with them.
  America, sadly, for decades has been the victim of violence. Youcan look at the Beirut bombings of the '80s; you can look atterrorist attacks ever since September 11th. We all wishthis weren't the case, but these are people who obviouslydon't believe what we believe, which is that if you havegrievances, if you feel insulted, you address them politically, youaddress them peacefully. And we all have to stand together as aninternational community against grievance being expressed throughviolence, through terror, and we will continue to do that.
  Please.
  QUESTION: I'm just curious, one, if theSecretary has made any additional calls since the ones that youread out on Saturday, since then. And two, I noticed that herschedule for today said she was involved in internal meetings inthe Department. Do any '' are you aware if any of thesemeetings have to do with this '' with the situations, andcould you offer us '' give us any details, who she might bemeeting, if in fact she is talking about the situation, who it isthat she's --
  MS. NULAND: Yeah. She also spoke with the Kingof Morocco on Sunday. That call was very much in line with theother calls that she had. The King expressed his condolences, hisconcern, our commitment to continue to work together for peace,security, justice in that part of the world. As you know, we hadhad the '' our bilateral talks with the Moroccans earlier inthe week, so they also had a chance to review those talks.
  With regard to her meetings today, she has had an update fromher team, but she's been updated regularly all weekend long.And she has also continued to direct the continued review of thesecurity posture at all of these missions.
  QUESTION: Change of --
  MS. NULAND: Please, Guy, finally, misterpatient.
  QUESTION:Regarding SuuKyi's visit to Washington this week, could you give us anindication as to the likelihood that the United States will or willnot announce a full lifting of the ban on Myanmar's importsto the United States during her visit? Is that beingconsidered?
  MS. NULAND: I don't have anything new toannounce for you here, Guy. I think you know that we have Daw SuuKyi in Washington. I think it's beginning tomorrow, andshe'll see the Secretary, and then she'll go up to NewYork and she'll be traveling around the country. She'llbe making a lot of her own statements here. We also are expectingPresident Thein Sein in New York for the UN General Assembly.We'll have a chance to meet with him there. But I'm notin a position to predict whether we're going to take any newsteps on Burma this week or next.
  QUESTION: Would it be fair to suggest that withthe release of the last 400-odd political prisoners today that thatmight make the possibility of the removal of sanctions likelier orless likely?
  MS. NULAND: Well, Ros, we've seen thepress announcements that we have 514 prisoners granted amnestytoday. But as in the past, until we get a chance to review thelists and understand who it is, we're not even in a positionto confirm whether any of these guys were political. So we,obviously, need some time to do that, and we will continue to workclosely with the Burmese to verify exactly who we're talkingabout.
  QUESTION: How substantive are '' is thisbuilding expecting discussions between Daw Suu Kyi and the U.S.Government when it comes to trying to support and expand financial,educational, and non-profit ties between the two countries, absentany decision on these remaining sanctions?
  MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, she's beena very strong voice for continued ties between our country foreducation, for reform, all those kinds of things. The Secretarytakes counsel with her whenever she can, and I think that'llbe '' that they'll have another opportunity for thattomorrow.
  QUESTION: Can we stay --
  QUESTION: Can I take a larger picture onthis?
  MS. NULAND: Yeah.
  QUESTION: Especially in light of what has beenhappening in the Middle East and North Africa in the past 18 monthsor so, this whole process of reconciliation, as it were, with Burmahas been going on since the mid-2000's, and it's been avery slow, deliberate process after a ramp-up of economic andpolitical sanctions. Does the go-slow approach that was started inthe Bush Administration and continued by this Administration to seeimprovements in the political climate there '' is that themodel that this building is using for all of the political changesthat are happening now in the Middle East and North Africa? And ifthat's not an accurate analogy, why isn't it?
  MS. NULAND: Well, first of all, I thinkI'm going to take issue with your premise, Ros. The changesand reform steps that we've seen in Burma in the last yearare qualitatively and quantitatively broader and deeper than we hadseen at any time before, with the allowing of Suu Kyi's partyto run, with release of prisoners, with the outreach to all of theminority groups. There's obviously a lot more to be done, andwe will talk to both Daw Suu Kyi and to President Thein Sein aboutthat going forward.
  I am always '' I think we are as a Department always loatheto make comparisons across regions, across cultures, even acrosscountries, because every place has its own history, has its ownback story, if you will. And every emerging and changingtransitional country has to find its own way. What we do is tostand on basic principles that are rooted in our own history thathuman rights of all have to be protected, rule of law has to beprotected, and all citizens deserve the right to pick their ownleaders.
  QUESTION: So can we stay in Asia?
  MS. NULAND: Yes.
  QUESTION: Last --
  QUESTION: Can we stick with Burma, just onelast one?
  MS. NULAND: Yeah. Finishing Burma.
  QUESTION: You said that '' you said''we'll have a chance to meet'' with Thein Sein inNew York. I mean, obviously we'll have a chance to meet a lotof different people up there. Do you actually expect senior U.S.Government officials to meet him on the sidelines of UNGA?
  MS. NULAND: I would expect so, yes, as we havein the past.
  QUESTION: And the Secretary or somebody --
  MS. NULAND: Is that a picture of meyou've got there going there, Guy? (Laughter.) We'llsee if it's sufficiently flattering, right? (Laughter.)
  QUESTION: The Secretary or somebody else?
  MS. NULAND: Burma is boring him today.
  I'm not prepared to announce her appointments yet, Arshad.As you know, we will as soon as we can.
  QUESTION: Okay.
  QUESTION: So can we stay in Asia just for asecond?
  MS. NULAND: Yes.
  QUESTION:So several timeslast week, you declined or didn't want to talk about thesituation between China and Japan. Things got a little bit moredicey Friday and over the weekend. I'm wondering if you'' especially because Secretary Panetta is due there tomorrow'' if you would like to talk '' say anything today aboutthe situation.
  MS. NULAND: Well, Secretary Panetta has alreadymade some pretty strong statements over the course of the weekend.He's made clear that we are concerned. We're concernedabout the escalation of tensions. We've said that before. Wesaid it when the Secretary was in Vladivostok and on her own Asiatrip some '' when was that? Just a week ago, right? And we aregoing to continue to counsel Japanese leaders and Chinese leadersto talk to each other and try to work through these issues throughdialogue.
  QUESTION: Are you saying that Secretary Panettahas got the lead diplomatic role on this, then?
  MS. NULAND: Secretary, as you know, saw bothPresident Hu --
  QUESTION: No, no. I'm talking aboutSecretary --
  MS. NULAND: -- and Prime Minister Noda.
  QUESTION: No, I understand that. But I mean--
  MS. NULAND: My point was simply that hereiterated some of the concerns that the Secretary had articulatedwhen we were there, so our concern remains, and we want to seethese countries work together.
  Andy.
  QUESTION:Different topic.Just '' we have reports now out of Brussels, I guess, thatCatherine Ashton is going to meet Jalili in Istanbul tomorrow.They're describing this as not a negotiation round but sortof just a catch-up session. I'm wondering if you have anythoughts on what you hoped might come out of this particularmeeting. Is there a sense that we could get back to a negotiatingsession at some time? Is that dependent on something that mighthappen in this meeting?
  And given your sort of blanket assessment on Iran as sort of anegative actor in the region, why is it worthwhile going at it withthem on this issue now when they're sort of not beingconstructive on anything else?
  MS. NULAND: Well, this is an effort before weare all at the UN General Assembly next week to see where theIranians are on the nuclear file. You remember that we had saidafter the last round, and the Secretary said when we were in theMiddle East at the end of the summer, that we hadn't seen astrong enough proposal from the Iranian side, that we wanted themto go back and work on it, that we didn't think that therewas any ambiguity about what the P-5+1 was looking for. So this isan opportunity for Lady Ashton, on behalf of the P-5+1, to see whatthe Iranians are thinking. And then we do anticipate that the P-5+1itself, minus Iran, will have a chance to consult on the basis ofthat information when we're in New York next week.
  QUESTION: I thought she used the termnonstarters at the time.
  MS. NULAND: That was the word that was used,nonstarter.
  QUESTION: So what has happened since then thatwould suggest a starter has been '' that a starter hasemerged?
  MS. NULAND: Well, that's the questionthat we have. We made clear that what they had put on the table wasa nonstarter; are they prepared to bring anything new?
  QUESTION: Right, but they can call you, theycan write you whenever they want. What's the purpose of thismeeting to go there and ask them? I mean --
  MS. NULAND: Well, they're meeting --
  QUESTION: -- they're in the positionwhere they should be complying with their internationalobligations, correct?
  MS. NULAND: Well, we're going the extramile to offer them a face-to-face meeting to see what'sup.
  QUESTION: Does that suggest that you might beopen to a P-5+1 meeting with the Iranians in New York?
  MS. NULAND: There is no plan for that, based onwhat we know right now.
  QUESTION: And the P-5+1 meeting that you expectto take place in New York, do you expect that to be a ministerialor a political directors --
  MS. NULAND: We haven't decided yet,Arshad.
  QUESTION: Pakistan?
  MS. NULAND: Goyal. Yeah.
  QUESTION: Two-part question. One, in Geneva,World Council of Churches, they issue a statement and are blamingPakistan not taking care or protecting the minorities, includingChristians, Sikhs, and Hindus in Pakistan. And the statement alsosaid that the minorities in Pakistan still live under fear and theyare forced to leave the country. Anything the U.S. is doing regardthis?
  MS. NULAND: I don't have anythingparticularly new to give you today, Goyal. You know that we work onthese issues with our Pakistani colleagues and our Embassy inIslamabad, we speak about them in our Human Rights Report, andwe'll continue to have those conversations.
  QUESTION:And finally,one more. Unrelated question in '' on Pakistan: You must haveseen the video from Mr. Warren Weinstein. It's been one yearnow anniversary that he is still in the captivities of theterrorists under the leadership of al-Zawahiri. And his wife ismaking a plea on his behalf that '' why it had taken so longfor the U.S. and Pakistan, why Pakistan is not helping to releasehis '' her husband.
  MS. NULAND: Well, you know we share herconcerns. We don't think he did anything wrong. He deservesto be released. We continue to work on this case, and we willmaintain vigilance with regard to it.
  QUESTION: Thank you.
  MS. NULAND: Margaret.
  QUESTION: Any update on the Benghazi attacksurvivors?
  MS. NULAND: What I have is that they are stillinterested in maintaining their privacy, Margaret. If that changes,I'll let you know.
  And in the back.
  QUESTION: Oh, yes. Ms. Nuland, the tensionsseem to be rising or ratcheting up between China and Japan over theSenkakus problem, but hasn't the neutrality of the U.S. alittle bit led to this situation? And why did the neutralityposition get adopted in the first place?
  MS. NULAND: Well, I think I've alreadyspoken to the Senkakus issue today. I don't have anythingelse to add to what I already said about our concern and our urgingof dialogue between the two sides.
  QUESTION: How about some comment about thethousand vessels on the way to the waters of the Senkakus?That's a major change.
  MS. NULAND: I think I've said what I haveon that subject today.
  Thanks very much, everybody.
  (The briefing was concluded at 2:48 p.m.)
SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters | Mother Jones
  Link to Article
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 00:21
  During a private fundraiser earlier this year, Republicanpresidential candidate Mitt Romney told a small group of wealthycontributors what he truly thinks of all the voters who supportPresident Barack Obama. He dismissed these Americans as freeloaderswho pay no taxes, who don't assume responsibility for their lives,and who think government should take care of them. Fielding aquestion from a donor about how he could triumph in November,Romney replied:
  There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for thepresident no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who arewith him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that theyare victims, who believe the government has a responsibility tocare for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care,to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement.And the government should give it to them. And they will vote forthis president no matter what'...These are people who pay noincome tax.
  Romney went on: "[M]y job is is not to worry about those people.I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibilityand care for their lives."
  Mother Jones has obtained video of Romney at thisintimate fundraiser'--where he candidly discussed his campaignstrategy and foreign policy ideas in stark terms he does not use inpublic'--and has confirmed its authenticity. To protect theconfidential source who provided the video, we have blurred some ofthe image, and we will not identify the date or location of theevent, which occurred after Romney had clinched the Republicanpresidential nomination. Here is Romney expressing his disdain forAmericans who back the president:
  At the dinner, Romney often stuck to familiar talking points.But there were moments when he went beyond the familiar campaignlines. Describing his family background, he quipped about hisfather, "Had he been born of Mexican parents, I'd have a bettershot of winning this." Contending that he is a self-mademillionaire who earned his own fortune, Romney insisted, "I haveinherited nothing." He remarked, "There is a perception, 'Oh, wewere born with a silver spoon, he never had to earn anything and soforth.' Frankly, I was born with a silver spoon, which is thegreatest gift you can have: which is to get born in America."
  Romney told the contributors that "women are open to supportingme," but that "we are having a much harder time with Hispanicvoters, and if the Hispanic voting bloc becomes as committed to theDemocrats as the African American voting block has in the past,why, we're in trouble as a party and, I think, as a nation." Whenone attendee asked how this group could help Romney sell himself toothers, he answered, "Frankly, what I need you to do is to raisemillions of dollars." He added, "The fact that I'm either tied orclose to the president'...that's very interesting."
  Asked why he wouldn't go full-throttle and assail Obama ascorrupt, Romney explained the internal thinking of his campaign andrevealed that he and his aides, in response to focus-group studiesconducted by his consultants, were hesitant to hammer the presidenttoo hard out of fear of alienating independents who voted for Obamain 2008:
  We speak with voters across the country abouttheir perceptions. Those people I told you'--the 5 to 6 or 7percent that we have to bring onto our side'--they all votedfor Barack Obama four years ago. So, and by the way, when you sayto them, "Do you think Barack Obama is a failure?" theyoverwhelmingly say no. They like him. But when you say, "Are youdisappointed that his policies haven't worked?" they say yes. Andbecause they voted for him, they don't want to be told that theywere wrong, that he's a bad guy, that he did bad things, that he'scorrupt. Those people that we have to get, they want to believethey did the right thing, but he just wasn't up to the task. Theylove the phrase that he's "over his head." But if we're'--butwe, but you see, you and I, we spend our day with Republicans. Wespend our days with people who agree with us. And these people arepeople who voted for him and don't agree with us. And so the thingsthat animate us are not the things that animate them. And the bestsuccess I have at speaking with those people is saying, you know,the president has been a disappointment. He told you he'd keepunemployment below 8 percent. Hasn't been below eight percentsince. Fifty percent of kids coming out of school can't get a job.Fifty percent. Fifty percent of the kids in high school in our 50largest cities won't graduate from high school. What're they gonnado? These are the kinds of things that I can say to that audiencethat they nod their head and say, "Yeah, I think you're right."What he's going to do, by the way, is try and vilify me as someonewho's been successful, or who's, you know, closed businesses orlaid people off, and is an evil bad guy. And that may work.
  (Note: Obama did not promise his policies would keep unemployment under 8percent, and 50 percent of college graduates are not unemployed.)
  To assure the donors that he and his campaign knew what theywere doing, Romney boasted about the consultants he had retained,emphasizing that several had worked for Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu:
  I have a very good team of extraordinarily experienced, highlysuccessful consultants, a couple of people in particular who havedone races around the world. I didn't realize it. These guys in theUS'--the Karl Rove equivalents'--they do races all over theworld: in Armenia, in Africa, in Israel. I mean, they work for BibiNetanyahu in his race. So they do these races and they see whichads work, and which processes work best, and we have ideas aboutwhat we do over the course of the campaign. I'd tell them to you,but I'd have to shoot you.
  When one donor said he was disappointed that Romney wasn'tattacking Obama with sufficient intellectual firepower, Romneygroused that the campaign trail was no place for high-minded anddetail-oriented arguments:
  Well, I wrote a book that lays out my view for what has tohappen in the country, and people who are fascinated by policy willread the book. We have a website that lays out white papers on awhole series of issues that I care about. I have to tell you, Idon't think this will have a significant impact on my electability.I wish it did. I think our ads will have a much bigger impact. Ithink the debates will have a big impact'...My dad used to say,"Being right early is not good in politics." And in a setting likethis, a highly intellectual subject'--discussion on a wholeseries of important topics typically doesn't win elections. Andthere are, there are, there are'--for instance, this presidentwon because of "hope and change."
  Romney, who spoke confidently throughout the event and seemedquite at ease with the well-heeled group, insisted that hiselection in and of itself would lead to economic growth and thatthe markets would react favorably if his chances seemed good in thefall:
  They'll probably be looking at what the polls are saying. If itlooks like I'm going to win, the markets will be happy. If it lookslike the president's going to win, the markets should not beterribly happy. It depends of course which markets you're talkingabout, which types of commodities and so forth, but my own view isthat if we win on November 6th, there will be a great deal ofoptimism about the future of this country. We'll see capital comeback and we'll see'--without actually doinganything'--we'll actually get a boost in the economy. If thepresident gets reelected, I don't know what will happen. Ican'--I can never predict what the markets will do. Sometimesit does the exact opposite of what I would have expected. But myown view is that if we get a "Taxageddon," as they call it, January1st, with this president, and with a Congress that can't worktogether, it's'--it really is frightening.
  At the dinner, Romney also said that the campaign purposefullywas using Ann Romney "sparingly'...so that people don't gettired of her." And he noted that he had turned down an invitationfrom Saturday Night Live because such an appearance "hasthe potential of looking slapstick and not presidential."
  Here was Romney raw and unplugged'--sort of unscripted. Withthis crowd of fellow millionaires, he apparently felt free to utterwhat he really believes and would never dare say out in the open.He displayed a high degree of disgust for nearly half of his fellowcitizens, lumping all Obama voters into a mass of shiftlessmoochers who don't contribute much, if anything, to society, and heindicated that he viewed the election as a battle between strivers(such as himself and the donors before him) and parasiticfree-riders who lack character, fortitude, and initiative. YetRomney explained to his patrons that he could not speak such harshwords about Obama in public, lest he insult those independentvoters who sided with Obama in 2008 and whom he desperately needsin this election. These were sentiments not to be shared with thevoters; it was inside information, available only to the select fewwho had paid for the privilege of experiencing the real Romney.
  COMING SOON: More from the secret Romneyvideo.
  Video production: James West, Adam Serwer,DanaLiebelson,and Erika Eichelberger
  Research assistance: James Carter
Devastating | TPM Editors Blog
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Tue, 18 Sep 2012 00:16
  JoshMarshall September 17, 2012, 5:11 PMThis is a Holiday for my folks. So I've only been half intouch with the news today. And I'm just getting up to speedon this purported tape of Mitt Romney saying he thinks the 47% ofAmericans who support Barack Obama are moochers who believe thegovernment has to take care of them. It's rare when theimpact of some gaffe or embarrassment or revelation isn'toverstated on first blush. But this may just be that rareexception. This tape strikes me as absolutely devastating.
  First, provenance. Our news team is currently reporting thestory out. I don't know the provenance of the tape.It's apparently been bouncing around on the interwebs beforegetting published by Mother Jones. But I know David Corn. And hewouldn't have posted it under his name if he weren't pretty certain hehad the authenticity of the tape nailed. So I'm assuming thetape is legit for the purposes of what I say below.
  As for the tape itself, this is a fine distillation of the mostrancid version of the libertarian conservative worldview. Democratsare moochers and losers who can't get their act together andthink the government owes them food, board, health care andbasically whatever else they want. You don't need to looklong to find this version of reality on the web. But thisisn't some right-wing blogger. It's the Republicancandidate for President of the United States.
  Here's the actual text '...
  There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for thepresident no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who arewith him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that theyare victims, who believe the government has a responsibility tocare for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care,to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's anentitlement. And the government should give it to them. And theywill vote for this president no matter what'...These are peoplewho pay no income tax.
  Shortly after this part Romney says this: ''My job is isnot to worry about those people. I'll never convince themthey should take personal responsibility and care for theirlives.''
  And here's the video '...
  Fringier folks in the GOP say things like this. Gary Bauer didjust a couple days ago when he said Obama's coalition was made up of welfare recipientsand vote fraudsters. Bauer though was smart enough not to put apercentage to the charge. Doing so deprives Romney of a vitalwiggle room. He's not just talking about some few percentagepoints that make up the moocher vote. He's talking abouteverybody who supports Obama.
  So if some Democrat says that if you support Barack Obama,Romney is talking about you, that Democrat would be onsteel-reinforced ground. Are you one of those 47% of the electoratethat the polls consistently tell us support Barack Obama?He's talking about you. It's not an exaggeration.
  So the country is divided in two: on one side, theself-sufficient and high-achieving Republicans and on the otherside the losers who think government needs to take care ofthem.
  This is the caricature of Mitt Romney, who was born on 3rd base(in Ann Richards memorable phrase), thinks he hit a triple andthinks the broad middle class who've relied on government forstudent loans or social security or anything else are losers whocan't get their act together and take responsibility forthemselves. Only this tape says that caricature Mitt Romney is thereal Mitt Romney.
  Big problem.
  Josh MarshallJosh Marshall is editor and publisher ofTalkingPointsMemo.com.
QR code opens doors to you
  Link to Article
  Source: What Jamie Flarity is reading.
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 22:59
  posted Sep 17th 2012 2:01pm by Mike Szczysfiled under: security hacks
  [Jeremy Blum] wrote in to share his LibeTech QRCode Door Lock project. He developed it during his Senior yearat Cornell University along with three of his classmates. It seeksto move away from magnetic card locks in favor of optical locksthat authenticate based on a QR code.
  The hardware he's using here is definitely costprohibitive, but we're sure the concept could be greatlysimplified. In this case a BeagleBone running embedded Linuxmonitors a feed from a webcam. When it detects a QR code itcompares it with a database of approved keys and will unlock thedoor for you.
  There are problems with this technique, one being that anattacker might be able to get a usable photograph of your keywithout you knowing. But the majority of hotel locks in use right now are even less secure than that. Onthe upside, the key to your room can be emailed to you for use onjust about any device with a screen, or printed out on a piece ofpaper.
  You can find [Jeremy's] presentation video embedded after thebreak.
Fars News Agency :: Turkish Airline Flying Al-Qaeda from Pakistan to Syrian Borders
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 22:35
  "The Turkish intelligence agency sent 93Al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists from Waziristan to Hatay provincenear the border with Syria on a Turkish Air Airbus flight No. 709on September 10, 2012 and via the Karachi-Istanbul flight route,"the source told FNA on Saturday, adding that the flight had a shortstop in Istanbul.
  The 93 terrorists transited to the Turkish border with Syriaincluded Al-Qaeda militants from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen,Pakistan, Afghanistan and a group of Arabs residing in Waziristan,he added.
  The source, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivityof his information, further revealed that the Turkish intelligenceagency is coordinating its measures with the CIA and the Saudi andQatari secret services.
  FNA dispatches from Pakistan said new al-Qaeda members weretrained in North Waziristan until a few days ago and then sent toSyria, but now they are transferring their command center to theborders between Turkey and Syria as a first step to be followed bya last move directly into the restive parts of Syria on the otherside of the border.
  The al-Qaeda, backed by Turkey, the US and its regional Araballies, had set up a new camp in Northern Waziristan in Pakistan totrain Salafi and Jihadi terrorists and dispatched them to Syria viaTurkish borders.
  "A new Al-Qaeda has been created in the region through thefinancial and logistical backup of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar anda number of western states, specially the US," a source told FNAearlier this month.
  Ali Mahdian told FNA that the US and the British governmentshave been playing with the al-Qaeda through their Arab proxyregimes in the region in a bid to materialize their goals,specially in Syria.
  He said the Saudi and Qatari regimes serve as interlocutors tofacilitate the CIA and MI6 plans in Syria through instigatingterrorist operations by Salafi and Arab Jihadi groups, adding thatthe terrorists do not know that they actually exercise the USplans.
  "Turkey has also been misusing extremist Salafis and Al-Qaedaterrorists to intensify the crisis in Syria and it has recentlyaugmented its efforts in this regard by helping the new Al-Qaedabranch set up a camp in Northern Waziristan in Pakistan to trainAl-Qaeda and Taliban members as well as Turkish Salafis and ArabJihadis who are later sent to Syria for terrorist operations," saidthe source.
  He said the camp in Waziristan is not just a training center,but a command center for terrorist operations against Syria.
  Yet, the source said the US and Britain are looking at the newAl-Qaeda force as an instrument to attain their goals and do notintend to support them to ascend to power, "because if Salafielements in Syria ascend to power, they will create many problemsfor the US, the Western states and Turkey in future".
  "Thus, the US, Britain and Turkey are looking at the Al-Qaeda asa tactical instrument," he said, and warned of the regional andglobal repercussions of the US and Turkish aid to the Al-Qaeda andSalafi groups.
  "Unfortunately, these group of countries have just focused onthe short-term benefits that the Salafis and the Al-Qaeda canprovide for them and ignore the perils of this support in the longrun," he said.
  "At present, the western countries, specially Britain whichhosts and controls the Jihadi Salafi groups throughout the worldare paving the ground for these extremists to leave their homes -mostly in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Untied Arab Emirates(UAE) as well as those who live in Europe and the US - forWaziristan," the source added.
  In relevant remarks, Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi lastweek blamed certain states, the Salafis and the Al-Qaeda forterrorist operations which have claimed the lives of thousands ofpeople in his country, and said terrorist groups supported bycertain foreign actors are misusing differences in his country tobring Syria into turmoil.
  Addressing the 16th heads-of-state summit of the Non-AlignedMovement (NAM) here in Tehran on Thursday, the Syrian premier notedterrorist attacks on his nation, and said the "terrorists arebacked up by certain foreign states".
  "Many countries allege to be supporting peaceful solutions inSyria, but they oppose Annan's plan in practice," he said, andcautioned, "The responsibility for the failure of this plan lies ontheir shoulder as they strove to keep the Syrian crisis going andfalsified events."
  "The world should know that the Syrian crisis, in fact, risesfrom foreign meddling. Certain well-known countries from inside andoutside the region are seeking instability of Syria," the Syrianprime minister complained.
  Elaborating on the recent developments in Syria, al-Halqi said,"It has been proved that foreign-backed terrorist groups have beenmisusing events and killing the innocent people."
  "These terrorists include Salafis and Al-Qaeda Takfiri groups,"he reiterated, and added, "Those states that support terrorism andoppose talks should be given moral and economic punishments as theyare part of the problem in Syria."
  Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 withorganized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forcesand border guards being reported across the country.
  In October, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state afterPresident Assad started a reform initiative in the country, butIsrael, the US and its Arab allies are seeking hard to bring thecountry into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Washingtonand some Arab capitals have been staging various plots in the hopeof stirring unrests in Syria once again.
  The US and its western and regional allies have long sought totopple Bashar al-Assad and his ruling system. Media reports saidthat the Syrian rebels and terrorist groups have receivedsignificantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, a crime paidfor by the Persian Gulf Arab states and coordinated by the UnitedStates.
  The US daily, Washington Post, reported in May that the Syrianrebels and terrorist groups battling the President Basharal-Assad's government have received significantly more and betterweapons in recent weeks, a crime paid for by the Persian Gulf Arabstates and coordinated by the United States.
  The newspaper, quoting opposition activists and US and foreignofficials, reported that Obama administration officials emphasizedthe administration has expanded contacts with opposition militaryforces to provide the Persian Gulf nations with assessments ofrebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure.
  Opposition activists who several months ago said the rebels wererunning out of ammunition said in May that the flow of weapons -most bought on the black market in neighboring countries or fromelements of the Syrian military in the past - has significantlyincreased after a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other PersianGulf states to provide millions of dollars in funding eachmonth.
  Special Thanks to: FNA Bureau in Islamabad, FNA Bureau in Kabul,FNA Bureau in Damascus
Aurora theater shooting: Bizarre court filing blames massacre on police chief, Illuminati - Denver - News - The Latest Word
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 22:06
  Earlier, we introduced you to the James Holmes is Innocent Facebook group, whose members saythey're uninterested in wild conspiracy theories -- like, forexample, the assertions in the strangest Auroratheater shooting document to date. The motion, made publicyesterday and on view below, deals with claims allegedly (but notactually) made by a victim pointing the finger of blame at AuroraPolice Chief Dan Oates and the Illuminati.The filing, submitted on August 27, redacts the name of theperson who supposedly submitted it -- but the text suggests thatthe moniker appears in the official charging document, which lists 116 counts of attemptedmurder. Moreover, the victim whose identity was appropriated isfemale, as indicated in an order by Judge William Sylvester thatresponds to the motion; it's on view below as well. A footnotereads, "The District Attorney's Office has informed the Court thatthe victim indicated in this Motion informed an investigator thatshe did not file it."
  The text of the "Motion to Intervene" asks the court to takeaction in the James Holmes criminal case based on "newly discoveredwithheld evidence," as well as the author's eagerness to "speak outabout the truth that i believe in my heart that James Holmes isinnocent" and should be released immediately.
  Why? Because, the document continues, "James is being framed by[Denver billionaire] Philip Anschutz, police chief Dan Oates, andthe illuminati."Also name-checked is 18th Judicial District DA Carol Chambers, who is supposedly forcing the filer totestify as a victim against her will. "I am not a victim" of JamesHolmes, the author continues, because "he never shot me."
  So...what happened? "District Attorney Carol Chambers &Police chief Dan Oates came to my house and told me they are goingto arrest me for online prostitution and escort services andcharity fraud," the narrative continues, "and to make a deal withthem to pretend I was a victim in this case. Dan Oates then shotme, told me in places [sic] that were not life threatening."
  The writer then insists that "I don't want to lie under oath andpretend I'm a victim when i'm not and have my testimony contributeto James being convicted. I can't live with that."
  After alleging that another person whose name has been redacted"is not a victim either," the motion concludes with thefollowing:
  "This case must be looked at by the F.B.I., Arapahoe county iscorrupt. Free James Holmes! Other suppose [sic] victims in thiscase are govt actors. They all must take polygraph tests. Pleasedonate to my charity, the proceeds will go to James for commissaryand to get him real attorneys. I demand congress get involvedtoo!"
  How did Judge Sylvester respond to this twisted jeremiad? Withconcern.
  Continue reading for details about the judge's responseand to see the documents.
Israpundit >> Blog Archive >> Dupes of a false flag operation
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 22:05
  By James E. Horn, Author of EXPERIENCING ISLAM
  I am a retired American Diplomat. I served my country abroad fortwenty-five years, a ten of those in Islamic countries. I held thehighest levels of TOP SECRET security clearances with Code Wordaccess to Sensitive Compartmentalized Intelligence (SCI). I wasawarded a medal for VALOR, for actions I took during the war inCambodia in 1975. Among other things, I worked very successfully inembassy and diplomatic security, counter intelligence, and counterterrorism. Portions of my highly rated book, EXPERIENCING ISLAMwere censored by the CIA.Has the US government been suckered? An Ambassador and his bodyguards/staff have been murdered in the most heinous manner bybarbarians in an attack that is spreading to Americans all over theIslamic world. These attacks are a well planned and carried out actof terrorism under the Moslem Brotherhood and their al Qaeda.
  Historically, Al Qaeda resisted the Soviet Union's 1979occupation of Afghanistan and the CIA provided all manner ofsupport to those resisting the Soviets during this period. Amongthings that the CIA imparted to Al Qaeda was how to plan and carryout FALSE FLAG operations.
  A FALSE FLAG operation is where someone or something isportrayed as something other than what it is, to make the victimsof such a flim-flam operation think that someone else (a thirdparty) did it. Commonly, the CIA has recruited spies who hated theUSA, but using FALSE FLAG operators who the spy believed to be ofanother nationality, went to work for us. Some FALSE FLAGoperations go on for years before they bear fruit. Al Qaeda, itseems has used this training well.
  The COPTS of Egypt are a seriously oppressed second classpeople, dhimmis, who are the subject of the most egregioustreatment at the hands of the Moslems. COPTS are never permitted todefend themselves, MUST pay special usury taxes for adhering totheir faith in God, and their lives can be forfeit for the mosttrivial of reasons. Their daughters are raped and abused withimpunity, their sons mutilated at the whim of Moslem barfbarians,and more. As a culture, the COPTS have lived under the harsh yolkof Islam for ten centuries, and as such, they, their culture arecowed into a permanent form of submission. The COPT communities inAmerica are infiltrated by Moslem Brotherhood agents, and if a COPThere says or does anything that displeases the Moslems, their COPTkinfolk over there are held accountable and often suffer terriblyfor any transgression, real or perceived. Accordingly, few if anyCOPTS in their right mind will go against the rules of shariaeither here or over there, and other COPTS tend to police thisamong their fellow COPTS.
  When the (accurate and truthful but qualitatively poor) movie,The Innocence of Islam surfaced on 9/11/12, it was an excuse forMoslems around the umma (world of Islam) to go on rampages againstCOPTS, Americans, and American facilities.
  Knowing how the COPTS of present day Egypt are suffering withdozens of COPTS being attacked and murdered daily, I gave mysupport for the movie, and still do to the perhaps clumsily donemessage it sets out '' absolute, documented truths aboutMohammed taken from the Koran, the Ahadith, and the Sunna.
  The man identified as the producer of the Innocense of Islam,Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, aka Sam Bacile is reportedly a COPT. But,his actions should be considered suspect as something abnormal fora COPT. While COPTS are very clever (a cultural trait necessary tosurvival), they tend not to be as blatant or bold as Nakoula.
  Initially called Sam Bacile, he claimed that Israelis had fundedthe movie '' to direct Moslem rage towards Israel perhapshoping to start a war (desired by the Moslem Brotherhood/alQaeda).
  His behavior leaves him very suspect in my mind as I have hadtime to analyze news and recent events, I have come to a guardedconclusion that Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, aka ''Sam Bacile isactually a Moslem Brotherhood FOREIGN FLAG operation directed atthe United States and COPTS in Egypt. Nakoula was created by theMoslem Brotherhood's al Qaeda and placed here in the USA withinstructions and support to create something that can be used as anexcuse to butcher COPTS, start a war, or to cause our leadership tocondemn and try to impose limits on our First Amendment.
  One of Nakoula's early claims was attributing funding andother support for the film to Jews/Israel, a clear attempt toexacerbate problems that Israel is having along the Egyptian Borderwith the Moslem Brotherhood who are looking for reasons to abrogatetheir treaty with Israel. As some Moslems have preached: First, theSaturday people, then the Sunday People''. The Jewish Sabbathis Saturday, and in Egypt the Jews have been wiped out already, sonow the Moslems are focusing on the Sunday worshipers, theChristians.
  Hillary Clinton whose husband rakes in millions from oilsheikdoms immediately jumped before a microphone to condemn themovie and its (factual) contents, an indirect shot at the FirstAmendment. While I saw her face and heard her voice, the words camefrom Huma Abedin, reportedly a Moslem Brotherhood plant inHillary's life.
  Barak Obama likewise jumped in to make the same condemnationwith a subtle shot at the First Amendment. Speaking of FALSE FLAGplayers, the book, Manchurian President, about Barak Obama is worthreading.
  Our White House, State Department, and Department of HomelandSecurity are heavily infiltrated by Moslem Brotherhoodspies/operatives and cannot themselves come to an analysis such asthis. It would not be allowed. Janet Napolitano is far toodimwitted to even begin to grasp the depth of the many FALSE FLAGdeceptions being carried out with the objection of subverting ourConstution.
  In summary, we are the dupes of a clever FALSE FLAGoperation.
Obama DOJ Scandal Update '' IG Report Excerpts Condemn Top Obama Officials
  Link to Article
  Source: The Ulsterman Report
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:38
  }rFRUalLi#(%[R=cÉ›Ê—R `É...j}}}{fpM9NQN$\3===Ý}~/8o=%h|g=m4NNß¾z-1JhÔ�B4g/44>l4i}jÕ£dÔ¸zÕ¸Å¼LX]iËºgGI|~/?~ÆŒZOXJ~w3ÔžFaTL#j)MÓt\iQÉ­o;&M'thÒ]2^4$%gKe\EONtr5fuSLh=jVB?|KcY$"MXW%~,`us$,j'ž�K5DN.$zI4z;HÙ®M$BBG0KS)"YSxuu[xÙÙŠoÉn]G&[JAÍ¹$VS&!sil"\sUI$I:Ieb(P'K2=G)|Ý‹"h}ÐÔ'D[]H-9O#Ä¼H.Y-$E*5gk‰ŸÅ�d×‘]tÒ‰F(*Ew0Ç�P@+P{uyIuCÛ¨{z*b?a,g)zNh\v`x£7Y"qZU2oOQLÐ�QvMRuD7[^Õ­6=Eev>'`Q5LtLj|%N.^8F~Hn,Ö›uTbËº1~,j`3V%A&4f7n#BKg*H_LY#d>Z#=b]~Hd@**ÝywY4xp4L@Ô¸E0VamlzÖ(\I6}.t=P@lxD%t#@Zu&[0×§=Z<[E}[ c3e=0;:Qt5<~ß¼X2e4I|X-V&QoÈ'\)d2c,pi"=c ]{ 0PoeHW /!?sTAO=]ÕžY`)M79::Ea)|S6Ô¯Fz9')]>zfW7[]'`=FQEßTé--zMTx:I=Ò¬T3O_zrBÇ�bÑ...R+e~6G%È qx\tÓ‚F,dM)*(%y>ÖK>MPÊ>>x74!-N{!S{K \m×š=]H-tØ�A8)\aÖŽw=Ô½,H[0+t(#MUÛ--JRN9Ô#xM%WYmß�{,tPS5_iij]HL3Î°=-034N}0t|Ø±½;kbZ9v'w*OZU+1u]pM?9N${#He8U=]_4Þ›!{7ewM$/^#\z$Y'/tIH?/#]dP/g)vwi.V8P{Rr>]c8;;L?1FRrEGamnß¨/4"<[+v#ê½\J,Öµ^Óµ}uMÝ®2Î£5GRe~8T3y.4fQwzoÉ�fÝ² Msi5NiXRpW40:$TÆ"S2Ø¬R4ly[X6M)7MDH+U}>ZtM(R\c.&kBm\MjgH#MtBw`ZÕ¶`n~_`qcRl{pon1u$i IZ7sHV?4+! @^lzcFa4w4e('St:`_R<ß‰e:R=#gSÐ•Ù--ydã'•<M~8S '¥'ÄHEÎ...IJ"`(`iÑ # .?1Cl-ic?qu$]_ b3 eQn6Ð–28P do*O@Gd$ G@2'rlß¸q.RCq H: rjgë†XY:6P$+\5#V~Ï¥vÅŒZ%AÐ‰ic+aQR?{Y)Bnk}F**/jÏ½Ä`Õ‘P0/=$k:oB.Ö(C)h3p<*Ze!rHXFÔš'UMT;Þº8@jo]8Fà¼z-+Q5Ni96kQ4LJ!Ýƒz9V{b#iË‘F(>Î±%@é...WS?n:ww]g82iJMVIQvAO`.,1x)|-&DS(
People taking advantage of statues is still sexual harassment if you ask me (70 Photos)
  Link to Article
  Source: theCHIVE
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:38
  September 17, 2012 | In: Funny,WTF
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Text - Obama's Speech in Cairo - Text - NYTimes.com
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:32
  The following is a text of President Obama's prepared remarks to the Muslim world, delivered on June 4, 2009, as released by the White House.
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  I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning, and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. Together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I am grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. I am also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: assalaamu alaykum.
  We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world '' tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.
  Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. This has bred more fear and mistrust.
  So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.
  I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles '' principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.
  I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point. But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth." That is what I will try to do '' to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.
  Part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.
  As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam '' at places like Al-Azhar University '' that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.
  I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America's story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims." And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our Universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim-American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers '' Thomas Jefferson '' kept in his personal library.
  So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.
  But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We were born out of revolution against an empire. We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words '' within our borders, and around the world. We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept: E pluribus unum: "Out of many, one."
  Much has been made of the fact that an African-American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected President. But my personal story is not so unique. The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, but its promise exists for all who come to our shores '' that includes nearly seven million American Muslims in our country today who enjoy incomes and education that are higher than average.
  Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one's religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state of our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That is why the U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it.
  So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations '' to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity.
  Of course, recognizing our common humanity is only the beginning of our task. Words alone cannot meet the needs of our people. These needs will be met only if we act boldly in the years ahead; and if we understand that the challenges we face are shared, and our failure to meet them will hurt us all.
  For we have learned from recent experience that when a financial system weakens in one country, prosperity is hurt everywhere. When a new flu infects one human being, all are at risk. When one nation pursues a nuclear weapon, the risk of nuclear attack rises for all nations. When violent extremists operate in one stretch of mountains, people are endangered across an ocean. And when innocents in Bosnia and Darfur are slaughtered, that is a stain on our collective conscience. That is what it means to share this world in the 21st century. That is the responsibility we have to one another as human beings.
  This is a difficult responsibility to embrace. For human history has often been a record of nations and tribes subjugating one another to serve their own interests. Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating. Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners of it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership; progress must be shared.
  That does not mean we should ignore sources of tension. Indeed, it suggests the opposite: we must face these tensions squarely. And so in that spirit, let me speak as clearly and plainly as I can about some specific issues that I believe we must finally confront together.
  The first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms.
  In Ankara, I made clear that America is not '' and never will be '' at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security. Because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as President to protect the American people.
  The situation in Afghanistan demonstrates America's goals, and our need to work together. Over seven years ago, the United States pursued al Qaeda and the Taliban with broad international support. We did not go by choice, we went because of necessity. I am aware that some question or justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet Al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with.
  Make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case.
  That's why we're partnering with a coalition of forty-six countries. And despite the costs involved, America's commitment will not weaken. Indeed, none of us should tolerate these extremists. They have killed in many countries. They have killed people of different faiths '' more than any other, they have killed Muslims. Their actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam. The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind. The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism '' it is an important part of promoting peace.
  We also know that military power alone is not going to solve the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is why we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses, and hundreds of millions to help those who have been displaced. And that is why we are providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy and deliver services that people depend upon.
  Let me also address the issue of Iraq. Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world. Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible. Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: "I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be."
  Today, America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future '' and to leave Iraq to Iraqis. I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources. Iraq's sovereignty is its own. That is why I ordered the removal of our combat brigades by next August. That is why we will honor our agreement with Iraq's democratically-elected government to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by July, and to remove all our troops from Iraq by 2012. We will help Iraq train its Security Forces and develop its economy. But we will support a secure and united Iraq as a partner, and never as a patron.
  And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter our principles. 9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.
  So America will defend itself respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law. And we will do so in partnership with Muslim communities which are also threatened. The sooner the extremists are isolated and unwelcome in Muslim communities, the sooner we will all be safer.
  The second major source of tension that we need to discuss is the situation between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world.
  America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.
  Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed '' more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction '' or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews '' is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.
  On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people '' Muslims and Christians '' have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations '' large and small '' that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.
  For decades, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It is easy to point fingers '' for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought by Israel's founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond. But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.
  That is in Israel's interest, Palestine's interest, America's interest, and the world's interest. That is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience that the task requires. The obligations that the parties have agreed to under the Road Map are clear. For peace to come, it is time for them '' and all of us '' to live up to our responsibilities.
  Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.
  Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, and to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist.
  At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.
  Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society. And just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel's security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.
  Finally, the Arab States must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities. The Arab-Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems. Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state; to recognize Israel's legitimacy; and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.
  America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs. We cannot impose peace. But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away. Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state. It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.
  Too many tears have flowed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer.
  The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons.
  This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is indeed a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically-elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I have made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward. The question, now, is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build.
  It will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude and resolve. There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect. But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is not simply about America's interests. It is about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.
  I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. And any nation '' including Iran '' should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That commitment is at the core of the Treaty, and it must be kept for all who fully abide by it. And I am hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal.
  The fourth issue that I will address is democracy.
  I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.
  That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.
  There is no straight line to realize this promise. But this much is clear: governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments '' provided they govern with respect for all their people.
  This last point is important because there are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others. No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.
  The fifth issue that we must address together is religious freedom.
  Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition. I saw it firsthand as a child in Indonesia, where devout Christians worshiped freely in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. That is the spirit we need today. People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind, heart, and soul. This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive, but it is being challenged in many different ways.
  Among some Muslims, there is a disturbing tendency to measure one's own faith by the rejection of another's. The richness of religious diversity must be upheld '' whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt. And fault lines must be closed among Muslims as well, as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq.
  Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together. We must always examine the ways in which we protect it. For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.
  Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit '' for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.
  Indeed, faith should bring us together. That is why we are forging service projects in America that bring together Christians, Muslims, and Jews. That is why we welcome efforts like Saudi Arabian King Abdullah's Interfaith dialogue and Turkey's leadership in the Alliance of Civilizations. Around the world, we can turn dialogue into Interfaith service, so bridges between peoples lead to action '' whether it is combating malaria in Africa, or providing relief after a natural disaster.
  The sixth issue that I want to address is women's rights.
  I know there is debate about this issue. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous.
  Now let me be clear: issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, we have seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world.
  Our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons, and our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity '' men and women '' to reach their full potential. I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men in order to be equal, and I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice. That is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls, and to help young women pursue employment through micro-financing that helps people live their dreams.
  Finally, I want to discuss economic development and opportunity.
  I know that for many, the face of globalization is contradictory. The Internet and television can bring knowledge and information, but also offensive sexuality and mindless violence. Trade can bring new wealth and opportunities, but also huge disruptions and changing communities. In all nations '' including my own '' this change can bring fear. Fear that because of modernity we will lose of control over our economic choices, our politics, and most importantly our identities '' those things we most cherish about our communities, our families, our traditions, and our faith.
  But I also know that human progress cannot be denied. There need not be contradiction between development and tradition. Countries like Japan and South Korea grew their economies while maintaining distinct cultures. The same is true for the astonishing progress within Muslim-majority countries from Kuala Lumpur to Dubai. In ancient times and in our times, Muslim communities have been at the forefront of innovation and education.
  This is important because no development strategy can be based only upon what comes out of the ground, nor can it be sustained while young people are out of work. Many Gulf States have enjoyed great wealth as a consequence of oil, and some are beginning to focus it on broader development. But all of us must recognize that education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century, and in too many Muslim communities there remains underinvestment in these areas. I am emphasizing such investments within my country. And while America in the past has focused on oil and gas in this part of the world, we now seek a broader engagement.
  On education, we will expand exchange programs, and increase scholarships, like the one that brought my father to America, while encouraging more Americans to study in Muslim communities. And we will match promising Muslim students with internships in America; invest in on-line learning for teachers and children around the world; and create a new online network, so a teenager in Kansas can communicate instantly with a teenager in Cairo.
  On economic development, we will create a new corps of business volunteers to partner with counterparts in Muslim-majority countries. And I will host a Summit on Entrepreneurship this year to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.
  On science and technology, we will launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries, and to help transfer ideas to the marketplace so they can create jobs. We will open centers of scientific excellence in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and appoint new Science Envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, and grow new crops. And today I am announcing a new global effort with the Organization of the Islamic Conference to eradicate polio. And we will also expand partnerships with Muslim communities to promote child and maternal health.
  All these things must be done in partnership. Americans are ready to join with citizens and governments; community organizations, religious leaders, and businesses in Muslim communities around the world to help our people pursue a better life.
  The issues that I have described will not be easy to address. But we have a responsibility to join together on behalf of the world we seek '' a world where extremists no longer threaten our people, and American troops have come home; a world where Israelis and Palestinians are each secure in a state of their own, and nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes; a world where governments serve their citizens, and the rights of all God's children are respected. Those are mutual interests. That is the world we seek. But we can only achieve it together.
  I know there are many '' Muslim and non-Muslim '' who question whether we can forge this new beginning. Some are eager to stoke the flames of division, and to stand in the way of progress. Some suggest that it isn't worth the effort '' that we are fated to disagree, and civilizations are doomed to clash. Many more are simply skeptical that real change can occur. There is so much fear, so much mistrust. But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward. And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith, in every country '' you, more than anyone, have the ability to remake this world.
  All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort '' a sustained effort '' to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.
  It is easier to start wars than to end them. It is easier to blame others than to look inward; to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There is also one rule that lies at the heart of every religion '' that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples '' a belief that isn't new; that isn't black or white or brown; that isn't Christian, or Muslim or Jew. It's a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the heart of billions. It's a faith in other people, and it's what brought me here today.
  We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.
  The Holy Koran tells us, "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."
  The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."
  The Holy Bible tells us, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."
  The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth. Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the Islamists' Final Stand - Newsweek and The Daily Beast
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:26
  It is a strange and bitter coincidence that the latest eruption of violent Islamic indignation takes place just as Salman Rushdie publishes his new book, Joseph Anton: A Memoir, about his life under the fatwa.
  In 23 years not much has changed.
  Islam's rage reared its ugly head again last week. The American ambassador to Libya and three of his staff members were murdered by a raging mob in Benghazi, Libya, possibly under the cover of protests against a film mocking the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.
  They were killed on the watch of the democratic government they helped to install. This government was either negligent or complicit in their murders. And that forces the U.S. to confront a stark, unwelcome reality.
  Until recently, it was completely justifiable to feel sorry for the masses in Libya because they suffered under the thumb of a cruel dictator. But now they are no longer subjects; they are citizens. They have the opportunity to elect a government and build a society of their choice. Will they follow the lead of the Egyptian people and elect a government that stands for ideals diametrically opposed to those upheld by the United States? They might. But if they do, we should not consider them stupid or infantile. We should recognize that they have made a free choice'--a choice to reject freedom as the West understands it.
  How should American leaders respond? What should they say and do, for example, when a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's newly elected ruling party, demands a formal apology from the United States government and urges that the ''madmen'' behind the Muhammad video be prosecuted, in violation of the First Amendment? If the U.S. follows the example of Europe over the last two decades, it will bend over backward to avoid further offense. And that would be a grave mistake'--for the West no less than for those Muslims struggling to build a brighter future.
  For a homicidal few in the Muslim world, life itself has less value than religious icons, such as the prophet or the Quran. These few are indifferent to the particular motives or arguments behind any perceived insult to their faith. They do not care about an individual's political alignment, gender, religion, or occupation. They do not care whether the provocation comes from serious literature or a stupid movie. All that matters is the intolerable nature of the insult.
  'Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tina Brown discuss the wave of violent protests sweeping the Middle East.'
  The riots in Muslim countries'--and the so-called demonstrations by some Muslims in Western countries'--that invariably accompany such provocations have the appearance of spontaneity. But they are often carefully planned in advance. In the aftermath of last week's conflagration, the State Department and Pentagon were investigating if it was just such a coordinated, planned assault.
  The Muslim men and women (and yes, there are plenty of women) who support'--whether actively or passively'--the idea that blasphemers deserve to suffer punishment are not a fringe group. On the contrary, they represent the mainstream of contemporary Islam. Of course, there are many Muslims and ex-Muslims, in Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere, who unambiguously condemn not only the murders and riots, as well as the idea that dissenters from this mainstream should be punished. But they are marginalized and all too often indirectly held responsible for the very provocation. In the age of globalization and mass immigration, such intolerance has crossed borders and become the defining characteristic of Islam.
  And the defining characteristic of the Western response? As Rushdie's memoir makes clear, it is the utterly incoherent tendency to simultaneously defend free speech'--and to condemn its results.
  I know something about the subject. In 1989, when I was 19, I piously, even gleefully, participated in a rally in Kenya to burn Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses. I had never read it.
  Later, having fled an arranged marriage to the Netherlands, I broke from fundamentalism. By the time of Sept. 11, 2001, I still considered myself a Muslim, though a passive one; I believed the principles but not the practice. After learning that it was Muslims who had hijacked airplanes and flown them into buildings in New York and Washington, I called for fellow believers to reflect on how our religion could have inspired these atrocious acts. A few months later, I confessed in a television interview that I had been secularized.
  The change had consequences. Asked about the poor integration of Muslim immigrants into Holland's civic culture, I recommended the emancipation of girls and women from a religious practice that motivates parents to remove them from school as teenagers and marry them off. Through emancipation, Muslim integration into Dutch society would come faster and endure. But I soon learned that by making such statements, I had unwittingly blasphemed three times: by associating terrorist attacks with a theology that inspired it; by drawing critical attention to the treatment of women in Islam; and'--the worst blasphemy of all'--by leaving the Muslim faith.
  That was just the beginning of the adventure. When I eventually entered politics and campaigned for a seat in the Dutch Parliament, the atheist-liberal Dutch elite was thrown into total confusion: I was either praised as a Voltaire or condemned as a diva desperate for attention. The week before I was sworn into Parliament, I gave an interview to an obscure paper in the Netherlands that caused an uproar. Dutch Muslim organizations had been demanding that the age of marriage be lowered from 18 to 15, touting the Prophet Muhammad as their moral guide. In response, I suggested that some of the actions of the prophet might be considered criminal under Dutch law. This prompted a delegation of ambassadors from Turkey, Malaysia, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia to knock on the door of my party leader shortly after I took my seat in the legislature, demanding my eviction from Parliament for hurting the feelings of Muslims'--those not only in Holland, but everywhere in the world, all 1.5 billion of them.
  Bert Verhoeff / Hollandse Hoogte-Redux (left); Horst Tappe / Getty Images (right)
  But that was nothing compared with what happened when I made a short film with Theo van Gogh (titled Submission) that drew attention to the direct link between the Quran and the plight of Muslim women. In revenge for this act of free thinking, Mohammed Bouyeri, a 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan man, murdered van Gogh'--shooting him eight times and stabbing him with two knives, one of which pinned a note to his body threatening the West, Jews, and me. As he was dying, my friend Theo reportedly asked his assailant, ''Can't we talk about this?'' It's a question that has haunted me ever since, often in bed at night. One side proposing a conversation; the other side thrusting a blade.
  Now I knew what it was like to be a combatant in the clash of civilizations. Having renounced Islam and openly criticized its political manifestations, I was condemned to a life cordoned off from the rest of society. I quickly learned the drill leading up to any public meeting or event. ''Follow me,'' the agent on duty would bark out, half-request and half-order, opening the doors to the armored car, doors I was not allowed to touch. Then a fast-paced walk, more like a march: a dash into basements and cellars; down dark corridors and elevators; through greasy kitchens and laundry rooms full of startled workers looking up, frozen in place. Agents whispering into wrists, elevators opening at the perfect moment, and I would be ushered into the occasion I was supposed to attend: a meeting of politicians; a town hall gathering; a reading; an intimate birthday party.
  IT IS a dreary, enervating routine'--one with which Rushdie is oppressively familiar. In Joseph Anton, he movingly relates the story of his ordinary life before the fatwa, how he lost that life, and then how he learned to adjust to it without losing his sanity. He keeps himself going by focusing on the funny side of things. He grows accustomed to waking up in unfamiliar houses and discussing his every move with strangers appointed by the government for his protection. Before the fatwa, Rushdie had been a proud and stubbornly free man. But under threat of murder, he suddenly found himself forced to take orders from strangers for the sake of keeping himself'--and his family'--alive.
  This risk was not abstract. Senior government officials told Rushdie about plots involving hit squads. The Japanese translator of Verses was stabbed to death, and the Italian translator seriously injured in a similar attack. Despite all this, he has remained a stalwart, fearless defender of free speech.
  His critics in Britain were less reliable. Intellectuals who harbored personal dislike of him or contempt for his work suggested that he only had himself to blame for the fatwa and that he could have perhaps done something to avoid it. (When the critics exhausted this argument, they complained that taxpayers had to foot the bill for Rushdie's protection.) It came as an especially hard blow when those he had considered ideological compatriots took the side of the fanatics by default (usually by refusing to defend an inalienable right to write what he wished about them).
  In Egypt the government lost control as protesters burnt cars'--and the Egyptian president tried to quell the violence. (Khalil Hamra / AP)
  Rushdie felt particularly aggrieved that many of the attacks came from people whose worldview he shared. His leftist credentials were undisputed, given his positions on apartheid, the Palestinian question, racism in Britain, and Margaret Thatcher's government. What's more, Rushdie considered himself a friend, not an enemy, of Islam. He believed that his roots in Islam'--though his family was not particularly religious'--gave him credibility. His previous book, Midnight's Children, had been a hit in India, Pakistan, and even Iran. He had no clue that Verses would trigger a hostile reaction among Muslims.
  How wrong it was to accuse him of provoking those who sought to silence him'--and for the British government to urge him to apologize as a way of accommodating Muslim leaders. In the past 23 years, we have learned a lot about the danger of giving in to the demands of extremists. We now know all too well how it incites them to demand more and to refuse reason and a peaceful settlement.
  Or at least some of us know it. How often have I endured bizarre conversations with government officials who cling to the illusion that the threat is temporary or that it can be negotiated. And then there are the even more delusional positions staked out by some prominent intellectuals who blame the writer, the politician, the filmmaker, or the cartoonist for provoking the threat. In the days after van Gogh was murdered, too many prominent Dutch individuals expressed precisely this position, declaring smugly, ''Yes, of course killing is wrong, but Theo was a provocateur ...'' Will they never cease looking for ever more ingenious ways of apologizing for free speech?
  As the latest wave of indignation sweeps across the Muslim world, we should not be despondent. Yes, this is a setback for the Arab Spring. Yes, it is bloody, dangerous, and chaotic on the streets. Yes, innocent people are dying and their governments are powerless. But this too shall pass.
  Utopian ideologies have a short lifespan. Some are bloodier than others. As long as Islamists were able to market their philosophy as the only alternative to dictatorship and foreign meddling, they were attractive to an oppressed polity. But with their election to office they will be subjected to the test of government. It is clear, as we saw in Iran in 2009 and elsewhere, that if the philosophy of the Islamists is fully and forcefully implemented, those who elected them will end up disillusioned. The governments will begin to fail as soon as they set about implementing their philosophy: strip women of their rights; murder homosexuals; constrain the freedoms of conscience and religion of non-Muslims; hunt down dissidents; persecute religious minorities; pick fights with foreign powers, even powers, such as the U.S., that offered them friendship. The Islamists will curtail the freedoms of those who elected them and fail to improve their economic conditions.
  After the disillusion and bitterness will come a painful lesson: that it is foolish to derive laws for human affairs from gods and prophets. Just like the Iranian people have begun to, the Egyptians, Tunisians, Libyans, and perhaps Syrians and others will come to this realization. In one or two or three decades we will see the masses in these countries take to the streets'--and perhaps call for American help'--to liberate them from the governments they elected. This process will be faster in some places than others, but in all of them it will be bloody and painful. If we take the long view, America and other Western countries can help make this happen in the same way we helped bring about the demise of the former Soviet Union.
  We must be patient. America needs to empower those individuals and groups who are already disenchanted with political Islam by helping find and develop an alternative. At the heart of that alternative are the ideals of the rule of law and freedom of thought, worship, and expression. For these values there can and should be no apologies, no groveling, no hesitation.
  It was Voltaire who once said: ''I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.'' As Salman Rushdie discovered, as we are reminded again as the Arab street burns, that sentiment is seldom heard in our time. Once I was ready to burn The Satanic Verses. Now I know that his right to publish it was a more sacred thing than any religion.
Hirsi Ali bekritiseert aanpak Westen bij islamprotesten
  Link to Article
  Source: VK: Home
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:25
  17/09/12, 19:26 '' bron: Redactie
  (C) EPA. Ayaan Hirsi Ali
  De moslims die vinden dat godslasteraars de doodstraf verdienen vormen geen minderheid, maar 'vertegenwoordigen de hoofdmoot van de hedendaagse islam.' Dat schrijft oud-VVD-politica Ayaan Hirsi Ali in een opiniestuk in het Amerikaanse tijdschrift Newsweek, naar aanleiding van de rellen die afgelopen week in de Arabische wereld ontstonden nadat een Amerikaanse anti-islamfilm online was gezet.
  In de omstreden film wordt de spot gedreven met de profeet Mohammed. Betogers in verschillende Arabische landen gingen vervolgens de straat op. In Libi werden de Amerikaanse ambassadeur en drie ambassademedewerkers gedood. Hirsi Ali schrijft in haar artikel dat westerse regeringen de 'incoherente neiging' hebben om de vrijheid van meningsuiting te verdedigen, terwijl ze de resultaten ervan veroordelen.
  De Nederlandse van Somalische afkomst schreef het script en verzorgde de voice-over van de film Submission van de vermoorde filmmaker Theo van Gogh. In die film werd kritiek geleverd op de behandeling van vrouwen in de islamitische wereld.
ISRAELI AGENTS 'KILLED US AMBASSADOR'; MOSSAD AGENDA
  Link to Article
  Source: aangirfan
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:18
  "Israeli agents were deployed in several large cities with a mission to channel the rage of the crowd against American or Coptic targets (though not Israeli ones)...
  The Innocence of Muslims: Blasphemy as a Political Tactic - by Thierry Meyssan
  "Back on 15 February 2011... The Libyan police had arrested three members of the Italian Special Forces who confessed to having fired from the rooftops on both demonstrators and the police to sew chaos and confusion...
  "This time, the manipulation of the Benghazi crowd by Israeli agents had as its goal the assassination of the U.S. Ambassador...
  "The U.S. Ambassador was not merely a diplomat but was functioning as Governor, as the de facto head of state.
  "It should be emphasized that in the past few weeks, the highest-ranking U.S. military officers have entered into open conflict with the Israeli government."
  The Innocence of Muslims: Blasphemy as a Political Tactic - By Thierry Meyssan
  Israel would appear to be the brains behind the recent riots in the Moslem world.The Moslems were not targeting Jews.FOREIGNERS DID ATTACK ON USA'S GAY MOSLEM AMBASSAD...THE CIA MORMON MAFIA; AMBASSADOR STEVENSSOME KIND OF PSY-OP IN LIBYAINSIDE JOB - ATTACK ON AMBASSADORFALSE FLAG PSY OP - US AMBASSADOR ATTACK
  The Zionists are influential in many areas, from Nigeria to the UK to Syria to Turkey.
  MOSSAD BLAMED FOR TERROR ATTACKS BY BOKO HARAM IN NIGERIA
  David Icke Promotes The Zionist Agenda
  Turkish Airline Flying Al-Qaeda from Pakistan to Syrian Borders
  Syrian rebels burn American flag.So many 'Moslems' and 'Christians' work for the Zionists.
California Tries to Lead Way on Health Law - NYTimes.com
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:11
  SACRAMENTO '-- The meeting came to order, the five members of the California Health Benefit Exchange seated onstage with dozens of consumer advocates and others looking on. On the agenda: what to name the online marketplace where millions of residents will be able to shop for medical coverage under President Obama's health care law.
  An adviser presented the options, meant to be memorable, appealing and clear. What about CaliHealth? Or Healthifornia?
  Or Avocado?
  ''I am kind of drawn to Avocado,'' declared Kim Belsh(C), a member of the exchange's board of directors, which is hustling to make dozens of decisions as the clock ticks toward deadlines set by the law.
  Delay and outright resistance to the health care overhaul might be the norm in much of the country, but not here. California '-- home to seven million uninsured people, more than any other state '-- is at the forefront of preparations for January 2014, when a controversial requirement that most Americans have medical coverage or pay a penalty takes effect.
  So far, only 13 states and the District of Columbia have told the Obama administration they intend to set up the insurance exchanges that are supposed to provide a marketplace for people to buy health plans. None are being watched as closely as California, whose singular challenges, from the size, diversity and geographic spread of its uninsured population to its vast budget problems, make it stand out. Many feel a successful rollout here could convince other states with high numbers of uninsured residents that the law can be made to work for them.
  ''We are the example,'' said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, an advocacy group. ''If it can be done here, it can be done anywhere.''
  The California Health Benefit Exchange has already hired 50 employees and is poised to hire 50 more. Construction of the Web portal through which some three million people are expected to buy insurance by 2019, and through which many others will likely enroll in Medicaid, is under way.
  This fall, the board will seek bids from insurers to sell plans through the exchange, and it intends to have the portal up and running by next summer, several months before enrollment starts in October 2013.
  Realizing that much of the battle will be in the public relations realm, the exchange has poured significant resources into a detailed marketing plan '-- developed not by state health bureaucrats but by the global marketing powerhouse Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, which has an initial $900,000 contract with the exchange. The Ogilvy plan includes ideas for reaching an uninsured population that speaks dozens of languages and is scattered through 11 media markets: advertising on coffee cup sleeves at community colleges to reach adult students, for example, and at professional soccer matches to reach young Hispanic men.
  And Hollywood, an industry whose major players have been supportive of President Obama and his agenda, will be tapped. Plans are being discussed to pitch a reality television show about ''the trials and tribulations of families living without medical coverage,'' according to the Ogilvy plan. The exchange will also seek to have prime-time television shows, like ''Modern Family,'' ''Grey's Anatomy'' and Univision telenovelas, weave the health care law into their plots.
  ''I'd like to see 10 of the major TV shows, or telenovelas, have people talking about 'that health insurance thing,' '' said Peter V. Lee, the exchange's executive director. ''There are good story lines here.''
  Although the exchange will not start advertising until next year, the California Endowment, a foundation that has spent $15 million promoting the law, is running newspaper and television ads, including one in which the television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz exhorts viewers to ''get educated, get engaged, get enrolled.'' That campaign has targeted Hispanics, who make up more than half of the state's uninsured population.
  But for all the progress, California's intractable budget woes loom as a threat to implementation here. Even with the federal government financing most of the insurance expansion, the state's contribution could exceed $2 billion a year, according to an estimate that was made by the administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, who signed the legislation creating an insurance exchange here in September 2010, earlier than any other state. Diana S. Dooley, the state's Health and Human Services secretary, said the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, was working on a new estimate.
  Mr. Brown, while supportive of the law, has not spent much time talking it up publicly, in part, Ms. Dooley said, because he is ''absolutely laser-focused on getting the budget balanced.''
  To help close a $16 billion deficit, Mr. Brown made more than $1 billion in cuts from Medicaid and other health programs even though about a million of the Californians expected to gain coverage through the health care law by 2019 would get it through a prescribed expansion of Medicaid. (Those who buy private insurance through the exchange will be able to get federal subsidies to help cover the cost if they earn up to four times the federal poverty level, or currently $92,200 for a family of four.)
  Mr. Brown is hoping voters will approve a package of temporary tax increases in November to avoid $6 billion more in cuts. Ms. Dooley said that without the tax package, carrying out the health law might be at risk, including the expansion of Medicaid.
  ''I wouldn't characterize it as all bets are off,'' she said. ''I'm just saying nothing is protected.''
  The exchange itself has so far been financed by three grants, worth $237 million, from the federal government. Most of the money is committed to consultants, including Accenture, which has a $327 million contract to build and support the initial operation of the enrollment portal.
  Ms. Dooley said getting the enrollment system up and running in such a tight time frame was one of her biggest worries. The other, she said, was making sure the health plans sold through the exchange were affordable. The federal law lists 10 categories of ''essential health benefits'' that plans sold through exchanges must provide, but Ms. Dooley said those categories ''go beyond what I would call essential.''
  ''It's all good for consumers,'' she said. ''But somebody's got to pay for it, and that's going to go into the premium.''
  Despite the full-throttle approach here, another uncertainty is the outcome of the presidential race. Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, has vowed to repeal the health care law and restructure Medicaid, not only scrapping the planned expansion but making the program much leaner. Even without a repeal, Republicans could undo the federal subsidies and other financing for the law if they won the presidency and even a narrow majority in the Senate.
  ''If the federal funding stopped,'' Mr. Lee said, ''we would be at a 'press reset' button.''
  In a Field Poll released on Aug. 20, 54 percent of California voters said they supported the health care law, compared with 37 percent who said they were opposed. Support was strongest among blacks (88 percent) and Hispanics (67 percent), who together make up more than 44 percent of the state's population. Voters of Vietnamese and Korean descent also firmly supported the law, but white and Chinese voters were more divided. The poll of 1,579 voters, conducted in July, has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
  Only 17 percent of respondents said they had seen, heard or read anything about the insurance exchange though. Still, 75 percent of those who are not insured through their employer or Medicare said they would be interested in using the exchange to shop for health insurance.
  Mr. Lee said the fact that few people had heard of the exchange was ''totally unsurprising.'' A catchy new name might help spread the word, he said; a decision on Avocado and the other finalists should come next month.
  ''The fact that very few people have heard about us isn't an issue,'' Mr. Lee said. ''Come back in a year.''
Propaganda Update: TV Networks Will Be Asked to Boost ObamaCare In Plots of Their Top Shows | NewsBusters.org
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:11
  Abby Goodnough of The New York Times is reporting as the California state government is setting up its ObamaCare exchange, the exchange has hired a PR firm (with federal government money).
  "Realizing that much of the battle will be in the public relations realm, the exchange has poured significant resources into a detailed marketing plan '-- developed not by state health bureaucrats but by the global marketing powerhouse Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, which has an initial $900,000 contract with the exchange," she wrote. Ogilvy's plan is to tap major network TV shows like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Modern Family" to sell Americans on the health care law:
  Hollywood, an industry whose major players have been supportive of President Obama and his agenda, will be tapped. Plans are being discussed to pitch a reality television show about ''the trials and tribulations of families living without medical coverage,'' according to the Ogilvy plan. The exchange will also seek to have prime-time television shows, like ''Modern Family,'' ''Grey's Anatomy'' and Univision telenovelas, weave the health care law into their plots.
  ''I'd like to see 10 of the major TV shows, or telenovelas, have people talking about 'that health insurance thing,' '' said Peter V. Lee, the exchange's executive director. ''There are good story lines here.''
  Although the exchange will not start advertising until next year, the California Endowment, a foundation that has spent $15 million promoting the law, is running newspaper and television ads, including one in which the television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz exhorts viewers to ''get educated, get engaged, get enrolled.'' That campaign has targeted Hispanics, who make up more than half of the state's uninsured population.
  Goodnough added "The exchange itself has so far been financed by three grants, worth $237 million, from the federal government. Most of the money is committed to consultants, including Accenture, which has a $327 million contract to build and support the initial operation of the enrollment portal."
  Remember that the liberal media was furious that the federal government would promote the war in Iraq inside Iraq, and furious that the Department of Education would hire PR flacks like Armstrong Williams to talk up Bush education programs on cable news. So where is their outrage at the idea that federal grants would promote ObamaCare advertising inside network TV entertainment programs?
Douchebag gets tasered by court security (Video)
  Link to Article
  Source: theCHIVE
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:01
  Thank you for visiting theCHIVE.com - Probably the Best Site in the World. theCHIVE is home to the best funny, viral and interesting photos from around the world. Content published contains original photos, awesomeness, rumors, nicotine, speculation, beautiful girls, funny pictures, assumptions, opinions, ugly people, and factual information. Postings may contain erroneous or inaccurate information. theCHIVE would be nothing without you, our loyal Chivers.
  Copyright (C) 2012 Resignation Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
IAEA 'infiltrated by terrorists'
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Middle East
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:00
  17 September 2012Last updated at 11:23 ET Iran's nuclear chief has warned that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) may have been infiltrated by "terrorists and saboteurs".
  Fereydun Abbasi-Davani said explosions had cut power lines to a uranium enrichment facility last month shortly before a visit by IAEA inspectors.
  He also accused the UN's nuclear watchdog of mismanagement and said it was influenced by "certain states".
  On Thursday, the IAEA rebuked Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment.
  The 35-member governing board expressed "serious concern" that Iran continued to defy UN Security Council resolutions demanding a halt and had failed to resolve questions about possible weapons development.
  Israel's prime minister warned on Sunday that Iran was only six or seven months from having "90%" of what it needed to make a nuclear bomb.
  Benjamin Netanyahu told US media that the only way to stop this was for Washington to draw a "red line" on Iran's nuclear activity and declare that crossing it would lead to military intervention.
  Iran has insisted that its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes, and warned that it will retaliate if it comes under attack.
  'Covert decisions'In a speech to the IAEA's general conference in Vienna on Monday, the head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran stressed that it had "always opposed and will always denounce the manufacture and use of weapons of mass destruction".
  Then in an unusually outspoken attack on the IAEA, Mr Abbasi-Davani said "terrorists and saboteurs might have intruded the agency and might be making decisions covertly"
  He cited an incident on 17 August, when power lines from the city of Qom to the underground uranium enrichment facility at Fordo were cut.
  The following day, he said, the IAEA sought an unannounced inspection.
  "Does this visit have any connection to that detonation? Who other than the IAEA inspectors can have access to the complex in such a short time?"
  "It should be recalled that power cut-off is one of the ways to break down centrifuge machines," he added, referring to the equipment used to increase the proportion of fissile uranium-235 atoms within uranium.
  But Mr Abbasi-Davani said sabotage attempts against Iran's nuclear programme had failed and would continue to fail.
  For his part, the head of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano said the agency was committed to intensifying dialogue with Iran, despite the lack of progress so far. The last meeting on 24 August ended without agreement.
  This comes a day before the EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, is due to meet Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Said Jalili, in Istanbul.
  Baroness Ashton is the lead negotiator for the so-called P5+1 - the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany.
AUDIO: Blair call to 'ramp up' on Syria
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Middle East
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:00
  Tony Blair, former prime minister and currently Middle East "quartet" representative, said it would be "very tragic if we left sight of what is happening in Syria at the moment".
  He told the Today programme that he would be advocating "ramping up where we are" in the country.
  His comments come as aerial bombardments continue on a daily basis in Syria, in particular in the northern city of Aleppo.
  Get in touch with Today via email , Twitter or Facebook or text us on 84844.
NY Times Spins New Video of Ambassador Stevens
  Link to Article
  Source: BlackListedNews.com
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:52
  A new video which shows Libyans apparently celebrating the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens as his body is recovered from a U.S. Consulate in Benghazi following last week's attack has been spun by the New York Times to portray the men as rescuers who are trying to save the Ambassador's life, when in fact they are reveling in his death.
  The clip shows a crowd of men attempting to remove Stevens' body from a window of the American mission after it was attacked with rocket propelled grenades by Islamic militants last week.
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Pensioen-pijn voor Ben Verwaayen
  Link to Article
  Source: FTM - Follow The Money
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:49
  Alcatel Lucent stond er al niet zo best voor, maar een onderzoek van MorganStanley naar de pensioenverplichtingen van Europese bedrijven maakt de boel er niet vrolijker op. Net nu ceo Ben Verwaayen bezig is met een roadshow in de Londense City om de Franse ICT-gigant van vers kapitaal te voorzien, komt de Amerikaanse bank met verontrustende cijfers over de pensioenverplichtingen naar buiten.
  Natuurlijk, het is maar een getal. Maar het hebben van pensioenverplichtingen van 139,3 procent van de beurswaarde van Alcatel Lucent doet niet alleen pensioenwaakhonden grommen. Ook beleggers kijken er met argusogen naar. Alcatel Lucent staat met deze ratio op nummer 1 in Europa (ex-UK). Het is een ereplek die Verwaayen liever niet zou hebben. De aandeelhouders zijn sowieso weinig te spreken over de prestaties van Verwaayen, zo bleek bij de laatste aandeelhoudersvergadering. 'Verwaayen is vergeten dat zijn baan niet draait om 'fun', maar om het creren van aandeelhouderswaarde,' aldus een commentator. Onder het bewind van Verwaayen is Alcatel Lucent praktisch een pennystock geworden. (Zie glijvlucht hier)
  Delta Lloyd
  Op nummer 2 in de MorganStanley-lijst staat de Nederlandse verzekeraar Delta Lloyd, dat pensioenverplichtingen heeft ter waarde van 120,9 procent van de beurswaarde. De verzekeraar is nota bene zelf een groot aanbieder van pensioen- en lijfrenteverzekeringen. Op 3 staat het Duitse staalbedrijf Salzgitter, met 107,8 procent.
  De hoogte van de pensioenverplichtingen zijn relevant omdat deze volgens de nieuwe accounting standaard IAS19 in de balans moeten worden verwerkt. Onder de nieuwe regelgeving, die in gaat op 1 januari 2013, kunnen beursgenoteerde ondernemingen verliezen als gevolg van hun pensioenverplichtingen niet langer maskeren door ze van de balans te houden.
This was no way to start a Monday
  Link to Article
  Source: EV Grieve
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:48
  EVG reader bomarr spotted this pile of meat/bones/WTF this morning on the east side of Second Avenue at Sixth Street ...
@adamcurry @THErealDVORAK Tampa using cameras that judge how you move http://t.co/zMYnglmY
  Link to Article
  Source: @adamcurry - Twitter Search
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:47
  (Source: Publicintelligence.net)
  In Tampa, Florida, just outside of the building where the Republican National Convention is taking place, vigilant observers are perched high above, working day and night to spot suspicious activity. They are not police officers'--they are surveillance cameras equipped with ''behavior recognition'' technology that constantly studies each person to determine whether he or she is the next security threat. By ''learning'' patterns of behavior, these devices can monitor large crowds to alert authorities, within seconds, when something out of the ordinary occurs.
  High-tech security measures might be expected at large politically charged gatherings. But cameras capable of real-time, sophisticated data mining are starting to appear everywhere.
  It may soon be the case that it is no longer necessary to have a human being actively monitoring the screens. Computers will be able to do a better job and for a fraction of the cost. Legal protections from surveillance cameras currently focus on where a camera can be placed. This will shift to what types of analysis the camera is capable of performing, and for what purpose.
  The reason for the quick adoption of these cameras is simple: human beings are not good at attentively watching large amounts of video for very long. In the United States, it is estimated that there are 30 million surveillance cameras, which create more than 4 billion hours of footage every week. At best only a small portion of this footage will ever be reviewed. London, for example, has close to 500,000 surveillance cameras. But this has only helped police in solving three percent of all street robberies.
  Instead of trying to solve crimes after they have happened, advances in camera technology can spot problems as they are occurring. On Liberty Island, home to one of the nation's most famous landmarks, surveillance camera data are brought together and analyzed in order to spot when somebody abandons a bag or tries to stay on the island after hours. This technology can alert police to the appearance of an imminent fight. Across the Bay, in Manhattan, surveillance cameras can track a person's general description. If there is a report about a suspicious person wearing a red shirt, for example, every person wearing a red shirt in sight of any of their thousands of cameras can be displayed together'--in an instant.
  It's not just law enforcement that has taken note of this. Retail outlets such as Macys, Babys 'R' Us, and CVS have installed systems in some of their stores that can spot shoppers who do unusual things'--such as remove many items from a shelf at once, open a case that is normally locked, or walk suspiciously through the aisles. Pathmark grocery stores have implemented similar technology that will quickly alert managers of potential shoplifting and employee fraud'--as it takes place.
  These systems are programmed to assume that everybody is a potential shoplifter, terrorist, or criminal. In addition to issues related to presumption of innocence, this raises many questions about privacy. The idea of a person closely watching our movements is unsettling. Does it ''feel'' different if it's just a computer rather than a human being?
  WikiLeaks cables released earlier this month revealed widespread use by local and federal agencies in the U.S. of TrapWire, a technology that aggregates incident reports and camera feeds to try to detect potential terrorist threats. Understandably, there was uproar over the lack of public disclosure. These same features are being used in other parts of the world to combat dissent. In China, security cameras are commonly used to count the number of people in crosswalks. These alert the authorities if a crowd forms at an unusual time'--which could be sign of unsanctioned protest. Around the world, companies like Sony, Kraft, and Adidas are also installing cameras to target ads to consumers based on their physical features.
  The last two decades have largely settled the question of where a security camera can be placed. The promise of increased safety has trumped the right to remain anonymous. In the near future, not having behavioral detection systems present will be seen as a danger and liability, especially as the cost of monitoring technology drops and advanced surveillance becomes even more affordable.
  So far, there has been little consequence to this because nothing is usually done with the footage. But that is going to change. There will, undoubtedly, be concerns arising related to how these datasets can be combined with personally identifiable information to track not only our locations and activities, but our feelings and state. You can expect these to be the next privacy battles in the courts. One would expect the Republicans'--who often consider themselves to be the defenders of free speech and liberty'--to lead the charge against these technologies.
  Meanwhile, back at the Convention in Tampa, cameras have been working overtime alongside police officers to make sure that things run smoothly. If the protests turn violent, as they did at the 2008 Convention in St. Paul, the authorities will now know when and where to react. It will be interesting to see how the need for domestic security will be balanced against individual rights and our need for privacy.
Paypal scaled back in Argentina
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Technology
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:46
  17 September 2012Last updated at 16:30 Paypal is to prevent users in Argentina from transferring money between their own accounts.
  The online payment service said that from 9 October: "Argentina resident Paypal-users may only send and receive international payments".
  Last year the Argentine government announced restrictions on the purchase of US dollars.
  It has led to an increase in currency sales on the black market - but Paypal's exchange rates are better.
  Locals were setting up two accounts under different email addresses and transferring money between the two, exchanging local currency pesos for dollars in the process.
  Under the new rules only one account per person can be registered within Argentina.
  'Tax evasion'The government's rules were designed to curb the flight of savings from the country and make the economy less dependent on the US dollar.
  When the news was announced, finance minister Amado Boudou told the BBC it was "an important measure to combat tax evasion and money laundering".
  Since the rules were introduced in November 2011, Paypal has been used as an alternative means of obtaining the US currency close to the official exchange rate, which currently stands at about 4.7 pesos per dollar.
  That is much cheaper than the rate on the black market where one dollar costs about 6.3 pesos.
  Economy lowsArgentina suffers a high inflation rate - private economists say prices are increasing by about 24% a year.
  This adds to a general lack of confidence in the local currency caused by memories of its depreciation during the economic crisis of 2001.
  Many residents have tried to protect their savings against the risk of further turmoil by putting the money into more stable currencies.
  Economist Eduardo Marty told the BBC that currency restrictions had been extended to all economic activities, from the export of goods to foreign travel.
  "You have to apply for permission to import any goods," he said.
  "If you need to travel abroad the government gives you a meagre amount of money. Sometimes they approve it at the last moment and people are forced to buy on the black market."
  New taxIn September the government established a new 15% tax on all purchases made abroad, affecting credit cards and purchases made on international websites like Amazon and eBay, and transactions made on Paypal.
  Following local media coverage about complaints over constraints to the Paypal service, the company acknowledged that the blockades were imposed by local banks.
  In a statement sent to the BBC, Paypal apologised for the "inconvenience" the decision may cause.
  "Argentina is a very important market to us as we expand our global footprint, and we are currently very focused on providing Argentine merchants and consumers the best possible service.
  "Paypal customers in Argentina are still able to utilise Paypal for international transactions with 190 markets around the world," said the company.
  Reported by BBC Mundo, the Spanish section of the BBC World Service.
Acoustic Levitation
  Link to Article
  Source: Melissa Jones
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:08
  Acoustic Levitation is a method of suspending materials by using acoustic radiation pressure from intense sound waves. Two speakers are lined up in such a way that their sound waves (roughly 22 kilohertz) set up a standing wave strong enough to levitate light objects such as droplets when placed at the nodes where they may stay suspended for long periods of time! via webodysseum and wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/...#Acoustic_Levitation#Material_Sciences#webodysseum Repinned from Interesting by Jane Wang
France and UK 'close' on banks
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Europe
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:38
  17 September 2012Last updated at 12:06 ET France and the UK broadly agree on the EU plan for the European Central Bank (ECB) to supervise all eurozone banks, the French finance minister says.
  Pierre Moscovici also said the UK "will be part of the decision-making process" on bank supervision, even though the UK is outside the 17-nation eurozone.
  He was speaking in London after talks with UK Chancellor George Osborne.
  On whether to provide a bailout for Spain, Mr Moscovici said "the tools exist" but Madrid would have to decide.
  "This is a matter of sovereignty and we do not decide for the Spanish government," he said.
  Last week the European Commission - the EU's executive arm - set out a blueprint for an EU banking union, including giving the ECB responsibility for overseeing all 6,000 banks in the eurozone.
  The idea is that with tighter control the regulators will act faster to deal with failing banks, averting the need for huge bailouts with taxpayers' money.
  The first phase is scheduled to start in January, with the process completed by 2014.
  Mr Moscovici confirmed that timetable, saying "we must find agreement in the EU before the end of 2012, with implementation then as fast as possible".
  "The UK, like us, would like if possible quite a swift timeline" for introducing the new ECB mechanism, he said.
  He also said the UK agreed that all eurozone banks should be included - not just the biggest cross-border banks regarded as systemically important.
  The ECB would have overall authority, above the national regulators who currently supervise banks.
  But Germany - the richest economy in the eurozone - is especially wary of taking on responsibility for banks in other countries. Some senior German officials have criticised the Commission plan, arguing that ECB supervision should only apply to major banks which could pose a significant threat to the single currency.
  The plan needs to be agreed by all 27 members of the European Union.
Skype to adopt 'Metro' design, says report
  Link to Article
  Source: CNET News
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:37
  This utilitarian Skype interface may soon be swept away by a "Metro"-ized version
  (Credit:Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)Skype may be taking new look and feel cues from the Windows 8 interface formerly known as Metro.
  New client versions of Skype are in the works with a few notable enhancements, The Verge reports. One such is a new UI that borrows from the Windows 8 interface. Skype is now testing this change, but could take it a few steps further in future releases, according to The Verge.
  Also reportedly new to Skype: a video messaging feature that lets users send prerecorded videos, which their contacts can then view when they hop online.
  In 2008, Microsoft beta tested a similar feature called Windows Live Video Messages. But the company pulled the plug on that application in 2010, and instead outfitted Windows Live Messenger with its own offline capabilities last year.
  A Windows 8 version of Skype is also on the way, The Verge writes -- which will come complete with Outlook.com integration.
  A Microsoft spokesperson told CNET that the company doesn't comment on rumors or speculation.
  Released last week, Skype's latest 5.11 beta version already ties in more closely with Microsoft. Users can log into Skype via their Microsoft account and access information from Live Messenger,Xbox, Hotmail, and Outlook.com.
  Updated 9:30 a.m. PTwith response from Microsoft.
Netanyahu Lashes 'Stupid' US Newspapers for Articles Opposing War
  Link to Article
  Source: News From Antiwar.com
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:35
  Making the rounds on the US television media today (appearing on both Meet the Press and State of the Nation), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu furiously attacked American newspapers for publishing columns critical of his plans for a war with Iran.
  Saying the columnists had ''set a new standard for human stupidity,'' Netanyahu bashed the idea that Iran's civilian nuclear program was on par with the Soviet Union's massive nuclear weapons arsenal, insisting Iran's non-existent weapons were far more dangerous.
  ''They put zealotry above survival, they have suicide bombers all over the place,'' Netanyahu insisted, ignoring that Iran issued religious fatwas banning suicide bombing decades ago and has not been implicated, beyond vague and unsubstantiated allegations, in a single suicide bomb attack in many years.
  Netanyahu went on from lying about Iran's putative suicide bombers to lying about the civilian nuclear program, claiming Iran was ''six months'' away from nuclear weapons capability despite not having made even a single gram of weapons grade uranium, and warning that if the US doesn't act soon it will be ''too late.''
  Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz
Netanyahu in 1992: Iran close to having nuclear bomb
  Link to Article
  Source: Een andere kijk op nieuws @infomagnl » Nieuws items
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:34
  gecureerd van infowars.com op 17 september 2012Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is trapped in reflection theory. He was allegedly himselfinvolved in illegally smuggling nuclear triggers out of the US, and he assumes that Iran desperately wants a nuclear weapon as well.But Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has given a fatwa against nukes, and there is no solid intelligence pointing to an Iranian weapons program. Iran can't be close to having a weapon if it doesn't have a weapons program.He has no credibility left on such warnings.
  Reprint edn.:
  Scott Peterson at the Christian Science Monitor did a useful timeline for dire Israeli and US predictions of an imminent Iranian nuclear weapon, beginning 20 years ago.
  1992: Israeli member of parliament Binyamin Netanyahu predicts that Iran was "3 to 5 years" from having a nuclear weapon.
  1992: Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres predicts an Iranian nuclear warhead by 1999 to French TV.
  Bekijk orgineel item op infowars.com
  Meer Nieuws items
Physicists experimentally demonstrate one-way quantum steering
  Link to Article
  Source: Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:28
  Schematic of the experimental set-up, in which Alice can steer Bob, but not vice versa. Image credit: H¤ndchen, et al. (C)2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited
  (Phys.org)'--When Einstein described the interaction between two distant objects as "spooky interaction at a distance," he was referring to the quantum phenomenon called steering. Steering can occur in strongly entangled systems and implies a direction between the two parties involved, while entanglement without steering generally has no direction. In 1992, physicists experimentally demonstrated steering in both directions '' that is, both parties could steer each other. Now for the first time, physicists have demonstrated steering in one direction only, a feat that gives new insight into the quantum world and that could have applications in quantum information.
  The physicists, from the University of Hannover's Center for Quantum Engineering and Space-Time Research-QUEST, the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute), and the Institute for Theoretical Physics, all in Hannover, Germany, have published their study in a recent issue of Nature Photonics.
  As the scientists explain, steering forms the core of the famous Einstein-Podolosky-Rosen (EPR) argument put forth in 1935. As an attempt to criticize quantum mechanics, the three scientists theoretically pointed out an odd effect of two strongly correlated particles: measuring a quantity (such as the position or the momentum) of particle A will cause the related quantity of particle B to become certain, even though the Heisenberg Uncertainty Relation predicts a minimum quantum uncertainty for individual systems. This odd effect exists even if the particles do not come in contact with each other. To explain this finding, Einstein, Podolosky, and Rosen assumed that the outcome of all possible measurements must be encoded in both particles as a hidden parameter, and that quantum mechanics is incomplete because it does not account for this parameter. Otherwise, the instantaneous interaction would conflict with the theory of relativity.
  However, other physicists of the day saw that the interaction was actually a new quantum phenomenon. Erwin Schr¶dinger was the first to call the effect "entanglement" as well as describe its stronger form, steering. In steering, the two parties (Alice and Bob) have certain roles that are not interchangeable. Specifically, Alice has the role of choosing an observable to be measured, which somehow changes the states in Bob's system. If Bob chooses the observable to be measured, then the roles would change, and he would be the one steering Alice.
  Because of the two different roles, physicists have wondered about the possibility of one-way steering. That is, are there any physical states that Alice could send that allow her to steer Bob, but not vice versa?
  Enlarge
  One-way steering occurs when the second vacuum mode used to generate the steering states is between 39% and 70% (white region). When the value for one steering direction is less than 1.0 (red histogram) and the value for the other steering direction is above 1.0 (blue histogram), one-way steering occurs. Image credit: H¤ndchen, et al. (C)2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited
  To demonstrate that the answer is yes, the physicists here entangled two laser beams that they prepared using an intricate system that involved mixing the beams with two vacuum modes. One output mode was sent to Alice and one to Bob. If the beams were prepared with the vacuum contribution in a certain intermediate range, the researchers observed that Alice could make a measurement on her side that influenced Bob's measurements on his side '' but Bob's measurements did not influence Alice's. In other words, they observed one-way steering.However, changing the vacuum contribution could change the results. The researchers found that, for a vacuum contribution smaller than 39%, two-way steering was allowed. And for a vacuum contribution greater than 70%, no steering was allowed. In between these values, only Alice could steer.
  "From the very beginning in 1935, EPR and Schr¶dinger focused on the question of whether a single subsystem (of an entangled state) can be described by a classical model, given some measurement results on the other subsystem," coauthor Roman Schnabel of the University of Hannover and the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics told Phys.org. "In our paper, we produce for the first time an entangled state that allows for a purely classical description of one subsystem but not of the other. Our result supports the relevance of the original question by EPR and Schr¶dinger since we demonstrate that the answer is more diverse than one might expect."
  As he explained further, the results also provide insight into the extent to which quantum mechanics differs from classical mechanics, one of the fundamental questions in physics.
  "Our experiment pinpoints the effect of decoherence," he said. "Our state is produced by discarding information from one subsystem (due to the extra vacuum contribution). The one-sided information loss results in the new situation that this subsystem can be described by a classical model whereas the other subsystem still requires a quantum model. There is a long debate on how the transition from a distinct (entangled) quantum system to a system that can be described by a classical model actually happens. Our experiment is thus a nice model system that shows how decoherence produces the transition from the quantum to the classical world."
  The researchers expect that the experiment can be extended to a tripartite situation involving a third party, Charlie. In the current experiment, one output mode of the light beam was dumped, but if it had been sent to Charlie, the researchers predict that Alice could also steer Charlie simultaneously to steering Bob. Neither Bob nor Charlie could steer anyone.
  As the physicists explain, one-way steering is yet another counterintuitive effect of quantum mechanics. They explain that one-way steering leads to the peculiar situation in which two experimenters performing measurements on the same shared state reach different conclusions. Future research into this implication and others could have applications in areas such as quantum key distribution for secure communication and information science in general.
  More information: Vitus H¤ndchen, et al. "Observation of one-way Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering." Nature Photonics. DOI: 10.1038/NPHOTON.2012.202
  Journal reference:Nature Photonics
  Copyright 2012 Phys.org All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or part without the express written permission of PhysOrg.com.
It's War! Church Of Scientology Calls Vanity Fair Writer 'Bigot' Over Tom Cruise Controversy
  Link to Article
  Source: Radar Online
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:24
  WENN
  By Alexis Tereszcuk - Radar Entertainment Editor
  It's war! The Church of Scientology has hit back against the Vanity Fair expose that claimed to reveal deep secrets of the church and Tom Cruise with a scathing letter to the magazine's publisher in which they call the journalist a bigot and dismiss the allegations in the article as defamatory.
  The eight-page letter was sent to Graydon Carter on August 16, 2012 in response to the story that Scientology began a wife-auditing process for Tom, that Nicole Kidman was an enemy of the church and detailed his alleged search for a new wife.
  Read The Entire Letter To Vanity Fair's Publisher
  "We are writing regarding your, your editor's and reporter's shoddy journalism, religious bigotry and potential legal liability arising out of Vanity Fair's upcoming story about the Tom Cruise divorce," the letter states. "Significantly, while Maureen Orth was preparing her story, Vanity Fair ignored its staff and contributors who have firsthand knowledge of Mr. Cruise and of Mr. Miscavige and who would burden her story with the truth."
  The letter accuses Orth of hiding her intentions about the article, and said the list of 32 questions revealed ''the tabloid nature of the article,'' and her ''reckless disregard of the truth and her religious bigotry,'' and says the story is "false and contemptible."
  The letter defends the Scientology leader and his relationship with Tom Cruise.
  PHOTOS: Tom Cruise And Katie Holmes' Relationship Through The Years
  ''Mr. Miscavige is the ecclesiastical leader of a worldwide religion; a man of impeccable character who is dedicated to his faith and to the service of its parishioners. He respects the institution of marriage and those who enter into it. Not only is this highly offensive and grossly inappropriate question lifted from Andrew Morton's 2008 unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise, but if Ms. Orth had done any research, she would know that Mr. Miscavige's vocation requires him to travel extensively throughout the world and he is rarely even in the same cities as the celebrities with whom she suggests he spends virtually all of his time. Ms. Orth's implications are demonstrably false. If she had considered for a minute the respective travel and work demands placed on both Mr. Miscavige and Mr. Cruise, she would have dismissed outright this ''third wheel notion'' concocted in Mr. Morton's book.''
  In a shocking comparison, the letter equates the Vanity Fair article's claims to accusing the Pope of poisoning holy wine.
  ''Ms. Orth shows no sensitivity to Scientology's religious beliefs as she apparently hasn't a clue what those beliefs are. Scientology auditing is the most sacrosanct practice of the Scientology religion and the confidences of parishioners given in auditing are inviolate. Yet the very tenor of Ms. Orth's questions concerning such matters, on the order of ''By the way, do you take sugar in your coffee?'' evidences her total ignorance and lack of respect for the beliefs of Scientologists.
  PHOTOS: Tom Cruise Through The Years
  "The allegations she forwards are akin to asking the Pope if he threw poison in the wine before failing to bless the Holy Communion during the Easter service. Your apostate sources know that is the nature of what they are insinuating and Ms. Orth, who hasn't the vaguest clue about the practice of Scientology, has been duped into forwarding their anti-Scientology agenda."
  PHOTOS: Tom Cruise Pictured In Iceland After Katie Holmes' Divorce Filing
  The letter threatens legal action against the magazine, writing ''The disgraceful allegations Vanity Fair apparently plan to publish about Mr. Miscavige are defamatory. If Vanity Fair goes forward with publication of such defamatory allegations, now that it is on notice that the story is false, the stain on its reputation will last long after any reader even remembers the article. The sting of the jury verdict will last longer still; far longer than any pleasure from racing to publish a poorly researched and sourced story."
  Vanity Fair is standing by their story, releasing a statement to CNN saying, ''We absolutely stand by Maureen Orth's story. Vanity Fair has never paid sources and never would."
  RELATED STORIES:
  Tom Cruise Was 'Devastated' After Penelope Cruz Dumped Him Over ScientologyScientology Screened 'At Least Two Dozen Women' For Tom Cruise, Set Him Up With Another Beautiful Actress!
  Tom Cruise Had His Staff Dump Nazanin Boniadi After She 'Insulted' David Miscavige, Claims New Report
  Katie Holmes On Divorce: 'There Are A Lot Of People With Much Bigger Problems'
Obama aide offers press cookies to no avail
  Link to Article
  Source: TheBlaze.com - Blog
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:24
  En route to a campaign event in Ohio, President Obama's traveling press secretary Jen Psaki answered questions from reporters for about half an hour.
  From the pool report, written by the Los Angeles Times' Michael Memoli [aboard Air Force One]:
  Psaki ended by offering, unsolicited, her take on Mitt Romney's readiness for being commander in chief: ''Every president '' male, female, no matter who it is Republican, Democrat '' is going to face a crisis or multiple crises as the president has faced. What we've seen from Mitt Romney is a disastrous trip overseas; last week he criticized '' accused the president of sympathizing with the attackers and mischaracterized a statement from our embassy; and then he had an adviser the next day go out and say that if Mitt Romney had been president this wouldn't have happened. So this does raise a question of whether his team is ready for primetime when it comes to these issues.'' '...
  Would also note that Psaki at the beginning and at the end of the gaggle offered the pool home-baked cookies but no one took her up on the offer, at least not yet.
Thread: River with JSON-encoded OPML
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:23
  This is a very bizarre animal.
  http://dropbox.scripting.com/dave/misc/riverWithJsonEncodedOPML.js
  It's a river.js file that has an item that contains the OPML source encoded as JSON.
  This means that a jQuery app that loaded this file would find the OPML structure already there in the DOM.
  We're a short step from having Media Hackers be able to do something much richer with content.
Disrupt panel discusses iPhone 5 launch | TUAW
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:23
  The best of the best in the Apple world took to the stage last week during TechCrunch Disrupt to talk about the iPhone 5. Hosted by TechCrunch's Darrell Etherington, the round table of Apple experts include Jim Dalrymple of The Loop, John Gruber of Daring Fireball, Tim Stevens of Engadget, Jason Snell of Macworld and TechCrunch columnist MG Siegler. If you haven't already, you should definitely take the time to listen to their conversation, which is available on TechCrunch's website. It's filled with insight about the iPhone 5 and Apple's position in the smartphone marketplace.
  Share
Enbridge explains pipeline benefits to Chamber.
  Link to Article
  Source: DaDenMan news feed
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 17:00
  Following their endorsement of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project, the Fort Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce had a special guest at their first fall meeting on Sept. 5.The pipeline company's Senior Manager of Community and Municipal Relations, Michele Perret, spoke at the business luncheon, giving a brief overview of the project,including its construction and estimated regional impacts.Perret emphasized that 99 per cent of Canadian oil is currently shipped to the US, something she said was an unsustainable economic plan, considering the current hold on the proposed Keystone pipeline.She said the Northern Gateway pipeline would open routes to Asian countries expected to exponentially increase their oil dependence over the next 30 years.Perret was joined by Enbridge Community Relations Advisor Kelsey Borland, who noted Canadian oil shipped from British Columbia would travel about half the distance of oil from South America or the Middle East.Borland went on to outline the pipeline project in detail, explaining one 1,177 km pipeline would carry crude to Kitimat, BC, while a second would bring condensate to Alberta to thin the bitumen.The speakers outlined the facilities and safety measures planned for the Kitimat facility before noting Enbridge's proposed compensationplans for aboriginal groups affected by the pipeline.Initial planning for the pipeline began in 2002, with hearings on the proposal currently underway and a new set of hearings expected to begin in January. Enbridge will make its final arguments in April, and the federal government will make its decision on the proposal by December of next year.Perret outlined the benefits for this region as being 1,540 person-years of employment coming from the construction along with $224 million in construction spending.A further $146 million in engineering and management spending is expected along with $27 million in goods and services in the area, including $10 million from equipment rentals.Perret said Kitimat was chosen because the narrow roads in the Prince Rupert area would affect key salmon areas on the Skeena River. In addition, the Prince Rupert route would require more tunnelling than the Kitimat route, which will have about 13 kilometres of tunnel just outside Kitimat.As for why unprocessed bitumen was to be sent, the speakers said the exact product to be shipped was as yet undetermined. Since the question was concerned with keeping jobs in Alberta, the speakers noted the pipeline, regardless of product carried, would lead to more oil field jobs in this province.They added the Altona pipeline carries 70 types of fuel, both processed and unproceseed, adding the same may be the case for Northern Gateway.Finally, they said controversy over the proposed pipeline likely arose since it would be the first of its kind in BC. They added Albertans are used to pipelines, while the premise is a new idea for many in BC.
  They also suggested the public doesn't fully appreciate the importance of diversifying Canada's oil customers.As for why the pair came to speak in Fort Saskatchewan, Perret explained meetings with Chamber members are meetings with ''leadersof the community.''When you're in the room with the leaders,'' she said, ''You get a pulse on the community. It's good to know where we're working.''jonathan.milke@sunmedia.caTwitter.com/jonathan_milke
No protest before Benghazi attack, wounded Libyan guard says - KansasCity.com
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:58
  BENGHAZI, Libya -- A Libyan security guard who said he was at the U.S. consulate here when it was attacked Tuesday night has provided new evidence that the assault on the compound that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, was a planned attack by armed Islamists and not the outgrowth of a protest over an online video that mocks Islam and its founder, the Prophet Muhammad.
  The guard, interviewed Thursday in the hospital where he is being treated for five shrapnel wounds in one leg and two bullet wounds in the other, said that the consulate area was quiet '' ''there wasn't a single ant outside,'' he said '' until about 9:35 p.m., when as many as 125 armed men descended on the compound from all directions.The men lobbed grenades into the compound, wounding the guard and knocking him to the ground, then stormed through the facility's main gate, shouting ''God is great'' and moving to one of the many villas that make up the consulate compound. He said there had been no warning that an attack was imminent.''Wouldn't you expect if there were protesters outside that the Americans would leave?'' the guard said.The guard, located by searching hospitals for people injured Tuesday night, said he was 27 years old but declined to give his name. He asked that the hospital where he is being treated not be identified for fear that militants would track him down and kill him. He said he was able to escape by telling one of the attackers that he was only a gardener at the compound. The attacker took him to the hospital, the guard said.Libyan authorities told reporters Thursday that they had made four arrests in connection with the consulate assault, but they cautioned that leaders of the group blamed for the attack, an Islamist organization known as Ansar al Shariah, denied that they had given the order to attack. But the guard's tale suggested that whoever ordered the assault had been able to call upon a large number of people to carry out what appeared to be an organized attack.Wanis al Sharif, the deputy interior minister responsible for Libya's eastern region, which includes Benghazi, told a group of local reporters that in addition to the four people under arrest, authorities were monitoring others for possible involvement in the attack.''There is a group under our control, and there is another we are monitoring,'' Sharif said.Sharif said that Ansar al Shariah's leaders had suggested that those carrying the group's flag during the assault were rogue members acting on their own. ''They called me and told me you have wronged us,'' Sharif said. ''They told me that there may be individual acts.''Ansar al Shariah '' Partisans of Islamic law '' which is based in Benghazi, is one of the largest Islamic extremist groups now operating in Libya, according to an analysis published Wednesday by Aaron Zelin of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.The shadowy organization is led by Muhammad Zahawi and maintains "online connections" to a similarly named group in Tunisia. A unit, or katiba, based in Derna, an eastern town from which extremists made their way to fight U.S. forces in Iraq, is commanded by a former Guantanamo prison detainee, Abu Sufayan bin Qumu, according to Zelin.Where Sharif's findings would fit in the U.S. investigation into the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the other Americans remained unclear. But the guard's tale suggests that there were many more than four people involved in the attack.The attack itself, the guard said, was immediate and bold, initiated by a group of men who approached the compound and lobbed grenades over the wall. Just behind them were scores of men, shooting wildly and yelling ''God is great.''The guard, who said he'd been hired seven months ago by a British company to protect the compound, said the first explosion knocked him to the ground, and he was unable to fire his weapon. Four other contracted guards and three members of Libya's 17th of February Brigade, a group formed during the first days of the anti-Gadhafi uprising and now considered part of Libya's military, were protecting the outside perimeter of the compound.After storming through the gate, the guard said, the men rushed into one of the compound's buildings, meeting no resistance. The guard did not say whether that was the building where the ambassador was.Thirty minutes later, the guard said, he realized he was about to lose consciousness and asked one of the attackers for help, saying he was merely a gardener at the compound. The man agreed to drive him to the hospital. As they were leaving, the guard said he saw the attackers enter a second villa on the compound.Stevens and consulate computer expert Sean Smith are believed to have been overcome by smoke in the main consulate building. Two other State Department employees were shot and killed by the invaders at another building on the compound where Americans had sought refuge. The two men, both former Navy SEALs who were working as security contractors, were identified by family members as Glen A. Doherty, 42, a native of Winchester, Mass., and Tyrone Woods, 41, of Imperial Beach, Calif. At least three other embassy employees were wounded.A Libyan emergency room doctor who treated Stevens said Libyan security guards brought him to the hospital at 1 a.m., his lips black and his body reeking of smoke. He was officially pronounced dead at 1:45 a.m. from smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning, but the doctor who tried to revive him, Ziad Bouzaid, 31, said Stevens was dead on arrival. Bouzaid said the body bore no other signs of injury.The guard's tale is consistent with a version offered Wednesday by the man who had leased the compound to the United States. Standing outside the fire-gutted compound, Mohammad al Bishari said the attack began with assailants carrying assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and the black flag of Ansar al Shariah moving from two directions against the compound.The FBI has launched its own investigation into what took place, and two American destroyers, the USS Laboon and the USS McFaul, were expected to take up positions by early next off the coast near Benghazi in what many here interpreted as preparations for a possible retaliatory attack. On Wednesday, President Barack Obama promised justice in the case.Meanwhile, fallout continued Thursday from anger over an online video that Muslims said denigrated their religion.In Sanaa, Yemen, demonstrators protesting the video tried to storm the U.S. Embassy, making it past an initial security line but failing to make it to any of the main embassy compound buildings. Demonstrators burned tires and spray-painted ''Death of America'' on the wall surrounding the compound before they were repulsed by Yemeni security forces firing tear gas and warning shots.No embassy staff was injured, but four demonstrators were killed and as many as 30 others injured.Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi quickly condemned the attack and vowed to punish those responsible for it.Unrest continued as well Thursday in Cairo, where on Tuesday protesters breached the embassy compound's wall and tore down and burned the American flag. Protests continued Thursday, even though Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, speaking publicly on the attacks for the first time, condemned them.No one has claimed responsibility for the consulate assault, something that perhaps is unsurprising in this part of Libya, where Stevens was a popular ambassador representing a nation many here believed saved Benghazi from a massacre during the rebellion against toppled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Gadhafi's tanks were on the edge of the city, preparing to overrun it, when NATO jets began their bombing campaign March 19, 2011. Indeed, throughout the day Thursday, Libyans nationwide held rallies in support of the ambassador, carrying signs in Arabic and at times broken English offering their support. ''Sorry People of America, this not the Pehavior our Islam and Profit,'' one read. A young man in Benghazi carried a sign that read: ''Chris Stevens was a friend to all Libyan people'' Zway reported from Benghazi, Libya, and Youssef from Cairo. McClatchy special correspondents Adam Baron from Sanaa, Yemen, and Mel Frykberg from Cairo contributed.
Title on comment OPML
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's development work
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:57
  Back from a deep excursion in CMS-land.
  When we save a comment, we create an OPML document with information about the person creating the comment, and the text of the comment. This flows through the CMS and out the back-end onto S3. Right now it's the permanent record for the post on the web. Later this will transition to something in a decoupled space, so instead of shooting OPML text around we'll jsut be sending links to documents.
  Anyway, there was still a bit of test code enabled. The title of the document was Hello World from Bull Mancuso. With this change it's now Comment from Bull Mancuso.
  Here's an example of the OPML file.
  Parts
  opmlEditor.comments.save
China Warns World War III Being Planned To Oust Obama
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:42
  World's Largest English Language News Service with Over 500Articles Updated Daily
  "The News You Need Today'...For TheWorld You'll Live In Tomorrow."
  What YouAren't Being Told About The World You Live In
  War OfThe Sacred Code: The True Secret Of 2012
  A ''must have'' book for those seeking to understand thetruth behind this most prophesied about year in human history. (Continued)
  ''Dirty, Filthy, Christians'':Treatise On The Most Dangerous Death Cult In HumanHistory
  An unprecedented work detailing the agenda behind thegreatest deception ever foisted upon humanity. (Continued)
  BattleBegins For Throne of This World: The Return of the Einherjar Warriors
  By: Sorcha Faal ''The truest accounting of our World'spresent state of Global Chaos, the 'whys' and 'how's' are presented in thisepic history of what has been kept hidden from humanity. (Continued)
  Picking up the Pieces: Practical Guide forSurviving Economic Crashes, Internal Unrest and Military SuppressionBy:Sorcha Faal ''In the span of less than 3 months gasoline prices will rise500%. The prices of both food andshelter rise over 300%. (Continued)
  Partisans Handbook: By: Sorcha Faal ''Essential Survival Guide ForResisting Foreign Military Occupation, Escape And Evasion Techniques, SurvivingInterrogation, Facing Execution, Wilderness Survival (Continued)
  Code Red: The Coming Destruction Of The United States Limitedrelease of the perhaps one of the most prophetic books of our time relating tothe underlying causes, and history, of the downfall of America (Continued)
  September 17, 2012
  China Warns WorldWar III Being Planned To Oust Obama
  By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
  A new report prepared by the Foreign Military Intelligence Main Directorate(GRU) of the General Staffof the Armed Forces for President Putin is warning today that the mysterious5-day visit by Chinese Defense Minister LiangGuanglie to India this past week (the first such visit to India by a highranking Chinese defense official in 8 years) was in preparation for a World WarChina says is being planned within the next few weeks in order to oust USPresident Barack Obama from office.
  As anti-Japaneseprotests grow in China to levels notseen in modern times, this report says, Defense Minister Guanglie wasparticularly concerned over the ''assassination''of Japanese Ambassador to China Shinichi Nishimiya who last week mysteriouslycollapsed and died in Tokyotwo days after being appointed to his post.
  The death of Ambassador Nishimiya, GRU analysts say in this report, wasmeant to cause a further escalation in tensions between Japan and Chinawhere even today important elements within the Chinese leadership arestating: ''ForThe Respect Of The Motherland, We Must Go To War WithJapan''.
  China and Japan have beenwary Asian neighbors since their 1962 War that saw over10,000 killed, wounded and missing, from both sides, and with both of thembeing nuclear armed powers the threat of conflict is always a possibility ontheir volatile borders. So concerned has US Defense Secretary Leon Panettabecome that he warnedyesterday that war between China and Japan was, indeed possible.
  Of the greatest concern, this report continues, is that the escalating oftensions between China and Japan appears to be linked to the rising tensions inthe Middle East against the United States as both are being stoked by what theofficial Iranian news service PressTV saysis a ''CIA-Mormon-Zionistplot''.
  The prominent American political analyst Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley,this past weekend in an interview with PressTV, claimed that several groups,including American Mormons in the CIA and Zionists, are behind thecontroversial recent anti-Islam film made in the US that has caused massive unrestin the Islamic world. ''Iwould identify two or perhaps three components, the first is a Mormon mafiainside the CIA, the group of Mormon high officials of the CIA who want Romneyto become president and they think that by having the kinds of events that weare seeing, they can make Obama look bad in front of the American public,''Dr. Tarpley told Press TV during an interview on Saturday.
  The influential US alternative news site InfoWars.comechoed Dr. Tarpley's warning in their article titled ''Octobersurprise to Carterize Obama'' (an obviousreference to former US President Jimmy Carter's inept handling of the IranianHostage Crisis that caused his defeat to then Governor Ronald Reagan in 1980)wherein, in part, it says:
  ''The film inquestion was obviously designed as a provocation and nothing else. But was thisfilm, as the US media claim, the work of the isolated Cerrito, Californiaresident and Egyptian-American NakoulaBasselyNakoula. akaAbanobBasselyaka Israeli citizen Sam Bacile, an ex-convict with adrug problem, and a few actors he hired? Persuasive evidence suggests that thisis not the case.
  Instead, we are dealing with an ambitiousinternational intelligence operation aimed at creating an October Surprise (afew weeks early) to shock [the]world and US public opinion for the purpose ofdiscrediting and ''Carterizing'' the current tenant ofthe White House, and installing Netanyahu's friend Mitt Romney in his place.Since the US public identifies Obama as the patron of the color revolutions andmilitary interventions of the ''Arab Spring,'' attacks on US diplomats,assassinations, and possible hostage taking can be expected to weaken his casefor reelection. If Romney prevails, control over US foreign policy would passto the group of incorrigible warmonger neocons whoare the Romney's handlers for international affairs. The current crisis is asign that the neocons and their friends areattempting a comeback.''
  Interesting to note is the reference to what is called the Mormon Mafia whose links were longago established with the CIA under the power wielded by the reclusive USbillionaire Howard Hughes(1905-1976) who, literally, bought up the American gambling mecca Los Vegaswhich has enabled this intelligence agency to laundertheir billions in yearly drug profits for nearly 50 years.
  Like the tensions being aroused between Chinaand its Asian neighbors, the tensions erupting over this US anti-Islamic film has had catastrophicconsequences, the worst being the overrunning of the American consulate in BenghaziLibyawhere the USAmbassador stationed there was murdered and draggedthrough the streets by a deranged mob.
  Most dangerous for the entire world, this report concludes, is that at thesame time ethnic and religious tensions are being ''artificially'' inflamed around the globe in a classic ''divide and conquer'' intelligencestrategy, warshipsfrom the United States, Britain, and 25 other western nations have massed inthe Persian Gulf for what is described as a prelude to an imminent attackon Iran by Israel.
  Falling on deaf Western ears (as is always the case) about these grim eventswere the words of Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who barely afortnight ago said: ''Wewarn those who are no strangers to military solutions ... that this [an attackon Iran] would be harmful, literally disastrous for regional stability andwould set off deep shocks in the security and economic spheres that wouldreverberate far beyond the boundaries of the Middle East region.''
  As we had warned about in our 2 September report, ''Obama OverthrowPlot Widens As US Martial Law Fears Grow'',however, the American people remain unknowing about the full horrors about todescend upon as the lust for riches and power by the elites they have allowedto rule over them remains unsated, and today now threatens us all.
  September 17, 2012 (C) EU and US all rights reserved.Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition itis linked back to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com. Freebase contentlicensed under CC-BYand GFDL.
  [Ed. Note: Western governments and theirintelligence services actively campaign against the information found in thesereports so as not to alarm their citizens about the many catastrophic Earthchanges and events to come, a stance that the Sisters of Sorcha Faalstrongly disagrees with in believing that it is every human beings right toknow the truth. Due to our missionsconflicts with that of those governments, the responses of their 'agents'against us has been a longstanding misinformation/misdirection campaigndesigned to discredit and which is addressed in the report ''Who Is Sorcha Faal?''.]
  You May Already Be To Late'...But It Has Begun!
  They Are Going To Come For You'...Why Are You Helping Them?
  Return ToMain Page
Alfred E. Obama | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
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  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:36
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Thousands Of Afghans Rampage Over Mohammed Film: ''We Will Defend Our Prophet Until We Have Blood Across Our Bodies'''... | Weasel Zippers
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:23
  Wind them up and watch them go.
  KABUL (Reuters) '' Thousands of protesters took to the streets of the Afghan capital on Monday, setting fire to cars and shouting ''death to America'', the latest in demonstrations that have swept the Muslim world against a film mocking the Prophet Mohammad.
  Western embassies across the Muslim world are on high alert and the United States has urged vigilance after days of anti-American violence provoked by the film.
  ''There were between 3,000 and 4,000 demonstrators. They burned some police cars, but we could split them up and prevent the insecurity widening,'' Lieutenant-General Fahem Qayem, police quick reaction force commander, told Reuters in Kabul.
  Embassies in Kabul's heavily guarded central zone were placed on lockdown, including the US and British missions, after violence flared near fortified housing compounds for foreign workers in the city's volatile eastern suburbs.
  ''We will defend our prophet until we have blood across our bodies. We will not let anyone insult him,'' said protester Jan Agha Pashtun, giving what was apparently a false name to avoid police retaliation. ''Americans will pay for their dishonor.''
  It was the latest in a week of violent protests fanned by anger over a video, posted on the Internet under several titles including ''Innocence of Muslims'', that mocked the Prophet Mohammad and portrayed him as a womanizer and a fool.
Full Analysis of Flame's Command & Control servers - Securelist
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:21
  Our previous analysis of the Flame malware, the advanced cyber-espionage tool that's linked to the Stuxnet operation, was initially published at the end of May 2012 and revealed a large scale campaign targeting several countries in the Middle East.
  The Flame malware, including all of its components, was very large and our ongoing investigation revealed more and more details since that time. The news about this threat peaked on 4th June 2012, when Microsoft released an out-of-band patch to block three fraudulent digital certificates used by Flame. On the same day, we confirmed the existence of this in Flame and published our technical analysis of this sophisticated attack. This new side of Flame was so advanced that only the world's top cryptographers could be able to implement it. Since then, skeptical jokes about Flame have disappeared.
  Later in June, we definitively confirmed that Flame developers communicated with the Stuxnet development team, which was another convincing fact that Flame was developed with nation-state backing.
  We also published our analysis of the Flame command-and-Control (C&C) servers based on external observations and publicly available information. That helped our understanding of where the C&C servers were located and how they were registered.
  With this blog post, we are releasing new information that was collected during forensic analysis of the Flame C&C servers. This investigation was done in partnership with Symantec, ITU-IMPACT and CERT-Bund/BSI.
  Brief C&C Server FactsOperating system: 64-bit Debian 6.0.x
  Virtualization: In most of cases running under OpenVZ
  Programming languages used: PHP (most of code), Python, bash
  Database: MySQL with InnoDB tables
  Web server: Apache 2.x with self-signed certificates
  Server AnalysisOne of the C&C servers we analysed was owned by a European company with data centers in another European Union country. We managed to get a server image which was an OpenVZ file-system container.
  Working with the OpenVZ file-system containers added some constraints which made forensic analysis difficult. For instance, having only OpenVZ containers doesn't let you look into the slack space of the hard drive to recover some deleted files.
  This server configuration was a typical LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) setup. It was used to host a web-based control panel as well as to run some scheduled fully automated scripts in the background.
  It was accessible over the HTTPS protocol, ports 443 and 8080. The document root directory was /var/www/htdocs/ which has sub-directories and PHP scripts. While the systems had PHP5 installed, the code was made to run on PHP4 as well. For example, /var/www/htdocs/newsforyou/Utils.php has the "str_split" function defined which implements the "str_split" function logics from PHP5, that was not available in PHP4. The developers of the C&C code most likely implemented compatibility with PHP4 because they were not sure which one of two major PHP versions would be installed on the C&Cs.
  Figure 1 - Contents of the "newsforyou" directory
  The C&C control panel code was discovered in "newsforyou/CP/CP.php". Opening it with a web browser displayed a login prompt:
  Figure 2 - Control panel login
  The username and password hash were later found in local MySQL database in the "settings" table.
  Login: usernamePassword hash (MD5): 27934e96d90d06818674b98bec7230fa
  (ok, cracked: 900gage!@#)We reset the password hash and logged in to see how the panel looked from the attacker's side. We were more than surprised when we logged in.
  Figure 3 - Control panel interface
  Our first impression was that the control panel appeared to be implemented by script-kiddies. It looked like a very early alpha version of a botnet C&C control panel. However, revisiting this picture one more time made everything clear - the attackers deliberately chose this interface. Unlike traditional cyber-criminals who implement eye-candy web interfaces which the average user can easily recognize as a botnet control panel, the developers of the Flame C&C made it very generic and unpretentious.
  The C&C developers didn't use professional terms such as bot, botnet, infection, malware-command or anything related in their control panel. Instead they used common words like data, upload, download, client, news, blog, ads, backup etc. We believe this was deliberately done to deceive hosting company sys-admins who might run unexpected checks.
  There is no way to send commands to infected systems using only the C&C panel web interface and this is another difference from traditional botnets. An infected machine was controlled using a message-exchange mechanism based on files (the developers called the files "data containers").
  To send a command or set of commands to a victim, the attacker uploaded a specially crafted tar.gz archive, which was processed on the server. A special server script extracted the archive contents and looked for *.news and *.ad files. These files were put into corresponding directories "news" and "ads". The C&C allows an attacker to push an update to a specific victim, or all victims at a time. It is possible to prioritize a command which allows to organize an order of commands (i.e. collect all data and only after self-removal). The priority and target client ID was transferred in an unconventional way. They were stored in the filename that the attacker uploaded to a C&C. Below is a template of the news filename expected by the C&C:
  <random_number>_<user_type>_<user_id>_<priority>.<file extension>
  Source files analysis show that the C&C can understand several communication protocols to talk to different clients:
  OldProtocolOldProtocolESignupProtocolRedProtocol (mentioned but not implemented)A close look at these protocol handlers revealed four different types of clients codenamed SP, SPE, FL and IP.
  We can confirm that the Flame malware was identified as client type FL. Obviously, this means there are at least three other undiscovered cyber-espionage or cyber-sabotage tools created by the same authors: SP, SPE and IP.
  Figure 4 - Clients and Protocols relations found in this C&C
  A typical client session handled by the C&C started from recognition of the protocol version, then logging of connection information, followed by decoding client request and saving it to the local file storage in encrypted form. All metadata about files received from the client was kept in a MySQL database.
  The C&C script encrypts all files received from the client. The C&C uses a PGP-like mechanism to encrypt files. First, the file data is encrypted using the Blowfish algorithm in CBC mode (with static IV). The Blowfish key is generated randomly for each file. After file encryption, the Blowfish key is encrypted with a public key using asymmetric encryption algorithm from the openssl_public_encrypt PHP function.
  The encryption parameters:
  IV: 12345678
  ÐžpenSSL public key:
  -----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----MIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEAtZslxFiR9KJE05Nhh7Xk+lVVpD9F6AQnvZeknDiwL3SBjZB/dB/LLXtwiet8LUS6JYCXnaIq4NxW1PymwGFZzuc/B3p+ZAFPt06veOHOfaMAI0KDMb+laNPINvn/jJ8TfvCaUMUuMEY4sayh0xwDMwSAazMYI8rvaaS/BqhI/6vPN6D02UIpwT1TSBVeRRoPBHuYE7A93b8vJw9sBGIpKXZ90sgP1CjdAmCbhYelelninKdeTKCGvd5YXt86grWgEVf5WXzxXi3ZK1T4w0YtmNhUEAwS7zCdtZ+Ak8b0M83wAirASvPZiBl6qF8hqCT5pKkwgBG//kk8JicboLsMVQIDAQAB-----END PUBLIC KEY-----
  This guarantees that no one other than the attacker can read the files obtained from the server file storage, because only the attacker has the private key which is essential to decrypt the files from the clients.
  In terms of functionality, infected clients support very few commands:
  GET_NEWS: Gets file(s) from ./news sub-directory that are assigned to current client ID. The news files contain updates and extra modules of Flame, as well as special commands, such as changing registry key values.ADD_ENTRY: Stores information collected by the client.ADD_SUB_ENTRY: Same as ADD_ENTRY.GET_AD: Gets files from ./ad_path directory. This functionality seems to be broken in the C&C, because there was no ./ad_path but ./ads directory. However the attacker can upload files to ./ads directory via the control panel.We have noticed that the naming convention of files and classes in the scripts is not common for Unix developers because every word in the variable, function and file name started with a capital letter. Also, there are special classes that are defined but never instanced, such as IProtocol (Protocol.php) and IRequestHandler (RequestHandler.php). Classes that are never instanced are used for inheritance mechanism in Object Oriented Programming. These classes are called interfaces in programming languages such as C++, C# and Java. Putting capital "I" to prefix such classes is a common habit for many Windows C++/C# developers.
  One of the most valuable traces left by the developers in the scripts were their nicknames and internal timestamps:
  @author [O] censored in 12/3/2006@author [D] censored on 12/4/2006@author [D] censored on 01/23/2007@author [H] censored on 09/02/2007@author [O] censored, [D] censored@author [D] censored (modifications)@author modified heavily by [D] censored@author [R] censored @copyright 2011Here is what is known regarding the activity of the developers:
  [D] censored: worked on at least 31 files[H] censored: worked on at least 10 files[O] censored: worked on at least 4 files[R] censored: worked on at least 1 file (duplicate files remover)Figure 5 - Timeline of Flame C2 programmers' activity
  From this, we can conclude that the first C&C files were created on 03 December 2006, which means that the Flame platform is much older than we originally estimated.
  There were four people responsible for this C&C development. It is obvious to us that one of them, [H] censored, was more experienced than the others. He coded some very smart patches and implemented complex logics; in addition, he seems to be a master of encryption algorithms. We think [H] censored was most likely a team lead.
  The operators of the C&C used automation to prepare the server environment. We believe this is because they had so many servers that it was unreasonable to do everything manually. Below is a part of an interesting script (LogWiper.sh) from the filesystem root directory that remained on the current server:
  #! /bin/bashapt-get install -y chkconfig#stop historyecho "unset HISTFILE" >> /etc/profile history -cfind ~/.bash_history -exec shred -fvzu -n 3 {} \;service rsyslog stopchkconfig rsyslog offservice sysklogd stopchkconfig sysklogd offservice msyslog stopchkconfigm syslog offservice syslog-ng stopchkconfig syslog-ng offshred -fvzu -n 3 /var/log/wtmpshred -fvzu -n 3 /var/log/lastlogshred -fvzu -n 3 /var/run/utmpshred -fvzu -n 3 /var/log/mail.*shred -fvzu -n 3 /var/log/syslog*shred -fvzu -n 3 /var/log/messages*#stop logging sshcp /etc/ssh/aased -i 's/LogLevel.*/LogLevel QUIET/' /etc/ssh/sshd_configshred -fvzu -n 3 /var/log/auth.log*services sh restart#delete hidden filesfind / -type f -name ".*" | grep -v ".bash_profile" | grep -v ".bashrc" | grep "home" | xargs shred -fvzu -n 3 find / -type f -name ".*" | grep -v ".bash_profile" | grep -v ".bashrc" | grep "root" | xargs shred -fvzu -n 3 #stop apache2 loggingsed -i 's|ErrorLog [$/a-zA-Z0-9{}_.]*|ErrorLog /dev/null|g' /etc/apache2/sites-available/defaultsed -i 's|CustomLog [$/a-zA-Z0-9{}_.]*|CustomLog /dev/null|g' /etc/apache2/sites-available/defaultsed -i 's|LogLevel [$/a-zA-Z0-9{}_.]*|LogLevel emerg|g' /etc/apache2/sites-available/defaultsed -i 's|ErrorLog [$/a-zA-Z0-9{}_.]*|ErrorLog /dev/null|g' /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-sslsed -i 's|CustomLog [$/a-zA-Z0-9{}_.]*|CustomLog /dev/null|g'/etc/apache2/sites-available/default-sslsed -i 's|LogLevel [$/a-zA-Z0-9{}_.]*|LogLevel emerg|g' /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl...shred -fvzu -n 3 /var/log/apache2/*service apache2 restart#self deletefind ./ -type f | grep logging.sh | xargs -I {} shred -fvzu -n 3 {} \;
  The script above is used to prepare server environments to work as a C&C server. They wipe existing log files and disable further logging. This file gives an overview of the C&C operators' skills and preferences. First of all, we see that the operators installed and used chkconfig. Here is an official description of chkconfig package on Debian systems:
  Chkconfig is a system tool to enable or disable system services. Chkconfig is a utility to update and query runlevel information for system services. Chkconfig manipulates the numerous symbolic links in /etc/init.d/, to relieve system administrators of some of the drudgery of manually editing the symbolic links. In Debian, there are several tools with similar functionality, but users coming from other Linux distributions will find the tools in this package more familiar.
  This is rather interesting as Debian has a lot of other popular tools to handle the start-up scripts manipulation: rcconf, update-rc.d, sysv-rc-conf, etc. The chkconfig tool on Debian is an implementation of a popular RedHat tool with the same name. It appears that the people who managed the C&Cs are more familiar with RedHat systems. This reminds us of the Duqu C&Cs which were all based on RedHat CentOS.
  The script generically stops all known system logging daemons such as rsyslog, sysklogd, syslog-ng, msyslog. While the first three are common on Debian systems, msyslog isn't present in official public repositories. It appears that that msyslog is supported by Core Security company and is able to run on Linux, BSD, Irix, Solaris and AIX. The latest version of msyslog daemon was released on Apr 15, 2003. None of the analyzed systems had msyslog daemon installed. It is not clear why the operators had special lines for msyslog daemon.
  The C&C operators used the shred tool to wipe information. This was also used in the latest server wipes by the Duqu team.
  At the end of the script, there is a line to remove the original script. The is done with the shred command as well but this is a mistake because the name of the shredded file is "logging.sh", while the current script was called LogWiper.sh which is why it was not deleted from the system.
  The system cron daemon was configured to run several periodic tasks:
  Every 30 minutes: php /var/www/htdocs/newsforyou/UnloadChecker.phpEvery 6 hours: python /home/.../pycleaner/Eraser.pyAt midnight: php /home/.../delete.phpIn addition to the webserver root directory, there was a home directory for a user with a three-character name. According to analysis of the other servers, these names were always three characters long and picked randomly. This revealed several other files and directories used in the project:
  Figure 6 - non-root user home directory
  LogWiper_fixed.txt is the same file as LogWiper.sh described above.
  delete.php is a PHP script that was run on schedule to delete news files that are older than 30 days. File removal was done in a secure manner using an external call to system shred tool. It also handled deleting files meta-information from the database.
  The directory pycleanscrhad four files in it used for automated cleanup procedures:
  Figure 7 - pycleanscr directory
  This script was designed to remove temporary files from the webserver tmp directory and was intended to run as a scheduled job. However a mistake made by the authors didn't let it run at all. The cronjob was set to execute python /home/.../pycleaner/Eraser.py, while the right path was python /home/.../pycleanscr/Eraser.py.
  Apparently the operators had several variants of scripts to control disk usage and prevent overuse of the disk space.
  We also see a RequestHandler.php file in the home folder, indicating they were working on that file. It was put there on 14th May 2012. This is the same file as in "newsforyou" webserver directory. Later on, when we analyzed other server images, we realized that the file was different from other servers. The difference in this file was in pushing connecting clients a module internally called "SHREDER" (mentioned above on the timeline) when no other modules were in the queue of "news". The "SHREDER" was a well described (Symantec blogpost) Flame-related malware self-removal Windows binary file.
  The Simulator directory contains special scripts to do stress testing of the C&C by creating queries identical to original malware HTTP requests. The operator can specify the number of working threads and the frequency of incoming requests. This indicates that the developers used real "production" servers for testing purposes as well.
  Following our previous publications, we received many questions regarding the amount of data that was exfiltrated by Flame. This is very difficult to estimate if you only have access to the malware executable. It would be even impossible to estimate that data having access to the Flame C&C, as the operators downloaded and removed the stolen data from the C&C every 30 minutes. If the download scripts weren't working for some reason, that was not a problem as there were other scripts on the server side controlling the amount of data preserved on the server. If the threshold was reached, the older data was deleted to free disk space.
  So, even if you take down and analyze the server contents you will see only a small fraction of real data that was stolen. However, due to a mistake of the attackers they got locked out of it and left behind a collection of files that were not deleted. That helped to measure the real amount of stolen files uploaded to this C&Cs weekly: 5.5 GB (compressed).
  On one of the servers, the attackers forgot to delete the HTTP logs; this allowed us to get an idea of how many victims connected to the server by POST requests to the Flame C2 code:
  Figure 8 - Web server log stats
  During a period of just one week (25 March - 2 April), 5377 unique IPs were seen connecting to the server, the vast majority in Iran: 3702. What is also surprising is the large number of IPs from Sudan: 1280. Our previous statistics did not show a large number of infections in Sudan, so this must have been a dedicated campaign targeting systems in Iran and Sudan.
  If just one server handled 5000+ victims during a one-week period and given several servers were available, we can estimate the total number of victims for Flame is probably higher than previously estimated, exceeding 10,000.
  SP, SPE, FL, IP, Gauss and StuxnetThe recovered C&C code handles four main clients: SP, SPE, FL and IP. From this list, the most interesting malware is IP, which is also the most recent based on the assigned client codes:
  /// Types of clientsdefine('CLIENT_TYPE_UNKNOWN', 0);define('CLIENT_TYPE_SP', 1);define('CLIENT_TYPE_SPE', 2);define('CLIENT_TYPE_FL', 3);define('CLIENT_TYPE_IP', 6);
  The IP client uses the "Signup Protocol" and it's the only client in the list which uses it. To detect the "Signup Protocol", the code looks for a specific "uid=number&action=number" line in the HTTP request:
  if (preg_match('/^uid\=\d+\&action\=\d+/', $data) === 1){return array(RC_SUCCESS, PROTOCOL_SIGNUP); }
  If you are wondering, none of the malware we have analyzed uses this scheme. For instance, Gauss uses "POST /userhome.php?sid=string==&uid=string=". Similarly, Stuxnet uses "index.php?data=...". So we are pretty sure this malware codenamed "IP" is neither Gauss nor Stuxnet.
  Additionally, the current C&C code doesn't appear to be able to handle Gauss or Stuxnet connections.
  Sinkhole hits from "SPE"With help from our partners, Kaspersky Lab set up a sinkhole for Flame. We previously published statistics from the sinkhole data in our previous posts.
  Perhaps the most interesting thing is that based on the C&C code of Flame, we were able to catalog the sinkhole connections into two main categories:
  OldProtocol connections, coming from FlameOldProtocolE connections, used by SPETherefore, we can confirm the malware known as "SPE" exists and is currently in-the-wild.
  In addition, there are no hits from either the mysterious SP or IP malware.
  Conclusions and summary findings:During our joint investigation with industry partners - Symantec, ITU-IMPACT and CERT-Bund/BSI - we uncovered a number of things previously not known about Flame and its associated platform:
  The development of the platform C&C code started as early as December 2006.The source code comments indicate at least four programmers: [D] censored, [O] censored, [H] censored and [R] censored.The most recent source code change was made on May 18, 2012 (LogWiper_fixed.txt, Constants.py).The C&C code handles four different malware - named SP, SPE, FL and IP by the authors. It also handles three communication protocols (OldProtocol, OldProtocolE, SignupProtocol).Of the four malware, only Flame is known; the other three are currently unknown.For communication, Flame uses "OldProtocol".An unknown, Flame-related malware named SPE exists and is in-the-wild.Flame is not the most "modern" of the malware known by the C&C code.The most recent malware is called "IP" and it is yet unknown.The code is/was still in development; a new protocol called "Red Protocol" is not yet fully implemented.The details disclosed in this blog post indicate several important facts. First of all, the work on these cyber-espionage projects started earlier than previously estimated - as early as 2006. Secondly, the code which handles the requests is complex and uses encryption heavily. The programmers who worked on it tried to make it seem like a legal CMS platform. Last but not least, the stolen data is encrypted on the server in such a way that only the attackers can read it, through strong public key cryptography. These features are not normally found in malware created by everyday cyber-criminals, reaffirming our initial conclusions that Flame is a nation-state sponsored attack.
  Based on the code from the server, we know Flame was a project from a list of at least four. The purpose and nature of the other three remain unknown.
An apology to Hillary - BostonHerald.com
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:09
  At Andrews Air Force Base on Friday, a military band played ''Nearer, My God, to Thee.'' Marines in dress uniforms carried to four black hearses the flag-draped caskets of the Americans, including Winchester native Glen Doherty, killed at our consulate in Libya. President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led the solemn ceremony, Clinton speaking before him.
  ''If the last few days teach us anything, let it be this: that this work and the men and women who risk their lives to do it are at the heart of what makes America great and good,'' said Clinton, her voice at times uneven with emotion for the dead men she had employed.
  Then she said: ''So we will wipe away our tears, stiffen our spines, and face the future undaunted.''
  It was a perfect line for America and for Americans who try to keep peace in a smoldering Middle East. It was a line, too, that captured '-- unwittingly or not '-- how Clinton has lived her life. How many times since this woman took center stage in this country nearly 20 years ago has she, privately and publicly, wiped away her tears, stiffened her spine, and faced the future undaunted.
  Clinton appeared to be crying again as she listened to Obama, seeming stricken himself. And when Obama finished and walked back behind the podium, Clinton reached for his hand like an older sister or even a mother, and held it for a second or two. It was a moment the history books will remember.
  There was the first black president on the verge of re-election, or not. There was the woman expected to be the first female president, until he showed up out of nowhere. There was the rivalry and tortured history, Bill Clinton ever the third actor in the shadows. But all of it was put aside for something bigger than politics or egos: their country. We don't see enough of that anymore.
  When her husband was president, I made a career out of trashing Hillary Clinton's hairdos, pantsuits, her attempted health care coup, her right-wing conspiracy theories, her staying with that slippery serial philanderer. Four years ago in the presidential primary I rooted for Obama over her.
  Yet when she finally conceded a totally unexpected defeat, a different Hillary Clinton began to emerge. She surprised us by accepting a consolation prize, secretary of state. She then went on to perform it so ably that nearly two-thirds of Americans, an almost unprecedented percentage, approve of her and her rehabilitated '-- or so we hope '-- spouse.
  More than once since 2008 I've wondered: Would she have done a better job than Obama? I don't know. But I do know I sold this woman short.
  In awful moments in history, some leaders rise to the occasion, and some don't. Think Ronald Reagan's reassurance after the Challenger disaster. Or George Bush on the rubble of Ground Zero after 9/11, telling the world we'd never forget. Friday, by comparison, was a tiny moment. Still, Hillary Clinton rose to meet it.
  Hear Margery Eagan weekdays 7 to 10 a.m. on News Talk 96.9 FM.
New York: Pistol ownership's changing faces
  Link to Article
  Source: NRA-ILA News
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:53
  Trish Cutler's fashion show at a Hudson firehouse drew dozens of law abiding women in search of comfortable yet stylish holsters to discreetly carry their handguns at the workplace or a night on the town. The offerings included holster for a bra and one inside a purse.Cutler, a target shooting enthusiast from Claverack who belongs to three local gun clubs, has had her pistol permit for three years. The wife and mother is among growing numbers of women in the rising tide of New Yorkers who have licenses to legally possess handguns.
  Read the article: The Times Union (Albany, N.Y.)
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, 9/14/2012
  Link to Article
  Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:53
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  September 14, 2012
  James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
  11:42 A.M. EDT
  MR. CARNEY: All right, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for being here.
  Before I get started, I think you saw our updated guidance. As you now know, the President and the First Lady will be attending the transfer of remains ceremony at Andrews -- Joint Base Andrews at 2:15 p.m. That is for the four U.S. personnel who were killed in Libya. And then he will return here to the White House. And there will be press coverage, pool coverage.
  Q Secretary Clinton will be joining the President?
  MR. CARNEY: I believe that's the case. I would refer you to the State Department.
  Q Any remarks out there?
  MR. CARNEY: Yes, the President will have remarks.
  And with that, I'll take your questions.
  Q Jay, thanks very much. On the Libya attacks, was there any intelligence in advance that some kind of attack could take place, especially because so many embassies were taking precautions because of 9/11? Was there any advance warning at all?
  MR. CARNEY: I have seen that report, and the story is absolutely wrong. We were not aware of any actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent. That report is false.
  Q On the sequestration, I know you all are delivering the report today. Is there any reason that you didn't deliver it last week as the law required?
  MR. CARNEY: I think I took this question last week and explained that it's obviously a complex piece of business and that we would have it by the end of this week, and we are releasing it later today.
  Q Jay, as you know, the unrest in the Middle East is spreading to other embassies -- U.S. embassies. The President's critics are saying this is an indictment of his handling of the Arab Spring, that this has given rise to further inflamed sentiment among Islamists. What's his response to that?
  MR. CARNEY: Let me say a couple of things. First of all, we are obviously closely monitoring developments in the region today. You saw that following the incidents in response to this video, the President directed the administration to take a number of steps to prepare for continued unrest. And I noted yesterday in my gaggle that Fridays have tended to be days when protests are larger in the Muslim world, and we were anticipating that.
  When it comes to criticism, I would note that many observers, commentators, foreign policy experts, as well as elected officials -- both Democrats and Republicans -- have pointed out that the criticism in particular from Governor Romney and his team, in what seems to be an attempt to score a political point, has been both factually wrong and poorly timed.
  Now is a time when Americans should be coming together. The President is attending a ceremony this afternoon for the return of remains of four U.S. personnel who were killed in Libya as a result of this unrest. And his focus is on ensuring that U.S. personnel and our facilities are protected. That is why he directed his administration to ensure that security would be enhanced around the world at our diplomatic facilities.
  He has, as you know, because we've read out these phone calls, had numerous conversations with leaders in the region including the Presidents of Egypt and Libya. He sent a message, a personal message to the leader of Turkey, Prime Minister Erdogan, asking for his assistance to speak out against the violence. And I think you saw that the Prime Minister did that. And the President is very appreciative of these statements and the actions these leaders have taken personally.
  President Morsi again today as well as yesterday has spoken out against any violence and committed himself to protecting U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel in Egypt.
  We also need to understand that this is a fairly volatile situation and it is in response not to United States policy, not to obviously the administration, not to the American people. It is in response to a video, a film that we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting. That in no way justifies any violent reaction to it, but this is not a case of protests directed at the United States writ large or at U.S. policy. This is in response to a video that is offensive to Muslims.
  Again, this is not in any way justifying violence, and we've spoken very clearly out against that and condemned it. And the President is making sure in his conversations with leaders around the region that they are committed, as hosts to diplomatic facilities, to protect both personnel and buildings and other facilities that are part of the U.S. representation in those countries.
  Q Let me just follow up on the sequestration as well. Members of Congress are pointing to the fact that the report that you're due to release today could spotlight the loss of numerous jobs, many of them in defense, criticizing the administration for allowing that to potentially happening and potentially weakening U.S. national security as a result. What's your response to that?
  MR. CARNEY: I think it's important to step back and look at what the sequester is. The sequester was put into place as part of the Budget Control Act in order to compel Congress to do its job. The sequester was designed to be bad policy, to be onerous, to be objectionable to both Democrats and Republicans. And it is important to remember that Democrats and Republicans voted in majorities in both houses of Congress in support of this. And some Republican leaders who are now decrying the sequester were very vocal in their support of it as part of this package, the Budget Control Act, last year.
  The whole point of it was to compel Congress to take action to further reduce our deficit, to find $1.2 trillion in additional cuts -- cuts that should come in a balanced, thoughtful way through policy decisions and not in a kind of across-the-board draconian manner that is written into the sequester.
  What has been an obstacle to the achievement of reasonable cuts that would account for the $1.2 trillion called for in the Budget Control Act has been the adamant refusal of Republicans to accept the fundamental principle that we ought to deal with our fiscal challenges in a balanced way. Republicans have, unfortunately, made clear that they would rather see cuts in defense that could harm our national security, cuts in education and innovation, research and development, in border security, cuts in vital programs and investments that we make as a nation, rather than ask millionaires and billionaires to pay a single dollar more in taxes.
  That's not a responsible approach. It is not a common-sense approach. It is not a balanced approach. One thing that the House could do in its few days here in Washington before it goes off again on recess is follow the Senate's lead and pass a tax cut -- an extension of a tax cut or tax cuts -- for the middle class, 98 percent of the American people. These are tax cuts that everybody in Washington agrees on -- Democrats, Republicans, independents. The President agrees with them. Republicans say they want those tax cuts extended. Why won't they pass them? Because they insist that millionaires and billionaires need a tax cut, too.
  The President believes we can't afford that. And we can argue about that, we can argue about whether or not the top 2 percent of taxpayers in America deserve another tax cut as part of the election, and then that can be decided by the election.
  But why not, for the sake of the middle class, for the sake of economic stability, for the sake of dealing with a large portion of the fiscal cliff, pass the tax cut for 98 percent of the American people today? That would be a very welcome sign I think to the American people that Congress is taking its responsibility seriously and Congress is addressing these challenges in a thoughtful and bipartisan and balanced way.
  Jake.
  Q My colleague from the Associated Press asked you a direct question, was there any intelligence suggesting that there would be an attack on the U.S. consulates. You said that a story -- referred to a story being false and said there was no actionable intelligence. But you didn't answer his question. Was there any intelligence, period -- intelligence, period -- suggesting that there was going to be an attack on either the embassy --
  MR. CARNEY: There was no intelligence that in any way could have been acted on to prevent these attacks. It is -- I mean, I think the DNI spokesman was very declarative about this that the report is false. The report suggested that there was intelligence that was available prior to this that led us to believe that this facility would be attacked, and that is false.
  Q Why was there not adequate security around Ambassador Stevens?
  MR. CARNEY: In terms of the security at the Benghazi facility or post, I would have to refer you to the State Department for specifics about what security was there. There was a security presence. It was unfortunately not enough to resist the attacks that we saw and resulted in the tragic loss of life. But there was security.
  It is also the case that in reaction to this the President has ordered that we review all of our security arrangements for embassy facilities and other diplomatic facilities around the world. But in terms of the specific security that was in place at Benghazi, I'd have to refer you to the State Department.
  Q Wouldn't it seem logical that the anniversary of 9/11 would be a time that you would want to have extra security around diplomats and military posts?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, as you know, we are very vigilant around anniversaries like 9/11. The President is always briefed and brought up to speed on all the precautions being taken. But let's be --
  Q But saying you're very vigilant and being very vigilant are different things.
  MR. CARNEY: Jake, let's be clear, these protests were in reaction to a video that had spread to the region --
  Q At Benghazi? What happened at Benghazi --
  MR. CARNEY: We certainly don't know. We don't know otherwise. We have no information to suggest that it was a preplanned attack. The unrest we've seen around the region has been in reaction to a video that Muslims, many Muslims find offensive. And while the violence is reprehensible and unjustified, it is not a reaction to the 9/11 anniversary that we know of, or to U.S. policy.
  Q But the group around the Benghazi post was well armed. It was a well-coordinated attack. Do you think it was a spontaneous protest against a movie?
  MR. CARNEY: Look, this is obviously under investigation, and I don't have ''
  Q But your operating assumption is that that was in response to the video, in Benghazi? I just want to clear that up. That's the framework? That's the operating assumption?
  MR. CARNEY: Look, it's not an assumption --
  Q Because there are administration officials who don't -- who dispute that, who say that it looks like this was something other than a protest.
  MR. CARNEY: I think there has been news reports on this, Jake, even in the press, which some of it has been speculative. What I'm telling you is this is under investigation. The unrest around the region has been in response to this video. We do not, at this moment, have information to suggest or to tell you that would indicate that any of this unrest was preplanned.
  What is true about Libya is that -- well, a couple of things. One, is it's one of the more pro-American countries in the region. Two, it is a very new government; it is a country that has just come out of a revolution and a lot of turmoil, and there are certainly a lot of armed groups. So the fact that there are weapons in the region and the new government is not -- is still building up its capacities in terms of security and its ability to ensure the security of facilities, is not necessarily reflective of anything except for the remarkable transformation that's been going on in the region.
  Q Jay, my last question. It was said that what happened on 9/11 was a failure of imagination, failure of American policymakers and counterterrorism officials to anticipate the kind of attack that could have taken place. This would seem to be the exact opposite. Was this a failure by the Obama administration? Did the President and his administration mess up in any way?
  MR. CARNEY: Jake, again, what we have seen is unrest around the region in response to a video that Muslims find offensive, many Muslims find offensive. We have seen incidents like this in the past, in reaction to other actions -- cartoons and other actions that have been taken, that have been -- have led to protests and violence in the region. And we have managed those situations, and we are working to ensure that our diplomatic personnel and our diplomatic facilities are secure as we deal with the response to this video, which we believe is offensive and disgusting.
  Q So that's a no? Entirely the fault of the filmmaker?
  MR. CARNEY: Again, I don't think -- I think you have to understand what is happening currently in the region and what it is a response to. This is not -- this has been in --
  Q I don't think I need to understand that. I think the people who protect the embassies need to understand it.
  MR. CARNEY: The cause of the unrest was a video, and that continues today, as you know, as we anticipated. And it may continue for some time. We are working with governments around the region to remind them of their responsibilities to provide security to diplomatic personnel and facilities, and we are ensuring that more resources are put in place to protect our embassies and consulates and our personnel in these parts of the world where unrest is occurring.
  Q Thank you.
  Q You've mentioned a number of times now that this was in response to a video or a film. Would you not agree, though, that it's moved beyond that? That some are stirring violence by focusing on U.S. policy, or targeting the U.S. in general? That it's no longer just about the film?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, the reason why there is unrest is because of the film; this is in response to the film. I don't doubt --
  Q Well, that's what sparked it. You think that's what sparked it.
  MR. CARNEY: We do think that's what sparked it.
  Q Right. But it's moved beyond that, hasn't it?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I don't -- we obviously are not polling protesters to find out what their motivations are. There is no question that there's anti-American sentiment in various countries around the Middle East; that's not a discovery I think we've made today. What is the case is that the protesters in these countries are not representative of the broader sentiment in those countries, at least in the sense that -- sentiment that would say that the reaction, the proper reaction to a film that is offensive is violence. As I said yesterday, that's not in keeping with Islam, and it's certainly something that we do not accept. And we have made clear to leaders in the region that they need to make clear that it is not an acceptable reaction to a film, however offensive it might be.
  Again, this is not a film that the United States government had anything to do with. We reject its message and its contents. We find it both disgusting and reprehensible. America has a history of religious tolerance and respect for religious beliefs, and that history goes back to our nation's founding. But there is absolutely -- as I've said, absolutely no justification at all for responding to this movie with violence, and we are making -- we are working, rather, to make sure that Muslims around the globe hear that message.
  Q It's my understanding that at least four people have been arrested in the death of the Americans. Does the President think that whoever is arrested for this violence should be tried here in the U.S.?
  MR. CARNEY: This is an ongoing investigation. We're obviously working with our -- with the Libyan government on this matter. The President has made clear that he wants the assailants, the attackers to be brought to justice. But I am not going to prejudge outcomes or courses of action as this investigation is underway.
  Q And then another question on the phone call that the President had with Benjamin Netanyahu. Is it correct that the President refused to lay down a red line in terms of what Iran shouldn't cross with its nuclear program?
  MR. CARNEY: This has been an ongoing discussion in the press that's not specific to the phone call -- the one of many that the President has had with Prime Minister Netanyahu. The President's red line has been clear. The President has made clear that he is committed to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. We are completely in sync with Israel on that matter. There is no daylight between the United States and Israel when it comes to the absolute commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
  We are pursuing a policy that includes incredibly intense punitive sanctions, unprecedented in history against Iran, of sanctions that are in place as a result of diplomatic work that has created an international consensus that did not exist prior to President Obama taking office and that has resulted, again, in unprecedented pressure and isolation for the regime in Tehran.
  There is still time and space for that course to be pursued, because the best way to ensure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, does not acquire a nuclear weapon is to force and compel Iran to make the decision that it needs to forego its nuclear weapons ambitions, get right with the world, abide by its international obligations under the United Nations, and rejoin the community of nations by doing so.
  It is also the case that this President has made absolutely clear that he does not remove any option from the table in terms of fulfilling his commitment to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. And we've also made clear that the window of opportunity here in terms of pursuing the diplomatic course will not remain open indefinitely.
  What is a fact is that we have eyes onto the Iranian nuclear program and we would be aware of any so-called breakout move by the Iranians towards building a nuclear weapon. That has not occurred, but that window of opportunity will close at some point. And Iran needs to take seriously its responsibilities and to forego and forsake its nuclear weapons ambitions.
  Nancy.
  Q I want to go back to Jake's question for a minute because it seems like the point he's asking is not what the cause of the unrest was, but whether there are lessons to be learned by this administration or by the State Department, or by the military about safeguarding diplomatic personnel or restricting their movements, especially in a country as volatile as Libya.
  MR. CARNEY: Well, this is under active investigation and it's certainly a reasonable question. And it stands to reason that there may be lessons learned, as there always are when you have investigations into incidents like this.
  My point was simply that we are responding to and coping with and dealing with, with countries around the globe, unrest brought about by this offensive video, and taking action to ensure that security is enhanced and augmented at diplomatic facilities around the globe.
  Q On Egypt, can you clear up whether the country is an ally or not? The State Department says it is; the President says it's not an ally, but it's not an enemy.
  MR. CARNEY: I think you may have heard me, anyway, address this yesterday. Let me be clear: Egypt is a critical, strategic partner of the United States. As you know, the President had an important conversation with President Morsi very early yesterday morning, very late at night in Colorado, about the need to protect our embassy and our personnel in Cairo, and the need to denounce the violence.
  President Morsi expressed his condolences for the tragic loss of American life in Libya, and emphasized that Egypt would honor its obligation to ensure the safety of American personnel. The President is very appreciative of the statement President Morsi made and for the actions he has taken to date to secure our embassy.
  Let me make clear that the President's interview with Telemundo was not in any way an effort to change our relationship with Egypt. We have had a longstanding partnership with Egypt and have supported their transition to democracy, and we are now working to build our relationship with what is obviously a new government.
  Q We were told that the President was blunt and perturbed in that conversation with President Morsi. What was he concerned specifically about when it comes to the way that President Morsi handled the early hours of this unrest?
  MR. CARNEY: The President was very clear with President Morsi about Egypt's responsibilities as a host nation to provide security to diplomatic facilities and diplomatic personnel. And it was a very productive conversation, as I said yesterday, and it was substantive and long. I wouldn't necessarily use the adjectives you did to describe how the President felt about the call. In fact, it was a very focused and productive conversation.
  Q And on the sequester, can you describe for us a little bit about how the administration -- what the process was that the administration used to compile this report? Who was involved in making the decisions about what should get cut? And how did they decide what should get cut?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I would refer you to a briefing we're going to provide later on the sequester. It is, as I said earlier, a pretty complex piece of business. And the Office of Management and Budget within the Executive Branch is the principal actor when it comes to assessing these things.
  Q Jay?
  MR. CARNEY: Yes.
  Q Folks at State have said that there was a review of security at diplomatic installations in light of the upcoming 9/11 anniversary. Was there also a review in light of the possible impact of the trailers from this film?
  MR. CARNEY: I would refer you to the State Department. Again, there is always, annually, as well as other moments -- predictable moments on the calendar, measures taken, precautions taken with regards to security both at our facilities abroad, but, of course, here in the United States. And we've been transparent in briefing you about when those moments occur and some of the things that are done to help enhance security.
  With regard to the specific preparations for 9/11, I would refer you to the State Department for -- as it applies to diplomatic installations.
  Q Are you suggesting the impact of the film was less predictable?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I'm saying that the fact that the film was about to inspire this reaction -- well, again, I don't want to -- this is all under investigation, so I don't want to get that far ahead of -- or get ahead at all of the investigation. I would refer you again to the State Department for whatever precautions were taken for diplomatic facilities in the run-up to the 9/11 anniversary.
  Q There's also a lot of attention on how the President gets his daily briefing, at least in recent days. And the indications are that it has been in written form in the past week or so. Is it your sense that a briefing in person is no more efficient, no more effective than giving the President his PDB in print?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, let's be clear, because it's selective representation of the facts about the last few days. Just in the last 24 hours, the President has been briefed numerous times, directly, by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, by Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, by Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor John Brennan, and others, including a secure call at 2:00 p.m. yesterday and another briefing at 10:00 p.m. yesterday. And he did, as he does every day, obviously have a presidential daily briefing today, and constant updates from his team.
  I would say that this debate, when you say there's been some criticism, the quarters from which that criticism come are pretty clear, and who occupies those quarters is pretty clear. And I would simply say that this President is a absolutely responsible and voracious consumer of the presidential daily briefing and of the information provided to him by his national security team. His record of evaluating and acting on intelligence I think speaks for itself. And I'll leave it at that.
  Q Is the criticism less valid because of the quarters from where it comes? The question remains whether --
  MR. CARNEY: He gets his -- but what is the question? He gets his presidential daily briefing every day. He has --
  Q The crisis -- the President speaks directly to his national security advisor. Obviously, the suggestion here is that's a more efficient way of communicating than getting a written briefing.
  MR. CARNEY: No, he gets both. He does both. He does both all the time -- all the time. And when he is here in Washington he has briefings in person in the Oval Office with his national security team regularly. And when he is on the road, he has phone conversations that supplement and augment the briefings he receives on paper that are specific to the so-called PDB. I hardly think that is different from previous Presidents. And again -- well, I'll leave it at that.
  Q You, in answering the previous questions, have said there was no actionable intelligence with regard to the facility in Benghazi, the consulate in Benghazi itself. Can you say the same with regard to the rest of Libya and the rest of the Middle East?
  MR. CARNEY: I would refer you to the DNI and to others. The report was -- I mean, I just -- the report was specific to Benghazi, and we know for a fact that that report is false.
  Q But, I mean, the Cairo embassy was breached as well. Was there any intelligence that would --
  MR. CARNEY: I haven't asked that question, so I'll have to take the question.
  Q There was an indication that the President around the U.N. meetings would be meeting with President Morsi on the periphery as these things go. Is that meeting still on?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, you just asserted something that was on that you said there was some discussion about, so you kind of did two things in that questions.
  The President has no bilateral meetings scheduled at this time while he's in New York.
  Q Formal or informal in any way, shape, or form?
  MR. CARNEY: None that I have to announce at this time.
  Q And on a larger sense, does the President or does the White House feel that relations with the Muslim world in general and the Arab countries in particular are better now than when he took office?
  MR. CARNEY: We have witnessed historic change in the region in just the last few years. This President's approach to what has been called the Arab Spring, to this unrest has been to lay out a set of principles and support for human rights, and to make clear that we support a process of non-violent, political and economic change and reform in the region. That looks different in different countries.
  There are countries where the transition has occurred or is occurring, like Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Tunisia. And in those countries, we are working to help those new governments consolidate their democracies, deal with security needs, and stabilize their economies. In other places like Syria that are still in the throes of a revolution, we have vocally opposed the brutality of the regime and are supporting the aspirations of the people.
  You've heard us document and discuss the non-lethal support we're providing to the opposition, the over $100 million in humanitarian aid that we're supplying to the Syrian people, and the diplomatic support that we've provided them.
  This is a circumstance of dramatic change that has come because of a fervent desire by people of the region to have greater rights, greater freedoms, greater control over their lives. And we have actively engaged in the region to support non-violent democratic transition, to support governments that profess and demonstrate support for civil rights of all peoples, both genders and minorities. And we are working with these countries to help them progress in a way that is better for the people of those countries and better for the national security interest of the United States.
  Q All great intentions at this moment, embassies across the region are under siege, so it appears that the message isn't getting through.
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I appreciate the question, or the statement, rather. But the unrest that we've seen is in reaction to a film with which the United States government had no involvement, which we have denounced is offensive.
  And as I said yesterday, obviously, it can be difficult to understand in some countries why the United States can't simply eliminate this kind of expression. But as you know, it is in the absolute core of our being as Americans that we allow freedom of expression that is written into our Constitution and is one of our fundamental principles. And protecting speech, even offensive speech, is a foundational principle of our democracy. But we can nevertheless denounce and condemn expressions of speech that we find offensive, and we have made that clear around the world, as well as here in the United States.
  Yes, Jared.
  Q I think you just answered my question.
  MR. CARNEY: Excellent.
  Q The Muslim Brotherhood in both Egypt and Tunisia has kind of suggested they want the U.S. and the Obama administration to apologize for this video. Is that something you all have considered doing or have done?
  MR. CARNEY: Absolutely not. We have made clear that we find it offensive and reprehensible and disgusting, but we -- I mean, if in that sense, you mean we have denounced it, we have said we find it offensive and reprehensible, but we will not -- we cannot and will not squelch freedom of expression in this country. It is a foundational principle of this nation.
  Q Jay, freedom of expression issues aside, do you know of any government agencies who are trying to get to the bottom of who produced this video? Is there any reason --
  MR. CARNEY: I don't. I've seen a lot of reporters attempting to find out its origin, buy I have not heard of any. But I just -- you would have to direct that at some other agencies. But not that I'm aware of.
  Q Do you see any reason for any federal agencies to look into it?
  MR. CARNEY: I don't. I think based on what I've just said, the issue here isn't -- we all know what the film is and its contents and understand why it is offensive to Muslims. We also understand that there is no justification for violence and reaction to that, and have made that message clear around the world.
  The President has made statements, the Secretary of State. We have consulted with leaders -- Muslim leaders around the world and asked them to make clear that violence is not an acceptable response to this film.
  Q Was the President made aware of this film before or after the violence?
  MR. CARNEY: Made aware of the film?
  Q Right. Because it seems like you're pinning a lot of this on the film. I'm just curious when the President was aware of a film that could be potentially incendiary.
  MR. CARNEY: I would have to take the question. I'm not aware of -- I certainly wasn't aware of the film before there was unrest related to it.
  Q Okay. And if I could just follow up on -- you earlier said the cause of the unrest was a video, then you repeated something similar later on. And I just want to be clear, that's true of Benghazi and Cairo?
  MR. CARNEY: I'm saying that that -- the incident in Benghazi, as well as elsewhere, that these are all being investigated. What I'm saying is that we have no evidence at this time to suggest otherwise that there was a preplanned or ulterior instigation behind that unrest.
  Christi.
  Q Jay, did the White House ask YouTube to take that video down?*
  MR. CARNEY: I'm sorry, I'd have to -- I don't believe so, but I'll have to take that question.
  Q Or anybody in the administration?
  MR. CARNEY: We'll have to take it.
  Q And on the Chicago teacher strike --
  MR. CARNEY: I believe -- I mean, it wasn't -- again, I'm just -- based on press reports, it was taken down in the region, right, not everywhere?
  Q I just wondered if the -- anyone from the administration had intervened or made a request or anything like that.
  MR. CARNEY: Let me take that.
  Q On the Chicago teacher strike, has the President weighed in with the parties to those talks in any way?
  MR. CARNEY: We have been very clear that we hope and expect both sides to resolve this in a manner that is positive for the most important affected party here, which are the students, the children of Chicago. That's the position we've taken. I can't say that there's -- I don't know whether there's been phone conversations with various people involved. I can tell you that we believe the party should come together and resolve this in a way that is best for Chicago's students.
  Q So he may have called, did you say?
  MR. CARNEY: No, I just -- I don't have any phone calls to report out. What our position has been is to make clear that we want this resolved in a manner that is best for Chicago's students.
  Q He's got ties to labor and management, obviously. Does he feel like it's his role to get involved in any way?
  MR. CARNEY: I think that we -- what's important here is that the two sides here and all the parties that are stakeholders come together, work out a resolution that gets -- makes sure that the children of Chicago are back in school getting an education, and that everybody involved is guided by a desire to do what's best for the kids, because that's what's most important.
  Yes, Jon-Christopher.
  Q Jay, it seems like the unrest has now spread through the Sudan as of this morning. Can you shed any light on any conversations the President has had with his closest allies -- for example, Great Britain's Prime Minister Cameron, President Hollande of France, or Chancellor Merkel in Germany?
  MR. CARNEY: About the unrest?
  Q Yes, any conversation they may have had very recently.
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I don't have any other foreign leader conversations to read out. We've read out a number of them in the last 24 to 36 hours, but I don't have any other --
  Q They didn't include those top allies?
  MR. CARNEY: I don't have any calls with any other foreign leaders to read out.
  Q Will he be talking to them over the weekend do you think?
  MR. CARNEY: I don't have a schedule to announce of foreign leaders calls. It's always possible.
  Leslie.
  Q Can you go back a little bit on the call that he made to the President of Egypt? Was there anything in particular that prompted that call? And apparently they've erected a new fence -- a wall overnight, a concrete wall. Was that discussed during the call with the President? Is that something --
  MR. CARNEY: I don't think specific measures were discussed. The point of the call -- remember, he made several -- he has made several calls to leaders in the region -- was to discuss with them the unrest and the measures that these countries are taking to ensure the security of diplomatic facilities and American personnel. And that was the crux of the conversation with President Morsi.
  Q Did he express displeasure with the initial reaction from the Egyptian government and ask them to --
  MR. CARNEY: We gave a readout of the call. I don't really have more for that -- more on that for you. I think he made clear that we have an important strategic partnership with Egypt. We are working very closely with Egypt and the government there to assist it in helping it stabilize the situation in the country and helping its economy improve as it transitions to democracy.
  But the President also made clear that Egypt has obligations, as do other countries in the region and countries all over the world, to ensure that diplomatic representations in those countries are secure. The whole point of embassies and diplomatic facilities, the purpose behind them is to allow for the peaceful interaction between nations to build relationships, build partnerships, and to avoid conflict. And that is why it is so important that embassies, consulates, other facilities, and personnel are protected.
  Yes, Alexis.
  Q Jay, you were talking about the U.S. experience with reactions to either accidental or purposeful anti-Muslim -- burning of Qurans, et cetera. So my question is, are U.S. personnel who are abroad, who are seeing this erupt now over what you're saying is, as far as we know, just based on a film reportedly by anti-Muslim folks -- is there a concern in the U.S. government that this would encourage others who have these motivations to continue trying to inject these thoughts into that part of the world where this reaction could be predicted? And is the United States or the government making any additional effort to either surveil to protect American personnel or monitor this information, or to consider this almost like an act of war, to be continuing to inject that kind of thought into that region?
  MR. CARNEY: Alexis, I think we have as a nation been in a posture, especially since 9/11, but even prior to that, where we have monitored and been aware of anti-American sentiment in that region of the world and elsewhere. And obviously, we are absolutely vigilant and continue to be, and that is the work of many agencies, in particular the intelligence community.
  Since 9/11, we have seen periods like this where there has been an unrest in reaction to specific incidents, including Danish cartoons and including other incidents that have taken place that have offended Muslims in different countries and led to unrest directed at either the West or specifically at the United States. And this is something that both this administration and the prior administration have had to manage.
  In terms of policy, we continue to make clear that in this case, we find the video reprehensible and disgusting. We continue to try to get the message out as broadly as we can that this video is -- has nothing to do, is not in any way related to the American government. It does not represent who we are or what we believe.
  And we continue to pursue policies in the region that are aimed at helping these countries that are in transition, through this traumatic transformation that's happening, towards democracy, towards a better future, and towards -- we hope and are working for -- a strong, better relationship with the United States.
  Goyal.
  Q Two questions. One, as far as this 9/11 anniversary and violence around the Middle East is concerned, last week there was a peace walk by the interfaith community walking from Cathedral to the Mahatma Gandhi statue in front of the Indian Embassy. And they all spoke -- Muslims, Hindus, and Christians and Jews -- all faiths from around the globe, they were there -- hundreds of them. They all spoke for peace and unity, and they were saying that President Obama has brought peace in the Middle East. And they spoke against violence in the name of religion. But still, we have this violence around the globe, or in the Middle East or in Libya in the name of --
  MR. CARNEY: Do you have a question, Goyal?
  Q -- in the name of religion. My question is that you think the President needs another message for those people who are being misguided and misled in the name of religion?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I think we've spoken a lot today about the message that the President is carrying, the message that the Secretary of State is carrying, and you'll hear more about that. But I mean, that's -- I really can't go beyond that.
  Q And second, if I may, as far as Iran's nuclear is concerned, do you believe that the President has any information that the Chinese companies are helping Iran as far as their nuclear ambitions are concerned? And also, Chinese companies are supplying some weapons to the terrorists?
  MR. CARNEY: I don't have any response to that question.
  Dennis.
  Q Thanks. Can you talk a little bit about how the decisions are made about who the President is talking to? I mean, we saw reports from Tunis and Khartoum just before you came out here. For example, would he not speak to the President of Sudan versus Yemen, Egypt, India, for example, about events and risks in those locations?
  MR. CARNEY: I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. He has made a number of phone calls, had a number of conversations with leaders in the region. I'm not precluding other phone calls and other conversations that he might have. I think he's reaching out in order to make clear our position and make clear our expectation of these countries and their governments in terms of their obligations to provide security for diplomatic facilities.
  Q So is Donilon or Brennan advising or suggesting specific --
  MR. CARNEY: Well, certainly, those two men are part of his -- are very key members of his national security team, but I don't think it's limited to those two.
  Q Jay, can you clarify something?
  MR. CARNEY: I could try.
  Q You've taken about four or five questions during the course of the briefing. Can you be sure to pump the actual answers that you come up with to those out -- to the full press list and not just have them disappear somewhere, as they tend to do sometimes? (Laughter.)
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I promise to follow up on those questions I took. If I don't have answers that I can provide, I --
  Q Well, can you distribute them to the press list the way you would the transcript of the briefing, et cetera? Because we all share the same questions.
  MR. CARNEY: If we have the answers that are responsive to the questions, yes. (Laughter.) I mean, again, it depends on what the question is and whether I'm able to answer it.
  Q Jay, notwithstanding your explanations today for the reasons for the violence in the Middle East, there are Republicans -- Donald Rumsfeld, John McCain -- who say the attacks on our diplomatic posts in the Middle East are a result of perceived American weakness. Do you want to respond to that?
  MR. CARNEY: I'll just go back to what I said, which is that this is a time when it's in the best interests of the country to focus on the four personnel, the four Americans that we lost in Libya and who are returning home today, and on the measures that we need to take as a nation to deal with the unrest in the region and deal with the security of our diplomatic facilities and personnel abroad.
  We are happy to debate -- and there is certainly ample time and appropriate times to debate foreign policy approaches, this President's record on foreign policy, and contrast it to other approaches and other records.
  And there will actually be a formal occasion in which foreign policy will be debated as part of the presidential campaign debates. And I'm sure there will be much discussion of it prior to and after that debate. We're very proud of the President's record on foreign policy and are happy to make the case at the appropriate time. Thank you all.
  Q Jay, one last question -- while we were sitting here -- Secretary Panetta and the Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee. And the senators came out and said their indication was that this, or the attack on Benghazi was a terrorist attack organized and carried out by terrorists, that it was premeditated, a calculated act of terror. Levin said -- Senator Levin -- I think it was a planned, premeditated attack. The kind of equipment that they had used was evidence it was a planned, premeditated attack. Is there anything more you can -- now that the administration is briefing senators on this, is there anything more you can tell us?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I think we wait to hear from administration officials. Again, it's actively under investigation, both the Benghazi attack and incidents elsewhere. And my point was that we don't have and did not have concrete evidence to suggest that this was not in reaction to the film. But we're obviously investigating the matter, and I'll certainly -- I'm sure both the Department of Defense and the White House and other places will have more to say about that as more information becomes available.
  Q Thank you.
  MR. CARNEY: Thanks.
  Q Week ahead, Jay?
  MR. CARNEY: Do we have a week ahead? I don't have one yet, so we'll have to put it out on paper. Thank you.
  END 12:38 P.M. EDT
CIA Mormon Mafia, Neocons, Netanyahu Seek October Suprise to Carterize Obama
  Link to Article
  Source: TARPLEY.net
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:52
  Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.PressTVSeptember 15, 2012
  In an attack designed to coincide with the protests, a Libyan death squad has assassinated the US ambassador to Libya and three of his associates. The US State Department has set up a crisis management center to monitor developments 24 hours a day.
  The film in question was obviously designed as a provocation and nothing else. But was this film, as the US media claim, the work of the isolated Cerrito, California resident and Egyptian-American Nakoula Bassely Nakoula. aka Abanob Bassely aka Israeli citizen Sam Bacile, an ex-convict with a drug problem, and a few actors he hired? Persuasive evidence suggests that this is not the case.
  Instead, we are dealing with an ambitious international intelligence operation aimed at creating an October Surprise (a few weeks early) to shock world and US public opinion for the purpose of discrediting and ''Carterizing'' the current tenant of the White House, and installing Netanyahu's friend Mitt Romney in his place. Since the US public identifies Obama as the patron of the color revolutions and military interventions of the ''Arab Spring,'' attacks on US diplomats, assassinations, and possible hostage taking can be expected to weaken his case for reelection. If Romney prevails, control over US foreign policy would pass to the group of incorrigible warmonger neocons who are the Romney's handlers for international affairs. The current crisis is a sign that the neocons and their friends are attempting a comeback.
  The networks involved in this operation appear to be these:
  The CIA Mormon MafiaFeaturing top officials across the US intelligence community who are members of Romney's tightly-knit sect, this group can also be referred to as the Brent Scowcroft faction. Scowcroft, Henry Kissinger's right-hand man, used his entrenched bureaucratic position over decades to help promote many of his co-religionists. This group wants Romney in the White House because Romney and his transition team boss Mike Leavitt, also a Mormon, are visibly embarked on a policy of favoring Mormons for top positions.
  On Sept. 14, Google rejected an appeal by the Obama White House to remove the controversial film worldwide. As Wired magazine noted on May 11, 2012, ''former National Security Agency chief Mike McConnell told the Washington Post that collaboration between the NSA and private companies like Google was 'inevitable,''' and has been widely reported since January 2010. So Google's refusal to cooperate with Obama tells us about the views of the NSA, and speaks volumes about which presidential candidate the intelligence community is backing.
  The Netanyahu LikudDuring the past week, the reactionary Israeli Prime Minister has intervened blatantly and outrageously in US election-year politics in the attempt to secure the election of Mitt Romney, with whom he has been joined at the hip since the two worked together at the Boston Consulting Group in 1976.
  About a week ago, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the United States has no ''red lines'' in regard to the Iranian nuclear program. Netanyahu replied with an angry outburst, raving that those who have no red lines have ''no moral right'' to give Israel a red light when it comes to starting a catastrophic aggressive war against Iran. This was interpreted in Washington as a call to vote for Romney. To underline the message, the deputy speaker of the Israeli Knesset appeared on MSNBC cable news one morning to demand immediate US war with Iran. Republican candidates are using this material for their campaigns.
  Some observers have pointed out that, while Netanyahu demands that the US specify some future set of circumstances under which war must begin, the Israeli government has never specified any red lines of its own, meaning that Bibi wants Washington to be more Israeli than the Israelis. These brazen actions by Netanyahu have evoked a wave of American resentment and hostility, even in circles which are usually prepared to go along with the Israelis.
  Some have also speculated that, since Romney has shown repeatedly that he has no knowledge of world affairs, Netanyahu believes that he would be able to dictate US foreign policy through his friendship with Romney. During the Republican presidential debates, Romney promised to get Netanyahu's approval for every US action in the Middle East.
  US NeoconsThe pro-Israeli neocons of the Bush-Cheney era have attached themselves to Romney as their main hope of getting back into power. This group includes John Bolton (the likely Secretary of State if Romney wins), Eliot Cohen, Robert Kagan, Robert Joseph, and Dan Senor (who now tells vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan what to say about foreign policy).
  Prince Bandar bin Sultan and the Saudi Arabian royal family would likely prefer Romney to Obama. Since the Saudi royals are the paymasters for the majority of the death squads now operating in the Middle East, including Libya and Syria, their support would be valuable in organizing operations like the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
  The French imperialist ideologue Bernard-Henri L(C)vy, who had strongly advised President Sarkozy to start bombing Libya, is praising Stevens as a ''secret craftsman of [Libyan] liberation.''
  BHL says Stevens had accompanied Hillary Clinton to a meeting with Libyan rebel chief Mahmoud Jebril on March 14, 2011, and had later helped convince Hillary to call Obama and recommend that he order an immediate start to the bombing. (Le Monde, Sept. 12) Given the Arabic and French language skills of Stevens, he was then well qualified to serve as contact man with the pro-al-Qaeda militant groups of the Benghazi-Derna-Tobruk extremist axis which did much of the fighting against Qaddafi. Many of these armed groups have been transferred by NATO into Syria to fight against President Assad, raising the question of Ambassador Stevens' role in these currently ongoing operations. Less clear is why he should be singled out at this time. Perhaps he was a witness whose testimony could have proved embarrassing later.
  On Tuesday evening, Stevens had left the US consular compound and taken refuge in a secret safe house nearby. Somehow, the well-trained attackers knew of the existence of this safe house and directed professionally accurate mortar fire against these premises. How did they know where Ambassador Stevens was hiding? We would need to ask the CIA and the Saudis.
  Nakoula/Bacile served almost two years in jail after conviction for identity theft and bank fraud involving credit cards. He is currently out on parole, and one of the conditions is that he not use a computer. If authorities can prove he posted the incendiary video, they can immediately revoke his parole and send him back to prison for four years. Nakoula/Bacile looks like a patsy '' specifically a drug informant. (Peliske and Daly, Daily Beast, Sept. 14)
  As for the film, it would appear to be the handiwork of a well-known Islamophobic network reputedly inspired by US intelligence. According to the Los Angeles Times, the permit for the film originally called ''Desert Warrior'' was requested by a ''Christian nonprofit'' calling itself Media For Christ of Duarte, California. The blogger Panglozz of The Daily Kos reports that Media For Christ is owned by Joseph Nasrallah Abdelmasih, an Egyptian-born Coptic Christian activist and anti-Moslim firebrand. Nasrallah was prominent in the summer 2010 campaign to prevent the building of a mosque and Islamic community center not far from the site of the former World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. Nasrallah was a speaker at a rally held at Ground Zero on September 11, 2010, to protest the mosque. This rally was organized by a well-connected Islamophobic organization known as Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA).
  The main spokesperson and organizer for SIOA is Pamela Geller, a notorious professional Islamophobe and the hostess of the Atlas Shrugs blog. Geller, despite her venom, enjoys access to the US mainstream media. The SIOA rally just mentioned was also addressed via video link by Ambassador John Bolton, a top neocon, close adviser to Romney, and widely touted as a possible Secretary of State in a future Romney regime. Another speaker at this rally was the Netherlands xenophobic politician Geert Wilders, who also wanted to block the mosque. Wilders' party has just suffered heavy losses in the Netherlands elections earlier this week.
  Bolton took a leading role in trying to turn the Stevens assassination against Obama this past week. Bolton told a Washington, DC radio station: ''I've said for 3½ years the President doesn't care about national security. He doesn't think the world is terribly threatening. I think a weak reaction, a failure to demonstrate American power and resolve, will help see this stretched throughout the region.'' Bolton warned particularly that a new hostage crisis would replay the ''destruction of the Jimmy Carter administration,'' this time at Obama's expense. (Politico, Sept. 13)
@adamcurry en daar gaan ze dan de grieken http://t.co/aSc0w7dH
  Link to Article
  Source: @adamcurry - Twitter Search
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:52
  AMSTERDAM - Als Griekenland de eurozone nu zou verlaten, zijn de consequenties volgens minister Jan Kees de Jager (Financile Zaken) te overzien. Dat stelt hij in een interview met de Volkskrant.
  "Zonder geld zijn zij slechter af dan wij. En voor een uitwas als Griekenland is het besmettingsgevaar ingeperkt: als dat land de eurozone zou verlaten, zijn de consequenties te overzien", aldus De Jager.
  Op kritiek dat noodlijdende landen als Griekenland niet genoeg aangespoord worden te hervormen reageert De Jager resoluut: "Desnoods draaien we de geldkraan dicht, Athene kan daarover meepraten. Er zijn dwingende begrotingsafspraken, het is veel strenger geworden."
  Risico'sOok vindt hij niet dat Nederland nu een groter risico loopt door directe en indirecte leningen aan landen met een zwakke economie of door een nieuw, ongelimiteerd opkoopprogramma. "Die risico's zijn gegroeid, maar de eurozone is weerbaarder geworden. De kans dat een land omvalt, is veel kleiner."
  "Het gaat om de 15 miljard euro aan leningen en garanties die Nederland heeft uitstaan bij Griekenland, Portugal en Ierland tegenover een risico van honderden miljarden bij een uiteenvallen van de eurozone."
  Dat risico is volgens de minister inmiddels dus beperkt. "Er zullen best nog wat piekjes en dalen komen, maar fundamenteel staan we er veel beter voor dan twee jaar geleden." Op dit moment kan er Europees alleen weinig meer gedaan worden. "Nu komt het op de lidstaten zelf aan", meent De Jager.
  Lees alles over Griekenland en de schuldencrisis
  Door: NU.nl
Build A Battery Out Of Pennies
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:49
  This is one of those cool "so-thats-how-it-works" projects that is an easy weekend activity to teach yourself (or your kids) the basics of how a battery operates.
  Instructables user seniorhigh has put together directions to create this simple battery. A battery in its basic form is a pile of two different kinds of metals with an electrolyte in between. This type of penny battery is a wet-cell type battery, meaning that as the electrolyte evaporates, the voltage that the battery produces will also decrease.
  What you need for this project :
  5-7 Pennies (Must be copper outside and zinc inside)Paper towels or other absorbent materialLemon juice (salt or vinegar works too)Sand paperTape-recommendedLEDBasically, you need to sand down the pennies to reveal the zinc inner core (US Pennies 1982 and after are created like this) and then put together the "sandwich" of pennies and paper towels to create a voltaic pile. Honestly the sanding is going to be the hardest part of this project, make sure to protect your hands! The LED acts as a visible sign of the power that is created by your battery, but any other type of output such as a motor or voltmeter can also demonstrate the voltage of your simple creation.
  After it is all put together, you have a working battery and also a greater knowledge of what an inside of a (very basic) battery looks like.
  Miller-Penny Battery via Instructables
Everything's broken and nobody's upset
  Link to Article
  Source: royalorderofrogues.com
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:43
  Everything's broken and nobody's upset '' http://pulse.me/s/dmEEn Yes, I agree, it seems with every technological advancement we take a leap backwards. I remember when I had a word processor in my very first computer put the letters on the screen as you typed them, it didn't even have 200mb of ram. Now I have four gigs and I have to wait for it to catch up. In the late 70'²s, I had a remote control that changed the channel every Time I pressed the button, the remote control I have now has to be pressed multiple times to get it to perform the function it was created to do. What is going on here? Some days I just want to Chuck it all and go live in a cave.
Wind farms: Are wind farms saving or killing us? A provocative investigation claims thousands of people are falling sick because they live near them | Mail Online
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:42
  By James Delingpole
  PUBLISHED:16:00 EST, 8 September 2012| UPDATED:16:00 EST, 8 September 2012
  A wind turbine in Bedfordshire; while some people have welcomed the wind farms, others say they have a detrimental effect on their health
  It was Uplawmoor's tranquillity and wild beauty that drew civil servant Aileen Jackson to settle there 28 years ago.
  She'd had enough of life in the big city. Now she wanted somewhere quiet and rural to start a family, keep her horses, and enjoy the magnificent views down the valley and out to sea to the western Scottish isles of Arran and Ailsa Craig.
  Then, two years ago, she says, it all turned sour.
  A neighbour with whom she and her family had been friends decided to take advantage of the massive public subsidies for 'renewable' energy.
  He put up a 64ft-high wind turbine which, though on his own land, stood just 300 yards from the Jackson family's home.
  The sleepless nights caused by its humming were only the start of their problems. Far worse was the impact on their health.
  Aileen, a diabetic since the age of 19, found her blood glucose levels rocketing '' forcing her to take more insulin and causing her to develop a cataract, she says.
  Her younger son, Brian, an outgoing, happy, academically enthusiastic young man, suddenly became a depressive, stopped seeing his friends and dropped out of his studies at college.
  A turbine beside a house near Hartlepool
  Aileen's husband William, who had always had low blood pressure, now found his blood pressure levels going 'sky high' '' and has been on medication ever since.
  So far so coincidental, you might say. And if you did, you would have the full and enthusiastic support of the wind industry.
  Here is what the official trade body RenewableUK has to say on its website: 'In over 25 years and with more than 68,000 machines installed around the world, no member of the public has ever been harmed by the normal operation of wind farms.'
  But in order to believe that, you would have to discount the testimony of the thousands of people just like Aileen around the world who claim their health has been damaged by wind farms.
  You would have to ignore the reports of doctors such as Australia's Sarah Laurie, Canada's Nina Pierpont and Britain's Amanda Harry who have collated hundreds of such cases of Wind Turbine Syndrome.
  And you'd have to reject the expertise of the acoustic engineers, sleepspecialists, epidemiologists and physiologists who all testify that thenoise generated by wind farms represents a major threat to public health.
  'If this were the nuclear industry, this is a scandal which would be on the front pages ofevery newspaper every day for months on end,' says Chris Heaton-Harris,the Conservative MP for Daventry who has been leading the parliamentaryrevolt against wind farms, demanding that their subsidies be cut.
  'But because it's wind it has been let off the hook. It shouldn't be.'
  Wind Turbine Syndrome. Until you've seen for yourself what it can do to a community, you might be tempted to dismiss it as a hypochondriac's charter or an urban myth.
  But the suffering I witnessed earlier this year in Waterloo, a hamlet outside Adelaide in southern Australia, was all too real.
  The place felt like a ghost town: shuttered houses and a dust-blown aura of sinister unease, as in a horror movie where something terrible has happened to a previously thriving settlement but at first you're not sure what.
  Then you look to the horizon and see them, turning in the breeze'...
  'The wind farm people said we'd be doing our bit to save the planet,' said one resident.
  'They said these things were quieter than a fridge. They said it was all going to be fairy floss and candy.
  'So how come I can't sleep in my own house any more? How come sometimes I'm having to take 15 Valium tablets a day? How come, when I used to be a pretty mellow sort of person, I'm now so angry it's only a matter of time before I end up in jail?'
  Aileen Jackson, a diabetic since the age of 19, found her blood glucose levels rocketing - forcing her to take more insulin and causing her to develop a cataract, she says
  I've since heard dozens of similar stories from nurses, farmers, panel-beaters, civil servants, businessmen and forestry workers across the world, from New South Wales to Sweden and Pembrokeshire.
  The symptoms they claim to have suffered may vary '' dizziness; balance problems; memory loss; inability to concentrate; insomnia; tachycardia; increased blood pressure; raised cortisol levels; headaches; nausea; mood swings; anxiety; tinnitus; palpitations; depression '' but the theme remains the same.
  Here are ordinary people who settled in the country for a quiet life only to have their lives and property values trashed at the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen.
  In December 2011, in a peer-reviewed report in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Dr Carl Phillips '' one of the U.S.'s most distinguished epidemiologists '' concluded that there is 'overwhelming evidence that wind turbines cause serious health problems in nearby residents, usually stress-disorder type diseases, at a nontrivial rate'.
  According to a study by U.S. noise control engineer Rick James, wind farms generate the same symptoms as Sick Building Syndrome '' the condition that plagued office workers in the Eighties and Nineties as a result of what was eventually discovered to be the Low Frequency Noise (LFN), caused by misaligned air conditioning systems.
  The combination of LFN and 'amplitude modulation' (loudness that goes up and down) leads to fatigue, poor concentration and dizziness.
  And sleep specialist Dr Chris Hanning believes it stimulates an alert response, leading to arousal episodes throug the night that make restful sleep impossible.
  'I've spoken with many sufferers and sadly the only treatment is for them to move away from the wind farm.'
  But if the problem is really so widespread, why isn't it better known?
  The short answer is money: the wind industry is a hugely lucrative business with millions to spend on lobbying.
  What's more, until recently, it benefited from the general public mood that 'something ought to be done about climate change' and wind power '' supposedly 'free', 'renewable' and 'carbon-friendly' '' was the obvious solution.
  'For years among the metropolitan elite it has been considered heretical to criticise wind power,' says Heaton-Harris.
  A wind farm in Lanarkshire - some UK wind farms have more than 100 turbines. In Britain, onshore wind farms are subsidised by a levy on consumer bills at 100 per cent; offshore wind is subsidised at 200 per cent
  In the last decade, however, a host of evidence has emerged to indicate it is not the panacea it was thought to be.
  From economists such as Edinburgh University's Dr Gordon Hughes we are told that wind energy is unreliable and intermittent, with no real market value because it requires near 100 per cent back-up by conventional fossil-fuel power.
  From research institute Verso Economics we are told that that for every 'green job' created by taxpayer subsidy, 3.7 jobs are killed in the real economy.
  It is said that thanks to the artificial rise in energy prices caused by renewable subsidies, expected to reach £13 billion per annum by 2020, at least 50,000 people a year in Britain are driven into fuel poverty.
  And newly released Spanish government research claims that each turbine kills an average 300 birds a year (often rare ones such as eagles and bustards) and at least as many bats.
  Yet still, despite collapsing share prices and increasing public scepticism, the industry continues to grow.
  As Matt Ridley noted recently in The Spectator, there are 'too many people with snouts in the trough.'
  Aristocratic landowners have done especially well, such as the Earl of Moray (£2 million a year from his Doune estate) and the Duke of Roxburghe (£1.5 million a year from his estate in Lammermuir Hills).
  South of the border, the Prime Minister's father-in-law Sir Reginald Sheffield makes more than £1,000 a day from the eight turbines on his Lincolnshire estates. Even smaller landholdings can generate a tidy profit: around £40,000 per year, per large (3MW) turbine, for no effort whatsoever.
  The biggest winners, though, are the mostly foreign-owned (Mitsubishi, Gamesa, Siemens) firms for whom wind was until recently a virtually risk-free investment.
  In Britain, onshore wind farms are subsidised by a levy on consumer bills at 100 per cent; offshore wind is subsidised at 200 per cent: no matter how little energy the turbines actually produce, in other words, healthy returns are guaranteed.
  The debate over wind farms has aroused huge passions.
  'I've had death threats. I'm told I'm a witch. I've had my reputation trashed in the newspapers,' says Australian campaigner Dr Sarah Laurie.
  'And for what? All I've ever done is say, ''People are getting sick and something should be done to stop it.'''
  When Aileen Jackson protested about some of the 23 new turbine projects proposed for Uplawmoor, she too was threatened.
  An anti wind farm march, led by botanist David Bellamy
  Her car, she says, was vandalised; broken glass was strewn in her horses' field; on two occasions she found her horses' anti-midge coats had been cut off and slashed to pieces, the horses left covered in blood from where they rubbed themselves against a fence to stop the itching.
  There's no suggestion anyone locally concerned with wind farms was involved.
  But legitimate proponents of wind farms are candid about the benefits.
  'There's so much money to be made from these things, that's the problem,' says Jackson.
  'You'll talk to the farmers and they're quite open about it. ''I've worked hard all my life and this is my pension plan,'' they'll tell you.'
  What horrifies the communities threatened by wind farm developments is how powerless they are to stop them.
  At Northwich in Cheshire, I attended the annual meeting of National Opposition to Windfarms (NOW), where lawyers including Lord Carlile (NOW's chairman) advised local protest groups on how to challenge wind developments in their area.
  The desperation was palpable. Current planning laws have a presumption 'in favour of sustainable development'.
  Wind farms are deemed vital to Britain's EU-driven campaign to cut its carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. Arguments about wind turbines' public health impacts seem to cut little ice with planning inspectors.
  The whole system has been rigged in the industry's favour. One of the biggest bones of contention is regulation of acceptable noise levels.
  In Britain, wind developers are bound by ETSU-R-97, a code that places modest limits on sound within the normal human hearing range '' but which fails to address the damaging aspect of wind turbines: infrasonic (ie, inaudible) Low Frequency Noise.
  But according to RenewableUK's 'Top Myths About Wind Energy' section, accusations that wind farms emit 'infrasound and cause associated health problems' are 'unscientific'.
  It quotes Dr Geoff Leventhall, author of the Defra report on Low Frequency Noise And Its Effects: 'I can state quite categorically that there is no significant infrasound from current designs of wind turbines.'
  And Robert Norris, head of communications at RenewableUK, says: 'There's no evidence to link the very low levels of noise produced by wind farms with any effects on people living nearby.
  'Low frequency noise isn't a problem. Extensive measurements taken repeatedly by scientists across Europe and the USA show the level of sound is so minimal that it can't be perceived, even close up.'
  However, Robert Rand of Rand Acoustics in Maine, who has done work on wind farms and been a consultant in acoustics since 1980, says: 'All wind turbines produce low-frequency noise. The reason it doesn't show up on wind industry tests is that the equipment they use excludes low-frequency noise.'
  Dr John Constable Director of the Renewable Energy Foundation adds: 'Audible noise disturbance from wind turbines, particularly at night, is known to be a very serious and fairly common problem, but low frequency noise is a mystery.
  'No one knows enough about it to say anything definite, one way or the other. This is one of those cases where more research really is needed.'
  Dr Alec Salt, a cochlear physiologist at the Department of Otolaryngology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri, has studied the topic since the Seventies.
  'The idea that there is no problem with infrasound couldn't be more wrong,' he says.
  'The responses of the human ear to LFN are just enormous. Bigger than to anything in the audible range.'
  Audible sound stimulates the inner hair cells on the cochlea (the auditory portion of the inner ear), but LFN triggers the outer hair cells, sending neural signals to the brain. Military special ops departments have known about it for some time.
  A 1997 report by the U.S. Air Force Institute For National Security Studies notes: 'Acoustic infrasound: very low frequency sound which can travel long distances and easily penetrate most buildings and vehicles.
  'Transmission of long wavelength sound creates biophysical effects, nausea, loss of bowels, disorientation, vomiting, potential organ damage or death may occur.'
  Yet as Dr Phillips notes, instead of protecting the public, governments are actually complicit by encouraging wind farm development via generous subsidies.
  'It's ridiculous. Here is an industry which is putting the health of tens of thousands of people at risk. If this were a pharmaceutical company sales would have been suspended by now. '
  His views are shared by orthopaedic surgeon Dr Robert McMurtry, once Canada's most senior public health official: 'Whatever you think about climate change, you can be sure that wind energy is not the solution.
  'There is an abundance of evidence to the show that infrasound from wind farms represents a serious public health hazard. Until further research is done, there should be an immediate moratorium on building any more of them.'
  Newspaper columnist Christopher Booker called wind farms 'the greatest political blunder of our time' and 'a monument to an age when our leaders collectively went off their heads'.
  But a recent statement by energy minister Charles Hendry says: 'Studies have considered the noise phenomenon known as amplitude modulation (AM) but show that to date only one wind farm in the UK has presented a noise nuisance to residents. The issue has since been resolved.
  'We will keep the issue of AM under review and welcome the additional research on AM that RenewableUK have commissioned,' in answer to a parliamentary question from Chris Heaton-Harris.
  Heaton-Harris is not impressed.
  'Wind farms are destroying people's lives, destroying the environment, destroying the economy '' but instead of opposing it, all three main political parties are committed to building more of them.
  'And it's not accidental. This is a stitch-up between the wind lobby and its friends in Parliament and it's an outrage.
  'It's the biggest health scandal of our age and the metropolitan elite just don't care.'
Kansas City downtown evacuated after possible terrorist threat - KCTV5
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:41
  KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -The FBI said Friday afternoon that no explosives were found and there is no threat to the public after a scare in downtown Kansas City.
  The man at the center of the scare, Wahed Moharam, was later released. He talked to reporters once he arrived home Friday night.
  "I love this country," he said, adding that he has lived in the United States for more than 30 years. "I would give my life for this country."
  Police initially said the man claimed to be a terrorist, leading to the evacuation of some downtown streets and buildings. Moharam, who is apparently on a federal watch list, was taken into custody at the federal building at 13th Street and Holmes Road.
  Moharam reportedly yelled, "Why am I on the terrorist watch list?" when he entered the federal building downtown Friday.
  "While the individual was detained and is being questioned, there is no public safety concern and we determined no personnel inside the federal building were in harm's way," the FBI statement says. "The individual walked into the federal building to clarify whether he was under investigation by a federal agency. The individual did not make a threat of a bomb or explosive device being contained in his vehicle."
  The Kansas City Star, KCTV5's reporting partner, reported that Moharam has ties to the first World Trade Center bombing. He testified against some of the bombers.
  Moharam is also a die-hard Chiefs fan and appeared on KCTV5's Locker Room show. He also appeared regularly on other KCTV5 business-related segments. He was known as "Helmet Man," and was wearing a Chiefs shirt Friday night.
  He told reporters Friday night that he had been pulled over on a traffic stop in Grain Valley. He said he felt harassed and the stop was extensive. He said officers told him the traffic stop lasted so long because they discovered he was on a terror-watch list.
  Moharam said this upset him and he went to the federal building to clear up the issue. He said he never had a bomb and never implied that he had one.
  "I love this country more than anything on earth. I will do anything for this country," he said. "I never went to the building and said I had a bomb. If I said I had a bomb, I wouldn't be talking to you now."
  After Moharam was taken into custody Friday afternoon, bomb dogs indicated that explosives were inside the vehicle. This led to the evacuations and a heightened search.
  After a robot and investigators in bomb squad gear searched the vehicle, explosives were not found.
  A gun was found inside his vehicle.
  Moharam owns a cleaning business. And the cleaning chemicals inside the vehicle were what the dogs hit on.
  Moharam was known to many Kansas City area residents as "Helmet Man" because of his attire at Chiefs games. Many knew him as Edgar Sanchez.
  Neighbors described him as friendly, good with children and involved in his church and community. He was also described as odd. He came to KCTV5's newsroom in February to discuss a business opportunity.
  The Star reported that Moharam's season tickets were revoked because of safety concerns in 2003. He was once in the federal witness protection program for testifying in the first World Trade Center bombing. Click here to read the newspaper's 2003 profile of him.
  "Everything is OK," a man identifying himself as Wahed told the newspaper. "I don't have to tell you exactly where I am. The FBI requests me to hang up the phone, but I can assure you I'm OK and they treat me good."
  He added: "And everything mistake. Everything mistake. I didn't have any bad thing anyway. Everything is just ... thank you and God bless you and I'm OK."
  The General Services Administration initially relocated employees from sections of their downtown building as a result of the threat. Federal agencies sent some workers home for the day.
  The nearby Jackson County Jail was placed on lockdown.
  Kansas City police said they acted out of an abundance of caution.
  In its statement, the FBI said they could not discuss whether Moharam is on a federal watch list.
  "Local police and FBI agents acting with an abundance of caution responded appropriately with the initial limited information they had based on witness accounts of what happened," the statement said. "A police canine sniffed the person's car and alerted to a possible explosive substance. A closer look has determined that no items of concern have been located in the individual's vehicle. Again, the primary concern was for the public's safety, which made the actions today necessary."
  KCTV5's Brad Stephens, Stephen Mayer and Dave Jordan contributed to this report.
  Copyright2012 KCTV (Meredith Corp.) All rights reserved.
Everything's broken and nobody's upset
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:31
  I think a lot of the problems are simply allowed to show up in public because the dev teams of these software products aren't given the time to fix them: Time to Market is critical, marketing already reserved a given date, things are already in motion, only the bugs in the category 'it kills kittens and old ladies' are fixed at that point, the rest is 'moved to a later date'. But that later date never comes, because after the product is done, the team moves on to the newer version with new stuff, and fixing bugs is dreadful work, new stuff is exciting. There's another thing about bugs which is also key in this issue: fixing them won't sell more licenses of vNext: people won't run to the store, yelling "OMG! They fixed bug 33422!!!1 I can't believe it!". They'll run to the store because new, shiny things have been added, like a completely new UI with ergonomic characteristics of which no-one really knows whether it's actually a step forward.
  We all know software contains bugs, even though we did our best to fix them before RTM. But in the end, we have to admit that that label, 'RTM', is really just an arbitrary calendar event, not a landmark which says "0 bugs!". This means that even though something went RTM, it doesn't mean it's bug free, it simply means: "It's good enough that it won't kill kittens nor old ladies".
  A wise man, who passed away way too soon unfortunately, once said to me: "Your motivation and ability to fix issues and bugs is part of the quality you want to provide", which means: even though at first glance your software might look stunning out of the box, if that essential part of the quality of the software is missing, i.e. when a bug pops up it gets fixed, pronto, your software isn't of the quality you think it is.
  If I look at today's software development landscape, I see a tremendous amount of people trying to write applications without the necessary skills and knowledge, in languages and platforms which have had a bad track-record for years, yet no-one seems to care, or at least too little. Last year I was in an open spaces session and some guy explained that they would place people who just started programming as 'trainee' at customers for 'free' and after a few months these trainees became 'junior' programmers and the client had to pay a fee per hour. I asked him what he thought of the term 'fraud', and he didn't understand what I meant. I tried to explain to him that if you think a person who has no training at all and you let him 'learn on the job' for a few months, is suddenly able to write any form of software, you're delusional.
  But with the lack of highly trained professional developers growing and growing each day, more and more people who can tell the difference between a keyboard and a mouse are hired to do 'dev work', as the client doesn't know better and is already happy someone is there to do the work.
  I fear it only gets worse in the coming years. Frankly, I'm fed up with the bullshit pseudo devs who seem to pop up more and more every day, who cry 'I'm just learning, don't be so rude!' when you tell them their work pretty much doesn't cut it, while at the same time they try to keep up the charade that they're highly skilled and experienced.
  Sadly this process of pseudo-devs which are seen as the true 'specialists', is in progress for some time now and will continue in the next decade I think.
  Let's hope they'll learn something about what 'quality' means with respect to software, that 'quality' is more than just the bits making up the software. But I'm not optimistic.
The2News: Inside the campaign: How Mitt Romney stumbled - Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei - http://t.co/JlQxYi7c: http://t.co/YKFz4NVP via @POLITICO
  Link to Article
  Source: Twitter / The2News
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:29
  Obama, Romney seek luck in NevadaBy DARREN GOODE |9/17/12 8:53 AM EDT
  If Romney has any hope of beating Obama, this is the kind of state he needs in his column.
  Obama 'fear' drives religious rightBy EMILY SCHULTHEIS |9/17/12 9:22 AM EDT
  GOP super PACs spend on HouseBy JAKE SHERMAN |9/17/12 6:19 AM EDT
  A pair of outside political groups is unleashing $7 million in TV ads.
  Robocalls could prove costlyBy MICHELLE QUINN |9/17/12 6:50 AM EDT
  Regulators see an rise in complaints from mobile-phone owners receiving unwanted calls.
  PPP: Obama hits 51% in VirginiaBy ALEXANDER BURNS |9/17/12 8:31 AM EDT
  The state is an important 2012 battleground.
  POLITICO's Polling CenterPlaybook: Stuart Stevens defendedBy MIKE ALLEN |9/17/12 9:16 AM EDT
  Top Republicans sing his praise.
  Morning Money: W.H. talks trade at WTOMorning Defense: Sequester report fallout The Huddle: A quick weekMorning Score: Health care adsBelzer takes stab at historyBy PATRICK GAVIN |9/16/12 10:11 PM EDT
  Psaki shoots down McCain claimBy KATIE GLUECK |9/17/12 9:05 AM EDT
  She mentions that he's a big Romney supporter.
  McCain: 'Disengagement' to blameMcCain: Fox 'wrong about Libya' McCain defends Romney's Embassy statement McCain: Obama, Bibi differ on Iran red lineClimate debate wrinkle: DroughtsBy JOEL BRINKLEY |9/17/12 7:56 AM EDT
  Experts say climate change and the current food crisis are directly related.
  Vt. first in line for single payer?By JOANNE KENEN |9/17/12 4:37 AM EDT
  It is the only state to have set itself on the path, using the national law as a starting point.
  Poll: Warren leads by 6By CHARLES MAHTESIAN |9/16/12 1:23 PM EDT
  It's only the second poll to show either at 50 percent.
  Brown-Warren civility begins to crackVIDEO: POLITICO PlaybackBy POLITICO STAFF |9/17/12 8:09 AM EDT
  Play VideoNetanyahu denies political motiveBy JOSH GERSTEIN |9/17/12 7:08 AM EDT
  Iran warnings unrelated to U.S. election, he says.
  Rice: Obama friends with NetanyahuNetanyahu won't back Mitt on Israel rhetoricNetanyahu: No nuclear touchdownObama on poverty: Few mentionsBy JENNIFER EPSTEIN |9/17/12 7:30 AM EDT
  Core Democratic voters are looking for him to do more and say more on the subject.
  Rice dodges on speech, MarinesBy JOSH GERSTEIN |9/17/12 8:16 AM EDT
  Obama also made no mention of free speech rights in his first comments on the attack on the consulate.
  Libyan president: Attack was plannedBy KEVIN CIRILLI |9/17/12 8:40 AM EDT
  "It was planned by foreigners," he says on CBS.
  Rogers says attacks not about film trailerGiuliani dismisses Mitt's GOP criticsBy JOSH GERSTEIN |9/16/12 6:18 PM EDT
  Doubts grow on Mitt's China threatsBy BEN WHITE |9/17/12 7:46 AM EDT
  Many analysts say his approach would likely spark a disastrous and counter-productive trade war.
  Pennsylvania poll: Obama up by 11By CHARLES MAHTESIAN |9/15/12 5:28 PM EDT
  It continues to drift off the battleground radar.
  GOP poll: Romney down in OhioMeasuring the convention bouncePOLITICO's presidential polls Burns & Haberman
  Advantage of incumbencyReport: The White House will demand that China stop subsidizing auto parts made for export.
  44
  Obama to OhioThe president will attend campaign rallies in Cincinnati and Columbus.
  The Arena
  Will Democrats retake the House?The party needs to net 25 seats, but Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says it can be done.
  Citizens United Obama film to air By MAGGIE HABERMAN |9/17/12 9:13 AM EDT
  Joe Scarborough: 'They' hate usBy DYLAN BYERS |9/17/12 8:15 AM EDT
  He lumps the entire Muslim and Arab worlds together in a unified hatred of the United States.
  Dowd draws anti-Semitism chargesBy DYLAN BYERS |9/17/12 6:39 AM EDT
  She sets the Jewish political community on fire.
  NYT dismisses Dowd accusationsFeds: Hide SEAL nameBy JOSH GERSTEIN |9/17/12 8:47 AM EDT
  The administration is fighting to keep the name given to two Hollywood filmmakers from the public.
  Cleveland paper gets W.H. exclusiveBy DYLAN BYERS |9/17/12 6:44 AM EDT
  The Plain Dealer lands a story about the president's plan to press China on auto-trade issues.
  O'Brien, King battle over 'apology'By KATIE GLUECK |9/17/12 9:22 AM EDT
  Follow Mitt's plan to restore growthBy RON JOHNSON |9/17/12 7:01 AM EDT
  Opinion: His proposals will help lift uncertainty and eliminate the need for job-killing tax hikes.
  GOP works to expand tech visasBy KEITH PERINE and MICHELLE QUINN |9/17/12 7:29 AM EDT
  Texas Rep. Lamar Smith's bill would steer more visas to foreign graduates of U.S. universities.
  Pelosi: W.H.-Hill calls irrelevantBy JOSH GERSTEIN |9/17/12 7:11 AM EDT
  "Leadership shouldn't be measured in the number of phone calls," she says.
  Digitally dissuading terroristsBy JUDITH MCHALE and RICHARD LEBARON |9/16/12 9:40 PM EDT
  Opinion: We must stay focused on steadily reducing terrorists' numbers using all available tools.
  Fracking looms large for Cuomo '16By TALIA BUFORD |9/17/12 7:41 AM EDT
  Disabled voters' untapped powerBy BOB DOLE and TONY COELHO |9/16/12 10:22 PM EDT
  Opinion: The disability community deserves to know where its issues stand with each candidate.
  Answer to 'better off' questionBy BYRON TAU |9/16/12 11:00 PM EDT
  The Obama campaign takes on the query in a new television ad.
  Iran warns Israel, U.S.By ASSOCIATED PRESS |9/17/12 7:53 AM EDT
  It threatens to break Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
  Clinton touts Iran sanctions policyRomney event canceled in Colo.By ASSOCIATED PRESS |9/17/12 8:58 AM EDT
  The campaign says it didn't want to interfere with emergency response efforts.
  Chicago teachers to continue strikeBy ASSOCIATED PRESS |9/17/12 8:30 AM EDT
  WaPo: Mitt can't keep tax promiseBy DYLAN BYERS |9/17/12 8:05 AM EDT
  The paper's editorial board deals another blow to the Republican nominee.
  Mitt's blame-stream media problemBy DYLAN BYERS |9/16/12 6:11 PM EDT
  It's one of the oldest tricks in the Republican playbook: When in crisis, blame the media.
Media now mocking Obama for capturing bin Laden
  Link to Article
  Source: DaDenMan news feed
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:24
  During ABC's This Week yesterday, there was an unfortunate back and forth - several times in fact - in which PBS' Gwen Ifill, ABC's Jake Tapper, and ABC's Jonathan Karl all seemed to make fun of the President, and his surrogates, for noting that President Obama finally captured Osama bin Laden.
  This was disturbing on numerous levels.
  First, the Romney campaign has been mocking the President for a while on this point, suggesting that the President has nothing to be proud of (because Romney thinks President's don't matter during wartime, the military runs itself - that admission is a frightening window into a future Romney administration). So it's disturbing that the media would play into a false Romney talking point.
  Second, I'm disturbed because capturing and killing Osama bin Laden was a huge deal. It is clearly on a par with saving the economy from a Great Depression and passing health care reform. And at the very least, it's easily the President's number one foreign policy victory.
  So why exactly are Democrats supposed to now stop talking about the President's number one foreign policy victory?
  It's not entirely clear. Read on:
  WESLEY CLARK: I do disagree, because I think this is a consistent Republican narrative that Democrats are soft on defense, but we've a Democratic president who's been strongest on national security. He's completely taken the foreign policy and national security argument away from the other side. He reinforced in Afghanistan. He got us responsibly out of Iraq. We took Osama bin Laden. He's been firm. He's been visionary. He's been tough. He's decisive.
  GWEN IFILL: Not much immediately. But, you know, I find it really interesting, Jake, that a week ago we were post-convention and we were completely consumed with what we talked about at those conventions, not foreign policy, not at either convention, unless you count every Democrat talking about Osama bin Laden. Other than that...JAKE TAPPER: You caught that?
  IFILL: ... nobody really -- I picked up on that. I picked up on that.
  CLARK: Actually, I don't think we are weaker. I think the whole point of going into Afghanistan in 2001, which President George W. Bush articulated, was Osama bin Laden, wanted dead or alive. And it was Barack Obama who really put the pressure on and got him. IFILL: There it goes again. Once again, Osama bin Laden.(LAUGHTER)
  (CROSSTALK)
  CLARK: But I think it's a huge -- it was a huge marker. It was a presidential decision in the -- and he was very much aware of President Carter's problem with Desert One. And he did against the advice...
  (CROSSTALK)
  JONATHAN KARL: Are you at all uncomfortable, though, with how political that -- I mean, that at the -- at the national political convention, that this military operation is used as a -- as a political talking point over and over again?
  (CROSSTALK)
  CLARK: But here's the -- here's the...
  (CROSSTALK)
  KARL: The vice president talking about putting him on bumper stickers?
  CLARK: We've had, since the Vietnam War, the consistent refrain has been Republicans are the daddy party, Democrats are the mommy party, Republicans are strong, robust, Democrats are soft and weak and want to negotiate, want to apologize. It's simply not true.
  We're stronger. We're safer. Barack Obama has been a very robust, muscular -- has a very robust, muscular foreign policy. And as George said earlier, what's happened in the Middle East has lots of factors and lots of causes underneath. It has nothing to do with rhetoric from Washington.
  Why exactly should Democrats be "uncomfortable," at a political convention for the upcoming election, talking about our number one foreign policy success, when that is exactly what conventions are about, talking about the policy successes of the nominee?Funny how the Republican bear hug of September 11, going so far as to hold their convention in NYC in 2004, after they had berated Democrats for holding their convention in NYC in the 90s, didn't bother the media. It didn't bother them when Rudy "A noun, a verb, and September 11" Giuliani incessantly brought up 9/11, whether to help his own personal business or his party (or both).
  But when Democrats mention their number one foreign policy success when talking about whether their president has, or has not, been a foreign policy success, Democrats are very bad people who must be mocked and silenced.
  I'm not entirely sure why Ifill, Tapper and Karl all three find this funny, or objectionable. But for a lot of us, killing Osama bin Laden was a huge deal. Emotionally, for starters. And you'd better believe that when George Bush called off the hunt for bin Laden only six months after September 11, and Barack Obama then caught the bastard, Democrats are going to talk about it. And they should.
  What other top successes of the Obama administration is President Obama not permitted to talk about when asked about whether his administration was a success?
  And finally, just imagine what the Republicans would have done had they caught bin Laden. We'd never hear the end of it for the next 30 years. And the media would say nothing about it.
Terms of Service - Didn't Read -- Indiegogo.
  Link to Article
  Source: DaDenMan news feed
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:23
  subtitled video / Video auf Deutsch / video en espa±ol Terms-of-Service; Didn't ReadHi there! We are three volunteers who met through free software and online rights advocacy. We are trying to fight the unfair situation in which big websites make us sign Terms-of-Service agreements which are too long to read and understand. With your donations, we will run a review service that rates websites from class A (good) to class E (bad), and offer a browser plugin that informs you whenever you are about to tick that nasty little checkbox, "I have read and agree to the Terms of Service".
  What We Need & What You GetWe have already gotten quite some press attention, and want to get serious about this. We need about 10,000 dollars to actually get this off the ground. With that we can pay part-time and full-time expert curators, who will double-check all discussion outcomes and make sure the reviews and ratings reliably reflect the consensus in the open discussions.
  We have some really cool perks for you if you donate! Ranging from a thank you note on our website, an exclusive "crowd angel" T-shirt, to us visiting you for a discussion conference. But most importantly, you will know that you stood up against those unreadable service terms, and helped to fight the unfair power balance between big corporations and individual users.
  The ImpactThere have been many previous projects related to Terms-of-Service and Privacy Policies. Many aim for instance to design icons that translate these long texts into something more visual. But our project is different in that it actually reviews services and outs them if their terms are abusive, warning users against the dangers of signing contracts you don't read. Also, the discussion is entirely open, so anyone can act as a whistle blower by simply posting an abusive passage on our open discussion forum. Whenever there is a consensus, we will transfer that information to the service's rating. We have already built up over a hundred data points, as you can see on our website.
  If we stop here, then this project will slowly lose momentum and fade into oblivion. We cannot let that happen. We need to run this on a day-to-day basis and keep the discussion alive, it's our only weapon to make our voice heard against those abusive long texts, and let websites know that at the end of the day we are their customers rather than their product.
  Other Ways You Can HelpIf you're not in a position to donate money right now, you can still help! Get involved in our project by joining our mailing list. Share this campaign with your online and offline friends. And get the word out and make some noise about our campaign. You can help to make our voice heard!
  We as the project team will do all we can, to give your donations the biggest possible impact on making the web a better place. So please donate!
What Does It Mean?
  Link to Article
  Source: Clusterfuck Nation
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:13
  In the word-cloud of current events, the phrase "parasitic financial system" billows up to a degree that suggests even so-called thinking persons begin to understand what's happening: that banking shenanigans are sucking the life out of advanced societies. That's why Matt Taibbi's metaphor of Goldman Sachs as "a Vampire Squid jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money" remains so potent years after it was minted. Of course the pervasive accounting fraud and routine swindling that drive the banking "industry" are abetted by the phantom government "policy" of the Federal Reserve, an institution that 99.999 percent of the American public could not explain under threat of water-boarding. The bottom line is political and economic leadership that can only pretend the economy works, and the destiny of such pretense is the death of legitimacy - meaning the public's faith in the system. Sooner or later either the public will revolt against such a system, or the system will just implode and leave the public floundering in a period of dreadful chaos. Nobody capable of thinking through these rather abstruse matters believes Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke anymore, and his demeanor in public is of a depressed person who has lost belief in himself and what he does. He announced last week's policy salvo - the long-awaited QE-3 - with absolutely no conviction. The Fed will spend $40 billion in money created out of thin air to buy non-performing mortgages from banks eager to dump them and interest rates on new mortgages will fall to record low levels. This will supposedly "stimulate" the housing market. Virtually nobody else out there in blog-and-pundit land will tell you what this so-called "housing market" is, so I will. It basically refers to suburban sprawl, which I have previously defined in two ways: 1) the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world, and 2) a living arrangement with no future. The first proposition is obviously a function of the second. Interestingly, one of the first effects of Ben Bernanke's QE3 salvo was the inflation of oil prices to nearly $100-a-barrel, with a flow-through effect of gasoline above $4 at the pump, which only shortens the horizon of the suburban sprawl paradigm. Like the zombie banks choking on bad mortgages, sprawl is dead but doesn't know it. Unfortunately, the suburban sprawl system was interchangeable with the wormy old political chestnut known as the American Dream. Consider that the hysterical extremism ruling Republican politics derives from terror over the death of that flimsy dream - a home of our own, behind the strip mall! They can't believe it's over, that it's lost its value, that they're stuck with the losses, and they're looking for someone to blame for it. All the rest of their blather is just the noise of dissociated anxiety - the religious idiocy, the exceptionalism fairy tale, the family values touted by closet cases, the military chauvinism. Among the many tragic ramifications of the dynamic is that the final blowout of sprawl-building which ran roughly from the early 1990s to 2007 - and peaked, you may notice, with the final blowout of cheap oil ($11 a barrel in 1999) - became one of two intertwined activities that propped up the US economy. The other was, of course, the expansion of the financial "industry" to about 40 percent of all economic activity, largely based on fraud in mortgage issuance and the repackaging of that debt in booby-trapped bundles of MBS, CDOs, and other instruments that have been destroying banks, governments, retirement funds, and individual investment accounts like a long-running hemorrhagic fever. The results of that orgy can be seen now an over-supply of suburban buildings of all kinds (houses, strip malls, box stores) that will continue to lose value, and a banking system disabled by ruined balance sheets. There's no remedy for this except acknowledging losses on the grand scale, writing them off, making the necessary lifestyle adjustments to the write-offs, and making a fresh start with an economy based on something other than suburban sprawl building and banking fraud. American politics can't accept this. Neither party understands the contraction underway throughout the industrial world and the very different future it portends. Despite the pervasive fraud and incessant central bank interventions, there are routine operations of money that must go on for societies to remain stable. Checks or transactions have to be cleared, payments must be made, letters of credit must be issued to permit the exchange of goods and commodities between nations, bonds must be rolled over, markets must allow truthful asset price and interest rate discovery, currencies must hold their value. The terrible stresses being applied by central banks to avoid acknowledging systemic losses threaten to paralyze these routine operations of money. Too many things can go wrong now. The fault lines for the moment are crackling along the margins, in foreign lands such as Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen. There is not a whole lot keeping this infection from spreading into Saudi Arabia. The Saud royal family leadership has passed from one king over eighty years old to another. Nobody knows what will shake out between Israel and Iran. One way or another, an awful lot of the world's oil supply is at stake in that part of the world, and if that gets stoppered or blown up all the central bank machinations ever dreamed up will not avail to save Europe, North America, China, and Japan. My guess is that the euphoria over QE3 has already passed. The Fed actions of last week will mean nothing except the steady erosion of dollar value, higher food and fuel costs for all us muppets, and increased mistrust between crippled banks, further crippling bank activity, including the routine operations that make civilized life possible. Therefore, uncivilized life is not out of the question.____________________________________James Howard Kunstler's newest nonfiction book, TOO MUCH MAGIC, will be available in stores in July 2012. The book will be available at booksellers, large and small, online and off. To find out how you can help support local bookstores with your purchase, CLICK HERE. Other books:
Illegal rat meat 'sold to public'
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Home
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:10
  17 September 2012Last updated at 08:52 ET By Guy LynnBBC News, LondonRats and "shocking" quantities of illegal and "potentially unsafe" meat are on sale to the public in east London, a BBC London undercover investigation has found.
  Secret filming in one of the capital's busiest food markets has revealed butchers and food stores prepared to sell large quantities of meat that break food safety laws.
  West African and environmental health officer sources told the BBC the Ridley Road Market, in Dalston, was a known hotbed of illicit meat activity.
  Yet a Freedom of Information request to Hackney Council reveals the last enforcement visits to premises concerning illegal meat in the whole borough took place in 2009.
  Continue reading the main story''Start QuoteIt is disgusting and outrageous that the local authorities don't take action''
  End QuoteDr Yunes TeinazEnvironmental health expert"This is shocking, I am just so shocked to see so much of it," said Paul Povey, one of the UK's leading experts in meat hygiene and inspections and a member of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, who examined the meat for the BBC.
  "It's all illegal and hasn't undergone health control, hasn't been inspected and may well be contaminated.
  "You've got to wonder about the contamination level of this meat that anyone's bringing into their kitchens."
  Hackney Council said it had only received one complaint of illegal meat being sold since 2009 which was not proven.
  'There will be trouble'Under the counter, butchers at Ridley Road Market were prepared to sell banned "smokies", a West African delicacy made using a blow torch on the skin of a sheep or goat to give it a charred flavour.
  The practice is outlawed under UK and European food laws amid fears about public safety and animal welfare.
  It has also been linked to mafia-style gangs in Wales who steal sheep and goats, slaughtering them in unlicensed abattoirs.
  Dr Yunes Teinaz, a chartered environmental health practitioner, said: "Behind the underground trade in smokies are criminals who don't observe the law and are just after financial gain.
  "It is disgusting and outrageous that the local authorities don't take action and remove this meat from the human food chain."
  One Hackney butcher, who was secretly filmed selling a BBC researcher quantities of the illicit meat, said: "Don't tell anyone, otherwise there will be trouble."
  Two African food stores have sold bush meat such as "grass cutter" or cane rats, which are described as having been imported from Ghana where they are a delicacy.
  Continue reading the main story''Start QuoteWhat you are saying is a lie, a 100% lie, I don't sell rats.''
  End QuoteManagerAdom Trading'Collapsing a business'The trade in bush meat is a persistent problem for the UK authorities with illegal meat products smuggled in by passengers in ferry terminals and airports.
  The Food Standards Agency says there are worries that bush meat could be of serious risk to both those who eat it and to others from contamination.
  There is no suggestion that every butcher and food shop on the Ridley Road Market is prepared to deal in illegal meat.
  Confronted with BBC London's evidence, Islam Halal Meat; Punjab Halal Meat and Fish and Dalston Butchers denied they were selling illegal meat.
  The manager of Great Expectations, a food store which sold two Ghanaian rats to the undercover BBC researcher, said: "I don't sell rats, I never sell rats, I don't sell rats.
  "I don't have any rats, why you come to video me?"
  The manager of Adom Trading, another shop that sold bush meat described as a Ghanaian "grass cutter" rat, also denied selling it.
  "What you are saying is a lie, a 100% lie, I don't sell rats.
  "You are collapsing a business, do you know how much it costs us to pay the business rates?"
  Councillor Feryal Demirci, Hackney Council's Cabinet Member for Safer Neighbourhoods, said: "Hackney Council's team of Environmental Health Officers make regular visits and inspections of over 1,000 businesses across the borough, including those on Ridley Road.
  "Since 2009, we have only received a single complaint regarding the sale of illegal meat, which upon investigation was inconclusive.
  "However, we take all complaints seriously and we will always investigate fully. Now that we have received some information from the BBC we will look into this and take the appropriate action."
Amazon Maps API - Amazon Appstore Developer Blog
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:09
  You may have noticed a new API on the AmazonMobile App SDK tab in the developer portal. When we announcedKindle Fire HD, wealso made the Amazon Maps API available to our developer community.The Amazon Maps API makes it easy for you to integrate mappingfunctionality into apps that run on the all-new Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD. These new devices will also support location-basedservices through the android.location API.
  TheAmazon Maps API provides a simple migration path for developers who are alreadyusing the native Google Maps API on Android. Our Maps API offers two corefeatures:
  Interactive Maps. You canembed a Map View in your app for customers to pan, zoom and fling around theworld. You have the option to display a user's current location, switch betweenstandard maps and satellite view, and more.
  Custom Overlays. You candisplay the locations of businesses, landmarks and other points of interestwith your own customized markers and pins.
  The Amazon Maps API is available now in beta. Apply today to get access through the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Portal, and see how easy it is to add maps to your app.
I, Anna Gurji, as one of the supporting actresses in the film will share with you what really happened.
  Link to Article
  Source: Brian of London's view from the right of Gitmo Nation Falafel
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:05
  A few years ago, a message came in to this website on the FAQ line from a young actress from Georgia (the one from the former USSR, not the State with Atlanta in it) called Anna Gurji. She sent a link to her webpage and to films she had made in Georgia, and told me she was a fan, and if she ever came to the US, she would want to be in something of mine.She made it to the US, and although she has never been in something of mine, she read the female lead (with Wil Wheaton as the male lead) in the first read-through of Michael Reaves' film BLOOD KISS. I was not there as a writer. I was there because I will actually act in it, playing a Hollywood director with a dark secret. So I've acted with Anna and spent time with her. She's a good sort.
  She wrote to me the other day, worried.
  She said,
  Something very bad happened. I desperately need everyone's help right now.
  I don't know how to start writing this letter. It's crazy, the world is.. life.. I'm so shattered right now, I don't know.. I feel very dead inside.
  Last summer I auditioned for an indie low budget feature movie and I landed a supporting role. The movie was about a comet falling into a desert and ancient tribes fighting over it for they thought that the comet had some magical powers.
  A year later, the movie was dubbed (without the actors' permission), the lines were changed drastically and the movie was morphed into an Anti-Islam film. Even the names of the characters were changed. And the character I had scenes with GEORGE became MUHAMMAD.
  I really need your advice right now? How can I have my voice shown to the world so that I can tell them the real story.
  All these media people that keep calling me are using my real story and then chopping or manipulating the interview the way they want to.
  I don't know what to do. It's very scary, Neil.
  I told her to write her story for me, to say what she wanted, and I would put it up here for her, as she wrote it, to get her message to the world. The best weapon against lies is the truth, after all.So here's what Anna knows about the truth:
  Everyone who wishes to find out the truth about the movienow known as the Innocence of Muslims, please read the letter below. I, AnnaGurji, as one of the supporting actresses in the film will share with you whatreally happened.
  A year ago, in the summer of 2011, I submitted my materialsto various projects on the Explore Talent web-site. I received a call from thecasting director of the movie ''Desert Warrior'', and my audition date wasscheduled. I auditioned for the role of Hilary. Several days later, I wasinformed that I got a callback. I did the callback. Several days later, I wasinformed that I landed the role of Hilary in the movie called ''Desert Warrior''.
  The filming of the movie was done in August of 2011. We werefilming the movie in a studio warehouse with a green screen in Duarte, CA. Theproject was a low budget, independent feature movie.
  The filming of the movie was beginning soon after the day Iwas told I got a role. The script was not sent to me. When I got to the set, Iwas merely provided with the scenes my character was in.
  I did not consider this to be an unusual thing, seeing as Ihave had an experience with something like this before. I did a movie oncewhere the script was written in a foreign language and only my parts were translatedinto English and accordingly, I was provided with my scenes only. Havingexperienced that, I thought the same thing was happening with ''Desert Warrior''.Aware of the fact that the supposed producer and the script-writer of the movie(known as Sam Bassil) was a foreigner (thanks to his accent), I thought thatthe original script was written in his native tongue and that not all sceneswere translated into English. Also, the filming dates of the movie had to berescheduled last minute to fit my schedule (I had other films to do right afterthe ''Desert Warrior'' outside CA). Because of this rushed rearrangements, Ithought that the production first forgot and then did not consider it necessaryto send me the script, and again - I did not find this unusual, since I knewwhat role I had, I knew about my character and I knew about the story of thefilm.
  My character Hilary was a young girl who is sold (againsther own free will) by her parents to a tribe leader known as GEORGE. She is oneof his (most likely, the youngest) brides in the movie.
  The film was about a comet falling into a desert anddifferent tribes in ancient Egypt fighting to acquire it for they deemed thatthe comet possessed some supernatural powers.
  The movie that we were doing in Duarte was called ''DesertWarrior'' and it was a fictional adventure drama. The character GEORGE was aleader of one of those tribes fighting for the comet.
  There was no mention EVER by anyone of MUHAMMAD and nomention of religion during the entire time I was on the set. I am hundredpercent certain nobody in the cast and nobody in the US artistic side of thecrew knew what was really planned for this ''Desert Warrior''.
  The atmosphere at the set was as friendly as possible. Weall knew that we were doing an adventure drama for a very low budget financing.The director Alan Roberts even had plans that with this low budget product hewould be able to get some more money to make a good quality version (byshooting it in the real desert and having better product in every category) ofthe ''Desert Warrior''.
  I had interactions with the man known as Sam Bassil on theset. He was very amiable, respectful, soft-spoken, always making sure that thefilming was running smoothly and everyone was satisfied. He even told me thepremiere of the movie was going to happen sometime soon and I would get a goodamount of tickets to invite my friends and family.
  I have never been informed about the premiere after that (ifit ever happened) and have not seen the final product (if there is any, exceptfor the short one that is uploaded online).
  People ask what's my reaction after seeing that.
  Shock.
  Two hours after I found out everything that had happened Igave Inside Edition an interview, the duration of which I could not stopcrying.
  I feel shattered.
  People who were tricked into believing that we were makingan adventure drama about a comet falling into a desert did nothing but takepart in a low budget indie feature film called the ''Desert Warrior'' that WASabout a comet falling into a desert and tribes in ancient Egypt fighting toacquire it.
  It's painful to see how our faces were used to createsomething so atrocious without us knowing anything about it at all. It'spainful to see people being offended with the movie that used our faces todeliver lines (it's obvious the movie was dubbed) that we were never informedof, it is painful to see people getting killed for this same movie, it ispainful to hear people blame us when we did nothing but perform our art in thefictional adventure movie that was about a comet falling into a desert andtribes in ancient Egypt fighting to acquire it, it's painful to be thought tobe someone else when you are a completely different person.
  Like I explained to Inside Edition, I feel awful.. I did notdo anything but I feel awful.
  I feel awful that a human being is capable of such evil. Ifeel awful about the lies, about the injustice, about the cruelty, about theviolence, about the death of innocent people, about the pain of offendedpeople, about the false accusations.
  I don't know what else to do but speak the truth. I will notgo into hiding (since I have nothing to hide), because if we don't speak thetruth, there is no world worth living for.
  I grew up in Georgia Republic (ex-Soviet Union), I havewitnessed the strikes, protests, demonstrations, injustice, cruelty, violencein my life. I was there during the war between Russia and Georgia, sleeping inoutdoor clothes and packed backpacks waiting to be bombed. And I left mycountry, knowing that there was no future for a film actress there (seeing asthe film industry is still in the process of recovery after the collapse of theSoviet Union).
  Why did I want to pursue acting? I had a role in a shortfilm when I was thirteen. There was a scene in the movie, where my beggarcharacter and my character's blind father were thrown off the bridge by policeofficers. During the filming of the scene, I was attacked by a huge lump in mythroat, witnessing what the police were doing to my blind father. I wanted tocry, but knowing that my blind father would worry about me if he heard me cry,I swallowed the lump and stayed strong and did my best to defend him againstthe injustice. Experiencing the magic of acting (losing yourself into thecharacter) was what had me fall in love with the craft. After a long journeyand fighting to somehow get to the States, I managed to come here with mymother.
  It's so difficult for an actor (especially the one from aforeign country) to begin a career. People think that once you are in theStates, you have all the doors opened before you. It's not so. It's verydifficult to join the union, to get an agent, to lose your accent and to landroles if you don't have connections. For four years I have been struggling toslowly move ahead and not give up. A year ago, when I got the supporting rolein this indie feature film ''Desert Warrior'', I was so excited.
  I don't understand why was this happened to me, when all Iwanted to do was pursue my acting career.
  I have to admit I wanted to pursue my acting career becauseI loved the process of transformation into a different character '' a selfishreason.
  A few months ago, I just finished writing a script with myfather about world peace, which helped me understand something '' forgive andcare for your enemy. Then, I understood that there is a bigger reason foracting. When we act, we help people see all different characters that exist.When people see about all these different characters, they start to understandthem. When they understand all these different characters, they come close toaccepting them. When they come close to accepting them, they come close tobeing united. And when they come close to being united, they come close toloving and helping each other.
  I was thinking about something a week ago. We are like cellsin the body of Earth. Why won't we work together and support each other insteadof killing and destroying each other. If cells kill each other, eventually thebody will die. By always speaking the truth and supporting the world peace, Ihope we will be able to save the Earth from dying.. someday.
  Growing up in a family that was extremely open-minded andrespectful to all the differences in the world (all the religions) and growingup peacefully with people with so many different religions around me, it isdevastating for me to have my face put into something that is completelyopposite of what I believe in.
  I want to send my condolences to the families and friends ofthose who lost their lives. Everything happens for a reason, they say. Ibelieve this is a trap of evil to separate us from our humanity. We must straystrong and not forget that violence has not been able to get us anywherespiritually and has not been able to make the world a better place.Understanding and love will.
EXCLUSIVE: Panetta says Pentagon Pre-positioning Forces for Additional Unrest | The E-Ring
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 12:54
  With anti-American demonstrations spreading across the Middle East and North Africa, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Foreign Policy's National Security channel on Friday evening that the United States is positioning military forces so that it can respond to unrest in as many as 17 or 18 places that the Pentagon is "paying particular attention to." But he cautioned against writing off the region's recent moves toward democracy. "[O]ne demonstration of extremists, any more than a Ku Klux Klan demonstration in the United States, is not necessarily reflective of what the rest of the country feels," he said.In an exclusive interview in his Pentagon office, Panetta also dismissed the week's unusually public debate between U.S. and Israeli leaders over whether the allies should identify "red lines" in Iran's nuclear program that would trigger military action.
  "The fact is, look, presidents of the United States, prime ministers of Israel or any other country -- leaders of these countries don't have, you know, a bunch of little red lines that determine their decisions," he said. "What they have are facts that are presented to them about what a country is up to, and then they weigh what kind of action is needed to be taken in order to deal with that situation. I mean, that's the real world. Red lines are kind of political arguments that are used to try to put people in a corner."
  Panetta's comments were his first, publicly, since protests first erupted in Cairo and Libya, during which U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, two former Navy SEALs, and a State Department worker were killed. The Middle East, Panetta argued, is going through "convulsions" after its momentous change in leadership since the eruption of the Arab awakening early last year, on which al-Qaeda and other extremists are trying capitalize, but they do not necessarily reflect a change in regional security.
  A U.S. defense official later told Foreign Policy that the Pentagon was discussing, but had not decided, late Friday whether to send a third platoon of 50 anti-terrorism Marines to protect the embassy in Sudan, to follow the roughly 100 Marines that already have landed in Tripoli and Yemen.
  "We have to be prepared in the event that these demonstrations get out of control," Panetta said of the military.
  Panetta did not say what he believed was behind the attack on the U.S. representative office in Benghazi, but he claimed the anti-Islam movie was at the heart of other demonstrations. "It's something that's under assessment and under investigation, to determine just exactly what happened here," he said.
  Panetta expressed concern that the fall of dictators across the Middle East has left a void for extremist elements to strike from "positions of weakness."
  He acknowledged that al-Qaeda had become seemingly more active in places like Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and across North Africa. But the secretary denied any change from his statement last year that al-Qaeda was nearing "strategic defeat," explaining that he meant the original core elements of the group, not its extensions across the region.
  "No, no. Clearly al-Qaeda, the al-Qaeda that attacked the United States of America on 9/11, we have gone after in a big way," he argued, badly damaging their leadership and ability to conduct attacks. "We always knew that we would have to continue to confront elements of extremism elsewhere as well."
  Those elements, he claimed, were resorting to desperate tactics because of U.S. pressure and a lack of public support.
  "Just like the Taliban in Afghanistan makes use of insider attacks, makes use of IEDs, largely speaks to their inability to regain any of the territory that they've lost," he argued. "They're going to resort to these kinds of tactics, because in many ways I think they have lost their voice in the Middle East."
  In any other week, the rift between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration would command larger headlines. Panetta swatted away the scuttle over "red lines," insisting the U.S. would not allow Iran obtain a nuclear weapon and repeating intelligence estimates that Tehran had not yet decided to pursue a weapon despite its continued uranium enrichment.
  "Let's just say, when you have friends like Israel you engage in vigorous debates about how you confront these issues, and that's what's going on," he said.
  "It sometimes, in democracies, plays out in the public."
BBC News - Manchester Airport's body scanners scrapped
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 12:52
  17 September 2012Last updated at 05:14 ET Passenger body scanners are being scrapped at Manchester Airport, officials have said.
  The machines will not be used from October as they failed to get a decision from the European Commission (EC) after the three-year trial ended.
  They will be replaced by "privacy-friendly" scanners at a cost of £1.3m and an extra 55 security staff.
  Andrew Harrison from the airport said it was "frustrated" because all parties were happy with the scanners.
  'Best security processes'Mr Harrison, Chief Operating Officer at Manchester Airport Group, said: "Everyone involved is happy with them - they are safe, security like them and in a recent survey 100% of passengers were satisfied with them and prefer them to frisking.
  "It's frustrating that Brussels has allowed this successful trial to end by failing to make a decision on them at an additional cost of £1.3m to Manchester Airport."
  He added: "Our security surveys and those run by the Department for Transport show passengers regularly rate their experience at Manchester as one of the best security processes in the UK if not Europe.
  "There's no doubt that body scanners play a big part in these results."
  The body scanners use a low dose of X-rays to scan through clothing, producing naked images of passengers to identify whether they have concealed items.
  They were deemed safe in a report by the EC in March.
  The EC had stopped trials of the scanners last November while concerns they could emit harmful levels of radiation were investigated. However, Manchester Airport continued to use them as it was an existing trial.
  Unlike the body scanners, the new "privacy-friendly" scanners will not need a member of security in a remote room to check the images.
  They produce automatic cartoon-style images of passengers, thus providing more privacy.
  But additional staff are required to frisk passengers when the images show potential "threat areas" suggesting there might be concealed items.
  The EC has yet to comment.
BACK FLIPPING RETARD STUPID PROPAGANDA FAIL '' THERE IS NO U.S. EMBASSY, CONSULATE, OR ANY U.S. REPRESENTATION OF ANY SORT IN BENGHAZI LIBYA. EMBASSY KILLINGS NEVER HAPPENED.
  Link to Article
  Source: Een andere kijk op nieuws @infomagnl » Nieuws items
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:40
  So how, PRAY TELL, was a U.S. consulate raided there, people murdered there, and butt raped in the name of Mohammed? This is BEYOND wag the dog!Here is the link to the Department of State web site, with a complete list of All U.S. embassies, consulates, and diplomatic missions world wide. http://www.usembassy.gov/ There is one in Libya, obviously in Tripoli. And I will state right now that I have that Embassy page saved and captured, in case someone decides to bury this by faking Benghazi in for a while.To further bolster this fact, Here is Google Maps of Benghazi Libya. Delete Benghazi Libya from the search window, and type the word EMBASSY or CONSULATE there. Because one does not exist in Benghazi, it will throw you to an alternative location near you. Here is the Wikipedia list, no doubt soon to be faked, it will happen fast here Wont last long and if any fakes get thrown in, well, there are TONS of lists out there, and I will just snag another. They can't bury this lie.
  No wonder the Libyans are pissed! Is ANY of this real? Are there ANY embassy raids or riots happening ANYWHERE? This kind of desperate lying would indeed be used if an attack on Iran was SO IMMINENT THAT THE CONSEQUENCES OF GETTING CAUGHT IN THE LIE ARE IRRELEVANT. All they need is to fake it till they make the vote, and then say OOPS, we got the story wrong.
  This begs the question, WHERE did the pictures and video come from? Answer. The U.S. and Israel are so guilty of so many war crimes that this type of footage is commonplace in archives. Since the consulate does not exist, they can put up any picture of any building they want and call it that, and no one is going to say "that is not what it looks like".
  Many of you are worried about what is coming next. They handed us the silver bullet. Please use this bullet to shoot out the heart of the media werewolf, THIS IS THE BIG CHANCE. This lie is SO BRAZEN and SO OBVIOUS that it should be enough to tip the balance and destroy the credibility of CNN, FOX, ABC, YOU NAME IT, ONCE AND FOR ALL WITH ANYONE. Don't miss this chance, because once awaken to the fact that the media really does lie, a blinded lamb will often go bull stomping crazy.
  And with the darkness of this hour, we definitely need it.
  This article has withstood the scrutiny of several people on the forum who worked through the night to protect the credibility of this web site (and I thank them). One of them pointed out THIS ARTICLE, which speaks of the reopening of the U.S. embassy in Tripoli on August 27, which had to be rebuilt new after the war. Don't let this confuse you, there is no Benghazi embassy, consulate, or diplomatic mission too new to be in any record.GO HANG THEM.
Kijk! Een boze CHINEES!
  Link to Article
  Source: GeenStijl
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:40
  Heus niet alleen salafistische hakbars in Arabiriestan zijn pislink vanwege dat stomme youtubefilmpje. Ook Chinezen lopen al het hele weekend met het stoom uit de oren door de straten. Komt door een stokoude fittie met Japan over eilandjes. En dus meppen Chinamensen iedere Toyota-bestuurder knockout, worden Japanse drogisterijen kort en klein geslagen & vliegen buitenlandse supelmalkten in de fik. Normaal krijgt iedere protesterende Chinees direct een militaire knuppel in zijn nek. Maar nu de volkswoede tegen de oude vijand keert vinden ze het in Peking allemaal wel best. Dan gaat het tenminste niet over de knikkers. Check die romantische portretjes van de Voormalige Grote Leider. Meer pix van de kapitalistische-communistische-nationalitische massahysterie HIER. Duiding van het conflict in cartoonvorm DAAR.
  Brusselmans | 17-09-12 | 11:11 | Link |
The TPP: The Corporate Wish-List The NYT Doesn't Want You To Know About
  Link to Article
  Source: NYTimes eXaminer
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:38
  September 17, 2012 · 0 Comments
  Source: NYTX
  By Palak Amin:
  The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is the stuff CEO dreams are made out of but a nightmare for the 99%. The NYT wants to keep its readers in the dark about all of its far-reaching implications.
  When Obama announced in 2009 that the US would join the TPP, or when hundreds of corporate lobbyists joined the first round of talks in 2010, or when portions of the highly secretive TPP texts were leaked this summer, or when the fourteenth round of talks began amid protests last week, the NYT was silent on what, exactly, the TPP is. Virtually the only articles devoted to the TPP over this period are framed as whether Japan's farmers would let Japan join the wonderful TPP (it did not).
  According to the NYT, the TPP is little more than a free trade agreement, and will naturally help create jobs in the US. It is typically only mentioned in passing. For example, in a July 7, 2012 article titled ''Clinton Makes Effort to Rechannel the Rivalry With China,'' Jane Perlez writes,
  ''President Obama, fearful that the United States risked being shunted aside in Asia, embraced an initiative last fall known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership that aims to create a new free trade group among some Asian countries, several Latin American nations and the United States.''
  So when the TPP is mentioned, it is often accompanied by an appeal to American fears about Asia rising or jobs receding, and then dropped.
  The TPP is, in fact, much more than just a free trade agreement. It also includes chapters on investment, intellectual property rights, financial services, and copyright protections.
  Leaked texts indicate what the seemingly innocuous chapters mean. Under the investment chapter, the TPP dramatically extends the rights of foreign corporations and investors to challenge domestic laws in independent tribunals, leading Laurel Sutherlin at The Understory to call the TPP nothing less than ''a worldwide corporate power grab of enormous proportions.'' The provisions basically allow corporations to attack domestic environmental and consumer protection laws in an extra-judicial legal system. Sierra Club, an environmental organization, states that
  ''Our worst fears about the investment chapter have been confirmed by this leaked text'... This investment chapter would severely undermine attempts to strengthen environmental law and policy.''
  Meanwhile, the intellectual property rights chapter pushed by the pharmaceutical industry would claim millions of innocent lives by preventing access to affordable medicines through a variety of measures. One of these measures, data exclusivity, is actually explored by the NYT in an online-only Opinionator post by Tina Rosenberg on July 26, 2011. Rosenberg writes,
  ''trade office officials have said they would likely follow what the pharmaceutical industry wants on the extremely controversial issue of data exclusivity '-- rules that discourage generic production by keeping data proprietary, requiring generic manufacturers to re-do clinical trials.''
  This should be an outrage, but as far as the rest of the NYT is concerned, the TPP is simply a free trade agreement, not an agreement dictated by Big Pharma to raise the price of medicines at the cost of untold lives.
  As if all of this isn't bad enough, the financial services chapter is likely to expand the clout of banks and prevent their regulation, while the economy still suffers from the sub-prime mortgage fiasco. The copyright protects sought will help curtail freedom of speech online. The ACLU calls the TPP, ''The biggest threat to intellectual property and free speech that you've never heard of.''
  Further, it seems unlikely that the TPP will greatly increase US exports and lead to job creation in the US. The US already has free trade agreements with six of the TPP countries: Australia, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Singapore, which make up 90% of the combined nominal GDP of the TPP nations. The Citizens Trade Campaign states,
  ''Given the bleak prospects of increasing exports significantly among the current Trans-Pacific Partnership members, some have suggested that the TPP seems more about accessing cheaper-and-cheaper supply chains and advancing deregulation than it is about increasing U.S. exports.''
  In fact, two of the four TPP countries that the US does not have a free trade agreement with are Vietnam and Brunei, which have very poor labor conditions and possible human rights violations.
  So naturally, the most recent NYT article to mention the TPP, written by Reuters for the IHT, is titled, ''Asia-Pacific Forum to Cut Import Duties for Green Technologies.'' Buried under this positive coverage on APEC, it states,
  ''The Trans-Pacific Partnership ties in with President Barack Obama's goal of doubling American exports within five years of his election in 2008'... The Citizens Trade Campaign, a U.S. umbrella group, has criticized the Trans-Pacific Partnership process as overly secretive and has called demonstrations against the Leesburg talks, fearing that a free trade deal could result in the loss of American jobs.''
  In fact, in addition to the Citizens Trade Campaign, representatives from a variety of environmental, medical, labor, and other citizen's interests groups, including Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam America, signed up to present their concerns to negotiators at the TPP talks last week. And demonstrators, drawn from these groups, were protesting far more than a potential loss of American jobs, because the TPP is far more than a free trade agreement.
  If the complete text of the TPP were released, how many more causes for protest would citizens find? And if the NYT gave it the coverage it deserves, how many more protesters would there be?
  Sources:
  Ian Fletcher, ''Leak Cracks Open Trans-Pacific Partnership Scandal'' Huffington PostPosted: 06/13/2012
  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/leak-cracks-open-transpac_b_1594675.html
  Office of the United States Trade Representative Website
  http://www.ustr.gov/tpp
  Arthur Stamoulis, '''''Bigger-than-NAFTA' Leesburg Trade Summit Attracts Controversy, Protest'' Citizen's Trade Campaign
  http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/TPPLeesburgReportersMemo.pdf
  Laurel Sutherlin, ''Meet the TPP: A Worldwide Corporate Power Grab of Enormous Proportions'' The UnderstorySept 10, 2012
  http://understory.ran.org/2012/09/10/meet-the-tpp-a-worldwide-corporate-power-grab-of-enormous-proportions/
  Sierra Club, ''The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (aka NAFTA on Steroids): What it could mean for the Environment''
  http://www.sierraclub.org/trade/downloads/TPP-Factsheet.pdf
  Robert Naiman, ''Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: Drone Strikes on People With AIDS?'' Huffington PostPosted: 09/10/2012
  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/trans-pacific-partnership-agreement_b_1871710.html
  Doctors Without Borders, ''How the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Threatens Access to Medicines''
  http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/2011/MSF-TPP-Issue-Brief.pdf
  Sandra Fulton, ''The Biggest Threat to Free Speech and Intellectual Property That You've Never Heard Of''Aug 29, 2012
  http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-technology-and-liberty-national-security/biggest-threat-free-speech-and
  Brian Wingfield, ''Protesters Seek Openness at Pacific-Region Trade Pact Talks'' BloombergSept 9, 2012
  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-09/protesters-seek-openness-at-pacific-region-trade-pact-talks-1-.html
  NYT Articles referencing the TPP:
  Clinton Makes Effort to Rechannel the Rivalry With China
  By JANE PERLEZPublished: July 7, 2012
  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/world/asia/for-clinton-an-effort-to-rechannel-the-rivalry-with-china.html
  Asia-Pacific Forum to Cut Import Duties for Green Technologies
  By REUTERSPublished: September 7, 2012
  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/business/energy-environment/asia-pacific-forum-to-cut-import-duties-for-green-technologies.html
  Republican House Could Re-energize Trade TalksBy SEWELL CHANPublished: November 4, 2010
  http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F05EED71631F937A35752C1A9669D8B63
  Exporting Our Way to StabilityBy BARACK OBAMAPublished: November 5, 2010
  http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/opinion/06obama.html
  Japan's Farmers Oppose Pacific Free-Trade TalksBy HIROKO TABUCHIPublished: November 11, 2010
  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/business/global/12yen.html?pagewanted=all
  Obama and Asia-Pacific Leaders Vow to Work Toward Freer TradeBy MARTIN FACKLER and SHERYL GAY STOLBERGPublished: November 14, 2010
  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/world/asia/15diplo.html
  I.H.T. Op-Ed ContributorJapan's Overblown AnxietyBy IAN BREMMERPublished: November 16, 2010
  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/opinion/17iht-edbremmer.html
  Google Sees Rules Violations in Limits on Internet AccessBy KEITH BRADSHER and CLAIRE CAIN MILLERPublished: November 16, 2010
  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/technology/17google.html
  INSIDE ASIA; Japan Premier's Balancing Act on Joining Pacific Free Trade GroupBy ALAN WHEATLEY | REUTERSPublished: February 15, 2011http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0DE5D61E39F936A25751C0A9679D8B63
  Opinionator '' A Gathering of Opinion From Around the WebFixes July 26, 2011, 9:45 pm 19 CommentsA Trade Barrier to Defeating AIDSBy TINA ROSENBERG
  http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/a-trade-barrier-to-defeating-aids/
  Op-Ed ContributorAn Overlooked Way to Create JobsBy C. FRED BERGSTENPublished: September 28, 2011
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/opinion/an-overlooked-way-to-create-jobs.html?_r=1
  Obama Trip Stresses Ties to Economies Across PacificBy JACKIE CALMESPublished: November 11, 2011
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/world/asia/obama-trip-stresses-ties-to-economies-across-pacific.html
  Premier Says Japan Will Join Pacific Free Trade TalksBy HIROKO TABUCHIPublished: November 11, 2011
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/world/asia/japan-to-join-talks-on-pacific-trade-pact.html
  Obama Sees an Opening on China TradeBy JACKIE CALMESPublished: November 12, 2011
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/world/asia/obama-sees-an-opening-on-china-trade.html
  News AnalysisAs U.S. Looks to Asia, It Sees China EverywhereBy IAN JOHNSON and JACKIE CALMESPublished: November 15, 2011
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/world/asia/united-states-sees-china-everywhere-as-it-shifts-attention-to-asia.html?pagewanted=all
  A U.S. Marine Base for Australia Irritates ChinaBy JACKIE CALMESPublished: November 16, 2011
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/world/asia/obama-and-gillard-expand-us-australia-military-ties.html?pagewanted=all
  Op-Ed ContributorAn Upbeat View of America's 'Bad' YearBy IAN BREMMER AND DAVID F. GORDONPublished: December 27, 2011
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/opinion/an-upbeat-view-of-americas-bad-year.html?pagewanted=all
  Obama Vow on Exports Is on Track, With HelpBy ANNIE LOWREYPublished: January 20, 2012
  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/business/us-on-track-to-meet-goal-of-higher-exports.html
  India's Supreme Court to Hear Dispute on Drug PatentsBy VIKAS BAJAJ and ANDREW POLLACKPublished: March 6, 2012
  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/business/global/indias-supreme-court-to-hear-long-simmering-dispute-on-drug-patents.html
  Asian Leaders at Regional Meeting Fail to Resolve Disputes Over South China SeaBy JANE PERLEZPublished: July 12, 2012
  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/world/asia/asian-leaders-fail-to-resolve-disputes-on-south-china-sea-during-asean-summit.html?pagewanted=all
  By admin
James Taylor sues Warner Bros over digital royalties
  Link to Article
  Source: Culture | guardian.co.uk
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:34
  Digital damages '... James Taylor claims Warner Bros has underpaid royalties on downloads of his songs. Photograph: NBCUPhotobank/Rex Features
  Singer-songwriter James Taylor has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against his former label, Warner Bros, claiming they have underpaid royalties on downloads of his songs. As in similar cases brought by Eminem and the Temptations, the principal issue is the royalty rate for downloads or ringtones among artists who signed record contracts prior to the advent of digital music sales.
  According to papers filed last week, Taylor is seeking at least $2m (£1.2m) in compensatory damages, plus interest. He claims that Warner is paying him for MP3 sales based on a royalty rate that should only apply "to phonograph records". The 64-year-old argues that a digital sale should be treated as a licensed copy of a master recording, not as a newly pressed physical record '' entitling him to as much as 400% more in royalties.
  All of this stems from a landmark ruling in 2010, when a company representing Eminem's publishing rights won a case against Aftermath Records. The label was ordered to pay royalties on downloads and ringtones according to the rate for licensing, not sales. Since then, a wide range of acts have pursued their labels for compensation; Taylor's lawyer, Richard Busch, was involved in the Eminem case, as well as claims by the Knack, Peter Frampton and "Weird Al" Yankovic.
  Besides the matter of the royalty rate, Taylor has also accused Warner Bros of other accounting discrepancies, including the unauthorised use of his master recordings on compilation albums. The singer was signed to the label from 1969 to 1979, his most successful period: 1970's Sweet Baby James and 1971's Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon were top 10 albums in the US and in Britain.
  Taylor's most recent studio album was 2008's Covers.
Nederland maakt bezwaar tegen vrouwenquotum
  Link to Article
  Source: VK: Home
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:32
  Bewerkt door: redactie ''17/09/12, 12:10 '' bron: ANP
  Nederland ziet de invoering van vrouwenquota in de besturen van beursgenoteerde bedrijven niet zitten. Den Haag is het niet eens met de suggestie van Europees Commissaris Viviane Reding (Justitie) om een quotum van 40 procent in te voeren.
  Samen met acht andere EU-lidstaten heeft Nederland dit Brussel laten weten, bevestigde een woordvoerster van Reding maandag. Reding neemt nota van de bezwaren, meldt de zegsvrouw. Zij benadrukte dat er nog geen definitief voorstel op tafel ligt.
  Nederland en de acht andere landen erkennen dat er te weinig vrouwen in de top van bedrijven zijn. Maar zij vinden dat dat nationaal moet worden opgelost.
Kate Middleton's Not The First In Nude Scandal! Other Royals Who Have Been Caught Undressed
  Link to Article
  Source: Radar Online
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:29
  Getty / WENN / PCN
  By Radar Staff
  It seems the British Royals can't catch a break from camera lenses in recent weeks with Kate Middleton's topless picture scandal hot on the heels of a nakedPrince Harryliving it up in Vegas.
  But the young Royals can take solace in the fact that they are not the first ones in their regal family to get caught in uncompromising positions by a shutterbug.
  PHOTOS: 20 Years Of Royals Caught In Nude Photo
  Twenty years ago Sarah Fergusoncaused embarrassment to the Windsors when she was photographed having her toes sucked by Texan financier John Bryan while lying around topless on a sun chair in the South of France just months after her official separation from Prince Andrew. The shocking images were the final nail in the coffin to her marriage to the Duke of York.
  And in 1994, Paris Match and German paper Bild, published naked pictures of Prince Charles taken as he took a vacation at a chateau near Avignon, again in France.
  The heir to the throne was seen standing by a window in all of his royal glory after going for a swim and just had a white robe tossed over his shoulder.
  PHOTOS: William And Kate's High Flying Rainforest Adventure
  And even the elder royals have had their share of blushes including just earlier this month when Prince Philip was caught out as he sat wearing his kilt at the Highland Games in Scotland. And in the traditional manner did not wear any underwear beneath the Scottish garb which allowed a snapper to get a clear shot of the 91-year-old's crown jewels.
  Other shocking pictures of the Royals include those taken just days before Princess Diana's death in 1997 when images were snapped of her in a passionate clinch with boyfriend Dodi Fayed on a yacht in the French Riviera.
  RELATED STORIES:
  PHOTOS: 10 Stars Involved In Nude Photo Scandals
  Kate Middleton Gives Hopeful Speech In Malaysia: 'Lives Can Be Transformed'
  PHOTOS: Prince Harry Hits The London Clubs
  Media Blitz Surrounding Prince Harry Arrival In Afghanistan Makes Him Al-Qaeda Target
China, Japan heading towards war, says US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta
  Link to Article
  Source: BlackListedNews.com
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:29
  CHINA and other Asian countries could end up at war over territorial disputes if governments keep up their ''provocative behaviour'', US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has said.
  Speaking to reporters before arriving in Tokyo on a trip to Asia, Mr Panetta appealed for restraint amid mounting tensions over territorial rights in the East China Sea and the South China Sea.
  ''I am concerned that when these countries engage in provocations of one kind or another over these various islands, that it raises the possibility that a misjudgment on one side or the other could result in violence, and could result in conflict,'' Mr Panetta said, when asked about a clash between Japan and China.
  ''And that conflict would then have the potential of expanding.''
  Full story here.
  >> Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
''Innocence of muslims''- er klopt iets niet
  Link to Article
  Source: Een andere kijk op nieuws @infomagnl » Nieuws items
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:27
  gecureerd van wordpress.com op 17 september 2012We beginnen nu sterk te twijfelen aan de officile lezing hoe Chris Stevens aan zijn eind is gekomen, waar dat is gebeurd en wie dat heeft gedaan. We zijn niet de enige die er zo over denken.http://www.jimstonefreelance.com/benghazi.html
  Komen we dus weer terug op wat we gisteren ons al afvroegen: WAAROM moest Chris Stevens dood?
  Alleen goedgelovige sukkels onder ons zweren bij toevalligheden en gelukstreffers, sommigen bewijzen dat ook hier iedere dag weer opnieuw. Wij geloven daar niet in.
  Chris Stevens was een enthousiast internationaal bereisd man en geloofde in zijn missie. Ieder heeft recht op zijn beleving. Maar misschien wist hij inmiddels iets wat de wereld niet mocht weten. Het zou misschien iets te maken kunnen hebben met Ghadaffi of diens zoon, die maar niet wordt uitgeleverd, hetgeen merkwaardig genoemd mag worden.
  Of we ooit het ware verhaal te horen krijgen is zeer twijfelachtig. In ieder geval is het zeker, dat wat ons wordt voorgezet niet te pruimen is. Als Al-Qaeda die moord op zijn geweten heeft, mogen we rustig noteren, dat de CIA c.s achter de operatie zit. Al-Qaeda is een CIA/MI6/Mossad operatie. De speciaal opgerichte terreurtak om moslims op straat te krijgen en Westerlingen aan de TV gekluisterd. Al-Qaeda is 100% gecontroleerd door de inlichtingendiensten. De club hielp Ghadaffi verdrijven en is nu aan het vechten tegen Assad in Syri. Maar WIJ moeten en zullen geloven, dat het fanatieke islamisten zijn en ons allemaal dood willen hebben - hou toch op!
  Met dat filmpje, de maker en de financiers klopt het dus van geen kant.
  Met de aanslag in Libi klopt het dus k van geen kant.
  Hoeveel fanatieke idiote moslims hebben we nu op straat mogen signaleren? In Amsterdam waren het er 100 man, dus dat viel weer reuze mee. Deze media-operatie gaat net zo hard door de mand vallen als het gexplodeerde busje in Bulgarije. Ondertussen staat de wereld stijf van berichten over rellen, ambassades, brandstichtingen, opstootjes, onthoofdingen, verkrachtingen, sharia ook in Europa, etc.
  Waar je niet zo veel over hoort is de donatie van ons (EU) aan de moslim broeders in Egypte van, om maar bescheiden te beginnen, EUR 1 miljard! Hoor je weinig over, want het komt niet op TV, dus zal het wel niet zo zijn.
  Bekijk orgineel item op wordpress.com
  Meer Nieuws items
Merkel: snel stappen zetten naar politieke unie
  Link to Article
  Source: Een andere kijk op nieuws @infomagnl » Nieuws items
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:26
  gecureerd van www.volkskrant.nl op 17 september 2012De Duitse bondskanselier Angela Merkel hoopt dat er voor het einde van het jaar stappen kunnen worden gezet naar meer politieke integratie in de eurozone. Dat zei ze maandag op een persconferentie.'We moeten verdere stappen zetten', stelde Merkel. 'Deze crisis moet vooral op politiek niveau worden opgelost. We moeten nu doen wat we niet genoeg hebben gedaan op het moment dat de euro werd gentroduceerd.'
  Daarbij gaat het volgens Merkel vooral om een betere onderlinge afstemming van het economische beleid in de eurozone en om betere manieren om landen ter verantwoording te roepen. Daarnaast moeten er manieren worden verzonnen om eurolanden met een slechte concurrentiepositie te helpen, stelde ze.
  Merkel zei ook dat politici zich niet moeten mengen in steunmaatregelen van de Europese Centrale Bank (ECB). De ECB hervat het opkopen van staatsobligaties om de leenkosten voor zwakke eurolanden als Itali en Spanje te drukken. Het is niet aan politici om grenzen te stellen aan dat programma. Dat is het domein van de ECB', aldus Merkel.
  Bekijk orgineel item op www.volkskrant.nl
  Meer Nieuws items
Iran will pursue makers of anti-Islam film: vice-president
  Link to Article
  Source: Een andere kijk op nieuws @infomagnl » Nieuws items
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:26
  gecureerd van reuters.com op 17 september 2012Iran's government will "track down" those responsible for making an amateurish film clip mocking the Prophet Mohammad, a senior official said, Iranian media reported on Monday.The video made in California and posted on YouTube portrayed the Prophet Mohammad as a womanizer and a fool. It has ignited a week of violent protests across the Muslim world.
  "The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns ... this inappropriate and offensive action," First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said, according to the Mehr news agency.
  "Certainly it will search for, track, and pursue this guilty person who ... has insulted 1.5 billion Muslims in the world."
  The Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, condemned to death the Indian-born British novelist Salman Rushdie in 1989 for his novel "The Satanic Verses," saying its depiction of the Prophet Mohammad was blasphemous.
  Iranian officials have demanded that the United States apologize to Muslims for the movie, saying it is only the latest in a series of Western insults aimed at Islam's holy figures.
  Bekijk orgineel item op reuters.com
  Meer Nieuws items
The Light Bulb Reinvented by Phil Bosua '-- Kickstarter
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:14
  LIFX is the smartest light bulb you've ever experienced. It's a wifi-enabled, energy efficient, multi-colored bulb that you control with your iPhone or Android. LIFX gives you unprecedented control of your lights, reduces your energy costs, lasts up to 25 years and delivers an amazing range of experiences we think you'll love.
  LIFX is incredibly easy to set-up. Simply replace your existing bulbs with LIFX smartbulbs, download and install our free app from the App Store or Google Play and you're good to go.
  We [Phil Bosua, Andrew Birt, Andy Gelme, John Bosua, Ben Hamey, Dave Evans and Guy King] have designed, redesigned and reimagined LIFX many times during the past six months, pouring countless hours into thinking about the user experience, the technical aspects of the project and how to deliver the world's smartest lightbulb to you at an affordable price point. You can help bring LIFX bulbs to the world by being the very first to own them!
  LED lighting is the future of home and commercial lighting around the world. LED's have reached a price point and level of consistency where they're now the best alternative to incandescent bulbs for their energy efficiency [they use approx. 1/10th the energy of standard household bulbs].
  These bulbs will not only bring you a great experience, but are one of the easiest ways to reduce your energy bills and impact on the environment.
  In addition they're unbelievably long-lasting. Just like standard LED light bulbs, LIFX smartbulbs are rated to 40,000 hour / up to 25 year standards.
  LIFX is a revolution in home lighting and will allow you to save money and reduce your environmental impact. With up to 20% of homes power consumption coming from lighting, it makes sense to switch to LED technology and even more sense to switch to LIFX LED smartbulbs. But this is just part of the story, LIFX is about the experience.
  Control your lights from anywhereChoose any brightness for a specific bulb, a room or your whole houseCreate the colors to match any mood or decorGet notifications such as Twitter, Facebook, Texts and moreReduce your energy consumption and save moneyVisualise your music with animated colorsMake an impression at your next dinner party Get creative with colors and effects Create a night light for your kidsSecurity mode when you're on holidays Create groups of lights Robot dance like it's 1999There's many more things you can do with LiFX smartbulbs in fact we're creating a software developer kit (SDK) and a hacker kit so hackers and developers alike will be able to release more and more apps to do things we haven't even thought of yet.
  The free LIFX App will be available on the App Store and Google Play and we also have plans for a Windows, Mac and Linux app. If we achieve our goal we'll fast track the development of these apps across each platform.
  The LIFX app is one of our favorite aspects of the entire project, and we've spent countless hours thinking about how you can interact with your lights.
  We're aware that while the hardware is the most visible and interesting part of this project our software is the soul.
  LIFX comes as either a single bulb or can be purchased in packs. Each LIFX bulb is ready to install straight away. Simply choose the type of bulb you need (Edison Screw, Bayonet Cap or Downlight) and you're ready. If you ever need to purchase additional bulbs, these all form part of your mesh network, meaning every LIFX you buy can be controlled via the same app without reconfiguring.
  Bayonet cap Edison ScrewDownlightAfter the project has finished we will be sending out surveys to all KS backers asking which type of the above LIFX smartbulb casing you want. You will be able to mix and match bulbs styles in any combination. We are preparing more details on the above casings and other options that will be available in the next few weeks including dimensions and more. The more pledges we receive the more options will be available. Please direct message us if you have a preference for casing style/type that is not on the above list.
  LIFX uses a master/slave concept to connect to your home router via 802.11n and then onto all the other LIFX smartbulbs via IPV6 802.15.4 mesh network. Each LIFX can connect to all country electricity systems from 110V to 260V. This includes USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia and 95% of other countries around the world.
  Your light switch needs to remain on for the smartbulb to be accessible with the LIFX app. However you can use any light switch to turn your smartbulbs on and off like you do with traditional bulbs.
  LIFX uses a mesh network. The standby power usage of each bulb is very small, in fact a AA battery would keep a LIFX smartbulb in standby mode for approximately 1-2 years. [note: The master bulb requires a WiFi connection which uses approximately 2-3 watts. Only 1x master bulb is required in each home/office.]
  The LIFX prototype uses an RGB phosphorous COB LED lamp which is approx. the equivalent of a 60 watt incandescent bulb or 50 watt halogen downlight. We are looking into all the options on the best type/brand of LED lamp to use in the production model. Getting this right is something we are very passionate about. (real world comparison - actual lumens of LIFX rated at higher levels than 60w incandescent bulbs)
  We couldn't have done this without our distributed systems hacker Andy Gelme who is the lead engineer on LIFX. He's been at the forefront of automation technology for many years creating systems that run on top of open industry standards.
  We will be releasing a LIFX Software Development Kit (SDK) that will allow mobile App developers and home automation hackers full control over their LIFX smartbulbs. This includes using a small scripting engine that runs within the LIFX smartbulb. Stay tuned for more details. We can't wait to see what amazing hacks you come up with.
  We love the internet of things, home automation and the overall concept of the smart home but we also understand for most people it is a large chasm to jump. This understanding has been one of the guiding forces in the design of the LIFX smartbulb - to start with one commonly used household item and make it smart, easy to use and accessible to everyone.
  LIFX Smartbulbs have been designed and prototyped in Melbourne, Australia and San Francisco, USA and we plan to manufacture via a trusted partner with operations in based in Melbourne and Shenzhen. We realise that whilst we're reinventing the lightbulb this doesn't mean we have to reinvent the manufacturing process. We are using as many standard LED lighting components as possible. These components have undergone rigid testing and stood the test of time. We are also very excited to create our own LIFX customised computer board "the brains" of this project. Also fully featured FREE apps will be available on the App Store® and Google Play® designed by Bonobo Labs.
  "LIFX answers a need that is well and truly overdue. Everyone in the world needs light bulbs. Existing light bulbs are based on an archaic technology that threatens our environment. Light bulbs consume approximately 20% of electricity in homes around the world. They need to be more efficient, smarter and last longer. In the twenty-first century, people need lighting that matches the "smart culture" and eco aware sensibilities of our day."
  Phil Bosua - Inventor of the LIFX smartbulb
Robert Reich (Why Romney and Ryan are Going Down)
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 10:33
  Unemployment is still above 8 percent, job gains aren't even keeping up with population growth, the economy is barely moving forward. And yet, according to most polls, the Romney-Ryan ticket is falling further and further behind. How can this be?
  Because Republicans are failing the central test of electability. Instead of putting together the largest possible coalition of voters, they're relying largely on one slice of America '-- middle-aged white men '-- and alienating just about everyone else.
  Start with Hispanics, whose electoral heft keeps growing as they become an ever-larger portion of the electorate. Hispanics now favor President Obama over Romney-Ryan by a larger margin than they did six months ago.
  Why? In last February's Republican primary debate Romney dubbed Arizona's controversial immigration policy '' that authorized police to demand proof of citizenship from anyone looking Hispanic '-- a ''model law'' for the rest of the nation.
  Romney then attacked GOP rival Texas Governor Rick Perry for supporting in-state tuition at the University of Texas for children of undocumented immigrants. And Romney advocates what he calls ''self-deportation'' '' making life so difficult for undocumented immigrants and their families that they choose to leave.
  As if all this weren't enough, the GOP has been pushing voter ID laws all over America, whose obvious aim is to intimidate Hispanic voters so they won't come to the polls. But they may be having the opposite effect '' emboldening the vast majority of ethnic Hispanics, who are American citizens, to vote in even greater numbers and lend even more support to Obama and other Democrats.
  Or consider women '' whose political and economic impact in America continues to grow (women are fast becoming better educated than men and the major breadwinners in American homes). According to polls, the political gender gap is widening.
  Why? It's not just GOP senatorial candidate Todd Akin's call to ban all abortions even in the case of ''legitimate rape'' (because he believes women's bodies somehow reject violent sperm). The GOP platform itself seeks to bar all abortions, with no exception for rape or incest. And on several occasions Paul Ryan has voted in favor of exactly such legislation.
  Meanwhile, Republican legislators in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Idaho, and Alabama have pushed bills requiring women seeking abortions to undergo invasive vaginal ultrasound tests. All told, over 400 Republican bills are pending in state legislatures, attacking womens' reproductive rights.
  Republicans have repeatedly voted against legislation giving women equal pay for the same work as men. Republicans in Wisconsin have even repealed a law designed to prevent employers from discriminating against women.
  Or consider students '' a significant and growing electoral force, who voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008. What are Republicans doing to woo them back?
  Paul Ryan's budget plan '' approved by almost every House Republican and enthusiastically endorsed by Mitt Romney '' would have allowed rates on student loans to double, adding an average of $1,000 a year to student debt loads. (Under mounting political pressure, House Republicans came up with just enough money to keep the loan program going safely past Election Day by raiding a fund established for preventive care in the new health-care act.)
  Now Romney wants to hand the federal student loan program over to the banks, which will charge even more. Earlier this year he argued subsidized student loans were bad because they encouraged colleges to raise their tuition, and suggested students ask their families for money.
  Republicans have even managed to antagonize seniors by seeking to turn Medicare into vouchers whose value won't keep up with rising healthcare costs, and cutting $800 billion out of Medicaid (which many seniors rely on for nursing home care).
  And, of course, they've come out against equal marriage rights for gay couples.
  Romney, Ryan, and the GOP don't seem to know how to satisfy their middle-aged white male base without at the same time turning off everyone who's not white, male, straight, or middle-aged. Unfortunately for Romney and Ryan, the people they're turning off are the majority.
Toronto SUN
  Link to Article
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 10:25
  Alexandra Hudson, ReutersMonday, September 10, 2012, 2:51 PMFormer German first lady Bettina Wulff leaves an aircraft arriving from'the London 2012 Paralympics at the airport in Hanover, September 10, 2012. AFP PHOTO / JULIAN STRATENSCHULTE
  BERLIN - Germany's former first lady Bettina Wulff has used a new autobiography to reject allegations that she once worked as an escort and announced legal measures to try to silence the rumours, which have spread over the Internet.
  Wulff, 38, was Germany's youngest first lady when her husband Christian became president in 2010.
  She was initially celebrated in the German media as a glamorous and independent-minded woman, with endless column inches devoted to the tattoo on her arm and her fashion sense, seemingly giving Germany its answer to Michelle Obama and French first lady Carla Bruni.
  But rumours about her past began to appear online just as her husband was becoming embroiled in a financial favours scandal that forced him out of the largely ceremonial post in February.
  Photographs of ''Lady Viktoria'', a blonde wearing a black blindfold, were avidly compared with pictures of Wulff on the Internet. No allegations were reported in mainstream media, but Wulff became the subject of jokes.
  In the new book, due out this week, the mother-of-two says the allegations have hurt her deeply.
  ''I have never worked as an escort,'' she writes.
  In a chapter of her book entitled ''The Rumours'', Wulff writes: ''Apparently my pseudonym was Lady Viktoria and my place of work was an establishment called 'Chateau Osnabrueck'.''
  Wulff, whose husband was once considered a rival to Chancellor Angela Merkel, has also taken legal steps, including bringing a complaint against the Internet search engine Google.
  Entering Bettina Wulff's name in the German language version of the site automatically generates the words ''escort'' and ''prostitute'' as suggested search terms. Wulff described her fear that her son could see this.
  ''If he puts my name in and those are the first expressions he sees ... then I find that so horrid and shameful. I can't put the feeling into words.''
  DAMAGES PAID
  Google has said it does not select these words itself.
  ''Google's automatically generated search suggestions reflect the actual searches users are carrying out. Suggested expressions are generated by algorithms from many objective factors, including the popularity of the search term,'' Kay Oberbeck, a spokesman for Google, said in a statement.
  Wulff's lawyer said a number of publishing outlets had agreed to pay her damages for reporting the allegation, but did not name the parties or say how much they had paid.
  The German Journalists' Association (DJV) questioned the timing of the legal action.
  ''The fact that this is happening at the same time as her book is going on sale arouses suspicions of a PR campaign designed to get attention,'' said Michael Konken, the head of the association.
  Christian Wulff separated from his wife of 18 years in 2006 and married Bettina, a press officer who had a son from a previous relationship, two years later.
  Wulff was premier of the state of Lower Saxony from 2003 to 2010 and a deputy leader of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) before the chancellor nominated him to become president.
  German media have suggested the rumours about his wife were invented by political rivals to discredit him.
  Wulff's standing started to unravel last year when Germany's top-selling newspaper Bild accused him of misleading the state parliament over a cheap home loan from a businessman friend.
  He threatened the editor of Bild with ''war'' if he published the story, then later apologised.
  After that a stream of allegations about unpaid-for flight upgrades, hotel stays and gifts chipped away at his credibility.
  Joachim Gauck, a former East German rights activist and Protestant pastor, succeeded Wulff as head of state in March.
The Puppetry of Quotation Approval
  Link to Article
  Source: Dave Winer's linkblog feed
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 04:56
  Now that it's become clear that many journalists covering politics and government agree to quotation-approval as a condition of access, it's tough not to see the pageant of democracy as just that: a carefully constructed performance meant to showcase the participants in the best light.
  In July, my colleague Jeremy Peters pulled back the blanket on the growing practice of allowing political sources to read and approve quotations as a precondition for an interview. His story got attention inside and outside the Beltway, in part because the quotation is the last refuge of spontaneity in an age of endlessly managed messages. When quotations can be unilaterally taken back, the Kabuki is all but complete.
  Those rules of engagement drew new scrutiny last week when Michael Lewis, the author of a forthcoming profile of President Obama in Vanity Fair, acknowledged that he had to get approval for the quotations he used from eight months of extensive access.
  Good thing those of us who cover business don't have to deal with the same self-preserving press policies. Except we do. In an anecdotal survey of 20 reporters, it was clear that on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley and at some of the big media companies I cover, subjects of coverage are asking for, and sometimes receiving, the kind of consideration that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago.
  It used to be that American businesses either told reporters to go away or told them what they wanted to know. Now, a reporter trying to interview a business source is confronted by a phalanx of factotums, preconditions and sometimes a requirement that quotations be approved. What pops out of that process isn't exactly news and isn't exactly a news release, but contains elements of both.
  ''Requests for quote approval rise in direct proportion to the involvement of P.R. people,'' said Felix Salmon, a business columnist at Reuters. ''As the flack-to-hack ratio continues to rise, the number of requests for quote-approval will continue to rise as well.''
  I've had my own encounters. Within the past year, I've had a communications executive at a media company ask me to run quotations by him after an interview with the chief executive. I've had analysts, who are in the business of giving their opinion, ask me to e-mail the portion of the conversation that I intended to print. And not long ago, a spokesman, someone paid to talk, refused to put his name to a statement. Most of the time I push back, but if it's something I feel I absolutely need, I start negotiating.
  As someone who has covered Hollywood, I can't begin to catalog the number of distasteful communications customs in that industry. And reporters I spoke to said Wall Street companies have been trying to negotiate quotations for a decade, in part because one poorly chosen word could cost millions or even billions. But now it is leaking into all corners of the kingdom.
  (How silly can it get? After sending out e-mails to reporters who cover business, I got many revealing stories. But guess what? In most cases their employers '-- news outlets '-- don't allow them to speak on the record.)
  When you think about it, business leaders have more leverage than government executives because there is a presumption that public officials should be just that, public. But politicians and their aides seize on the hyper-competitiveness and bargain with hungry reporters. Ben Smith of BuzzFeed said Mr. Peters's story made him more mindful of the process.
  ''We resist it whenever we can and disclose it when we can't,'' he said.
  A few things are at work here, some of them legitimate. Journalism is a blunt technology. Reporters don't generally record most interviews and can't always type or write as quickly as a subject is speaking. I have been written about enough to know that what appears in quotation marks is sometimes an approximation of what is actually said. Sources want to protect themselves from routine distortion.
  But something else more modern and insidious is under way. In an effort to get it first, reporters sometimes cut corners, sending questions by e-mail and taking responses the same way. What is lost is the back-and-forth, the follow-up question, the possibility that something unrehearsed will make it into the article. Keep in mind that when public figures get in trouble for something they said, it is usually not because they misspoke, but because they accidentally told the truth.
  Even when the ground rules are transparently conveyed in an article, it raises questions. In July 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek did a profile of Elizabeth Warren, the fearless champion of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
  Well, sort of fearless. Deep in the article the writer noted in passing, ''The press office is jittery about allowing reporters to talk to staff on the record, and Warren agreed to two interviews on the condition that Bloomberg Businessweek allow her to approve quotes before publication.'' That caveat made me read the profile with different eyes because the locus of control seemed to be reversed.
  Of course, quotations often serve as furniture in a house that a reporter is free to build as she or he (or their editor) wishes, so it's not as if sources can control the narrative by controlling what appears between quotation marks. But a great quotation, the kind that P.R. folks love to rub out, in my experience, can make an article sing or the truth resonate.
  ''I hate that we find ourselves at this pass,'' said David Von Drehle, a writer for Time who has covered politics for a long time. ''But we are not blameless. Sound-bite journalism that is more interested in reporting isolated 'gaffes' than conveying the actual substance of a person's ideas will naturally cause story subjects to behave defensively.''
  Thankfully, some pushback is under way and young journalists are among those doing the pushing. This month, the editors of The Harvard Crimson said they would no longer allow school officials to approve their quotations. The longstanding policy was discontinued, they wrote in a letter to readers, because ''sometimes the quotations are rejected outright or are rewritten to mean just the opposite of what the administrator said in the recorded interview.''
  Journalism in its purest form is a transaction. But inch by inch, story by story, deal by deal, we are giving away our right to ask a simple question and expect a simple answer, one that can't be taken back. It may seem obvious, but it is still worth stating: The first draft of history should not be rewritten by the people who make it.
Romney Campaign, CIA Mormon Mafia, John Bolton's Islamophobia Network Stir Middle East Chaos to Get October Surprise Against Obama; CIA's Gitmo-Trained Asset Qumu Prime Suspect in Death of Ambassador Stevens
  Link to Article
  Source: TARPLEY.net
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 04:25
  Webster G. Tarpley on Infowars Nightly NewsInfowarsSeptember 16, 2012
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VB Weekly: All the news this week that wasn't about iPhones. And then an iPhone.
  Link to Article
  Source: VentureBeat » Jolie O’Dell
  Mon, 17 Sep 2012 00:18
  Dang, son! This week was all like, ''iPhone, iPhone, blah blah, iPod, iPhone, and oh this one other thing about Facebook.''
  Let's break it down:
  And then, just like that, it was Friday.
  We hope y'all have beautiful, non-iPhone related weekend plans. Go out, get a bucket of water balloons, and throw them at anyone who uses the term ''LTE'' in a sentence.
Does It Matter That Murdered Amb Chris Stevens Was Gay? Only If You Pander to Islam
  Link to Article
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 20:31
  By Debbie Schlussel
  Many readers have been sending me reports that murdered U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens was gay. The website Hillbuzz (a pro-Hillary Clinton/anti-Obama site) posted the news and photos, such as the one below, of Stevens with one of his alleged boyfriends''the boyfriend posted the pics on his Facebook page. I'm amazed at how many conservatives have e-mailed me and/or posted commentary elsewhere about how ''inappropriate'' it was for Barack Obama to send a gay man as a U.S. Ambassador to a Muslim country. Huh? Why should we give a crap what Muslims think about gays? And why should we pander to what they demand? Heck, if I were Prez, I'd send gays, strippers, and Playboy centerfolds as U.S. Ambassadors to every single Muslim nation (if I even sent any of these places ambassadors at all, since we know ambassadors are in these countries strictly to kiss the asses of Third World savages and pretend that they're actually a civilization; oh, and to give them visas to come to America and disappear on American soil to do who knows what). Next, you'll be telling me that it's ''inappropriate'' to send Christians and women to these countries because Muslims hate them, too. And forget about the Jews. Are you kidding me? This is your excuse for why Muslims were right to murder this guy? (In other gay-related news in the everyday world of non-stop Muslim violence, gay porn star Tim Dax says he was duped into starring in ''Innocence of Muslims,'' the anti-Mohammed movie being used as a phony excuse for the Muslim violence that Muslims engage in, movie or no movie.)
  Ambassador Chris Stevens, Murdered by Muslims, with Alleged '70s Boyfriend Austin Tichenor
  Behead Those Who Wear LavenderI wonder if Stevens was openly gay, and I bet he was not, since we've heard little about it. I doubt the Muslims who murdered him had a clue about this guy. They only knew that he was the U.S. Ambassador. They didn't know, for example, that he'd dedicated his life to putting Islamo-savages like this into power and wanted to be the first U.S. Ambassador in decades to Iran. They also probably had no clue that this far-left State Department careerist was very pro-Palestinian, very anti-Israel, and is now being mourned by P.L.O. terrorists. And they''the Muslims who murdered Stevens''probably hadn't a clue that he was gay. And like most gays, he was moronically in support of the one culture around the world''ISLAM''that executes gays and severely oppresses the few gays that it doesn't murder. Like most gays, he was against the one country and people in the Middle East that treats gays better than anywhere in the world, the one country and people that gives gays more rights than anywhere in the West: ISRAEL. Yup, Chris Stevens was a dhimmi member of what we call, ''The Purple (or is that Lavender?) Jihad'' . . . just like American Taliban John Walker Lindh's dad. There's a reason why they don't call Benghazi, ''Ben-gay-zi'': the cretins Chris Stevens championed to power made sharia the law of the land and homosexuality punishable by death''not even the sex acts, just the fact that someone is gay (even without being publicly so), is grounds for execution in Chris Stevens' ''new and improved'' Libya.
  So, frankly, I couldn't care less that Barack Obama sent a gay to a Muslim country to be U.S. Ambassador. (If he and Hillary refused to send someone to a Muslim country as an Ambassador because that person was gay''and I'll bet that's happened''then, it would be a big story to me, since we know Obama is a complete fraud and hypocrite on the issue of gays and gay marriage.) I care only that Stevens was a hypocritical gay''like most gays''who worked to put in power those that would murder him if they knew he was a homosexual. That's not the reason they did kill him. They took his life because he was an American (if nominally so, since he was a far leftist who worked against American interests in the Middle East). I care only that he was a gay who was vehemently against gay-friendly Israel and staunchly on the side of ''let's murder the gays'' Palestinians. I care that he was a gay only because''like most gay activists around America who constantly attack Christians and their churches for opposing gay marriage but say zilch about mosques and Muslims who oppose it just as much''he kowtowed to and gushed over the one religion that actively beheads people like him for the kind of sex they have and who they have it with: ISLAM. That is the only reason his sexual preference is relevant. NOT because we need to give Muslims what they demand. That's what we've been doing far too much of in the last 11 years since 9/11, and look where it's gotten us: Muslims attacking us around the world non-stop.
  For the record, I oppose gay marriage (which is an entirely different issue). But I have no problem with sending gays to Muslim countries as ambassadors. We need to be as in your face with Muslims about Western culture and freedom as we can be. Being against Obama shouldn't kill your brain cells and take you to the point of siding with and wanting to appease Muslims on social issues. That's what Dinesh D'Souza (who said America deserved 9/11 because Muslims have a right to hate us over the gays) and blind, stupid partisans do.
  It's not what America does. Not what America should do if it wants to survive.
Eye test helps diagnose neurological disorders | Queen's University News Centre
  Link to Article
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 20:29
  A new test that measures eye movement while watching television helps detect neurological disorders earlier including Parkinson's disease, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
  The low-cost test, developed at Queen's University and the University of Southern California, provides new insight into how specific disorders affect attention.
  ''It's key to get a diagnosis of autism as early as possible so that children get the appropriate therapy they need early. Diagnosing Parkinson's early is also important so people at risk can start treatments or alterations in lifestyle that are deemed protective right away,'' says Douglas Munoz (Biomedical and Molecular Science), a lead researcher on the study and principle investigator at the Queen's Eye-Movement Laboratory.
  Study participants watched television while the research team repeatedly changed the channel. Researchers recorded the participant's eye movements and compared the data against control subjects to determine abnormal eye movement patterns indicative of brain abnormality.
  The eye test is currently available at Hotel Dieu Hospital and can be used on children as young as six months old. Dr. Munoz hopes one day the test will be available in all clinics and doctor's offices as part of regular examinations especially for young children and the elderly.
  Queen's professors Giovanna Pari (School of Medicine), James Reynolds (Biomedical and Molecular Science) and Ian Cameron (University of California, Berkeley) worked with Dr. Munoz on the project. The group used a computer program developed at USC to analyze data collected from the eye tests.
My name is Doug, and i bring you beautiful women (50 Photos)
  Link to Article
  Source: theCHIVE
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 19:59
  Author: Dougy| September 16, 2012 | In: Girls, Hot Women
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Top Tapiture photos of the week (50 Photos)
  Link to Article
  Source: theCHIVE
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 19:56
  September 16, 2012 | In: Funny, Random, Tapiture, Top Photos
  Follow Alec on Tapiture
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  Every week we'll be highlighting the best photos from our new project and your new favorite time killer, Tapiture.com2
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  Check out Tapiture.com to see more awesome photos and videos.
Members of Congress Who Reauthorized Warrantless Wiretapping Bill Don't Understand What It Does | Mother Jones
  Link to Article
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 19:56
  Congress doesn't really understand what it's doing.
  Specifically, the House members who voted 301-118 on Wednesday to reauthorize the vast spying powers in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act (or FISA Amendments Act, and yes, that's reallyits name) don't seem to understand what they were doing. The same thing happened in 2008, when Congress first voted to retroactively legalize warrantless wiretapping. Then, as now, supporters of the legislation falsely insisted that it does not collect the communications of American citizens.
  "This bill has nothing to do with Americans on American soil," said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) on the floor. The bill only grants authority for "targeting foreigners located outside of the United States, and not on Americans in the United States, or anywhere else in the world," said House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who repeated this twice for emphasis. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) even emphasized that "the government cannot reverse target individuals overseas in order to monitor those in the United States. That means the government cannot target a US person simply by monitoring a non-US person that the US person is talking to."
  That's not true. The bill "allows the bulk suspicionless collection of communications coming into and out of the United States," explains Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union. "While the proponents always point out we're targeting the overseas end and those people don't have Fourth Amendment rights, the Americans and other people in the US on the other end of that call, or email or Skype, do have Fourth Amendment rights."
  See, the law allows the government to collect communications between individuals abroad who are interacting with people in the United States. In other words, the government can get around Americans' Fourth Amendment rights against search and seizure by "targeting" the communications of a foreigner who just happens to be communicating with someone in the United States. They're not supposed to deliberately exploit the loophole to get around the Fourth Amendment, but once they use it to get information, they can keep it, even if they find out that they were spying on an American citizen after the fact.
  The Cato Institute's Julian Sanchez, who watched in horror as the House floor debate unfolded and first noted that supporters in Congress seemed not to grasp the implications of the bill, points out that the key word here is "target." Citing David Kris, the former head of the Justice Department's national security division under Obama, he writes that "the 'target' of a surveillance program under [the bill] is typically just the foreign group'--such as Al Qaeda or Wikileaks'--that the government is seeking information about." It's that broad.
  Imagine there's an email address the US believes Al Qaeda is using'--and note that emails aren't necessarily tied to a given location. Well then it can monitor those emails, because Al Qaeda is a "non-US person." If they just happen to pick up a bunch of information about Chicago resident Rio Murrikan, well then they get to keep it, because they weren't "targeting" him. They were targeting Al Qaeda. Despite what supporters of the bill claim, the NSA has certainly intercepted communications when both persons were located inside the United States before.
  How often does the personal information of American citizens get collected while the government is ostensibly targeting non-Americans? The government won't say. Two senators, Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), sent a letter to the National Security Agency asking how often the agency collects information on Americans while it's technically "targeting" foreigners' communications. The NSA's answer, as Spencer Ackerman of Wired put it, was that it would violate Americans' privacy for the NSA to acknowledge how often it spies on them.
  Since the NSA wouldn't play ball, Udall and Wyden tried to get two changes into the FISA bill that would address the massive hole the FISA bill burns into the Fourth Amendment. The first would compel the NSA's inspector general to conduct an audit of how frequently Americans' communications are collected. The second would ensure that the NSA can't use any information it hoovers up on Americans unless the government has obtained a warrant or the situation is an emergency. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted down both amendments. A bill that allows the government to spy on Americans without a warrant is sailing to passage, almost untouched, as the country's attention is fixed on the slow-motion train wreck that is the US presidential election.
  Still, Wired's David Kravets reports that Wyden has put a hold on the bill, and it's unlikely to come to a vote in the Senate before the election in November, despite having already passed the House. But given that the Obama administration has supported the mostly unaltered version of the bill, the most likely outcome is that it passes with no changes no matter who ends up in the White House, despite the fact that members of Congress don't seem to understand what it does.
  On the other hand, maybe they do know that the bill allows warrantless surveillance of American citizens, and they simply don't care.
Members of Congress Who Reauthorized Warrantless Wiretapping Bill Don't Understand What It Does
  Link to Article
  Source: usfollowme
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 19:54
  http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/house-fisa-warrantless-wiretapping
Lead Actor In A Comedy Series Emmy: Who Will Win? Who Should Win?
  Link to Article
  Source: TVbytheNumbers
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 15:44
  This is one of our "2012 Emmys, Who'll Win? Who Should?" posts, to see all our posts on the Emmy Awards click here.
  The 2012 64th Annual Emmy Awards nominations are in.
  Using my predicting, without predicting, method I use each year of simply choosing the previous year's winner (which is beginning to wobble a bit, but I'm sticking with it!) I am compelled to pick Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory) to once again win for Lead Actor In A Comedy Series.
  In a double poll, here's your chance to tally who you think WILL win, and who you think SHOULD win.
  Feel free to explain.
  The 2012 64th Annual Emmy Awards airs on ABC on September 23, 2012.
  Take Our Poll-
  Take Our Poll
Mom sues police over arrest | News
  Link to Article
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 13:09
  LA PORTE, Texas - A stay-at-home mom from La Porte has filed a lawsuit against the city's police department, an unknown officer and one of her neighbors.
  Tammy Cooper said she was wrongly accused of endangering her children and was even forced to spend the night in jail, all because she let her kids play outside.
  She said her children, ages 9 and 6, were riding their motorized scooters in the cul-de-sac where they live while she watched from a lawn chair in her front yard just a few feet away.
  "I was out there the entire time," Cooper said. "I never left that lawn chair the entire time."
  Cooper said a little while later, a La Porte police car pulled up in front of her home.
  "I went out there to see what he was here for and he said, 'Ma'am, we're here for you.' I said, 'Oh really? Why?' He proceeded to tell me he had received a call from one of my neighbors that my kids were riding their scooters unsupervised.
  Cooper said she was handcuffed, put in the back of a police car and forced to spend the night in jail.
  "Orange jumpsuit, in a cell, slammed the door, for 18 hours," Cooper said.
  The charges against her were eventually dropped but she still describes the ordeal as humiliating and said her children were even questioned by police and terrified.
  "My daughter had him (the police officer) around the leg saying, "Please, please don't take my mom to jail. Please, she didn't do anything wrong,'" said Cooper.
  The La Porte Police department issued a statement saying;
  "...we are confident in the known actions of the responding officers. In addition, officers did contact the Harris County District Attorney's Office while on the scene that evening, upon which their Office accepted charges of Abandoning a Child on Ms. Cooper."
  Cooper said the ordeal has been stressful, time consuming and costly. She said her family has already shelled out $7,000 in legal fees.
  "I hope that what I went through doesn't go unpunished - that there are consequences for a bad decision," Cooper said.
Society now criminalizing parents that allow children to play in the yard
  Link to Article
  Source: Infowars » Featured Stories
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 13:04
  What is the world coming to?
  Ethan A. HuffNaturalNewsSunday, September 16, 2012
  A Virginia mother was recently interrogated four times by police, and visited twice by social services, after neighbors spotted the mother's children playing in their own yard unsupervised, and decided to report the non-incident to local authorities.
  According to Lenore Skenazy of Free-Range Kids, such hysteria and Stasi-style paranoia are becoming the norm in America, where children are being excessively coddled, overprotected, and treated as though they are always in grave danger of being kidnapped or harmed.
  During a recent interview with Alex Jones on The Alex Jones Show, Skenazy reflects on how the days when society's youth could simply ride their bicycles to school or into the woods, climb their neighbors' trees, or play at the local park by themselves without adult supervision are essentially gone. Today, it is practically considered abnormal in many areas for young children to even be outside at all, let alone to be exploring on their own or with their friends.
  ''What's happening '... is parents who let their children play outside, walk to school, or go to the grocery (store) for them often have neighbors who turn them in, supposedly out of concern '... and what happens is Child Protective Services (CPS) is obligated to come and check out whether or not these parents are being negligent, or worse abusive,'' says Skenazy, who receives calls all the time from parents that are being persecuted by law enforcement for allowing their kids to play outside.
  ''What has happened is that the parents are found wrong by the police or CPS for leaving their children in what CPS calls 'a dangerous situation,' which I would call a 'normal, nice situation.' In fact, less dangerous than just letting your kids sit inside all day getting fat and diabetic, you let your kids run outside or have some independent adventures, that's considered bad parenting now.''
  Texas woman forced to spend night in jail for supervising kids' outdoor playtime
  A d v e r t i s e m e n tJust a few days ago, for instance, Tammy Cooper of La Porte, Texas, was actually handcuffed and arrested for allowing her children to play outside on their motorized scooters in the family's cul-de-sac. Cooper was forced to spend the night in jail for this non-crime, despite the fact that she had been outside with her two children watching them the entire time.(http://thestir.cafemom.com/big_kid/143276/mom_arrested_sent_to_jail)
  ''It is so unusual for parents to let their children play outside, or climb a tree, that they are being turned in as negligent,'' adds Skenazy. ''The immediate assumption is that something's wrong, they escaped, maybe they've been kidnapped by somebody, or could be kidnapped, that's the big fear.''
  On her blog, Skenazy documents all sorts of wild cases involving the disturbing societal trend of people calling the police and CPS on neighbors that allow their children to play outside, as if letting kids be kids was some sort of crime (http://www.freerangekids.com/).
  Be sure to watch Skenazy's full interview with Alex Jones by visiting:http://www.prisonplanet.com
  Sources for this article include:
  http://www.prisonplanet.com
  Tags: police state
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Freedom of Speech In The West Is Constrained By The ''Conspiracy Theory'' Label
  Link to Article
  Source: Infowars » Featured Stories
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 13:03
  Saman MohammadiInfowars.comSunday, September 16, 2012
  What would free speech icon Voltaire say about the political and social marginalization of the 9/11 truth movement?
  ''Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.'' - Immanuel Kant.
  ''A public can only arrive at enlightenment slowly. Through revolution, the abandonment of personal despotism may be engendered and the end of profit-seeking and domineering oppression may occur, but never a true reform of the state of mind. Instead, new prejudices, just like the old ones, will serve as the guiding reins of the great, unthinking mass.
  All that is required for this enlightenment is freedom; and particularly the least harmful of all that may be called freedom, namely, the freedom for man to make public use of his reason in all matters. But I hear people clamor on all sides: Don't argue! The officer says: Don't argue, drill! The tax collector: Don't argue, pay! The pastor: Don't argue, believe!'' - Immanuel Kant.
  The dethroning of sacred narratives and sacred myths in a culture is impossible without a free press. No such institution exists in the West, which explains why the official 9/11 story is still considered a sacred narrative in the Western mind eleven years after the traumatic events.
  There is censorship in the mainstream media, and most of it is self-censorship, as heroic British journalist Alan Hart said in this interview. What this proves is that America and the Western world is just as totalitarian as the Islamic Republic of Iran and the religion of Islam.
  The Muslim world's intense reaction to the anti-Islam film which originated from America is a reminder that blasphemous offenses to totalitarian cultures and religions are not tolerated. People want their beliefs to be validated and consider them sacrosanct. Both rational criticism and monstrous insults are forbidden.
  In Islam, Muhammad's image can't be criticized because it is sacred; in the West the official 9/11 story can't be criticized because it is sacred. The claim that there is freedom of speech in America and the West is a big lie. Sure, you can criticize Islam and foreign countries, but there are social and political restrictions upon speech when the 9/11 lie or the crimes of Israel are brought up for discussion.
  The vicious trick that is used to cover up this blatant double standard is the ''conspiracy theory'' label. This label is the peaceful way of cutting off a heretic's head in the West. It is less savage than the Islamic method of dealing with heretics and blasphemous disbelievers, but it is just as effective.
  People who use the label ''conspiracy theorist'' in a debate about the 9/11 events are intellectual savages who have the sword of error in their hand. They can't win the battle of ideas with rational arguments so they pull out their sword and tell you to submit to the official U.S. line on 9/11 or face the axe of ridicule. The individuals who refuse to kneel are branded as ''conspiracy theorists,'' and ''crazy truthers.''
  This has to be the dark ages because we're definitely not living in an enlightened civilization. We are going through another episode of collective madness in the history of mankind.
  There is so much censorship in the U.S. and the West that when one little fact about 9/11 penetrates through the fog of propaganda it is viewed as a big success. And censorship is not even the biggest barrier to truth. The religious nature of the 9/11 story makes it that much more difficult for the voices of reason in the 9/11 truth movement to get anywhere with people who are still in denial.
  It's not the fog of propaganda that blocks the penetration of the truth about 9/11, but the sky of religious thought that dominates how people think about 9/11. Millions of people are religiously wedded to the official account of 9/11. Saying 9/11 was an inside job in the West is like saying Muhammad was a pedophile in the Muslim world. The reaction to 9/11 truth statements is blind rage, hate, and contempt. And it is deeply religious.
  The Muslim extremists who are burning American flags in response to a stupid anti-Islam film (at least that's how it appears on the surface) are just as irrational as 9/11 truth deniers in the West who symbolically burn 9/11 truth documentaries and books by rejecting them as ''conspiracy theories.'' The difference is a matter of degrees.
  Preventing the circulation of ideas, facts, and opinions is the worst crime in society. The Stalinists and Goebbelites who hijacked the American government under the cover of terror are as bad as the torturers of the Inquisition. But there is at least some sort of civilized society left because the truthers haven't been burned yet.
  It speaks to the political development of America and Western civilization that Western governments have not used violence against the truthers to intimidate them into silence and crush dissent.
  But even if violence is used in the future, it cannot stop the truth about 9/11 from being known. The 9/11 truth movement will continue to expand because it is based on rational arguments, public evidence, and the use of reason.
  On September 11, 2012, Glenn Greenwald spoke about the current state of knowledge about the 9/11 events and the political handling of new 9/11 findings in a conversation with Sam Seder, host of The Majority Report. Greenwald said:
  ''Well, one of the things that is really kind of remarkable is that the idea of the 9/11 Commission was supposed to be that given the magnitude of this attack it was vital to have a comprehensive account of what took place that would be free of partisanship and that everyone could trust as the official version of the events.
  And even more than ten years later, we're on the 11th anniversary today as we're talking, large parts of the 9/11 Commission report itself remain classified. There have been very prominent politicians likeBob Graham, who was the Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman at the time, and others who have said that in particular the role of very influential Saudis in the attack and financing the groups and the terrorist circle responsible for these attacks have been very aggressively shielded by a U.S. government that continues to have this very close alliance with the Saudis.
  And so, never mind a sort of future investigation, even the one we have is still very much suppressed in lots of material ways. And I'm not sure that there really is an outcry or will be an outcry. I think you'll hear some Democrats, you know, trying to exploit this newest revelation to blame the Republicans for the 9/11 attack, and, as you say, exactly many of the same ones will be demanding that torture be not looked into on the grounds that we have to look forward and not backward.
  But I think that by and large the country was successfully persuaded that the attack was essentially an act of evil by foreign radicals who hate the United States and that the leadership of our country responded rather well. And I'm not sure there's really an opportunity, even given the large amounts of evidence, to change that narrative among large numbers of people.'' '' Glenn Greenwald, in a conversation with Sam Seder, host of The Majority Report, on September 11, 2012. [listen the quote from 25:44 - 27:48 in the video].
  Greenwald says that the reason why it is difficult to change collective perceptions of the U.S. government, the U.S. media, and American society in general is the power of the American mythology to blind the American people to the reality of present day America. He said:
  ''There is a mythology that Americans have embraced about their own country and about their own government. And it basically teaches that while our government might do things inefficiently, or even corruptly, that basically tyranny is only something that happens in other countries and propaganda is only something that happens in other countries.
  Americans believe that we have a free country, which means we have a free and vibrant press, that acts of our government are subjected to real scrutiny and accountability through our institutions designed to check power like courts and the media. And that this is an important thing for us to believe, that we are a beacon of freedom and press freedom, and that propaganda and tyranny and oppression only happens in these other countries like North Korea and Iran and whatever the U.S. enemy of the week is.
  And so to believe that the American people have been radically deceived about critical historical events, and that this truth has been hidden, really calls into question all of those mythological assumptions about how we like to think of ourselves. And to really start believing that those things are true we have to abandon those assumptions about how we think of ourselves and that's an unpleasant, difficult, and painful thing to do. And I think the desire to really embrace this exceptionalism by continuing to believe that basically the truth is being told to us by our government and by our media aids and abets the ability to deceive in a fairly fundamental way.'' [Listen the quote from 31:31 - 33:01 in the video].
  It is inevitable that the 9/11 mythology will collapse. No earthly political authority can suppress the truth and the cry of justice. The voice of reason will have the last say in the 9/11 debate, not totalitarian propaganda and political fantasy.
  Originally appeared at The Excavator.
  Tags: constitution, police state
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Redactie Telegraaf bevraagt Paradijs
  Link to Article
  Source: Een andere kijk op nieuws @infomagnl » Nieuws items
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 13:01
  gecureerd van www.villamedia.nl op 16 september 2012De redactieraad van De Telegraaf heeft hoofdredacteur Sjuul Paradijs vragen gesteld over de nauwe relatie met het machtige Haagse pr-bureau Sparrow & Partners. De raad schrok van de suggestie dat de integriteit van de krant wederom op het spel stond, na de affaires met Martijn Koolhoven en voormalig adjunct Paul Rijpkema. De affaires leidden - mede - tot invoering van nieuwe integriteitsregels bij de krant.De Telegraafredactie is inzetbaar voor de belangen van pr bureau Sparrow & partners in Den Haag, zo schreef NRC Handelsblad. Hoofdredacteur Sjuul Paradijs werd aan de verdachte ex-rechter Pieter Kalbfleisch 'aangeboden' om De Telegraaf voor zijn zaak in te zetten, bij een priv paasontbijt bij Jeroen Sparrow thuis.
  Redactieraadsvoorzitter Johan van den Dongen bevestigt de vragen: 'In dit geval wilden we weten wat er precies is gebeurd. Daar is even overleg over geweest met Sjuul Paradijs. Dat is overigens geen bijzonderheid. Redactieraad en hoofdredactie spreken dagelijks met elkaar.'
  Het blijft bij deze vragen, zegt Van den Dongen: 'Uit zijn antwoorden maken we op dat we toch twijfels moeten stellen bij wat er in NRC heeft gestaan. Ik vind het verder niet juist om nog meer naar buiten te brengen.'
  Baren de permanent goede banden tussen Paradijs en Sparrow & Partners de redactieraad zorgen? Van den Dongen: 'Ik ga niet op de stoel zitten van verslaggevers van ons, ook niet op die van de hoofdredacteur. We maken onze keuzes op basis van gezond verstand en we weten, zo goed en zo kwaad als het is, hoever we kunnen gaan. Die verantwoordelijkheid laat ik over aan Sjuul Paradijs.'
  Bekijk orgineel item op www.villamedia.nl
  Meer Nieuws items
Lehman Brothers, We Heard You Were Dead
  Link to Article
  Source: Een andere kijk op nieuws @infomagnl » Nieuws items
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 13:00
  gecureerd van nytimes.com op 16 september 2012Lehman Brothers is having a great year. The bank, which almost destroyed the global economy four years ago this week, recently emerged from bankruptcy, resolved a third of its debts and executed the largest U.S. real estate deal of the year. Today, the company appears an awful lot like a normal investment bank. Its trading floor '-- on one of the two floors Lehman occupies in the Time & Life Building in Midtown Manhattan '-- is filled with dozens of young people who stare at financial graphs on Bloomberg terminals and talk in the hallways about the deals they're working on.Except that Lehman's sole objective is to sell everything it owns so it can repay its lenders and disappear. The reason it has taken so long (and will take many more years) is that selling off the pieces of a big investment bank is almost ineffably complicated. Banks have few physical assets, and they go fast. (Lehman sold its headquarters the day after its bankruptcy.) A bank's main value is really just a huge pile of promises. Banks borrow money (often from other banks) and promise to pay it back; then they lend that money (again, often to other banks) on the promise that they'll return it, too. Every bank could collapse if more than a small percentage of people ask for their money at once.
  Bekijk orgineel item op nytimes.com
  Meer Nieuws items
VIDEO: Weinstein wants talks on movie violence
  Link to Article
  Source: BBC News - Home
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 12:58
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230 arrested in Antwerp riot (video)
  Link to Article
  Source: WT news feed
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 12:55
  ')} else if($('embed', this).size() == 0){loadVideo(vars76079679);}if(window.opener != null){try{if(window.opener.location.href.indexOf('/cm/')!=-1){$('.referringArticle a, #tags a').click(function(event){event.preventDefault();try{window.opener.location.href = $(event.target).attr('href');}catch(e){}window.close();});}}catch(e){}}$('#player .relatedItems').click(function(event){resetAccordion('defaultList');$('#defaultList').accordion('activate', 'h3:last');$('#defaultList').find('h3').not(':last').removeClass('open');});});//]]>VRT
  An unauthorised demonstration in protest against the anti Islam video 'Innocence of Muslims' made in the US resulted in rioting in the Borgerhout district of Antwerp on Saturday night.
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Six U.S. fighter jets destroyed in fortified Afghan base: NATO.
  Link to Article
  Source: WT news feed
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 12:54
  Six U.S. fighter jets were destroyed and two significantly damaged when insurgents stormed a heavily fortified Afghan base where Britain's Prince Harry is deployed on Friday, a NATO spokesman said.
  Lieutenant Colonel Hagen Messer conceded that the scale of damage, carried out by more than a dozen attackers dressed in U.S. Army uniforms and armed with guns, rockets and suicide vests who managed to storm the airfield, was unprecedented.
  Three coalition refueling stations were also destroyed and six aircraft hangars damaged in the assault at Camp Bastion in southern Helmand province, one of the toughest battlegrounds of the war, the U.S.-led NATO force said.
  In a statement, it said the attack was ''well-coordinated'' and carried out by around 15 insurgents, who were organized into three teams and who penetrated the perimeter fence.
  ''The insurgents appeared to be well equipped, trained and rehearsed,'' targeting fighter jets and helicopters parked next to the runway, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in the statement released nearly 36 hours after the assault began.
  Meanwhile, four soldiers fighting with the NATO-led alliance were killed in an attack believed to involve members of the Afghan police in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, the coalition said.
  The attack came a day after two British soldiers were shot dead by an Afghan policeman while returning from a patrol in southern Helmand province, one of the strongholds of the Taliban-led insurgency.
  The shooting took place in Zabol, a southern province where U.S. forces are based, according to a local official, who said all four soldiers killed were American.
  One attacker who was wearing an Afghan National Police uniform (ANP) was also killed in the fighting, the source said.
  At least 51 foreign military personnel have been killed in ''insider'' attacks this year, attacks which have put a heavy strain on trust between the coalition and Afghanistan as they move towards handing security responsibility to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.
  The rise in such attacks has led to the training of new recruits to the Afghan army and police being suspended.
  With foreign combat troops withdrawing from the increasingly unpopular and expensive war, the enormous cultural divide that still separates Afghans and their allies after 11 years of conflict has become more of a concern than ever.
  The NATO-led coalition and its Afghan counterparts have created a special Joint Casualties Assessment Team to investigate every attack, which number at least 37 this year.
  In more than half of cases, attackers are either killed or escape and the motive never emerges, making it more difficult for the coalition to stem the surge.
Marijuana Compound Found Superior To Drugs For Alzheimer's.
  Link to Article
  Source: DaDenMan news feed
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 12:52
  Could the active ingredient in marijuana, responsible for its characteristic "high," help turn the tide against the accelerating Alzheimer's epidemic?
  A remarkable study published in the journal Molecular Pharmacology in 2006, found that this long vilified plant contains a compound with not one, but two therapeutic properties ideal for addressing both the surface symptom (memory problems) and root cause (brain plaque) of Alzheimer's disease.[i] This is an ironic finding, considering that the prevailing stereotype is that using marijuana "fries" the brain, leading to debilitating memory issues.
  Researchers discovered that the psychoactive component of marijuana, Î--9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), both "competitively inhibits the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE) as well as prevents AChE-induced amyloid Î²-peptide (AÎ²) aggregation."
  On the first account, THC's ability to inhibit the AChE enzyme, is not unlike the mechanism of action behind most Alzheimer's drugs on the market today. Drugs like donepezil (trade name Aricept), for instance, by targeting and inhibiting the brain enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE), result in an increase in brain levels of this neurotransmitter, which in turn, results in symptom reduction, i.e. improved memory. Donepezil, however, is riddled with controversy due its well-known association with seizures, which likely reflects its intrinsic neurotoxicity. It is, in fact, a chemical in the same general chemical class as venom, insecticides and chemical war agents, such as nerve gas.
  On the second account, THC's ability to prevent the acetylcholinesterase-associated amyloid Î²-peptide (AÎ²) aggregation, i.e. brain plaque, indicates that it may, as the researchers noted, "directly impact Alzheimer's disease pathology." In fact, they found "Compared to currently approved drugs prescribed for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, THC is a considerably superior inhibitor of AÎ² aggregation, and this study provides a previously unrecognized molecular mechanism through which cannabinoid molecules may directly impact the progression of this debilitating disease."
  What is so encouraging about this research, and which the researchers described as "noteworthy," is the following:
  THC is a considerably more effective inhibitor of AChE-induced AÎ² deposition than the approved drugs for Alzheimer's disease treatment, donepezil and tacrine, which reduced AÎ² aggregation by only 22% and 7%, respectively, at twice the concentration used in our studies.7 Therefore, AChE inhibitors such as THC and its analogues may provide an improved therapeutic for Alzheimer's disease, augmenting acetylcholine levels by preventing neurotransmitter degradation and reducing AÎ² aggregation, thereby simultaneously treating both the symptoms and progression of Alzheimer's disease.
  THC, of course, is only one of a wide range of cannabinoids in the plant marijuana. Not only is there already plentiful information on the neuroprotective properties of marijuana compounds, but there is also a sizeable body of clinical and/or biomedical research indicating the medicinal value of this plant in over 150 health conditions. To view this research visit our Medical Marijuana Research page.
  [i] Lisa M Eubanks, Claude J Rogers, Albert E Beuscher, George F Koob, Arthur J Olson, Tobin J Dickerson, Kim D Janda . A molecular link between the active component of marijuana and Alzheimer's disease pathology. Mol Pharm. 2006 Nov-Dec;3(6):773-7. PMID: 17140265
  Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of GreenMedInfo or its staff.
Anouk toch niet naar Songfestival?
  Link to Article
  Source: Telegraaf.nl - prive
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 12:47
  zo 16 sep 2012, 13:32
  van onze redactieAMSTERDAM - Anouk weet helemaal niets van de geprekken die ze zou hebben gevoerd over haar deelname aan het Eurovisie Songfestival.
  "Goh, ik lees nu overal dat ik nu toch mee ga doen aan het Songfestival? Ik zit hier lekker in het zonnetje in LA en weet van niets. Succes ermee," schrijft de Haagse zangeres op Facebook.
  TROS-gezicht Danil Dekker meldde zaterdag nog in het AD een aantal keer te hebben gepraat met Anouk:"In die bijeenkomsten is veel energie gestoken, we werken ergens naartoe".
  Of Anouk daadwerkelijk Nederland vertegenwoordigt in Zweden volgend jaar is dus nog steeds onzeker.
  Proefabonnement, 10 weken '‚¬ 30,-!(C) 1996-2012 Telegraaf Media Nederland | Landelijke Media B.V., Amsterdam.Alle rechten voorbehouden.e-mail: redactie-i@telegraaf.nlPrivacy | Cookies | Disclaimer
Sunday Morning Bobblehead Thread
  Link to Article
  Source: Crooks and Liars
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 12:45
  Political Scientist Ivan Krastev: Can democracy exist without trust? TED Talks, August 2012
  I've been doing a lot of reading this week about the evolution of political institutions. We live in a unique situation where we have very little trust in our political institutions--and Chris Hayes, in his book The Twilight of the Elites, argues that we have very little trust in almost any of our institutional pillars--yet we have done little to remedy that. I'd argue that our distrust comes directly from the fact that there is little to no accountability to those of us who put them in office. As I type this, it occurs to me that the same could be said of the media as well. We hear these media and political figures talking about ways to hold teachers accountable for doing their jobs and yet these exact same people have worked in concert to perpetrate something as inhumane as a war of opportunity and have never, ever been held to account for it.
  Like Krastev, I'm dubious that democracy can survive without trust. I'm not sure how we get back to a point in which we can trust our politicians (and the media that cover them), but I suspect it will require some sort of accounting and dismissing of anyone who did their jobs so poorly. You know, kind of like the same way they think they can talk about our poor teachers, who make so much less and get so little respect.
  ABC's "This Week" '' Guest host: Jake Tapper. Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. ABC News global affairs anchor Christiane Amanpour, ABC News senior foreign affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz, and ABC News chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross. Panel: ABC News' George Will; Fox News contributor and former State Department official Liz Cheney, co-founder of Keep America Safe; Ret. General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe; PBS' "Washington Week" moderator and managing editor Gwen Ifill; and ABC News senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl.
  NBC's "Meet the Press" '' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Rice; Panel: Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN ); Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Rep Peter King (R-NY); author of the new book "The Price of Politics," The Washington Post's, Bob Woodward; the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg; and NBC's Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Andrea Mitchell.
  NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Michael Duffy, TIME Magazine Assistant Managing Editor; Trish Regan, Bloomberg News; Kasie Hunt, Associated Press; John Harris, Politico Editor-in-Chief.
  CBS' "Face the Nation" '' Rice; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif, the Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk. Panel: The New York Times' David Sanger, TIME's Bobby Ghosh, and CBS News' Margaret Brennan and John Dickerson
  MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes" - Guest host: Sam Seder. Panel: Tanya Wells, Steven Gates, Program Director, Youth Advocacy Programs- Illinois, Melissa Boteach, Director of Half in Ten/Poverty and Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress, Gary Younge, Guardian columnist; John Reel, assistant to the director at Senior Service America, Inc.; Matt Farmer; Stephen Pimpare, associate professor at Columbia University School of Social Work, author of "The People's History in America."; Elise DeBroad.
  MSNBC's "Melissa Harris-Perry" - Jim Frederick, Time Magazine; Wade Henderson, President and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Allison Kilkenny, Co-Host, Citizen Radio; Peter Goodman, Exec. Business Editor, Huffington Post; David Levine, Founder and President, Mr. Beams; Harrison Schultz; Hanna Rosin, Author, "The End of Men"; Jamie Kilstein, Co-Host, Citizen Radio; Dr. Maya Angelou.
  CNN's "State of the Union" '' Rice; Netanyahu; Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
  CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, author and professor of Islamic studies Tariq Ramadan and author Bernard-Henri L(C)vy, author Michael Lewis.
  CNN's "Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz" - Clarence Page, of The Chicago Tribune, Ryan Lizza, of The New Yorker, and Amy Holmes, of Glenn Beck TV, Paul Farhi of the Washington Post, media critics Gail Shister and Adam Buckman.
  "Fox News Sunday" '' Rice; Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. Panel: Brit Hume, Fox News Senior Political Analyst, Liz Marlantes, The Christian Science Monitor, Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard/Fox News Contributor, Jeff Zeleny, The New York Times.
@adamcurry http://t.co/GrsOybhC
  Link to Article
  Source: @adamcurry - Twitter Search
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 12:44
  '; var fr = document.getElementById(adID); setHash(fr, hash); fr.body = body; var doc = getFrameDocument(fr); doc.open(); doc.write(body); setTimeout(function() {closeDoc(getFrameDocument(document.getElementById(adID)))}, 2000); } function renderJAd(holderID, adID, srcUrl, hash) { document.dcdAdsAA.push(holderID); setHash(document.getElementById(holderID), hash); document.dcdAdsH.push(holderID); document.dcdAdsI.push(adID); document.dcdAdsU.push(srcUrl); } function er_showAd() { var regex = new RegExp("externalReferrer=(.*?)(; |&|$)", "gi"); var value = regex.exec(document.cookie); if (value && value.length == 3) { var externalReferrer = value[1]; return (!FD.isInternalReferrer() || ((externalReferrer) && (externalReferrer > 0))); } return false; } function isHome() { var loc = "" + window.location; loc = loc.replace("//", ""); var tokens = loc.split("/"); if (tokens.length == 1) { return true; } else if (tokens.length == 2) { if (tokens[1].trim().length == 0) { return true; } } return false; } function checkAds(checkStrings) { var cs = checkStrings.split(","); for (var i=0;i 0 && cAd.innerHTML.indexOf(c)>0) { document.dcdAdsAI.push(cAd.hash); cAd.style.display ='none'; } } } if (!ie) { for (var i=0;i 0 && doc.body.innerHTML.indexOf(c)>0) { document.dcdAdsAI.push(fr.hash); fr.style.display ='none'; } } } } } if (document.dcdAdsAI.length > 0 || document.dcdAdsAG.length > 0) { var pingServerParams = "i="; var sep = ""; for (var i=0;i 0) { var pingServerUrl = "/action/pingServerAction?" + document.pingServerAdParams; var xmlHttp = null; try { xmlHttp = new XMLHttpRequest(); } catch(e) { try { xmlHttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHttp"); } catch(e) { xmlHttp = null; } } if (xmlHttp != null) { xmlHttp.open( "GET", pingServerUrl, true); xmlHttp.send( null ); } } } function initAds(log) { for (var i=0;i 0) { doc.removeChild(doc.childNodes[0]); } doc.open(); var newBody = fr.body; newBody = newBody.replace(";ord=", ";ord=" + Math.floor(100000000*Math.random())); doc.write(newBody); document.dcdsAdsToClose.push(fr.id); } } else { var newSrc = fr.src; newSrc = newSrc.replace(";ord=", ";ord=" + Math.floor(100000000*Math.random())); fr.src = newSrc; } } } if (document.dcdsAdsToClose.length > 0) { setTimeout(function() {closeOpenDocuments(document.dcdsAdsToClose)}, 500); } } }; var ie = isIE(); if(ie && typeof String.prototype.trim !== 'function') { String.prototype.trim = function() { return this.replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g, ''); }; } document.dcdAdsH = new Array(); document.dcdAdsI = new Array(); document.dcdAdsU = new Array(); document.dcdAdsR = new Array(); document.dcdAdsEH = new Array(); document.dcdAdsE = new Array(); document.dcdAdsEC = new Array(); document.dcdAdsAA = new Array(); document.dcdAdsAI = new Array(); document.dcdAdsAG = new Array(); document.dcdAdsToClose = new Array(); document.igCount = 0; document.tCount = 0; var dcOrd = Math.floor(100000000*Math.random()); document.dcAdsCParams = ""; var savValue = getAdCookie("sav"); if (savValue != null && savValue.length > 2) { document.dcAdsCParams = savValue + ";"; } Advertisement
  ALEISHA ORRSeptember 15, 2012
  Aircraft better known as spy equipment could eventually fly over Perth beaches to monitor sharks.
  A company that builds and operates drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, has made a proposal to the Department of Fisheries to operate aerial shark patrols.
  Managing director of Perth based company Cyber Technology Chris Mounkley said UAVs could cover more area than helicopters, would be safer and could be done cheaper.
  The number of aerial shark patrols along Perth beaches leading up to this summer has been increased since last year and the state government has been trying to find ways of reducing the risk of shark attacks following a spate af fatal attacks off Perth beaches.
  The company's UAVs are already used by police, the military and in the resources sector for surveying but Mr Mounkley said their capabilities would be well suited to shark patrols.
  "The aircraft would be launched carrying a fully stabilised high definition camera system which would be fed into a digital transmitter on the aircraft which sends a signal to the base station at Rottnest so we could see exactly what the aircraft is seeing and we can see what is in the water," he said.
  Mr Mounkley said the footage, which would include GPS coordinates accurate to within a metre, could also be sent straight to surf lifesaving clubs to view.
  He said UAV patrols could save the state government hundreds of thousands of dollars.
  Mr Mounkley said the cost of operating aerial patrols with helicopters cost about $2400 to $3000 an hour whereas the UAVs would cost less than $2000 and hour.
  He said the cameras could film the same area of water that would be viewed by people in helicopters doing visual searches and a polarising lens could allow the camera to allow some sharks 6 to 8 metres below the surface of the water to be visible which would not be seen with the human eye.
  Mr Mounkley said it was far safer to send an unmanned aircraft out over water than a helicopter with two people inside it.
  He has proposed the idea for UAV shark patrols to the Department of Fisheries a year ago but it was not taken up.
  Mr Mounkley said a year on; there was a greater perceived need for shark patrols following the five fatal shark attacks since September last year.
  Fisheries Minister Norman Moore did not comment on the matter or the cost of the current patrols but Shark Response Unit manager Michael Burgess said the unit had been contacted by a range of companies offering a multitude of shark mitigation ideas.
  "The unit continues to engage and liaise with the proponents, with a view to assessing the range of options that may be available to complement existing strategies," he said.
  "As you would appreciate, these are complex matters and need to be properly considered."
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Was het een kruisraket dat op 9/11 op het Pentagon insloeg?
  Link to Article
  Source: Een andere kijk op nieuws @infomagnl » Nieuws items
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 12:43
  op 16 september 2012
  Met uitgestreken gezichten stonden ze daar. Alsof w(C)rkelijk een aantal mannen vanuit een grot in Afghanistan dit hadden veroorzaakt.
  En naast het verhaaltje over de Twin Towers slikt ook nog iedereen het fantstische verhaal over een vliegtuig dat het Pentagon doorboord zou hebben.
  Daarom deze alternatieve herdenking. En dan in het bijzonder van het feit dat het bijna zeker is dat een kruisraket het Pentagon raakte; in (C)lk geval met zekerheid geen vliegtuig.
  Zoals je op de onderstaande foto kunt zien, is het gat wat ontstaan is in het Pentagon na de aanslag in overeenstemming met (C)(C)n die het gevolg kan zijn van een kruisraket of'...
CLASH OF CULTURES AND THE TSUNAMI OF MUSLIM FREAKS
  Link to Article
  Source: VENITISM
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 12:40
  A tsunami of freakish anti-Occidental protests against the Innocence of Muslimsfilm baring the real Muhammad shows the incivility of Islam. Eggheads sayterrorism originates in the clash of cultures and foreign meddling. Ein volk,ein ummah, ein Muhammad! Promised with 72 virgins in heaven, martyrs havebecome the worst victims of Islam. Obama ordered family members and non-essential staff to leave the U.S. Embassyin Khartoum. In addition, Obama pulled nonessential personnel out of the embassyin Tunis, and urged American citizens to leave the city. Marine platoons havebeen sent to American missions in Yemen and Libya since the unrest erupted.
  International networks are used by terrorist groups to finance terroristactivity worldwide. Terrorists are supported by kleptocrats, rich Muslims,various charities, banks, drug trafficking networks, money-laundering schemesand bribed officials. The involvement of Hezbollah and al Qaeda in the drugtrade is well known. It was bin Laden who managed the drug profits for theTaliban and arranged money-laundering operations with Russian mafias, such asBratva and Brigada. Countries that fund or foster terrorism, include SaudiArabia, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Indonesia, Libya, North Korea, and Malaysia. Manyinternational aid organizations inadvertently support terror.
  Police stormed into Cairo's Tahrir Square and rounded up hundreds of freaksafter four days of clashes and demands from freaks for the American ambassadorto be expelled. Al Qaeda applauded the killings of American diplomats in Libyaand urged Muslim freaks to kill more, calling the video posted on the Internetanother chapter in the crusader wars against Islam.
  Christoph Luxenberg has proven the Koran was first written in Aramaic, not inArabic. There is also a difference between the tolerant verses of the earlyperiod, when Muhammad was still powerless and under threat, and the hostileverses of the later period. The Koran was made up by Muhammad as it suited hisopportunistic goals for power, money, and sex.
  Islam appeared one century after Muhammad's death. The first century of theArab conquest shows the conquerors holding not to Islam but to Hagarism. Hagarenes claimed descent from Abraham through his slave wife Hagar, similarlyto the Jews who claimed descent from Abraham through Sarah. The Muhammad ofIslamic tradition did not exist!
  It was only in the eighth century, when the rulers of a now-vast Arabian empirefelt the need for a unifying political theology, that they cobbled together theIslamic religion. The key figure in this enterprise was the brutal governor ofIraq, Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. That's why Islam is such a profoundly politicalreligion with uniquely prominent incivil qualities.
  Taliban freaks claimed responsibility for an attack on a base that killed twoAmerican Marines, saying it was a response to the insults to the founder ofIslam. Geert Wilders declares Islam is primarily a dangerous ideology ratherthan a religion. Islam fails four major tests that religions should fulfill:Adherence to a religion must be a personal choice; no religion should demandthat those who leave it be killed; a religion must never mandate the subjugationof those who do not belong to it; a religion must be in accord with basic humanrights.
  Thousands of Muslim freaks took to the streets of Australia, throwing rocks andbottles in clashes with police. Some carried placards reading Behead all thosewho insult the Prophet. Franklin Roosevelt observed that wherever the Muslimshave had a complete sway, wherever citizens have been unable to resist them bythe sword, civility has ultimately disappeared. Roosevelt rejected as naive thenotion that all religions are the same. Some religions give a higher value toeach human life, and some religions and belief systems give a lower value. Oursocial values, including equality before the law, exist only because theChristians of Europe did what the Christians of Asia and Africa had failed to do'' that is, to beat back the Moslem invader.
  A hundred Muslim freaks were arrested in Paris while trying to demonstrateoutside the American Embassy near the Champs Elysees. John Quincy Adams pointedout that Muhammad poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, bydegrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and hedeclared undistinguishing and exterminating war as part of his religion, againstall the rest of mankind. The essence of Muhammad's doctrine was violence andlust; to exalt the brutal over the spiritual part of human nature.
  The U.S. State Department urges American citizens to avoid Muslim countries,especially Darfur, Blue Nile, and Southern Kordofan regions. Libyan authoritiessaid they had identified fifty freaks who were involved in the attack in whichambassador Christopher Stevens died. Libyan President Mohammed Magarief saysforeigners along with Libyans were involved in the attack on the consulate inBenghazi. There are twenty freaks in custody.
  In 2004, on a street in Amsterdam, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was brutallymurdered by a Muslim of Moroccan descent. Van Gogh had collaborated with aSomali emigrant, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to produce the film Submission, about theabuse of women in Islam. Van Gogh's killer had impaled on his victim's chest anopen letter threatening death to Geert Wilders and Ali, whose politics had putthem on extremists' kill-lists. Two days after the murder, both were whiskedinto hiding by police because of imminent threats of assassination.
  Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al al-Sheikh, urgesgovernments and international bodies to criminalize insults against prophets. Hedescribes the short film as miserable and criminal. Wilders draws effectively onthe history of Islam to illuminate current events. Thus, he recounts thehijra,or migration, of Muhammad and his followers to Yathrib in the year 622.
  Taking advantage of its welcome and tolerance, Muhammad proceeded to overthrowthe city from within. What was Yathrib became Medina, and there Islam's firstmosque was Muhammad's propaganda center, the headquarters of his state and thebarracks of his jihad.
  Yathrib is the model for the offensive via immigration that Islam has undertakenagainst the West almost 1,400 years later. Wilders also points to Medina's firstmosque as the prototype for mosques throughout the West, primarily a politicalinstitution, not a place of worship.
  Wilders produced Fitna to illustrate that the Koran advocates violence. He wasprosecuted under Dutch hate-speech laws for group insult and incitement ofhatred and discrimination. Although he was acquitted ultimately, Wilders' taleon this topic is sobering, for it shows how lawfare can be used to chillunwelcome speech.
  In large part because of the courage of Wilders, the Netherlands has begun toconfront the damage wrought by Muslim migration and the politics of appeasementthat for so long have characterized the West's reaction to the claims of allegedvictims of all stripes. The Islamic tide is strong, but the West has repulsed itbefore, and we can do it again. You may not be interested in Islam, but Islam isinterested in you. So pay attention.
Smoking gun '' Russia's plan to dominate energy markets
  Link to Article
  Source: Atomic Insights
  Sun, 16 Sep 2012 12:37
  I came across an article on RosBusinessConsulting titled Russia floods global markets with O&G that supports my theory that at least some of more crafty segments of the world's oil and gas providers recognize the return on investment (ROI) available to them from steady efforts to stoke irrational fears about the use of nuclear energy.
  For example, this paragraph appears near the top of the article.
  Experts warn that Russia's reliance on mineral resource exports may backfire on the country, when the prices drop one day thus wreaking havoc on budget revenue. Thus far, luck has been on the country's side as global developments have been pushing fuel prices up. The average price of Urals blend oil was $109.3 per barrel in 2011, up 39.8% from 2010. Oil prices rose sharply on the back of uprisings in the Arab world, the war in Libya as well as an earthquake in Japan, which destroyed the Fukushima nuclear power plant causing an environmental disaster and giving rise to serious misgivings about the safety of nuclear power, the most promising alternative to hydrocarbons nowadays.
  (Emphasis added.)
  I don't believe in luck or in the use of the passive voice; it is clear that knowledgeable people can run the numbers and choose to use their influence to ensure that press coverage reinforces those ''serious misgivings''. How many times has Apocalyptic Arnie (Gundersen) and his fear mongering associates appeared on Russia Today, aka RT, as well as on other ad supported media channels?
  Russia is also smart enough about the dependence its export customers have on Gazprom's pipeline gas to ensure that it is profitably priced with a contracted link to the market price of oil.
  High oil prices have driven gas prices higher. The price of Russian gas reached $436 per 1,000 cubic meters ($12.35 per MMBTU) as of December 31, 2011, up 38.7% year-on-year, the Economic Development Ministry estimated. The average contract prices for Russian gas at the German border went up 28.9% to $381.50 per 1,000 cubic meters ($10.80 per MMBTU), according to IMF.
  Geopolitical factors have been keeping oil price high in early 2012. The eventuality of sanctions on Iran and Syria enable analysts to forecast that oil prices will spike to $150 or even $200 per barrel. Gas prices pegged to oil prices are also set to soar.
  (Conversion to US standard trading units for natural gas prices added.)
  Please note the prices in the above quote; Europeans are paying 3-4 times as much per unit of heat for natural gas as North American customers. That makes the German, Swiss, and Italian move away from nuclear energy even more questionably; they do not have the same ''low carbon'' alternative power supply option that we do here. No wonder the German environment minister proudly spoke about the opening of a new lignite (brown coal) fired power plant.
  Perhaps there is a good reason why so many European industrial firms are relocating production facilities to lower power cost regions like Alabama and South Carolina where there are new nuclear plants under construction.
  The energy strategy from the world's chess playing capital is not a single dimensional focus on hobbling nuclear energy's ability to compete for its customer base, but also includes efforts to stimulate and sustain conflicts in the political areas that are important to the oil and gas industry. Not all of those important areas are hydrocarbon supply basins; some, like Syria, Georgia, Pakistan, Afganistan and Ukraine host key segments of transportation pipelines. (For an entertaining, but scary, analysis of world pipeline politics, I highly recommend listening to NoAgenda show episode 426.
  Here is the final quote that leads me to believe that the current government in Russia is skillfully playing the board in the ''The Great Game'' and hoping that no one notices its strategic efforts.
  Meanwhile, Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev predicts that oil and gas resources will last for 100-150 years, after which the mankind (sic) will have to search for alternative resources.
  (Emphasis added.)
  Anyone who makes that prediction is trying to fool others into a false sense of complacency that includes ignoring other obvious issues with continuing to depend on hydrocarbon suppliers to fuel our modern society. If anyone disagrees with this being labeled as a smoking gun, please explain your logic.